08-25-2026, 02:03 AM
(Edited 08-25-2026, 02:43 AM by Homer Bell.)
I was able to use that bit save once, but in this case I never saw it come up. I’ll shorten the story and tell it again because there is an alternative to losing lift as Orv told.
Long story short is In 1985 my frame broke and caused the collective to slam to the pocket and the throttle rolled because of the correlated . This frame break pulled much collective pitch and even with full power rolled on in the pocket, I was only able to get 80% rotor rpm straight and level and a gentle climb. Certainly did not want to do anything with the controls at this point to mess up the delicate situation I seemed to have. Slowly increasing speed did nothing to help the situation. When I slowly relaxed forward cyclic it caused a cyclic climb and I went even higher not lower.
Next tried a right turn to stay over an open field and large pond. I had managed to get the rpm up to around 90%, but the turn lost all that very quickly. The engine was laboring very hard to maintain what I had and I speculated that maybe I was pushing right pedal and taking power away. Quickly rolling back to level, I then speculated a left turn might get me some extra power so I rolled left. To my amazement the rpm shot back to 100% almost instantly. I then knew that if I kept the rotor disk up on its side we would go down.
I rolled into the tightest left turn you can do with the nose pointed straight down, collective in the pocket, throttle at near full power, indicating 20-25 mph. Witness 1/4 mile away said we just kept going round and round from over 6-700 ft.
By the time we got down near the ground I was so shook up I couldn’t think how I was going to get it on the ground. When I leveled out , rpm dropped back down to 80% we were starting to climb again. At this point my passenger who had been very quiet up till now spoke up and suggested why I don’t cut power. What a fantastic idea!!! By now the shop had climbed back up to probably 10 or 15 ft. We hit hard perfectly flat and broke welds on the landing gear shoes at all for corners. Luckily the blades did not take the tail off , and that had to be a miracle, because I chopped it way too quick.
All of you now have an extra tube on your frames where mine broke . No thanks needed for me finding that flaw for all you guys. Brad Champlin had his frame break in the same place last year. The extra tube kept everything bin place and never knew it was broke until he happen to see it when putting in his new Huff engine.
Maybe a good idea to look at yours. 1 1/2” vertical tube behind gas tank just below the square drive tube. You now have a 1” round tube across this area. Improperly trailing I think contributes to this tube failing. Your tail boom should not move around when trailering. I also think the boom should be supported as close to the 4th bulkhead as possible. Do not like support at the 3rd bulkhead. Definitely do not like any kind of flexible type support like bungee cords .
I’ve trailered ships all over this country for over 50 years now. So I think I have a pretty good idea of what works . I broke the tail boom off of one which was supported at the 3rd bulkhead. I just don’t think it’s a good idea.
Long story short is In 1985 my frame broke and caused the collective to slam to the pocket and the throttle rolled because of the correlated . This frame break pulled much collective pitch and even with full power rolled on in the pocket, I was only able to get 80% rotor rpm straight and level and a gentle climb. Certainly did not want to do anything with the controls at this point to mess up the delicate situation I seemed to have. Slowly increasing speed did nothing to help the situation. When I slowly relaxed forward cyclic it caused a cyclic climb and I went even higher not lower.
Next tried a right turn to stay over an open field and large pond. I had managed to get the rpm up to around 90%, but the turn lost all that very quickly. The engine was laboring very hard to maintain what I had and I speculated that maybe I was pushing right pedal and taking power away. Quickly rolling back to level, I then speculated a left turn might get me some extra power so I rolled left. To my amazement the rpm shot back to 100% almost instantly. I then knew that if I kept the rotor disk up on its side we would go down.
I rolled into the tightest left turn you can do with the nose pointed straight down, collective in the pocket, throttle at near full power, indicating 20-25 mph. Witness 1/4 mile away said we just kept going round and round from over 6-700 ft.
By the time we got down near the ground I was so shook up I couldn’t think how I was going to get it on the ground. When I leveled out , rpm dropped back down to 80% we were starting to climb again. At this point my passenger who had been very quiet up till now spoke up and suggested why I don’t cut power. What a fantastic idea!!! By now the shop had climbed back up to probably 10 or 15 ft. We hit hard perfectly flat and broke welds on the landing gear shoes at all for corners. Luckily the blades did not take the tail off , and that had to be a miracle, because I chopped it way too quick.
All of you now have an extra tube on your frames where mine broke . No thanks needed for me finding that flaw for all you guys. Brad Champlin had his frame break in the same place last year. The extra tube kept everything bin place and never knew it was broke until he happen to see it when putting in his new Huff engine.
Maybe a good idea to look at yours. 1 1/2” vertical tube behind gas tank just below the square drive tube. You now have a 1” round tube across this area. Improperly trailing I think contributes to this tube failing. Your tail boom should not move around when trailering. I also think the boom should be supported as close to the 4th bulkhead as possible. Do not like support at the 3rd bulkhead. Definitely do not like any kind of flexible type support like bungee cords .
I’ve trailered ships all over this country for over 50 years now. So I think I have a pretty good idea of what works . I broke the tail boom off of one which was supported at the 3rd bulkhead. I just don’t think it’s a good idea.