Then on Sunday we had our annual Northern California Rotorcraft Association club picnic. This also went very well, with pilot briefing and flying contests getting started just after 8am. We had a real good turn out on the contests this year, with 10 pilots flying: Scott, Joe, Tim, Mark, Henry, Gary, Troy, Jerry, Bob. A, and George. The flying contests took most of the morning with all these gyros flying!
Then the best part of the day was the lunch! The newly acquired grill was fired up and cooked the various items that had been brought. The ladies had organized who was bringing what side dishes and created an incredible feast of more food than we could eat! There was so much good stuff to choose from. Kudos to everyone for the outstanding meal!
We held the meeting later that afternoon and awarded the prize trophies. The best bomb drops were done by Henry (27'4"), Jerry (22'5") and Bob A. who took the trophy with a 17' drop. Then Bob A. flew the timed pylon event with only a 6 second difference, but here's where it gets interesting. Mark and George tied for second place at 4 seconds and Joe and Scott tied for first place at 0 seconds! They each flew 2 patterns of exactly the same time. They agreed to share the trophy.
Another trophy was awarded for man and machine. After tallying the members' votes, it went to Mark Givans and his new Predator gyro. Congratulations Mark! One trophy remains to be given at the end of the year: most fly-ins attended. Thank you to all the pilots for the safe flying and to the ground crew for your patience and hard work measuring and timing all these flights.
It also looks like we will have at least 5 or more gyros flying to El-Mirage in September. This is a serious cross country that we need to have fully planned and prepared for ahead of time. After the meeting we taped a Los Angeles sectional to a couple of San Francisco ones and drew some lines. So far, we're planning the trip roughly along highway 99 which offers lots of airports for fuel stops. The legs will be planned for the gyro with shortest endurance. We will likely fly in two groups: rabbits and snails, or faster and not so fast. This is so each machine can fly at its most comfortable and efficient airspeed, instead of struggling to keep one large group together. The faster group can simply wait longer at the fuel stops while the slower group catches up.
As we will all need to cross the Tehachapis, it was agreed that everyone will go out and test the climbability of their gyro before then. Make sure your gyro can climb to at least 6000 feet MSL, the higher the better. We also need to know exact fuel burn and cruise speed for each machine to know our leg limits. This is going to be an awesome experience, so keep thinking about it and let's get together for more planning at our next meeting. Let's arrange a three-point group trial-run trip in this area, sometime in the next month.
With a full tank of fuel and 18 degrees C on the ground, I lifted off near sea level at 5100 engine RPM. And left it there. Through 1 thousand feet, 2 thousand, now 3. Still climbing around 500 fpm. 4 thousand and then 5. Still going, though seems to be slowing down a bit now. A mile high now, might as well keep going for an even 6000. Now over Woodland, turn back toward Nut Tree. Hey, look at that jet coming out of Sacramento; hope he doesn't come my way up here. Wow, now I'm at 7,000 feet! Since I'm this far might as well see if I can reach the published service ceiling: 10,000 feet.
Several minutes later it is confirmed. Two needles straight up on the altimeter, and another one pointing at 1. 10,000 feet MSL! A few observations: the last 1,000 feet took 8 minutes which is 150 fpm. At sea level my best rate of climb was 60 mph, but that was no longer cutting it up here. I had to slow to near 50 to keep climbing. Meanwhile, my rotor RPM had increased from 310 on the ground to 340 up here. Thinner air, less drag, faster blades?! And, of course, the air felt considerably cooler; I wish I had a thermometer.
I pulled carb heat and carefully throttled back to start about a 700 fpm descent. Man is the ground far away! I can see at least 5 runways from here. And towns connected by narrow lines. Not much else, everything is too small to see! Boy do I miss the earth! At least getting down doesn't take as long as getting up here. Feel the air warming up as I descend. It felt good step foot on the ground after safely landing.
Then, on July 12, I decided to do a fuel burn test. Vacaville to Marysville to Vacaville to Yolo non-stop at 1000 feet, 125 miles. Cruised around 4640 engine RPM, 67 mph indicated airspeed, 57 mph average ground speed. This took 16.3 gallons of fuel in 2.2 hours which comes out to 7.4 gallons per hour. Higher than the published 6 gph, but that is mostly due to my propeller. I replaced the noisy 68" Warp Drive with a much quieter 66" Prince P-tip. I didn't get quite enough pitch put in it, so I'm turning a couple hundred RPM faster than normal. Max engine RPM is 5400 with this particular prop. (Note this is more RPM than I usually climb at. So I know I could beat 10,000 feet if I wanted to push harder). Long term I may get a 68" one cut with more pitch, more like Gary's. But this should work for now. I can safely cruise for 2.5 hours on a tank of gas, with over 1/2 hour reserve.
I recommend anyone planning to go to El-Mirage, do these two tests in your gyro. I feel a lot safer to fly somewhere now, knowing more about what my machine can do.
--Tim Witham
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http://www.quiknet.com/~twitham/gyro/pra5/Timothy D. Witham <twitham@quiknet.com> Last modified: Sun Jun 18 17:09:56 PDT 2000