Head speed

[Cralis]

As a newbie, can I confirm that when someone refers to Head Speed, they are infact refering to the speed 1 blade takes to do a full revolution, per minute?

Right, I have ordered a tachometer from the states. Problem is, something I ordered from the same guy 5 days afterwards, has already arrived.

Anyways, when it does finally arrive (if), then can someone tell me how you check the head speed? I mean, reving it up to full, and standing over it with a wee machine in your hand - seems - dangerous...

[marktigere1]

Get someone else to hold the tacho whilst you control the Heli

[Cralis]

The heli has to stay on the ground though, no? Or do you just point it at the blades when it's in flight?

[SinxarKnights]

This may be a stupid question, but would you have to divide the results by the number of blades?

[Smoothound]

How you use it depends on what one it is. some are used in flight others are used static...

[robgt]

If you have an optical tacho (look through the unit at the heli and press buttons until the blades look stationary) then you can tach the headspeed in flight.

If it's a sensor tacho that needs pointing at the blades, thats done on the ground and some brave soul needs to stand close to the heli and point the tacho at the rotor blades (from above or below) to get a reading.

You can also use the "strap it to a stick" method for distance safety

Some tachos have options to change between the number of blades used.

My preference is the optical tacho (sky tach) as you don;t need to be anywhere near the heli to take a reading!
Cheers,
Rob