How many Hops ?

[Bob]

Rotor
I read your posts about doing Hops and was wondering .... Just how long are you going to do Hops ?
...

I'm to the Hop stage as well , though just starting it having had truble getting the gyro to get off the ground in the first place has slowed me down alot .

also I'm courious how you count your Hop time , you use an hour meter or something ? wild guess or what?
....
I'm a bit discurraged tonight, seams everything is working against me to get to fly this silly gyro... I think I'ed be alot better off if I made it into a helicopter ( I'm serious) I've already devised a way to do it , and I'm fairly certain it'll work, but I think I'ed rather go with something simple like a gyro if I can hehehehehehe !
another 2 or 3 years of building the thing doesn't intrege me one bit ! HAHAH !

C ya !
Bob........

[rotor]

Bob,

Ok, I was about to give you a run down on what training I have done but on second thoughts I'll stick to your question. I got my licence about 6 months ago now so even though I don't need to do hops, I sort of practice them. Every time I go to the strip I will do a full length with my blades up to flying speed and balancing on my wheels barely touching the ground - I do this to get the feel before taking off.

I did hops for about 10 months not being able to train anywhere near to where I live and what with work commitments, only getting to a strip maybe 5 times over that period. All in all I did about 30 hours of practice, bearing in mind my gyro at the time had the wrong prop and wouldn't fly out of ground effect anyway. Once I put the right prop on I did hops until I could take off and fly to about 150 feet and land again before running out of strip.

Ok hops. The hard part about hops is giving it enough power to get of the ground to do their first hop. It's a hurdle that can take a little while to do. The first hop I did wasn't counted because I horsed it off the ground and did an "S" down the runway after I pulled the power of to quickly. Like your little episode I still had one wheel on the ground for most of it and was very lucky to have been able to follow the machine and stay upright - bitumen strip also.

Once I got onto a grass strip my first hop was only what seemed about 1 metre along the ground (it was actually about 10 metres), up and back down before I knew it and was left wondering "Was it airborne or had I imagined it?" but it had been. That was the hurdle I had to get over. Once that was behind me I had no problem (except that it was a VW) winding the power on and doing a hop.

Your a bit discouraged. Their wouldn't be a gyro pilot that wasn't discouraged at one stage or another during his training. And you haven't begun your training, that'll happen once your off the ground! I don't like to say this but youl get worse before we get better - and luckily for us that was with an instructor watching carefully.

I use a Hobbs hour metre in my gyro to keep track of all the time. Either that or a stop watch - most rotor counters we use are push bike speedometres and have a stop watch built in - perfect for the job.

Hope this helps ....

[Bob]

Thanks Rotor !
Then I have a bit less time in it as you except for the fact that the hops I did do were alot shorter in hight like feet ...not yards ! I was adimate about reduceing the throttle as the wheels left the ground .... its relitively easy for me to get the beastie into the air if I have a head wind , very dificult if i don't .... I was planning to get out of ground effect this last time for the first time ever ...takeing her to about 10 feet or so if I could mannage it ( which I know I should have even been thinking about )
... but one screw-up cured that quickly... it must be nice to have all that room to play in.... I'ed realy love to hook the gyro up and travle to a dry lake in Nevada and spend a day or two messing with the gyro where there is ROOM to menuver ! unfortionately I dunno where the dry late is located ... I know there are a few out there
One in Sothern Nevada I used to ride my dirt bike in when I was alot younger .
.... with the lack of instruction and lack of instructors here I don't expect any consideration to use the bigger dirt strips arround ... as they are usually in use all the time and to be honnest I don't want alot of people or obsticals arround !

Practiceing / Reherseing old things is what keeps Us sharp... I recomend it highly ! every time I go out to run the gyro I start from square one .... amd make sure there is no problems doing any of it
sense I'm still in the proccess of learning it its not completely reflex yet .... but its getting there ! .... I am happy to report that my reflex was correct the other day... at first i was wondering if it was or not , but it definately was.... if I'ed have poked the rudder the other way I probly would not have flopped it over , but may well have hit the trailer in the proccess ! ... next time we'll park further away !!!!!
I look at it as one of those learning experiences , I do know that the thing will get off the ground on her own now ! so thats good ! heheheheh

Its funny how so many people think the Rotex 447 is so weak it won't get the gyro off the ground at 4800 ft in elevation .... but it can and does .... weather I can fly away from ground effect is something else completely !
the strip I use is asphalt and not quite 2000ft long its about 30 ft wide and not as smothe as glass by anymeans, however its the best place arround ...PERIOD ( the only place arround !) off the side of the runway is realy rough... lotsa rocks , dust and knee high brush in places.

anyway back to the Hops ....
when I am accellerateing into a hop I ( usually ) have it on the tail wheel and the stick foward to the point that the front wheel is almost to drop down.... thats what I call ballanceing on the mains .... I have tried to keep the tail wheel off the ground but its simply impossable with the machines configuration .... maybe other gyros can , or simply a person with more skill can , but I can't and I've given up trying .... anyway I continue to accellerate to the point the gyro leaves the ground at which time i reduce throttle by about one quarter... to maybe one half ... I don't chop the throttle to idle .... this usually results in a hop of about one to two foot high and stright and level... I have never had to correct for sideways drift while in the air so I realy don't know how fast it will react.... but the other days incident makes me think I might better be ready to do so !

the next stage I plan to do just about the same but prolong the hop a bit and work it from there
it definately looks like I'll be doing Hops the rest of my life at this stage , but its still the way to go for me ... don't have much choice to do it any other way !

I plan to lengthen the hops out till I fly the entire runway .... Once there
I will have to change my stragity to accomidate the available room .... any hop more than 10 feet and I think I'll run out of run way....getting back down
so more than likely it will be Up and arround every so carefully and back down... still thinking on that ... don't like the idea but not much of an option .

Thanks For the info Geoff !
stay out'a truble now eh ?

C ya !
Bob....