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Mu-1 Flight Test

On June 17th, 2005, the CarterCopter became the first and only rotorcraft in history to slow the rotor in flight to mu 1. The rotor was slowed to 107 rpm at 170 mph. For more details, read the Press Release, or the entry in the Weekly Update Archive. For a better understanding of what mu-1 represents and why it's important, read the explanation in our Frequently Asked Questions.

CCTD Mu-1 Flight Video (803 kB)

General Flight Testing Video Clips

Nice Takeoff Video (606 kB) Nice Takeoff Video II (413 kB) Nice Takeoff Video III (689 kB) Nice Landing Video I (602 kB) Nice Landing Video II (698 kB) Nice Landing Video III (773 kB)

Videos of Flights at Olney, Texas - July 2 & 3, 2001

Takeoff Video (2,361 kB) Air to Air Above the Clouds (1,950 kB) Over Olney Airport (1,596 kB) Air to Air Above the Clouds II (2,499 kB) Turn to Final (2,252 kB)   Landing (2,102 kB)

1st Zero Roll Takeoff - November 12, 2000

Side View (488 kB)   Tail Cam View (445 kB)   Chase Vehicle View (493 kB)

The rotor was prerotated to 365 RPM instead of the normal takeoff RPM of 425 in order to reduce the load on the gearbox and resulted in a significant reduction of rotor stored energy.

For the 1st attempt, the pilot pulled only enough collective to lift the aircraft off the ground, and then reduced the collective as the aircraft accelerated in order to keep the rotor RPM up as high as possible. This ensured that the rotor RPM was high enough to keep the aircraft in the air until the aircraft reached 50-MPH. Previous flights indicated the aircraft would fly in a steady state condition at 50-MPH, at 210 RPM and at approximately half throttle.

As it turned out for this 1st zero roll takeoff, the RPM dropped to only 290 RPM by the time the aircraft reached 50-MPH, indicating there was still a significant amount of stored energy left in the rotor. Also, by keeping the rotor RPM up, the aircraft drag was higher than it could have been (took the aircraft longer to accelerate to 50-MPH). The most efficient way to takeoff is to continue to increase collective until the RPM has dropped to its minimum safe RPM. In this way the energy is quickly withdrawn from the rotor and converted to either altitude or speed. With the rotor RPM reduced, the aircraft's efficiency is also improved. We did not have the opportunity to perform a better performance zero roll takeoff before the gearbox failed.