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What a stroll down memory lane. I saw John Moody do his infamous loop at
Osh. Later, I saw some chap attempt a foot launch in his Easy Riser and he
tripped at the runway edge - the pressure to merge with the other departing
traffic, combined with crosswind, got to him. Fortunately he was OK, but
some damage to his Easy Riser.

I still have fond recollections of foot launching at Coyote Hills Regional
Park out in Fremont, CA. Times were simpler and more fun - everyone seemed
to be willing to help each other. The image of a tree-branch enema made me
spew tea on my keyboard. Thankfully, I never thought of that as I retracted
the gear all those years ago. :-) Once I did land gear up while in a prone
position - smack into a clump of Poison Oak. The scratches on my forearms
helped the Poison Oak get a good start. But it was a nice landing. :-) I
was trying to extend my glide and misjudged the energy reserve to climb and
drop the gear in time.

Michael Pilla



Hey, Mike...remember the GRADIENT? upon landing? Very few people know
about that. Only a hang glider pilot really knows what happens when
you drop through that last 15 feet and your headwind drops by 15 knots
and you drop like a brick. Only people who have ever flown that slow,
with a 18 knot stall speed are effect by that......or are they?

Get this. In a helicopter you could give a **** less what the
gradient is during the last 15 feet. You are at a high power setting
and no dependent upon the flow of air over your rotor disk. So, all
of the helicopter CFI's who teach helicopters have never really feel
that loss of airspeed in the last 15 feet like a hang glider pilot
does. In a hang glider in a 20 knot wind, you pull the ****ing bar
all the way in on your approach and pray you have enough ground speed
so when you go through the gradient you can flare.

Here's how it bites a helicopter CFI. He goes out on a day when
there's a 25 knot wind and does autorotations into the wind. At these
altitudes and temps the DA is about 6000 feet. In an R-22 you need to
carry a good 65 knots in order to have the energy at the bottom to
stop the descent. So, here comes Mr. flight instructor to demo an
auto rotation. He carries his 65 knots but then goes through the
gradient in the last 20 feet. He loses 15 to 20 knots of airspeed,
tries to flare and nothing happens, he just punches into the ground
in a nose high attitude.

In the auto rotation, it's the only time the helicopter flies like an
airplane...a slow airplane at that. These kids don't know about the
gradient. Helicopters are fun to fly in the wind. In fact theya are
more fun to fly in the wind (so are gyroplanes). But, there's the
gradient to deal with. In my gyrocopter I come in at 45 knots. Many
times in the last 10 feet I lose 15 knots. When that happens, it
takes everything there to flare and stop the descent.

All the hang glider flying I ever did is directly extrapolated to
gyrocopter flying and flying a helicopter in auto rotation. Most
CFI's in helicopters don't even know this. They get 500 hours total
time and they punch in one day, wondering why the flare did nothing to
stop the descent rate.

For those of you who don't fly helicopters this is the deal: You
can't do an autorotation straight down, pull pitch at the end and stop
the fall. If you do that, you die.

You need to have engergy in the forward direction in order to have
enough to stop the rate of descent by flaring. In fact 90% of your
total energy is in the kinetic energy you have by forward motion at
the bottom when you need to land. It is NOT stored in the main rotor
system at all. Only about 10% of what you need is in the main rotor
system. You need that 65 knots of forward motional energy to flare
and stop the 2000 fpm rate of descent. If you lose that airspeed
because of the GRADIENT, you can't flare. Just like in a winged
airplane. If you get too slow on the flare, you plop on.

There is nothing like a Trike, or a hang glider, or even a gyrocopter
to teach you this.

In airplanes it's not that big a deal. As you go through the gradient
in a normal airplane you are doing 70 knots or so anyway. So, a 15
knot decrease just makes a harder landing, it doesn't kill you. IN
fact you may not even know what happened to you and just think you got
unlucky a bit due to wind of some unknown origin.

You ****ing Jet Jocks like PAC never know anything like this. Hell,
you *******s land at 140 knots. A loss of 15 knots or so is nothing.

Flying a hang glider that stalls at 18 knots is where you really feel
it. You pull that bar in for dear life to get all the energy you can
muster in a head wind. You might get 30 knots. Then when you lose 15
of it, you are 3 knots below stall. You throw the bar all the way out
and pray you don't break your ass.

So, that's what I have to say about that.

**** ya all! and To all a good night.

BWB