[Lyle Swallows]

Hi there, ROG is still down. but there were a handful a posts on there that mentioned flipping the cyclic fork/yokes to achieve the same Lateral control but with less overall (half) cyclic travel, this allowed for less interference with legs and the passenger cyclic with minimal additional force required. fore-aft control remains untouched.

my cyclic control tube is out and i am repainting it. this is something i was curious if anyone has this implemented on their ship or has anyone gotten annoyed with the lateral cyclic travel?

i'm inclined to keep it to print unless i am cramming the cyclic into my legs.

maybe i should just modify my flying and not slip as much or stick to traveling where my nose is haha.

[Orv Neisingh]

I have only had cyclic interference issues when I have been instruction a student and the center collective is installed. With the center collective removed there is plenty of room to move your right leg over to allow full cyclic travel in that direction.

[Graeme Smith]

Hi there, ROG is still down. but there were a handful a posts on there that mentioned flipping the cyclic fork/yokes to achieve the same Lateral control but with less overall (half) cyclic travel, this allowed for less interference with legs and the passenger cyclic with minimal additional force required. fore-aft control remains untouched.

my cyclic control tube is out and i am repainting it. this is something i was curious if anyone has this implemented on their ship or has anyone gotten annoyed with the lateral cyclic travel?

i'm inclined to keep it to print unless i am cramming the cyclic into my legs.

maybe i should just modify my flying and not slip as much or stick to traveling where my nose is haha.

Would a Tee bar ,like the R22, be a solution, it can be done with minimum changes

[Jared Hartzell]

@Graeme Smith A T-bar would likely work in this case. However, I know that myself and many other pilots do not like it over the standard configuration. It just feels weird, even after hundreds of hours flying one and going back to a standard cyclic, it feels so much better.

@Lyle Swallows I'm curious about what it is people are doing with the cyclic fork to increase lateral output travel? I don't think it's necessary for Rotorways, we should maintain as close to a centered CG as possible with our limited cyclic authority for safety reasons and it also puts less stress on our components the closer to center we are in a hover. We have what feels like half the authority of a typical helicopter, which is why it's "easy" to hover but this has the side-effect of being far more risky to fly at the edges of the envelope or hover in heavy winds, compared to other small helicopters. You can also visualize this by comparing W&B charts. I might do a lengthy write-up on this matter eventually, for public info. If there's one major flight characteristic change I could make with Rotorway, I'd find a reasonable solution to increase cyclic authority and get rid of the ballast weight necessity (accomplished via a 3-bladed rotor system, to keep the low profile and now you also don't have to worry about mast bumping—only tail chops)... Of course, this would require more power to drive and beefing up the mast/everything else rotor-related significantly, as it will now be subject to higher side loads rather than teetering... Resulting in higher empty weight and less useful load, so now we go down a rabbit hole of major airframe modifications and at the end of the day, it seems better to design a completely new helicopter.

[Lyle Swallows]

the cyclic fork/yoke the the cyclic tube goes into has a long tang and a short tang. the short tang faces aft and hooks to the cable, the long tang faces forward and goes to the dual cyclic tie link. this forward tang and hole is twice the distance than the rear tang. so flipping the yoke for the long tang on the cables increases the throw to the cables, rigging then is necessary for the cyclic stops to not over pitch the swashplate, which would halve the cyclic lateral travel.

this isnt so much about increasing authority because it has zero change to the rigging angle and travel at the swashplate but instead changes the feel at the controls. the people who posted on ROG they had done so said it felt minimally different but with less cyclic interference with their legs.

it makes sense looking at it, i'm just weary about changing designs from the original unless absolutely necessary performance gains or necessary for safety in my eyes.