July - September, 2005

2005-09-26

• Continued work on the prop designed for the 66 HP Rotax 582 engine. The skins and all internal components have been made. We are now in the final bonding stages.
• Continued construction of the 26' rotor to be used on the modified Monarch autogyro. We've laid up the first "dummy" skins and have begun making tooling for the internal components.
• Completed the rotor spar mandrel.
• There will be no update for the week of 2005-10-03 since our webmaster will be out of town.

2005-09-19

• Continued construction of the 24' rotor to be used on the modified Monarch autogyro. However, we've decided to postpone construction of the 24' rotor, so that we can concentrate on building a slightly larger 26' rotor for reduced disk loading. We've already layed up the first "dummy" skins for the 26' rotor.
• Began work on the rotor spar mandrel. The mandrel will be able to be used to build spars for rotor sizes from 24' to 32' diameter.

  Spar Mandrel

• Continued work on the prop designed for the 66 HP Rotax 582 engine. We made the tooling for all of the internal components, and have begun making the actual parts.

2005-09-06

• Performed a static test of the pitch link on the prop designed for the 66 HP Rotax 582 engine. There wasn't a failure until 5000 lbs, which is plenty for what we calculate will be needed in operation. Additionally, the failure wasn't catastrophic, but a crack in the skin. That area of the skin that failed will be stronger on the next propeller, so it should be able to handle even more load. We also modified the prop spar mold, and laid up a spar for the prop to be used for performance testing.

  Rotax 582 Prop Pitch Link Testing

• Continued work on modifying the propeller test stand to accommodate the prop designed for the Rotax 582 engine.
• Continued work on the new rotor head and prerotator system for the modified Monarch autogyro.
• Began work on preparing the molds to lay up the 24' rotor that will go on the modified Monarch autogyro. The rotor will have a mechanical pitch change mechanism which will enable jump takeoffs by allowing the rotor to operate at two pitch settings - 0º for prerotating, and a constant 6º for flight.
• There will not be a weekly update the week of September 12th, because our webmaster will be out of town.

2005-08-29

• Continued work on the tooling for the prop designed for the 66 HP Rotax 582 engine. Made a test jig and assembled a test propeller to use in that jig to test the strength of the pitch link attachment.

  Rotax 582 Prop to Use for Pitch Link Testing

• Continued work on modifying the propeller test stand to accommodate the prop designed for the Rotax 582 engine.
• Continued work on the new rotor head and prerotator system for the modified Monarch autogyro.

2005-08-22

• Continued work on the tooling for the prop designed for the 66 HP Rotax 582 engine. Used the "dummy" spar with the "dummy" skins to make tooling for other internal components of the prop, such as shear webs and ribs.
• Continued work on modifying the propeller test stand to accomodate the prop designed for the Rotax 582 engine.
• Continued work on the new rotor head and prerotator system for the modified Monarch autogyro. There are still issues with the prerotator that need to be resolved.

2005-08-15

• Continued work on the tooling for the prop designed for the 66 HP Rotax 582 engine. Completed all tooling for the spar and laid up a "dummy" spar. Used the "dummy" spar with the "dummy" skins to begin making tooling for other internal components of the prop, such as shear webs and ribs.
• Began work on modifying the propeller test stand to accomodate the prop designed for the Rotax 582 engine.
• Continued work on the new rotor head and prerotator system for the modified Monarch autogyro. We took the ultralight to Olney again this weekend for flight testing, and performed three short hops. Although the modified bracket has fixed the natural frequency problem, there are other problems that became apparent. So, we are redesigning the bracket to make the gearbox attached rigidly to the engine, and will use an idler pulley to engage the prerotator, just like in the CarterCopter.

2005-08-08

• Continued work on the tooling for the prop designed for the 66 HP Rotax 582 engine.
• Continued work on the new rotor head and prerotator system for the modified Monarch autogyro. We tested the prerotator system in the test pit to confirm its operation. Over the weekend, we took the aircraft to Olney for flight testing. With the new prerotator system attached to the engine, the system began vibrating excessively at around 2000 rpm on the engine due to a natural frequency. A new adjustable bracket has been built and installed to increase the stiffness to increase the natural frequency. The bracket will be adjusted until the natural frequency is higher than the operating range of the engine. With as involved as the analysis is to determine natural frequency, this type of empirical approach is actually faster and cheaper than performing the analysis.

  Ultralight in Test Pit Flight Testing Ultralight in Olney

• Performed tests on an application for our landing gear technology- using the smart valve in a strut for an automobile suspension. Data from these tests are very promising.

  Strut Testing

2005-08-01

• Continued work on the tooling for the prop designed for the 66 HP Rotax 582 engine. Nearly completed with all tooling for the spar mandrel, began work on tooling for other internal components.

  "Dummy" Skin & Spar for Making Tooling

• Continued work on the new rotor head and prerotator system for the modified Monarch autogyro. Modified the bracket to hold the prerotator pulley and gearbox. Worked on the hydraulic system for operating the brakes and engaging the prerotator.

2005-07-25

• Continued work on the new rotor head and prerotator system for the modified Monarch autogyro.

  Ultralight Prerotator

• Continued work on the tooling for the prop designed for the 66 HP Rotax 582 engine.

  Rotax Prop Tooling

• We have now had a chance to study the data and video from the forced landing on 2005-06-17, and have come up with what we think is the most likely explanation. This is still preliminary - the final report will be the one released by the NTSB. While flying at around 3000' agl and 150 mph, there was a failure of the bolts holding the prop drive pulley to the prop drive shaft. This in itself would not have been a major problem, as we have experienced loss of power in flight before and the pilots were able to land on the runway. However, it seems that not all 6 bolts broke immediately, which caused a bad vibration as the pulley turned and with each revolution the belt pulled it away from the flange that it was bolted to. We believe that this vibration broke a wire to the co-pilot side cyclic boost control solenoid, in effect losing the boost to one of the two cyclic links and "locking out" that link. This would have made the rotor spindle (which controls the direction the rotor tilts) move in a diagonal direction - forward and to the left or rear and to the right. This correlation was seen afterwards when studying the data. As the pilot pushed the stick forward to maintain airspeed, the spindle tilted forward and to the left, causing the aircraft to roll to the left. To counter the roll while still trying to maintain airspeed, the pilot pushed forward and to the right. The push-pull cables connecting the control stick to the boost cylinder located at the spindle are relatively soft, and because of the stretch in the cables, the pilot was able to move the stick in that direction even though the co-pilot side cyclic link did not move. With the stick all the way forward and to right but the aircraft continuing to roll to the left, the pilot believed that he had lost control, at which point he and the copilot tried to fire the ballistic chute. For some unknown reason, even though the wires had been checked the week before, the ballistic chute did not fire, so the pilots had to continue flying the aircraft. Soon after, the pilot pulled back on the stick to slow his airspeed, which in turn caused the spindle to go to a more level position. But, as the pilot pushed forward again to maintain airspeed, the spindle went back to the left. With as quick as everything happened, there was no way to diagnose the problem at the time. Without sufficient control, the pilots were not able to fly the aircraft back to the runway, and came down in mesquite trees in a rancher's field about 3 miles from the airport. When the pilot flared for the landing, the rotor once again went to a more level position. The trees caused substantial damage to the aircraft. Although the aircraft is repairable, we feel it best to focus our efforts on other projects at this time.

2005-07-18

• Continued work on the new rotor head and prerotator system for the modified Monarch autogyro.
• Completd the spar mandrel for the propeller to be used on the Rotax 582 engine. Began making tooling to be used with the mandrel to make the spar.

  Rotax Prop Spar Mandrel

• Continued work on the 45' rotor mold for construction of a new rotor. We are currently working on a new design to make the root fairing more aerodynamic, and will incorporate that change into the mold before beginning construction of the new rotor.

2005-07-11

• Continued work on the new rotor head and prerotator system for the modified Monarch autogyro.
• Laid up "dummy" skins for the propeller for the 62 HP Rotax 582 engine. These skins will be used for making additional tooling and for a prototype layup of the propeller.

  "Dummy" Prop Skins

• Began work on the spar mandrel for the Rotax propeller.
• Prepped the mold for the rotor for the ultralight demonstrator aircraft. This is the mold that was made with removeable sections, allowing the mold to be used to make rotors from 20' to 34' in diameter. The rotor currently being constructed is 24' in diameter.
• Began prepping the 45' rotor mold for construction of a new rotor. We are currently working on a new design to make the root fairing more aerodynamic, and will incorporate that change into the mold before beginning construction of the new rotor.
• Carter was once again shown on 60 Minutes, last night in an edited re-airing of the story we were in this past April. The new text article can be found at Flying Cars Ready To Take Off.

  60 Minutes Segment from April

2005-07-05

• Continued work on the new rotor head and prerotator system for the modified Monarch autogyro.

  Ultralight Rotor Head

• Completed the mold for the propeller for the 62 HP Rotax 582 engine. Began work on laying up the first "layout" blade, which will be used for making additional tooling.

  Completed Prop Molds

• The CarterCopter's mu-1 flight made it as one of the topics on Slashdot last week. Slashdot is "a popular technology-related website, updated many times daily with articles that are short summaries of stories on other websites with links to the stories, and provisions for readers to comment on the story." (Wikipedia) Although there were several misconceptions and misunderstandings, by and large the exposure was very good. We received more hits to our website in that one day than we normally receive in two months. The story and responses can be read at the link below.
  CarterCopter on SlashDot
• Regarding the damage to the aircraft that occured during the forced landing, our engineers have still not yet had a chance to study the aircraft. However, we have looked over the data and studied the tail cam video, and from that, think we have a pretty good idea of what happened. However, we still need to confirm our theory by examining the relevant systems on the aircraft. We are working with the NTSB, and the full details of the forced landing will be available once the NTSB publishes their report.