ronlund
Senior Heliman
Location: Corpus Christi, TX
| I think they are standard blades. Fiber Filled is another way of saying plastic. It might be better plastic than some, but it's still plastic.
If you aren't doing fast backward maneuvers, it probably won't make much difference. And, depending on how aggresive your gyro is...smaller blades might make it fly better.
In the days before heading hold gyros, the size of the t/r disk was just as important, but the tendency was to go as small as you could and still have enough power to do the maneuvers. Now that we have heading hold gyros and super fast servos, the tendency is to go as big as you can without touching the main blades.
If you've ever stuck your hand out of a car window, while doing 60 mph, you can get the idea of what the t/r disk is going through when your heli is going backwards really fast. As long as you keep it parallel with the air flow, it doesn't make much difference, but if you change the angle, you can't hardly keep it from going up or down. The bigger your hand, the more force the air puts on it. I use to strap a piece of cardboard to my hand and do this out the window of a 1950 Buick doing 80 on a gravel road while my Dad drove. Funny how you can remember things like that, but you can't remember what you had for lunch yesterday...anyway....back to t/r blades...
With a slower servo and a non aggresive gyro setting, you don't stand much of a chance going backwards at 60 mph regardless of the size of the t/r disk. That's because the gyro can't act fast enough to keep the t/r "parallel with the wind", and once the wind catches it, it's all over...the t/r gives up and the gyro "let's go".
With a smaller disk, it takes less force to keep it going the right direction, but if you do want to do a slow, constant rate travelling pirouette, you won't have enough tail rotor authority.
My advice is to try them, you might just like them.
Hope this helps
Ron |
