I want to build the most EVIL plane EVER !!!

Flyingmonk wrote:
Matt, just FYI only, many of us actually lost good friends in that
machine (mini500). In my case Gil Armbruster, so for some of us it
hits close to home. I guess you wouldn't understand unless you were in
our shoes.


This is what happened to Gil, show me where we were at fault;


RHCI INVESTIGATIVE FINDINGS
The pilot had installed his Mini-500 “Power Enhancement Package” (PEP),
and against RHCI’s severe warnings, chose not to use the provided jet
package containing a 2.76 needle jet. Instead he installed a 2.78
needle jet which meant that he needed a 155 main jet to achieve the
proper EGT in hover. RHCI informed the pilot that the engine would
seize with this small main jet, when at high-power settings it could not
supply sufficient fuel to the engine, causing it to heat and seize. The
main jet should have been a 165 or 170. Also, he had erroneously set
the needle in the third position on the cylinder that seized; the other
was correct in the fourth position. He was flying over a forest when
the engine seized, and autorotated into a 50-foot tall tree. The impact
broke the mast and the aircraft fell and landed upside down on the ground.

NTSB Identification: IAD99FA023
Accident occurred Nov-29-98 At Midland, VA
Aircraft: Armbruster Mini-500, registration: N500GH
Injuries: 1 Fatal

This is preliminary information, subject to change, and may contain
errors. Any errors in this report will be corrected when the final
report has been completed.

On November 29, 1998, about 1515 eastern standard time, a homebuilt Mini
500, N500GH, was destroyed during a collision with trees near Midland,
Virginia. The certificated private pilot/owner/builder was fatally
injured. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed for the local flight
that originated from the Manassas Airport (HEF), Manassas, Virginia. No
flight plan was filed for the personal flight conducted under 14 CFR
Part 91. A family member reported the pilot missing after not returning
from his normal 40 to 45 minute flight. The pilot's vehicle remained
parked outside his hangar the next morning, and the Federal Aviation
Administration issued an Alert Notice. The Civil Air Patrol's search
discovered that tower personnel at HEF recorded the helicopter taking
off at 1400. Witnesses stated that they saw the helicopter near Leesburg
Airport, Leesburg, Virginia, about 1430, and near Nokesville, Virginia,
about 1500, on November 29th. The helicopter was located on December 2,
1998, about 1530, in a wooded area approximately 1/4 mile
north/northeast of the Warrenton-Fauquier Airport, Warrenton, Virginia.
A survey of the debris field discovered that the initial impact point
was the top of a 50-foot tall tree. Tree limbs, measuring 4 to 6 inches
in diameter, were cut horizontally and found near the base of the tree.
One of the helicopter's rotors was lying on the ground near the tree;
the other was snagged on a fracture tree limb about 30 feet above the
ground. The main wreckage was lying on its left side between two trees 5
feet apart, and about 35 feet south of the initial impact point. All
major components of the helicopter were found at the accident scene.
Examination of the flight controls revealed continuity at the time of
impact. The engine logbook indicated that in August 1998, at 200.4 hours
on the Hobbs meter, the owner replaced both pistons, rings, wrist pins,
rod bearings, thermostat, and head o-rings. The Hobbs meter in the
wreckage read 218.7 hours. Inspection of the engine revealed two
different types of spark plugs were utilized, one of each type in the
two cylinders. The spark plugs were wired such that one magneto fired
one type of spark plug. Rotation of the crank shaft revealed 4 point
scuffing on the cylinder and the Power Take-Off (PTO) piston.

Matt Whiting wrote:

Same engine, same design, MUCH better manufacture MUCH better
performance. The mini500 is a copy of this design (Mr. Cicarre' CH7)
w/ a miniature MD500 body on it and different skids, but everything
else was the same with exception that the Mini was manufactured and
overseen BY Fetters. Where Mr. Cicarre actually knew what he was
doing. If you look at the above picture, you can see that the chopper
is capable with that engine.


This makes no sense at all. Exactly what did the mini-500 design do to
hobble the engine? If the designs are essentially the same, then the
engine isn't going to know the difference. If the performance really
was dramatically different, then SOMETHING had to be dramatically
different between the designs. And saying that one was overseen by one
person and one by a different person, isn't a design difference.

Matt


As you can see, it simply makes no difference how much I post, prove or
answer, these few people that keep spewing the same things over and over
again will never change their minds, no matter how compelling the facts
are, if contrary to what they want to believe. We can all see that, so
there is no need to try and change their minds. If I say it's day, they
will argue it's night somewhere in the world.

I have already answered each and every question or false allegation put
forth here, so no need to keep answering the same thing over and over, I
have work to do and these few people posting to this thread are lost
causes anyway.

But, you asked the difference between the CH7 and the Mini-500, so
please allow me to explain. Engorging the history behind the politics,
here is the main deference.

1. There has only been around 60 CH7 helicopters manufactured. There was
over 500 Mini-500 kits manufactured.

2. Almost all of the CH7 helicopters were built, test flown and made
flight worthy by the factory. Only 4 Mini-500 helicopters were built by
the factory, the rest by the customers.

3. The CH7 helicopter had problems too, but with the small amount of
customers they had, meant fewer people when there was a problem to take
care of. 30 Mini-500's could get out the door before we could hear about
a repeat problem, so it was more costly to fix and affected more people.
Not an excuse, just a fact.

4. Nearly 100% of CH7 pilots were proficient and experienced in
helicopters and maintenance. 72% of Mini-500 owners were new helicopter
pilots, with less than 50 hours flight time and having their first
experience with a helicopter.



Simply put, the CH7 greatly benefited from being assembled and flown by
the factory and was sold at a much higher price that only allowed more
hightime helicopter pilots to buy it, and properly fly and maintain it.
The Mini-500 was built by customers that in 72% of the cases were
building a helicopter and flying one for the first time, after only
minimum flight training.

You guys add it up.

Another thing, I only post under my own name.


Dennis Fetters

Designer of;
Air Command 1/plcs Gyroplanes
Air Command 2/plcs Gyroplanes
Mini-500 1/Plcs Helicopter
Voyager-500 2/Plcs Helicopter
Excalibur 5/Plcs Turbine Helicopter
Star-Lite-A VTUAV Helicopter
Star-Lite-B VTUAV Helicopter

Morgans wrote:


:Mr. Cicarre and the later Ch-7 Angel's manufacturer's had better
:quality manufacturing facility and personnel than Fetters did. Fetters
:had problems with blades that bowed like a banana, rfames that cracked,
:bearings that gave out...etc.

And these problems killed engines?


A vibrating rotating system takes a lot more power to achieve a RPM than the
same system without vibration.

The common thread in the saga of the mini 500, is that there were many
poorly manufactured and machined parts, and that the vibrations were nearly
impossible to eliminate.

So you take the same design without vibrations; without vibrations because
parts are machined to higher tolerances, an perhaps some key parts are
"stouter" but of the same basic design.

Now the engine does not have to run overstressed (because of the lack of
vibrations), it will continue to run reliably. Parts don't fail because
they are not shaken to failure.

Accepting this premise is contingent on accepting that a non vibrating
system will run more RPM's with the same power compared to a vibrating
system. It is true, but I don't have time to look up cites, right now.


I guess that could be an argument, except for fact that Mini-500 owners
say that after they properly balanced it, it was one of the smoothest
helicopters they ever flown. Also backed up by Kin Armstrong of
KitPlanes magazine when he did a complete flight review at Sun & Sun air
show.


Dennis Fetters

Designer of;
Air Command 1/plcs Gyroplanes
Air Command 2/plcs Gyroplanes
Mini-500 1/Plcs Helicopter
Voyager-500 2/Plcs Helicopter
Excalibur 5/Plcs Turbine Helicopter
Star-Lite-A VTUAV Helicopter
Star-Lite-B VTUAV Helicopter

Montblack wrote:

How does one do this ...remove old posts and erase evidence?

Curious.

You could send out a *kill request* but not all servers honor it and
typically it only works on your own if you catch the message before it
propagates. Groups.Google.Com will remove your posts if requested to do
so from its archives. They won't remove the replies to your posts
however. If you don't want your posts archived put the following at the
beginning of each message: "X-No-Archive" without the quotes of course.
Keep in mind that replies to your X-NO posts will get archived
however... This is a holdover from Deja News who Google bought...

C.D.Damron wrote:
"Richard Riley" wrote in message
...

On 5 Dec 2005 23:31:28 -0800, "Flyingmonk" wrote:


If the two are really the same except for the body,


Don't you think that enclosing the engine has consequences?

Also, IIRC, the CH-7 uses a pair of Fiat radiators and electric fans.

Darrel Toepfer wrote:

Crosspost to brasil.unix deleted.

RKey wrote:

The Helicycle looks like a pretty good mini Jetranger to me.


Designer crashed demoing it

Flew into wires.

and then later died in another crash...

Crashed while already dying, heart attack or something.

Fetters wrote:
Another thing, I only post under my own name.

__________________________
From: "planeman"
Newsgroups: rec.aviation.rotorcraft
Subject: Mini-500 Accident Analysis
Date: 26 Jul 2005 11:59:38 -0700
Organization: http://groups.google.com
Lines: 13
Message-ID: . com
References:


NNTP-Posting-Host: 69.235.147.233
__________________________
From: Dennis Fetters
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2)
Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax)
X-Accept-Language: en-us, en
MIME-Version: 1.0
Newsgroups: rec.aviation.rotorcraft
Subject: Mini-500 Accident Analysis
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Lines: 2305
Message-ID:
NNTP-Posting-Host: 69.235.147.233
__________________________


As you can see, both:
"planeman" and
Dennis Fetters
both originate from:
NNTP-Posting-Host: 69.235.147.233 , where this number '69.235.147.233'
is unigue to each compunter, although he used two different email
addresses. He computer's finger print is there for all to see...

Dennis is not very bright. He's not even bright enough to know that he

could be traced. He's not even bright enough to go back and remove his

posts. He calls his critics idiots, but what an idiot he is. Too
stupid to even go back and erase evidence.

Montblack, If you use Google, just click on "show options" and click
remove. That's it. Idiot Fetters still claims that he didn't use
different names. That computer "finger print" is as good as DNA.

The CH-7's blades were better, they didn't bow like a banana. The were
bowing forward as you go farther from the root of the blades. This
changed the pivot point for the baldes, imagine taking a straight
bladed sword and rotating it, the tip and the rest of the sword stays
at the pivot point. Now imagine taking a curved sword and rotating it
the same way, you'll notice that the tip stays at the pivot point, but
the remainder of the sword will rise or fall due to the curve.

The CH-7's blades were fabricated better, they were more uniform or
should I say more consistent than what Denise was able to produce.
Being more uniform, and of the shape that they were designed, they were
easier to track and balance. This resulted in a smoother flying ship.
Denise couldn't get the blades to come out as designed. They were not
consistent they bowed where they shouldn't have and all this resulted
in problems when trying to track and balance the blades. I remember
that Gill had a hard time getting the baldes to fly smoothly.

I think this fact alone(bad blades) resulted in inefficient rotor
system, Unlike propellers, the blades of a helicopter changes pitch
continously, this resulted in "shaking" or unsmooth helicopter. The
shaking caused the frames to crack! Again, instead of addressing the
problem (bad blades), Denise added more metal to the frame in an
attempt to beef up the area prone to cracking.

Since the blades were not as efficient as the CH-7's blades, the engine
had to work much harder to get the same lift. That's where Denise came
up with the bandaid fix again, the PEP kit. Instead of tackling the
blade problem, he overworked the engine by PEPing it up. CH-7s didn't
need to be PEPed up.

That's my two cents worth.

Dennis Fetters wrote:
Flyingmonk wrote:

Matt, just FYI only, many of us actually lost good friends in that
machine (mini500). In my case Gil Armbruster, so for some of us it
hits close to home. I guess you wouldn't understand unless you were in
our shoes.



This is what happened to Gil, show me where we were at fault;

I never claimed anyone was at fault.


RHCI INVESTIGATIVE FINDINGS
The pilot had installed his Mini-500 “Power Enhancement Package” (PEP),
and against RHCI’s severe warnings, chose not to use the provided jet
package containing a 2.76 needle jet. Instead he installed a 2.78
needle jet which meant that he needed a 155 main jet to achieve the
proper EGT in hover. RHCI informed the pilot that the engine would
seize with this small main jet, when at high-power settings it could not
supply sufficient fuel to the engine, causing it to heat and seize. The
main jet should have been a 165 or 170. Also, he had erroneously set
the needle in the third position on the cylinder that seized; the other
was correct in the fourth position. He was flying over a forest when
the engine seized, and autorotated into a 50-foot tall tree. The impact
broke the mast and the aircraft fell and landed upside down on the ground.

Is the above correct? Was the carburetor jetting not what was
recommended? Was one needle not in the proper position? I'm not
familiar with Rotax engines and their carbs, but the Mikuni's on the
Kawasaki's that I have owned over the years, especially the two
two-strokes I owned, were VERY sensitive to jetting. One size off of
clipping the needle valve one position off made a huge difference.


NTSB Identification: IAD99FA023
Accident occurred Nov-29-98 At Midland, VA
Aircraft: Armbruster Mini-500, registration: N500GH
Injuries: 1 Fatal

This is preliminary information, subject to change, and may contain
errors. Any errors in this report will be corrected when the final
report has been completed.

On November 29, 1998, about 1515 eastern standard time, a homebuilt Mini
500, N500GH, was destroyed during a collision with trees near Midland,
Virginia. The certificated private pilot/owner/builder was fatally
injured. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed for the local flight
that originated from the Manassas Airport (HEF), Manassas, Virginia. No
flight plan was filed for the personal flight conducted under 14 CFR
Part 91. A family member reported the pilot missing after not returning
from his normal 40 to 45 minute flight. The pilot's vehicle remained
parked outside his hangar the next morning, and the Federal Aviation
Administration issued an Alert Notice. The Civil Air Patrol's search
discovered that tower personnel at HEF recorded the helicopter taking
off at 1400. Witnesses stated that they saw the helicopter near Leesburg
Airport, Leesburg, Virginia, about 1430, and near Nokesville, Virginia,
about 1500, on November 29th. The helicopter was located on December 2,
1998, about 1530, in a wooded area approximately 1/4 mile
north/northeast of the Warrenton-Fauquier Airport, Warrenton, Virginia.
A survey of the debris field discovered that the initial impact point
was the top of a 50-foot tall tree. Tree limbs, measuring 4 to 6 inches
in diameter, were cut horizontally and found near the base of the tree.
One of the helicopter's rotors was lying on the ground near the tree;
the other was snagged on a fracture tree limb about 30 feet above the
ground. The main wreckage was lying on its left side between two trees 5
feet apart, and about 35 feet south of the initial impact point. All
major components of the helicopter were found at the accident scene.
Examination of the flight controls revealed continuity at the time of
impact. The engine logbook indicated that in August 1998, at 200.4 hours
on the Hobbs meter, the owner replaced both pistons, rings, wrist pins,
rod bearings, thermostat, and head o-rings. The Hobbs meter in the
wreckage read 218.7 hours. Inspection of the engine revealed two
different types of spark plugs were utilized, one of each type in the
two cylinders. The spark plugs were wired such that one magneto fired
one type of spark plug. Rotation of the crank shaft revealed 4 point
scuffing on the cylinder and the Power Take-Off (PTO) piston.

Was the NTSB wrong about the spark plugs? It doesn't say what the
difference in "type" of plug was. Again, the Kawasaki's I've owned were
very sensitive to having the right heat range of spark plug, especially
the two-strokes. Change from one heat range to another made a big deal
with these engines.

Matt