Rotary Wing XC question

[AggieMike88]

With all of the folks travelling long distances to attend Gaston's and then meeting Brandon the helicopter instructor, I got to wondering about this question...

Longer cross country flights with fixed wing are common (say something like Dallas to Houston and further).

How common is it for rotary wing?

 

[bnt83]

With all of the folks travelling long distances to attend Gaston's and then meeting Brandon the helicopter instructor, I got to wondering about this question...

Longer cross country flights with fixed wing are common (say something like Dallas to Houston and further).

How common is it for rotary wing?

Are these cross country machines?

R22 Beta:

Max Airspeed 102 knots

Max Range 250 nm

I think it would be very fatiguing myself. Kinda like riding in an unairconditioned gas combine. After three hours I've had enough.

(An R44 ride reminded me of this combine we had, the sound and vibrations were so similar )

 

[Velocity173]

For private trips? I have no idea. Not the most efficient or comfortable way to fly. Plus, just not as many private RW vs FW.

Military / commercial? They go cross country a lot. I've flown all over Europe. Think the furthest nonstop was 700 NM with aux tanks.

I've ferried aircraft several times in the states. Sometimes a short 45 minute flight. Sometimes several States. It's not too bad with an AP but the noise / vibration does become fatiguing on long trips. Hard to beat the visibility in most RWs also.

 

[AggieMike88]

I guess I'm thinking more non-military and either private or charter op.

 

[Gerhardt]

Long XCs aren't common, mostly due to expense. My longest was around 150 miles (300 rd trip). It's very fatiguing to the right arm, even though your wrist is resting on your leg.

 

[Art VanDelay]

Collective friction goes a long way toward solving that. I've covered some pretty good distances in an old whiskey model Cobra. Of course uncle Sugar was footing the bill for that too.

 

[Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe]

Cross country by gyrocopter doesn't look too bad. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj-ivhpjeSj7Qpqi8MHF-RA/feed

 

[DJTorrente]

Cross country by gyrocopter doesn't look too bad. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj-ivhpjeSj7Qpqi8MHF-RA/feed

Thank goodness someone got that poor girl some clothes. It wasn't a year ago that she had to fly without. (https://vimeo.com/111389739)

 

[Vance Breese]

Longer cross country flights with fixed wing are common (say something like Dallas to Houston and further).

How common is it for rotary wing?

It depends on what you consider longer cross country.
It is not unusual for me to fly 400 to 600 miles one way in a gyroplane.
How high, how far and how fast are not as interesting to me as what I can see and how much fun it is to land at a strange airport. The destination is my excuse to fly; I see no reason to hurry.
One of the gyroplanes I fly a two place enclosed side by side with a Rotax 914 has 26 gallons on board and typically burns about 5 gallons of gas an hour. I prefer stopping more often than every four hours.
The other, a two place open tandem with a Lycoming IO-320 burns a little over 6 gallons an hour and has 22 gallons on board. If I climb to 7,500 feet she can run along at ninety five knots indicated air speed. I prefer to be five hundred to one thousand feet above ground level and wandering along at sixty five to seventy five knots.
I like to see the countryside and feel the weather changes. I like to have time to circle around something interesting.
I fly out of Santa Maria (SMX) and there is beauty in three directions. Most of my flights are less than three hundred nautical miles and I fly around three hundred hours a year.

 

[Ted]

Most private helicopter pilots will use their helicopters for buzzing around and counting cows, similar to how someone would use a Cub. That said, there are a number of helicopter pilots who own a helicopter and will do XCs, just like someone who owns a smaller piston single might use it for longer XCs. Mostly it's about the fun.

For commercial purposes, helicopter long XCs are common. Usually it's because the helicopter needs to get ferried from one job to another. People don't charter helicopters to go long distances because it's slow and expensive. They'll more likely charter a fixed wing and then charter a helicopter at the destination, if needed. This was what some of the oil guys I used to fly around on charters did. We'd fly them from small airport #1 to small airport #2 (about an hour by Navajo), they'd hop in a 206 to take them to their destination.