Pilawt
Final Approach
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- Sep 19, 2005
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Pilawt
I have some first-hand expertise with this beast. I got as far as soloing it back in 1971 (s/n 3 or 4, I believe), even had my only aircraft accident in it. It was built by a well-known industrial company, not known for building aircraft. The production line was in the same plant where some of its popular consumer goods were made.
It was advertised to have the advantages of both fixed and rotary-wing aircraft; in truth it was beset by the disadvantages of both. It had a 180-hp Lycoming engine with a wooden pusher propeller, an autorotating rotor system modified from that of a Hughes 300 helicopter, and cruised at 95 mph. Capacity was two and a toothbrush. Range was about 150 miles, if you could stand the mind-numbing noise that long. It could not hover; it needed 1200 feet of runway to clear a 50-foot obstacle on takeoff (after a 45-second hold in position on the runway to spin up the rotor), though only a few dozen feet of runway for landing, and could spot-land in a gentle headwind. You could autorotate at zero airspeed with full control, but you would be going straight down, quickly.
Though the brochure featured a studio-staged photo of a paramedic hopping out of one of these to tend to an "injured skier" on a faux snowy slope (who gets to stay behind in the snow: the skier, the paramedic, or the pilot?), the POH prohibited takeoff above 4,000' pressure altitude, prohibited any operation above 8,000' pressure altitude, and for good measure limited takeoff and landing to hard-surface runways.
About sixty of these were ultimately built, an embarrassingly high proportion of which were involved in serious accidents.
What was it???
-- Pilawt
It was advertised to have the advantages of both fixed and rotary-wing aircraft; in truth it was beset by the disadvantages of both. It had a 180-hp Lycoming engine with a wooden pusher propeller, an autorotating rotor system modified from that of a Hughes 300 helicopter, and cruised at 95 mph. Capacity was two and a toothbrush. Range was about 150 miles, if you could stand the mind-numbing noise that long. It could not hover; it needed 1200 feet of runway to clear a 50-foot obstacle on takeoff (after a 45-second hold in position on the runway to spin up the rotor), though only a few dozen feet of runway for landing, and could spot-land in a gentle headwind. You could autorotate at zero airspeed with full control, but you would be going straight down, quickly.
Though the brochure featured a studio-staged photo of a paramedic hopping out of one of these to tend to an "injured skier" on a faux snowy slope (who gets to stay behind in the snow: the skier, the paramedic, or the pilot?), the POH prohibited takeoff above 4,000' pressure altitude, prohibited any operation above 8,000' pressure altitude, and for good measure limited takeoff and landing to hard-surface runways.
About sixty of these were ultimately built, an embarrassingly high proportion of which were involved in serious accidents.
What was it???
-- Pilawt
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