On Sunday, I flew twice in order to reach the required 40 hour test period required for an experimental aircraft. For those who are not familiar the FAA restricts new experimental aircraft to fly within a 25 mile radius of a given airport and to avoid densely populated areas and no night flights. After the 40 hrs. you can fly basically anywhere a certified ship can fly. So, now I can fly to Dan’s Apple Farm MI21 heliport and harass Dan to finish his ship!!!

Here is a tool I made to tighten or loosen the nut to adjust the belt tension, see the nut in the second picture.

Ok so it really wasn’t a fly-in since I had the only helicopter there, but the Michigan Helicycle Group (MHG) was there to motivate the non-flyers to “geter done”

Below are some pictures and videos of the day.

OK who gets which camera?

Today I had favorable weather albeit a little cold 45 degrees but sunny. Yesterday I had two other builders over, Dan and Gottfried who wanted to hear the details of the “Factory Check-out”. They helped me get the helicopter on the dolly and put on the blades. It would have been easier if I did it the other way aroung but live and learn. I was intending on flying it a bit but it rained all day. So today was the big day 10/28/20. I pulled the helicopter out and my wife Joanne did the video. I am glad she didn’t shoot the landing. It took several attempts (ok more than that) before I was comfortable setting it down. So, I will be practicing that maneuver a lot in the near future.

I flew around the “hood” for a bit then brought her in. Here is the video of the beginning of the first home flight.

Heading north in the a.m. (10-25-20). I am very happy that it worked out well. I was flying with the governor and a control rod from another ship and it was flying well. Today we put on my original governor and a new control rod for the fuel controller. The ship started up and Huggy fine tuned the governor and off I went for a short flight. Weather was not good and there was a fine mist, Helicycles are not meant to get wet so I cut the flight short. Huggy and I loaded up the helicopter in Brian’s Trailer and headed back to his place. Looking forward to getting back home after two weeks. Below are some short clips of me flying at Big Sandy airport (KSJS).

I got the ok to hover from Huggy today at his house. See video below.

First I want to thank Joanne for her support over the years and her patience with me especially in the last year as the intensity of finishing the helicopter increased and the length of the check out which has been more than double the amount of time then was expected.

I would like thank Huggy and his wife Brenda for their hospitality and his willingness to do the check out. I also need to thank Brian Hoot for his exceptional help at Huggy’s and the use of his trailer along with Joe (Tweety Bird) for spending time with us setting up the governor and other things, Doug and Blake for their time in consultation on the phone. All of whom made the run to the finish line possible. We had to trace down some issues that caused frustration but we made it through it. I will detail them in a later post.

It looks like I will be flying it tomorrow — videos to follow!!!

10-19-20

One step closer, the tail rotor is balanced within 0.10 IPS. Tomorrow the main rotor head goes back on then a hang test then the blades go back on. Flying soon 🚁🚁🚁

Well things are progressing a bit slower than I would like. We finally figured out what was causing the lack of communication between the potentiometer and the governor. What that means is the adjustment pot on the throttle was not changing the speed of the turbine. The documentation for the potentiometer and the pins on the backside are lacking the detail that is necessary for an easy fix. Anyways with the help of Doug and Joe we were able to finally find the fix. We need to switch out some wires to make it work properly. We are now working on the tail rotor to get that in balance and then the rotor head will be reinstalled and the first hovering will begin. It may be Wednesday before I will be able to fly it around.

Here is Joe (left) and Huggy (right) checking the run out on the tail rotor shaft

Huggy and Joe working on the potentiometer

These are videos of me landing in my backyard with my instructor in a rented R-22. I wanted some extra instruction in confined space landings before I bring my ship in and out. Safety is the number one rule!

Ok, so its been awhile since my last update. I have been focused on getting my helicopter rating and a few other things. Due to some difficulties with Covid and computer crashes my airworthiness took 10 months to finally get but on October 11, 2020 both Brian Hoot’s and my ship received their airworthiness certificates. Back on September 10 I passed my check ride for my helicopter rating. So, right now I am in Kentucky doing the final rigging with the check pilot and will be flying my ship by the weekend if all goes well. Early this year I built a dolly to move my helicopter out to my yard which is now 1MI1 an approved heliport. This past Thursday October 8, 2020 I flew with my instructor into my yard which is what we would call a confined space. Below are some of the pictures of the dolly and a couple of videos of my landings in the yard. When my ship is flying I will add some videos ASAP.

These are markers for me to land.

Ok, I am having trouble loading videos I will be working on it.