Yep, that's right. Due to personal issues I have been unable to work on the infamous YG4-powered Air Command tandem that I rolled over taking off from a sandbar off Tybee Island near Savannah three years ago. Happily, the issues have been resolved and I am untethered and free to rebuild the gyroplanes. The 2003 RX1 YG4 140hp engine was sold a good time ago, replaced with the same thing, and I got it running a couple of weeks ago.
Installed a AK7 gearbox, 3.47:1 ratio, a GT4 roller clutch, and a 68" 3-blade Warp Drive and completed 5 hours of ground testing so far this week. Pulled off the AK7 and GT4 and did an inspection, and I am putting it all back together this afternoon to continue testing. The new GT4.3 clutch features Delrin bushings in place of the earlier stainless steel drive stud pockets I used last year on the GT4.2 They look to be holding up just fine, and a friendly customer has given some other sources for more exotic plastics which I will look into for the GT4.4 parts run.
I finished rebuilding the rotor head and got it installed. Next, I've also removed the RFD tall tail from "The Slipper", my other Air Command tandem that still has the Arrow 110HP 2-cycle engine on it, and plan to trim the Wicked's tail keel several inches and install this flying tail, and the Dragon Wings 28' that belong to the the Slipper. Sorry, my dear lady, but you are going to have to wait until I get the YG4 beast back up and screaming before I can turn attentions and love your way.
That goes for the Blue Bee, as well. I have purchased a YG2 80HP for that sweet little single place gyrocopter, and expect to take delivery of it next week or two, although I told my vendor to take his time pulling & shipping. I built a YG2 kit for a customer who put it on a Quicksilver in New Orleans. So I decided I wanted one.
Got a call from a guy in Pennsy yesterday...he wants the Wicked. Hmmm.
I am building a 165 HP YG4 with EXUP exhaust for Geoff Resney, PRA Ch18 Indiana. He dropped of his tandem Air Command last month, I am hoping we will have it ready to fly at Mentone this summer. This will be the most powerful gyroplane in the world when it is finished, HP-to-weight.
Another project I am deep into is a YG3 Turbo, 185-200 HP, for a gyroplane in Nebraska. If I can get this one working, and that is a BIG if, folks - there are MANY hurdles to jump over to get this thing flying, trust me - it will replace Resney's as the most powerful gyroplane.
I am already looking for more EXUP YG4's. I want one for myself, and intend to install it on the Slipper. This is absolutely the best engine for an aircraft ever built in the under 200 HP category. It will blow the pants off of anything else flying, guaranteed. It lends itself to gyro use better than FW, so I doubt it will gain the attention that my original YG4 project garnered in 2011-2013.
After my YG4 kit blew everyone away by winning every STOL competition and walking away with Grand Champion Airventure 2018, business has been great. But I am taking a step back and going to make time for my own project so I can get back into the air on a regular schedule again.
Many thanks to Jon and Alex for my biennial at Barry's last week, I'll be ready to jump in and take off just as soon as I get those 28-footers a-spinnin'! Photos coming next.
wow. I just was going to post updates for this project. Sad, the last line.
Anyways...
Yikes. This was from May 2019! What happened?
The Wicked could probably be flown by now. Probably could have been flown two weeks ago. But ya know, I got into cosmetic crap and I've been sanding, painting, cleaning, polishing, replacing ugly nuts n bolts with shiney new stuff.
Man, this baby is lookin goo-o-o-d!
Oh. I should mention, that since this thread was introduced to apparently no audience at all, since there are zero responses, then I am writing this in a dark closet to no one reading at all.
I was running the engine on the gyro testing my clutches, locked down on the trailer hooked up to the blue Durango, when I refueled it one day, started it up and walked off to work in the hanger. I fogot to turn on the radiator fan, it was running at 8000 ERPMs for 15 minutes when BLA-A-A-A-A-GH! the thing overheated and by the time I shut it down the engine was toast.
Found another YG4 RX1 with 300 miles on it. Like a brand new engine! It is beautiful.
So...with such a pretty engine I just had to make the rest of the gyro sparkle, and so the most recent delays in getting the Wicked air born are because the engine is just so darn pretty. Bottom line.
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When I ordered the Godzilla vinyl stickers for Geoff's 165 HP EXUP Air Command, I ordered these for the Wicked.
Hopefully we're good for WRENS.
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Per the President of EAA 172, Wrens is a go at present. Dates are on the event calendar.
Some rebuild photos...
Oooh, carpeting.
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Isn't that all snuggly n soft looking? It all weighs just a few ounces! You can get it at Lowes or Home Depot. I rain tested it, it doesn't hold water and dried out completely in a day.
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Took the mains apart, cleaned, painted and shined everything. 4 years sitting in the hanger worth of dirt and cobwebs gone, along with regular flight grime accumulated before that.
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One of the wheel pants didn't survive unscathed, so I guess it is scathed. Scott McNeil came by the other day to pick it up and take it back to his shop to repair it. Since they build fiberglass swimming pools, Scott's pretty darn good with that stuff.
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This one's OK though.
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Made a custom fit cover for it. If you want to make one, be sure to buy a natural white vinyl tarp so your hot melt glue will stick to the poly, and not pull away the painted tarp. Lesson learned. I've used hot glue on the white carport tarp and it has survived tornado gales. This one is not so tough, but the camo looks cool so I'll just keep re-gluing it together where it pulls apart.
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The brake shoe broke in the wreck, so I cut off the remaining arm on the vertical band saw, then trimmed the broken stub and made a smooth pocket from the rough casting on the mill. Then fashioned new arms to attach to the torque tube from 16g mild steel and bolted it to the shoe body with AN3 hardware.
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Replaced the old oil tank mounts with a new design that worked out very well on Geoff's Godzilla. The old oil tank got replaced as well. What the heck? I had the new one with only 300 miles on it, may as well put that on too!
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Nice push tube clearance, and the tank has a pocket in the back that makes for good airflow to help cool things off in flight.
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The lower mount is hobby brass tube which I like and have used on this mount on several builds. The brass is much softer than aluminum so that it doesn't crack as easily under heavy vibration, plus it gives it that steam punk touch. I paint all of my aluminum and brass parts with clear lacquer to keep them looking spiffy for a long time. The aluminum gets bead blasted, then coated immediately. When the sun hits it it dazzles like metal flake paint. I hate polishing raw aluminum, it takes way too much time which I don't have to devote to such frivolous foolishness. That's for someone else to do who has more time to spend on such foo-foo stuff than I do.
Wish I did have that kind of time on my hands though, polished aluminum sure looks good.
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Main strut before & after.
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That gallon jug is 200 proof ethanol.
99.999% pure drinking alcohol. It costs $113.00 a gallon. And yes, it'll take the paint off your car. I get it from my wife's lab at USC, she brought home two gallons when COVID got serious, I got one for my shop she got one for the house. Mine is never used to fight viruses. After bead blasting and blowing the silicon dust off aluminum parts with an airgun, I lightly rub a clean, lint-free cloth soaked with the pure alcohol to prep for painting.
This will not cause corrosion since the alcohol contains no water. This won't work with cheap over-counter alcohols you get at the liquor store or drug store.
Here is a good source of info on ethanol and fuels. https://www.dragzine.com/tech-stories/engine/clearing-up-myths-about-e85-and-ethanol-16-things-you-need-to-know/
Me thinks the cause of the rollover on Pelican Island off Savannah was a broken steering bearing.
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This next photo shows how TINY the steering bearings are! This one below is one from the parts bin, not off the Wicked, just to show you what one looks like before it is broken. This on is a bit shorter, but other than that it is the same. This is all that Dennis Fetters provided on these Air Commands! I looked it up and found out the load rating is a wimpy 360#, and taking off from a grass field can easily break them.
I checked mine before taking off every time in a routine pre-flight, so this one must have broken the day I took off to do my first touch-and-go at Pelican Island.
Oh, well.
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Here is what was installed to replace the wimpy Oilite bearing, this one is a high-load capacity Oilite bearing which is rated at twice the load of the previous one. It took some doing to fit the larger bearing, but it wasn't all that difficult.
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The species Vancius Buggus.
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I'm not sure if bugs are prohibited by the "Acceptable Use" document, but they probably should be. Especially arachnids...and mosquitoes.
These little red bodied beasts have six legs. On closer inspection they also sport yellow polka dots on their abdomens although none of them were caught doing the Hokie Pokie. I think they are a hatchling batch, beetle variety, as I saw a larger, similar thing wandering around shortly after these were spotted on the bottle - which, BTW is an empty, clean jar in the shop. No idea what they were doing on it. Just checking out progress on the Wicked, I suppose.
Nose wheel completely rebuilt, you'd never recognize it. Before, this had a small, plastic rim 8.5" junker which set my nose down 1°. With this larger 12.5" Razor Mod scooter wheel I wanted to use the nifty axle included in the shipment and so spent an extra day or two designing and milling the fork ends. Now the fron keel is nose up 2°, while the rear keel is bubble level. Sounds strange, I know. The uptake is literally an uptake, and tilts the whole kit n kaboodle a total of 3° catching the wind as take-off is approached, which I expect will shorten take off runs.
I also shortened the tail keel a good foot, and the rebuilt the tail wheel with a 2.3" Diameter high-po skateboard wheel. They came in sets of four, with excellent bearing sets, so I have plenty of spares. This all makes for a more angle and I won't have to be nearly so precise with the stick balancing on the mains.
Photos of the nose wheel rebuild follow, the tail wheel will post tomorrow I think.
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The Front Fender is not a guitar. It is the towing eye, connected to the gyro frame for easy trailering.
I got these plastic beads that melt together in hot water at 150° and molded some tube caps out of it that snap onto the top of the engine frame.
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The Mother Ship hovers overhead.
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Outstanding
John, I haven't seen nor heard from you in YEARS! Are you coming to Wrens? Hope to see you there.
Compare this photo to the first engine photo up at the beginning of the thread. I just wiped it down with some Mother's Mag & Chrome polish. These cam covers are magnesium, and they rarely exist in used condition as pristine as this.
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I got the rotor trim hooked up, and have been beating myself up working on the rudder-nose wheel-pedals connections and cables. Very frustrating, spent two weeks on this alone. The nose wheel spring plungers keep separating when I try to turn.
Arg. Arg i say. Arg.
Gotta get this problem licked if its ever going to fly at Wrens this month...
I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.
Made a discovery: The cable linking the front pedals to the rear pedals had 1/2" of unnecessary slack. Ground off the copper cable crimps very carefully, and took up the slack, swaging new crimps in place.
Mischief managed! The spring plungers stay in place while the rudder and wheel have a full 25° swing both left and right, 50° total. A Frenchman posting on RF.com provided the info that shows that regardless of AS, after 18° anything more is useless.
Except that the nose wheel makes the rudder turn that much, so what.
For some reason I had it in my head that under 60 MPH airfoil stall angle increased. It just seems counter-intuitive that turbulent flow is the same no matter the speed.
Time to hook up the final fuel line connections.
Running out of excuses...
A word of encouragement.
Outstanding!