Can these things LIFT ?

[Terry S]

Hi all, Im new to auto gyros and I was wondering if an electric AG would be able to lift a camera for aerial photography. If so I have a payload of 0.5Kg that would need to be lifted and still handle ok. What sort of size would I need ?

Thanks, Terry

[JWarren]

I am not trying to sway you from doing AP with a gyro. But why don't you just use a plane?

Just curious.

You would need a gyro that was built very light for it's rotor span then factor in the camera to see if you would be able to get off the ground so to speak. I am not really sure which model would do the trick. Maybe one of the other fellas around here can help you with that.

John

[Terry S]

Hi John, I do use a plane but it dose need a bit of room to land, I just thought an autogyro may be the thing to give me good stol performance ?
If Im wrong thats fine and I will go back to practicing my heli flying, thanks for your reply.

Terry

[mnowell129]

Autogyros have in general a long takeoff and a short landing, maybe not the thing for aerial photography. Also the lift to drag is awful and you need lots of power just to fly and endurance is limited. You might make something with
pre-spin to get the takeoff shorter and have lots of power to overcome the weight of the camera, however you then have something as complicated as a heli. If you don't mind the money there is a stabilized platform for sale at
http://www.rctoys.com/draganflyerxpro.php, it can carry one pound.
It is ready to fly but pricey ($5000!).

There are lots of aerial heli cams but this takes helicopter skill to master, but once mastered you can pretty do anything. A pound of payload is not
a problem for a .60 gas heli, but then noise and exhaust are an issue.
Most commercial platforms use larger gas engines.

I would bet that the best camera platform of all would be a powered parachute, one of those things with an oversized parafoil parachute with
a motor on back. They are short takeoff and landing and fly very slowly.
Also with the motor off (if electric) you would have absolutely zero vibration.
With gyro/heli platforms vibration is always an issue.
Don't know about the payload capabilty, but it seems with a slight airspeed increase you could lift quite a lot.
mickey

[Terry S]

I was thinking I could pre spin the head then hand launch, then when landing have a very steep approach and land slow. I have a Vario Benzine heli but it is noisy and I have only just got the hang of the basics. I was reading the an autogyro was very stable and I thought this would take some workload off me while taking the shots. I did have a go at a large powered parachute but it was a pig to launch in anything but flat calm days or it would wrap it self in knots on the ground before I even got it in the air. Even then the climb rate was poor so you needed a lot of room for take off but landing was easy. In short Im looking for something with good climb out and steep appoach and also very stable, duration is not number 1 for this job, I have a plane for that. Any ideas ?

Terry

[David A Ramsey]

One thing that impressed me about my Robbe/Schluter Whopper was how easy it was to fly. While I seem to manage helicopter flight pretty good, I've never taken the time to really be good at it. Consequently I always felt I wasn't in complete control. Now here's the Whopper with a complete helicopter head that breathes stability. Flying the Whopper gave me the confidence to complete my first full down helicopter autorotation.

I think a properly sized electric Autogyro to carry a particular camera system would make a great platform. With a good breeze you'd have the ability to hover which might be very useful for stationary shots.

[Terry S]

Ahh...Now thats good to hear, I was begining to think I had got autogyros all wrong. Now all I need is one of you gyro boys to give me some figures as a starting point ???
Remember I need to lift 0.5Kg max ! I am keen to use a heli head and was wondering if broarder or larger blades would be needed or better than the originals that were used for a heli of the same weight ?

Thanks, Terry

[mnowell129]

My rule of thumb is that the disk loading needs to be
5 ounces / square foot / #blades, i.e. 2 Bladed design
needs to be < 2.5 ounces/square feet of disk area.
You also need about 100 watts/pound aircraft.
With a .5 (1.1lb) kilo payload, I'd estimate that you
want your payload to < 25% of the aircraft weight.
This turns into a 3 lb (1.4 kg)aircraft empty, 4.1 lb (1.9kg)gross.
At 64 ounces, with two blades @ 2.5 ounces/ft^2
the rotor radius is 2.9 (880 mm)feet.
Rotor diameter is then about 6 feet (1.82 meters).
You'd need about 600 watts brushless, 900 brushed electric
power plant.
If you chose a Kontronik 600 with gear drive, for example, this is about
300g, 3 Apogee 4160 3s1p lithiums would give about 30 volts at
275 g apiece, Thus the powerplant weight is ~1.2kg.
Carbon fiber 800mm heli blades weigh around 200-250 g each,
that's another .5 kg.
Weight is up to 1.7kg, empty with no airframe, this is higher than the first guess,So re-estimating, Same powerplant 1.2kg,
guess at .5kg airframe weight, .5 kg blades.
Total 2.2 kg, .5 payload, total 2.7 kg gross.
About 6 pounds, = 600 watts minimum needed for agressive close quarters flight and climbing.
Keeping the disk loading the same = rotor radius 3.5 feet = 1 meter
radius, 2 meter diameter. I might start with off the shelf 800mm
heli blades with no payload to see what it flies like.
This is probably do-able. Perhaps start with .40 sized helicopter
mechanics including main gear, and autorotation clutch, in case you want
to try pre-spin later. However, I've found
that you can taxi back and forth and get the rotor speed up with
no need for pre-spin gear. I fly from the street at my house. You can go watch the videos at www.mickeynowell.com/id9.html to get and idea of what kind of residential environment you can operate from. If you left the collective pitch mechanism in place that would make spin up easy by taxing at low pitch, then pop to flight pitch just before accelerating to takeoff speed.
I would not try to do direct control with a rotor that size, the servo
loads would be large, and you are probably more interested in reliability
than scale looks.
You might have to make your own blades, but that is fairly straight forward.

This should be feasible (sic), you'd have to be careful with the airframe design
to keep it down to .5 kg (including radio) but this should be possible.

I will be very interested in seeing this project come to conclusion myself.

Good luck.

[Terry S]

THANKS for the great info, that tells me what Im in for if I go ahead with this, just what I was looking for. Im still at the stage of bouncing ideas at the moment but I do have a Kontronik FUN 600-18 with gearbox and a Beat 50-8-30 sitting on the shelf doing nothing so I would like to use them if I can. I have seen your videos and found your simple desigh very inspiring.The other thing I was interested in is the possable advantages of using contra rotating rotors, do you have any comments on this ?

Thanks Again, Terry

[Terry S]

Oh, I forgot to ask, do you think a pre spin and hand launch is possable as I need to fly out of rough fields sometimes ?

Terry

[mnowell129]

Tough question on the size you are talking about, hand lauch of a two meter
6 pound aircraft might be entertaining. Can I watch ? I'd consider a mechanical pre-spin
of some type, maybe an electric starter sticking in the bottom that drops away. Perhaps a little trailer with a launch ramp that includes a prespin
motor with wheel locks, then you spin up, drop the pre-spin motor away
then release the chocks and add power and fly off.
If I built this I'd probably just use it all the time. If you started with
heli mechanics you could just drive the main gear from the bottom. Of course if you use collective you could pre-spin with some negative pitch on the pre-spin platform, dump positive and fly off vertically while adding power to start moving, then you'd have true VTO and short landing capability.
There are lots of options here.

[Terry S]

Hmmm, yes the hand launch idea dose scare the hell out of me but if it works ok....
If it is possable to pre spin with enough enegy to go VTO then transition to normal flight then that is a much safer bet. Thinking about it my boy has a toy just like it, he pulls the string and the toy heli/rotor leaps into the air,the only question is would I be able to transition before the enegy ran out ? Its starting to look possable, remind me again, can autogyros fly hands free, are they as stable as planes ?

Terry

[mnowell129]

If you are doing this as a business I'd invest in either the fma autopilot or the
ikarus three axis gyro. I assume that you are trying to do business not be a hero.
For that matter the fma autopilot with a heading hold tail rotor gyro would
make your average helicopter hands off stable just as well, I'd do that before I went to the trouble to build a pre-spin capable vto gyrocopter. The only complexity you are saving is the tail rotor control and with a good heading hold gyro that is a non issue anyway.

The simple approach is to get a helicopter and an fma autopilot and a very good heading hold gyro. Buy some long flat bottom blades, go down a tooth or two on the pinion gear to turn the big blades and your are in business.
A gas xcell or similar will do this job all day long and with the fma and heading
hold it will take not a whole lot of skill to fly. Then you get true VTOL, heavy lift, runs on car gas, fly anywhere capability. A big advantage over the gyrocopter will be the ability to point the nose somewhere other than into the wind, this should be a big advantage to photography.
With the autopilot and heading hold all you'd have to do is correct position drift with the wind, the gyro would hold the nose on station, the autopilot would keep you level. How much easier could it get....
Heck, You come up with the gear and I'll set this platform up for you RTF for a small fee....

[Terry S]

Yes it is a close call and the heli may still win but I always like to explore every ally way. I do have a Vario Benzine heli which is very good but it is noisy and hard to hold stable at long range while taking pictures (I cant do it !) where a plane is easy but needs lots of space to land. The answer may be to invest in some autopilot gear to hold it for me, ive been looking at the carvec system. I surpose an autogyro just looks like a midway machine to me, a third choice, not to replace the long range plane or the hovering heli.

[mnowell129]

I fly both heli and gyro, in forward flight I find the stability identical, they are both rotor craft. All rotor craft are longitudally unstable so they are going to
behave the same way at distance. There's no such thing as a trimmed, hands off rotorcraft, something called negative airspeed stability takes over, also there is not such equivalent to dihedral in a rotorcraft. The pilot is in the loop all the time. A free flight rotorcraft is possible by making the instability time constant long enough that it lands before it goes unstable, but eventually all rotor craft need flight correction.
The autopilot idea in your heli increasingly sounds like a good idea....
The gyrocopter at far distance will be almost as busy to control at distance as the heli...

[Terry S]

Looks like I was barking up the wrong tree again ! There were 2 bits of info I found which led me to believe that a autogyro was hands of stable. The first thing is that because the air is passing up though the rotor and not being pushed down it was stable and the other thing is that the cone shape poduced by the rotor blades under load was the same as dihedral. Is this not true for r/c maybe ?

Terry

[mnowell129]

Doesn't matter which way the air moves through the rotor, it is always
long term unstable and demands correction by the pilot. The frequency
of the instability is long so the pilot has the time to correct but nevertheless it is not hands off stable like a plane, ever.


You have in fact stumbled on one of the 10 great myths of gyrocopters, that being that the coning is like dihedral. This couldn't be farther from the truth. Because of rotating wing effects when you have a gust that makes your gyro roll, the coning instead of applying the correct restorative roll command actually applies an up or down elevator command. A rotor rotating CCW from above when gusted to the right, tends to respond with an up elevator response, when when gusted to the left tends to respond with a down elevator response. This is because the coning angle makes the blade at the front of the aircraft's direction tends to rise 90 degrees later. If the aircraft is slipping to the right or left the leading blade becomes the blade at the side and 90 degrees later when it rises it is either at the front or back of the aircraft. This does not apply the correction necessary, in fact the pilot has to apply two corrections, one to correct the roll, one to correct the pitch induced by the slip. Coning is DESTABILIZING. This is one more case to have weighted blades and higher rotor speeds because they both cut down on coning.
Bottom line is that it takes some form of autopilot to make any rotor craft as stable as your basic 3 channel trainer airplane.

Ooops I've posted another chapter in the Book of Mickey (according to David R)...

[Matt Chester]

If you don't mind the money there is a stabilized platform for sale at
http://www.rctoys.com/draganflyerxpro.php, it can carry one pound.
It is ready to fly but pricey ($5000!).



Sorry to get off subject, but....

Do you know of anyone around here or of any threads were people have built something like this at home?

I believe this would be a great AP platform and maybe just what I am looking for, but $5000 is not doable for me right now.

[Terry S]

Matt, that thing looks simple it just uses gyro's to hold it stable in all axis !

As for the auto gyro bit it sounds like contra rotors would be a big advantage ?

Terry

[mnowell129]

Contra rotors would cancel the coning effects somewhat, but they would
be fighting each other with different correction. You would probably experience a loss in lift when this occurs and get a drop in altitude from
a side gust.....I still think you are better off with a single rotor and an autopilot.
Contra rotors have other issues, namely the top rotor is operating in the
upwash of the lower and is much less efficient. Getting the trim and contol
would be challenging.
You have to start wondering if all the design/build/test time isn't better spent on $199 for a heli simulator and learning to fly.
A big gas helicopter is fairly easy to fly, especially with modern electronic aids. I figure that about 2 weeks of daily practice and you'd be all set....
To build and test this big gyro would be a month or two of design/test/rebuild at least, you could be flying 3d with a helicopter by then...

[mnowell129]

Sorry to get off subject, but....

Do you know of anyone around here or of any threads were people have built something like this at home?

I believe this would be a great AP platform and maybe just what I am looking for, but $5000 is not doable for me right now.
There's some info at
http://www.nyblimp.com/roswell.htm
not a lot, but a little background.
He has parts and rotors but he still owes me part
of an order from July, BUYER BEWARE AT NYBLIMP.COM....

[Terry S]

OK OK I get the picture, the heli it is !
I can fly a heli in hover and ciruits but Im not confident at long range, partularly with an expensive camera and trying to line up shots, that why I was looking for an alternative. I will concentrate on looking for flight aids for it. Thanks to all who have replied to this thread.
The 4 rotor thing just uses gyros to control the speed of oppersite rotors to keep it level, if you want build it bigger you would be better off using pitch adjustment instead of speed.

Thanks again, Terry

[mnowell129]

Just to be clear. I love my gyrocopter. I love my helicopters too.
I'm not biased one way or the other, I'm just trying to be fair from
an engineering/business perspective. Model helicopters are mature
technology. Model gyrocopters are not, as evidenced by the multitude
of different designs. For $300 you can get a built ready to fly helicopter, that all you have to do is charge the batteries. No such gyrocopter equivalent exists, this is indicative of the relative maturity of the two kinds of models.

A 2 meter, .5 kg payload capable gyrocopter is a substantial design, that
does not offer significant advantages over a large gas heli. It has several distinct disadvantages : no VTOL, no hover, cannot fly sideways.

By the time you have designed and debugged this large design you could be well on your way to being an expert heli pilot. Further, there are plenty of 16 year olds that can fly a heli to your specifications until you are capable yourself.

I'm trying to think like a business person, not a modeler.

[David A Ramsey]

Well I just love reading the Book of Mickey!

I still feel the Autogyro would make a great Camera Base. Much better than an airplane. Between the Helicopter and the Autogyro, I'm just much more comfortable with the Autogyro. However I too feel the Helicopter is the most versatile Camera Base of all.

Terry S: Thanks for provoking Mickey!

[mnowell129]

Well I just love reading the Book of Mickey!

I still feel the Autogyro would make a great Camera Base. Much better than an airplane. Between the Helicopter and the Autogyro, I'm just much more comfortable with the Autogyro. However I too feel the Helicopter is the most versatile Camera Base of all.

Terry S: Thanks for provoking Mickey!
The painful thing, is it isn't that hard to provoke me.

[Terry S]

Just when you thought you were safe ! I got another idea/question, is there any advantage to the twin rotor side by side design ? I have seen some that have the rotors tilted inward like dihedral, can this be trimmed hands off stable ? Dont worry I will stick to the heli for the serious stuff ! Until now the best STOL plane I have flown is a biplane but it just dose not look the part of a hi tech camera plane....

Terry

[mnowell129]

I have experience with exactly 1 side by side. My engineering observation however is that it tends to wallow in dutch roll due to the way it is controlled. The way it turns is it yaws, then the forward rotor speeds up (this takes time) then it rolls. In a windy situation this thing is a total mess because the rotors are speeding up and down way out of phase with the
dynamics of the body. My little single rotor just purrs along wherever I point it and my buddy with his dual is busier than <pick metaphor here>.
A big gyro would be fun experiment, i'd still put an autopilot on it for camera work however.
mickey

[Terry S]

Thanks for your observation about the dutch roll, its not something I had thought of but it dose make sense. I wonder if this is always the case, anyone else got any experiance with these ? I still think a gyro could work well but as you said it will take a lot to get it sorted. If I can make up my mind on a design I may well have a dabble.

Terry

[mnowell129]

my vote is still a large model based on heli mechanics...

[Terry S]

Yes it appears the foolproof way of getting a working autogyro. Tell me is there a 'correct' angle required between the rotor saft and prop thrust line or are they all different ? What would be the effect if the angle was too great ? Or too small ?
Thanks again,
Terry

[mnowell129]

Mine is 120 degrees, too shallow and you have trouble maintaining rotor speed, too far back you have no way to keep the nose down. I think the tiltback angle for best performance is greatest with the smallest models (smallest l/d) and less and less for bigger models.
mick

[Terry S]

From that I assume there is a connection between this angle and the pitch of the blades too, maybe 2deg neg at 120deg ?

Terry

[mnowell129]

From that I assume there is a connection between this angle and the pitch of the blades too, maybe 2deg neg at 120deg ?

Terry
There's a connection, but not a simple one, involves airfoil, rpm, flight speed, tiltback angle, etc. etc. My method is to build in pitch adjustability from the beginning rather than trying to shim, etc. I use metal blade straps for fixed pitch and bend them with pliers. Helicopter mechanics with collective have the advantage that you can adjust the pitch from the radio, a definite advantage, further the best pitch setting for spin up is different from flight so this would be a real help.
The really easy thing is to start with a heli and put a rudder and motor on.
An easy learning experiement would be to buy a hummingbird elite collective pitch ($99) strap on a motor, bigger blades and put a rudder out back, then once you've got the drill figured out scale up to a 40 sized gas bird and lather, rinse, repeat.
mickey

[Terry S]

I may try to use some ECO 8 bits I have left from the sale of my heli. I have a complete ali rotor head and the Kontronik brushless motor so that should be a good place to start ? As soon as I have time I will give it a go.

Terry

[mnowell129]

I may try to use some ECO 8 bits I have left from the sale of my heli. I have a complete ali rotor head and the Kontronik brushless motor so that should be a good place to start ? As soon as I have time I will give it a go.

Terry
Sounds good to me. I'd start with blades that are 150% of the length
of the original heli blades. Try to hit 2.5-3 ounces / square foot of disk area.

[Terry S]

Boy thats a tall order, even with 600mm blades I need to keep the weight under 2.5 lbs. My complete rotor head with blades is about 0.8 lbs, motor and controller 0.6 lbs, 10 cell battery pack is 1.3 lbs. Im over weight even with no radio or airframe !
it looks like I will need to get some more LiPo's to even get it off the ground let alone carry any payload what so ever. Is there any way it can be made to fly with a higher disc loading ? Maybe higher rotor speed / more engine thrust ?

Terry

[mnowell129]

Boy thats a tall order, even with 600mm blades I need to keep the weight under 2.5 lbs. My complete rotor head with blades is about 0.8 lbs, motor and controller 0.6 lbs, 10 cell battery pack is 1.3 lbs. Im over weight even with no radio or airframe !
it looks like I will need to get some more LiPo's to even get it off the ground let alone carry any payload what so ever. Is there any way it can be made to fly with a higher disc loading ? Maybe higher rotor speed / more engine thrust ?

Terry
Yes, you can fly faster at a higher disk loading. Just makes everything faster. The other way to slow down is go to a four bladed head. You could find an after market 4 bladed head that would probably work, ditch the flybar. Then you'd have to add extra blade weight. My rule of thumb is 1.25 ounces/square foot of disk area/ per blade. A four blader can probably stand 5 ounces/sq foot disk area.
I'd go to helihobby.com, heli-world.com, or century-heli and get some 700+ flat bottom blades and start with two blades. When you do this also make the flybar 150% long so you gain authority back when the whole rotor system is slower than when a heli. The head will probably stand the load because as a heli it is turning 1500-2000 rpm. As a gyro it probably will turn << 1000.
With 700mm blades spaced out another 100 mm you get a 1.5 meter diameter, or about 19 square feet, at 2.5 ounces/ft^2 this is 49 ounces.
At this size the L/D is going to improve. I don't have a good metric at this size but I'd guess the 2.5 oz/ft is conservative. So if you let is expand to 3.5 oz/ft you are up to 68 ounces. Basically 4 pounds. Having autorotated helicopters in that size range this "feels" right, but this is just a guess.
It definitely is worth a shot to try something about this size.
I'd definitely do lipo's especially since the bigger ones are available.
At 4 pounds I'd start with 400-500 watts.
The apogee (www.parkflyermotors.com) 4160 2s1p lipos are good for 44 amps continuous, weigh 200g. Two of those is 12 volts at 44 amps, roughly 500 watts input. Total weight 400g. < 1 pound. A 3s1p would be 300 g,
9 volts at 44 amps, ~400 watts.
Make sure that you prop for large diameter, low pitch.
Get this one flying and search for a four bladed head while you learn to fly.......
mickey

[Terry S]

I need to use what I have until I know what I need as I am in the UK and prices are higher here. Its funny but the heli used to fly around easy on 1/3 throttle when in forward flight so I assumed as a autogyro of the same size it would do the same. I think I will use the 60cm blades in place of the 47cm ones and just see what happens...

Terry

[mnowell129]

heli in forward flight is more efficient because the rotor inflow is from
above, so there is a net turn down of the incoming air, like a wing.
This allows less power in FF than in hover. Gyro is opposite, up flow is
having to be turned down to make lift, not as efficient.
A 15 degree nose down heli in FF is using 10% of the rotor lift for
motion.
Assume 4 lb of heli, rotor needs to make 4.5 lb lift, 4 lb to lift, .5 lb to pull forward. Efficiency of the 1 meter diameter propellor used for forward flight is very good.
Same gyro at 4 pounds needs 4 pounds of lift to fly. If the rotor makes
4.5 pounds, the .5 lb is backwards due to tilt. Because turning the rotor consumes a lot of power the motor (with now a much smaller propellor) must ovecome the profile power of the rotor plus the rearward tilt component. This really means that the aft tilt is higher than the forward tilt of the heli to get the same lift. Assume that its double, 20%. Now we need 5 lb force from the rotor. The motor now has to overcome the profile power of the rotor (same as heli) but the tilt force is the wrong direction and the motor must overcome this also.
So in the heli the .5 lb force that happens when tilting is useful thrust. In the gyro the .5 lb force from tilt must be overcome by the motor.
Add to the that that now you are making forward thrust with a 10-12" propellor at much lower efficiency than the main rotor on the heli and it all adds up.
Gyro takes more power in FF than helicopter. Probably a contributing factor as to why gyrocopters are not commercially successful even though less complicated than a helicopter. Complexity is a one time up front cost when building. Fuel burn is an recurring operational cost. Also range is an issue. Fuel burn per mile traveled will always win in commercial ops. By the time you build a jump takeoff collective pitch gyro you have most of a heli anyway. The addition of another driveshaft and tail rotor as far as maintenence is a small price to pay for true VTOL and lower fuel burn in FF.

[Terry S]

GOSH !....At this rate I will be building another heli. I would like to see first hand what an autogyro can do though...anyone in the s/w of the UK got one ?

Thanks, Terry

[mnowell129]

GOSH !....At this rate I will be building another heli. I would like to see first hand what an autogyro can do though...anyone in the s/w of the UK got one ?

Thanks, Terry
I'm just trying to be realistic. Most people find a screwdriver that they like and walk around looking for a screw that fits it to turn. My attitude is to look at a problem and find the best solution. Too many people get religous about what they are currently flying/desiging/working on because they have a lot of effort expended. This does not always match the problem.
The bottom line: Gyros take more power to fly than heli's, don't VTOL, and are only slightly less complex. The small "direct control" head designs take way too much servo power when scaled up so you have to resort to heli controls anyway. They are more stable in a straight line due to the rudder out back (something you could fit to a heli), But a $89 heading hold gyro will
do the same thing at any yaw angle necessary for your purpose. There are no commercial kits of gyros so you have to do your own engineering. They are not that much easier to fly than a heli, especially with electronic training aids. The only additional flight skill needed for heli's is hovering, flying around in forward flight is about the same.
The gyro is great fun, its why I tackled it. It just doesn't make a lot of sense from a commercial perspective for aerial photography. A reasonably competent pilot can fly either one with similar amounts of training and the capabilities of the heli are far greater.
Still if you choose to experiment I'm happy to contribute.
mickey

[Terry S]

Yes you are right some people get a favorite aircraft type/model in thier head and think its the answer to every task. I try hard not to be like that but I also try not to be a sheep and just copy what every one else is doing. I will probably stick to the heli and planes, I may even build another biplane as they are very manoverable and have good stol performance, plus I know they will fly ok. That said I have the main parts for an autogyro so if it dosent take too long to build I may as well go for it. Thanks for all your help Mickey, I have learned a lot. I will let you know if I build it.

Terry

[Terry S]

Just one more question, do I need to have a rudder or will a fin be ok on its own ?

Terry

[mnowell129]

I find a moveable rudder very necessary. For slow flight the rudder is all I use, sometimes cross controlling with aileron to get slow turns.
You could probably do with just a fin but be limited to faster flight and have a real handful in a crosswind landing. Because I fly in my street between trees, I'm forced to land crosswind often, the rudder is VERY helpful in this situation.
mickey

[Terry S]

I thought that would be the case but I didnt want to add one for nothing.

Thanks, Terry