On Sun, 13 Dec 2015 06:37:37 -0800, Charlie M. (UH & 002 owner/pilot)
wrote:

"In the unlikely event of a total loss of electricity or total failure
of the onboard electronics, causing to stop all motors at the same time,
the Volocopter of course can not autorotate to the ground like
conventional helicopters. In such an inconvenient situation, the pilot
can activate the Ballistic-Rescue-System, which brings him gently to the
ground by parachute, together with the Volocopter."

Yes, I missed that. Fair enough.

As to "Auto rotate" in "conventional choppers, you need height and/or
forward speed for it to work (as far as I know), if your're hovering
low, you're sorta "along for the ride" straight down. :-0

I don't know enough about choppers to comment. I'd be interested to see
what anybody who flies them has to say about this: there must be some
inertia in those blades.

BTW, it looks as if the BRS system has a dead zone if deployed from a
slow or stationary vehicle. The rocket extracts the canopy and shrouds,
leaving them fully extended but the canopy still has to inflate. If you
look at videos & photos of BRS deployment, you can see that prompt
canopy opening depends on the airspeed of the aircraft being rescued. In
the material I've seen, the aircraft still had a fair amount of airspeed
when the BRS was fired so the canopy was filled while still being trailed
by the aircraft. As a result height loss during inflation was minimal.
However, if its deployed from a hovering Volocopter, the whole rig would
fall until the canopy had inflated.

Personal view: given than BRS landings seem to be quite hard, the thought
of flying something to which the only way out of any type of emergency is
"fire the BRS" is not reassuring.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |