Sport Copter Blade Report I

Date: September 23, 2002 06:10 PM
Author: Ken Janulewicz (kensandyeggo@msn.com)
Subject: Flying Vanek's Blades

O.K., it's slowed down a little this afternoon, I just opened a cold can of Slim-Fast, and let's see if I can tell my tale.

The ship I flew the blades on belongs to Dennis Schaeffer. He keeps it at Ramona, about a 15 minute flight north of me. I have spoken to him a number of times over the years at Ramona and have seen his ship a couple times. I never saw the RAF blades on his ship, as he managed to smack them on the ground and ruin them. He told me a few months ago that he had ordered a new set of blades from Sport Copter, and I told him I was anxious to see them and to let me know when he got them.

I spoke to him last week and he told me that he had them mounted, but didn't so much as spin them up. I got to Ramona Saturday morning and took a look. The blades looked beautiful and the new hub-bar and teeter-block looked very "meaty." I understand this bar and block are a design improvement since one or two RAFers flew a set on their ships several months ago. I was told that Jim since re-designed the bar and the airfoil and a couple other things. I noted that there was hardly any sag to the blades, between the root and tip. I also noted that he still had one of my horizontal stabs mounted that he bought from me awhile back.

Dennis hadn't centered the bar between the towers, so I stood by and handed him wrenches while he centered it with a micrometer. He then started her up and taxied to a clear spot near the taxiway. I suggested he spin them up to see how it felt. I stood at least 15.5 feet away and watched him spin them. They came up real fast and were whistling. It looked like they were really spinning at a high rpm. From the side, I took note to see if I could note any movement of the upper mast and upper control rods. My control rods shake during my pre-rotate. His were perfectly still. I then walked to the front of the ship and could notice no mast or control rod shaking. He spun them for several minutes and then shut down.

I asked him how fast he got them up to. He told me he got them to over 200 rpm. I said: "Get outta here!" He said he was able to get the RAF blades to over 200. He was correct. I'll divert a little here. When I spun them up 3 times later, I was able to easily get over 200. This will be the topic of another thread. He has the same exact setup I have as to the pre-rotate, and I can't figure out why his spins up so well. We both even have a Harley-Davidson lever.

Anyway, after we talked, he asked if I'd take it for a spin. After some familiarization with the radio and switches, I taxied to the runup area. At idle, the blades got up to around 130. I increased the throttle a little and up they went to 200. I just wanted to do a high speed taxi to get the feel of his ship and its steering etc. I ran her for about 4,000 feet down the runway and she seemed fine. What I did notice is that the nose never seemed to get light. Of course I wasn't looking at any gauges, instruments or anything. I just wanted to make sure I could steer her O.K.

I came back for a 2nd run and intended to lift off and fly the runway to the other end. It's over 5,000 ft. long. I started down the runway, increasing throttle by "ear." I didn't want to take my eyes away from the outside just yet. It seemed to take a long time for the nose to get light and then I put in just a little bit of back pressure to lift the nose and she kind of wallowed off the runway. I was only concentrating on how she flew and made sure I maintained altitude (about 30 ft.) and planned my letdown at the other end.

Not being familiar with Dennis' gyro, as I eased off the throttle and started settling a little, I pulled the stick back a little to flare and was way too high. I had my hand on the throttle, ready to add some to ease the landing if I got too slow. The ship's forward speed started getting slower and slower until I was just about stopped. Problem is that I was still about 10 feet above the runway. I just maintained an easy back pressure on the stick, waiting for a quick drop, I was even more speechless.

After I taxied back, Dennis asked me how she felt. I told him not to touch a thing. They're perfect. They couldn't have been any smoother. There was nothing to tweak out.

I mentioned the lack of full power rpm, and Dennis said he always got over 5,000. I truly believe that Dennis had mis-read the dial-type tach in his ship, as he then told me his Warp was pitched to either 17 or 19 degrees...I forget which. I believe that 12-14 is the norm. He started to repitch the prop, but I had to leave.

The ship had about 1/4 tank of gas and I'm weighing 200 these days. I doubt that any added weight is going to make much difference. Mine runs a little smoother when lightly loaded, but all that shake and undulating is still there. On Dennis' ship it was non-existent.

I have to bug the Soob mechanic to get my stuff installed so I can fly up to Ramona next Saturday. I'll check Dennis' ship with the new re-pitch on the prop. If it's O.K., he'll jump in for a "heavy" test. Then we'll pull my RAFs off and put his blades on my ship for a test flight. I am really anticipating that. Seeing as all our symptoms were identical with the RAF blades, as are almost everyone else's, I anticipate the same results. If the results are the same, I definitely will be getting a set of the Sport Copter blades......somehow. The teeter block just slips right in where the RAF one was with no modifications.

P.S. I have absolutely no connection with Sport Copter and in fact have never even spoken with Jim or Kelly. My only communication has been a few E-mails for info. All my impressions are based solely on my experiences with the blades.

Date: October 07, 2002 01:20 AM
Author: Ken Janulewicz (kensandyeggo@msn.com)
Subject: I Flew Vanek's Blades

Here's a little more info on my flying of the Sportcopter blades on my RAF on Saturday. I got to Ramona at 9:15 a.m. and met Dennis, who had just driven in. There was also another gentleman there who phoned me previously about looking at an RAF. I told him that there would be 2 at Ramona that day, so he showed up and lent a hand in switching the blades. We got the blades easily off of Dennis' ship and onto mine, using a chain hoist and bracket that dennis made that held one end of the blades up. The 3 sets of hands simplified things.

After his blades were mounted on mine and the "spreader-bar" installed at the top of the towers, Dennis got up there with his micrometer to check on the cord adjustment. He noted that his teeter-block , while centered on his ship, was 20 thou off on mine. That should have been a big clue to me, but just about slid right past. I thought for a second that this was strange, as our rotorheads are alike. How can it be centered on his ship and 20 thou off on mine? I should have pondered the question just a little longer and got up on the ladder-platform myself to check.

We figured we'd just leave it where it was and try them out. After going over everything, I did a runway flight for about 5,000 ft. and noted that the nose seemed heavy and the nosewheel was reluctant to come up. She came up with a little back-pressure and I continued the flight to the end. As I landed, I realized that with the RAF blades, I fly with the nose trim just about all the way down. I checked the slide on the threaded shaft and it was almost completely at one end of the shaft. I readjusted the trim until the nose trim was set at about half-way on the shaft.

Of course, during this short flight, I didn't have time to pay much attention to the flight characteristics as to vibes. I just wanted to get her up over the runway and control her to the other end and check for any quirky stuff. I then taxied back for take-off and spun up the blades. I don't know if all the prerotation experimentation that I had been doing dried out the shaft, but I was only getting my normal 130 on spinup. I had noticed last week that a lot of the old grease from the shaft was oozing out the top. However, as I started down the runway, I noted that the blades came up extremely fast to 200. I thought the blades were a lot lighter than the RAFs, but Dennis stated they were only 6 lbs. lighter, mainly due to the much beefier and heavier hub-bar that Jim uses.

I forgot how sensitive my pitch adjustments were since I installed the heavier springs a few months ago. I overdid it and the nose was coming up before I wanted it to, so I had to hold the nose down for awhile. I eventually got it trimmed where I wanted it. The rotor came up quickly to 200 and I added full power and lifted off. The rate of climb showed 550 fpm. I thought that this was a little low, but I had left on the 15 minute flight with full fuel of 23 gallons, it was about 80 degrees out already, and Ramona is about 1,000 ft. higher than my home field at 1393'.

As I climbed out, I took note of the smoothness. She wasn't as totally shake-free as Dennis' ship, but almost, just a very soft, mild loping movement. I figured the 20 thou we were off would take care of it when dialed out. I also noted that the rotor rpm was varying from 340 to 345. This is about 25 rpm faster than what I see with the RAF when solo and heavy fuel. I only see 340+ with 2 up. I don't know what Sportcopter's recommendation is for rpm on these blades, so maybe they need a little more pitch. Dennis said they were pitched at 1.5 degrees. I'll find out.

I came back in and told Dennis that we were just about there, to take out the 20 thou offset and I'd try her again. I mentioned to Dennis to see if there was any lateral play between the teeter-block and the towers. I told him to put his thumbs on the tower and pull the teeter-block with his fingers and see if they were tight. He said they were. BIG MISTAKE. Dennis was unfamiliar with what I was asking him to check and didn't induce enough pressure with his fingers, or push back the other way.

The bottom line, and what we now have as wonderful hindsight, is that there was at least 20 thou of lateral slack on the teeter-bolt. We basically chased our tails through 4 hours of flights trying to center something that couldn't be centered. We kept over-shooting, coming back and over-shooting on the other side. We got it to where the shake was less than any I've ever experienced, but still not as shake-free as I experienced on Dennis' ship. We even went way overboard, to where the shakes were very pronounced and my stick was doing a decently-sized circle, something mine has never done before. We then attempted to incrementally sneak up on it, and when it was almost perfect, the next adjustment would take us slightly the other way.

After awhile, I could pretty well foresee what kind of ride was coming up by the movement of the tops of the control rods during pre-rotation. If you recall, when I watched Dennis spin up, the rods were perfectly still. Mine would vary, depending on how much we overshot. With the RAF blades, and every RAFer I spoke to said the same, the movement at the top of the control rods is drastic during spin-up, vibrating like crazy. When we were close, my rods were relatively still, but not perfectly still as on Dennis' ship

Finally, at about 2 p.m., we figured that we did all that we could do, and maybe it would take Mark the Balancer to hook up his gear and see what's up. I still have all the sensors and wiring connected. Dennis then most graciously offered to leave his blades on my ship for me to fly home and keep for awhile. He wants to take more instruction and said that he wouldn't be flying until he did. That is GRACIOUS to trust me with his brand new $3500 blades.

I took off for the 15 minute flight home. By this time, the winds had picked up and were gusting some. It was probably blowing 13-18 knots or so. The ride home is over slightly mountainous terrain. I noticed that now that the fuel was down to a little less than half, the climb rate had substantially increased to around 800 fpm. Don't know how much the wind helped, probably some.

While flying over the ridges, I heard a sound that you sissy RAFers who fly with the doors on never hear, I could periodically hear gusts of wind blowing through the cabin. This is extremely subjective, but it seemed that these blades took the up and down drafts a lot smoother and evenly. When I got back, a friend said he was just up in his Mooney and his butt was lifting off the seat in the downdrafts, so he shortened his flight.

I had a jeans jacket that I folded in thirds and laid on the floor on the passenger side. During the flight home, I could see the top side of the jacket doing a very slow, gentle lope of about 1/4 inch movement. I noted that my instrument panel was barely shaking.

When I arrived home, I did another of the heli-type landings that I've experienced with the Sportcopter blades. The bottom doesn't just drop out as happens with the RAF when you get very slow. These blades just gently lowered me to the runway.

I put her away, and decided to take a look up top to see about getting an allen wrench to unlock the cord adjustment lock without removing the spreader-bar each time as Dennis had to do. It's right on top of the block, slightly under the spreader. I cut down an allen wrench and got it to where I'd be able to unlooosen it with the spreader remaining on. Then, just for the heck of it, I put my thumbs on the tower, and grasped the hub bar with my fingers and yanked it toward me. CLICK. I pushed it the other way....CLICK. It felt and looked as though there was at least a 1/16th inch movement. This is what I should have caught initially when Dennis said it was 20 thou off.

The fault was mine for forgetting about the importance of adjusting the spreader-bar correctly. Dennis' ship didn't need it, but my towers need to be spread to take out the slop. It's not like it's something new, as Gary Brewer had discovered it on my ship several years ago when he and Jim Butler were balancing my ship. I really didn't pay attention to how he tightened it up, and thought that he used the spreader-bar to "pull in" the tops of the towers, never wondering why it's called a "spreader." I phoned him Saturday evening and he recalled finding the slop. He then advised that it is removed by spreading the tops of the towers until they snug outwardly against the "top hats," eliminating the slop.

So, on Monday I will readjust the spreader bar properly to take out the movement, re-center the hub-bar and see what happens. I used my gauge and we were way off from being centered due to the lateral movement of the teeter-block on the teeter-bolt and the back and forth adjusting we did.

Overall, I liked the way the blades flew, but I'll have more to say about it after I adjust the spreader properly and recenter the hub-bar/teeter block. If we got them as smooth as we did, with just a soft, mild loping, I feel the ride will be drastically improved once there is no lateral free play on the teeter bolt and they are truly centered and stay there.

As usual, I will be completely honest in reporting my findings, as I have no connection with Sportcopter, have never spoken to them and was not offered any incentive for a "good" report. I calls 'em as I sees 'em, and that's my promise.

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