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Even during the busiest times of my life I have endeavored to maintain some form of model building activity. This site has been created to help me chronicle my journey through a lifelong involvement in model aviation, which all began in Mayo, MD ... |
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Using a Heading Hold Gyro to Improve Takeoffs |
  An
excellent article appeared in the December 2010 edition of
Model
Aviation that addresses the problem associated with trying to keep your
tail dragger tracking in a straight line during takeoff. The author, Ben
Lanterman, an aeronautical engineer, describes the physics of what causes
the sometimes disastrous weaving and bobbing down the runway during takeoff,
and then describes his solution to the problem. As you might expect from
an engineer, the solution is high-tech, but simple enough for anyone to
implement. Ben recommends using a low cost heading-hold (HH) type gyro in
series with the rudder servo to keep the plane on course, in this case the
E-flite EFLRG110HL (even cheaper models can be found). The article in
Model
Aviation includes photos of two dozen models in which he tested the
scheme. All were successful. As his well-made video documentary demonstrates,
even the most notoriously troublesome airplane, such as the Bf 109, is able
to take off in a crosswind without ever touching the rudder.In case you do not have access to the article and decide to try it on your own, a strong caveat is issued by the author whereby the pilot must connect the gyro to an auxiliary channel (along with the rudder channel) in order to be able to switch off the gyro once the model is in the air. Otherwise, it makes handling very difficult... if not impossible.
Posted November 20, 2010 |
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