I think I mentioned it somewhere else before, one of the Canberra guys had a machine that couldn't fit under his garage roller door. The ceiling in the garage was high enough, but the roller door when rolled up, hung down 14" or so. So he would take 2 of the 3 bolts out of his tail boom and loosen the third, then lift the tail up so the fin was nearly at the rotor head, then lean the whole machine backwards until the tail wheel was on the ground (had a brace to hold the keel to the rotor head).... then he would push the machine under the roller door (the instrument binnacle fitted under the rolled up door) on the main wheels and tail wheel... then he would put the machine back on the mains and nose wheel and let the tail back into place. He just had drilled bolts on the 3 rear keel and used castle nuts and pins..... that worked well for him (no good with a tall tail tho)

Thanks Muz
I can see where that would work well but the folding mast also gets
rid of the trailer issue at the same time while reducing vibration and
stick shake. I hate vibration. I have had to repair far to many things
over the years where vibration eventually caused metal to crack.
I have also seen it cause problems with electronics.
Everything in this world seems to involve some sort of compromise.
I prefer a bit of added weight to the other issues.

I have a sportscopter and an 8 foot garage door. Takes me a little less than one hour to remove the rotor from where I hang it up close to the rafters, lock the mast upright and reattach the control rods.
Cut a piece of metal to hold the mast in the folded position using the mast bolts.
Remember to fold it down enough that the pitot tube is low enough to clear.
Headed to Gonzaga bay today, where the gyro lives, and will try to remember to take some pictures.

I got back from Chicago last Sunday. It ended up being a bit longer trip than I anticipated.
Some of that was due to working in extreme heat and some of it was due to the fact that
the project grew and plans changed a bit as we progressed.
I did take off work for one day to go to Mentone. None of my crew came along.
One of my guys is a avid gyronaut but was just to beaten down from 7 day work weeks,
long days and the heat. So was I but I spent half a day at Mentone any way and the
day away from the job was nice. Gave me a bit of a recharge.

There was less of a crowd at Mentone than I have ever seen before even though I
was there on Saturday and that is normally the biggest day of the event.
I saw some old friends and made some new ones and also saw some nice gyros.
It was sad not to see Chris and FJ. He will be missed by a lot of us for a long time to come.

I met some of the folks from Silverlight Aviation and got a close up look at the AR1.
I must say they are a great bunch of folks and they did a VERY NICE job with the AR1.
If I could have afforded it I would have ordered one right there on the spot.

After a couple more days of rest and giving my back a chance to get a little bit better
it will be time to get back on the gyro project and my CNC mill conversion.

I will post some pictures a bit latter.

Marc

I started to clean my shop today and clear a path to the gyro project. It has been a busy year
and the gyro was taking up a lot of valuable work space just so it eventually got a lot of stuff
piled around it due to the fact that it seems about impossible to get any parts from Aviomania
to work on it.

I guess that at this point I will start making my own parts even though the stuff from Aviomania
is bought and paid for.
As A starting point here is the fold over mast kit from Sport Copter.

Nice! Marc make sure you take pics as you get things done.
I really want to see how it turns out.
Way to gooooooooooooooooo

Okay, so when I had my Sportcopter (Im sorry ol gall, you deserved better sniff sniff)
I would park it in my garage and it went something like this..
Take off rotors and put in box.
Undo only the top set of control rod hinge bolts
Undo mast main bolt
Put all bolts and washers in zippie on front seat with correct wrenches (buy extras for just this purpose)
Fold mast down CARFULLY and make sure the rotor head doesnt hit nothing.
Slowly pull it into garage making sure as rdover said to turn pitot tube down to the side.
Then once chocked in garage, RERAISE the mast and use a big smooth screwdrier to put through mast bolt hole to keep upright.
I never liked keeping the mast down for long as it put lots of jimmywhack on the prerotator shaft.
Also, if you were planning to transport with mast down in an enclosed trailer, you MUST make a soft padded brace to strap the mast in place...dont let it bounce up and down or it will damage the mast and plates.
Also if transporting folded for long distances, undo all the control rod bolts. They are easliy damaged at the aluminum hinge.
Hope this helps.
HB

Gabor I will keep the posts coming as things progress.

Henry THANKS I am sure you have given me at lot of good advice in your last post
and I WILL keep it in mind.

Today I am afraid the project will be shifted to making a bit more progress on the CNC
mill conversion. That should make it a bit easier to make some of the parts needed for the bird.
So far I have the ball screws installed and a new milling head but I still need to do a lot of work.

I expect to put about a week into the conversion before it is finished and then some time into
learning to work with bobcad. I think it to be a really slick way to design parts and write
the code for CAD machining.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7GJVKCKE5k

I also got a copy of bobart

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMxly2V5M5Y

It should be nice for the instrument panel.

I went with a cnc conversion from MachMotion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHx4jDgJtTo

I guess I will finally bring the shop into the 21st century.

Marc

I have been moving ahead on the CNC conversion. It has been a slow process.
My 2 guys have been off for the past week and my wife who usually works in the
shop has been feeling under the weather for the last week so it has been a 1 man show.
I am moving at less than half speed beacase my back still hurts like hell so the whole
project has been moving in slow motion.
here are a couple of photos but be warned my shop looks like a bomb went off.

Marc

Good stuff Marc.
There is nothing wrong with that shop.
I like what I see there!

The only thing I can see missing....

Is a pole....

So you can have some nekkid pole dancing girls over to help keep your mind on the job?

Looks awesome .... time to get some chips flying

It's Alive !!! What a uphill battle. We got the mill running yesterday.
Just a few more things to calibrate today and the CNC will be ready to run.

Got all the motors mounted,all 3 axes working and almost ZERO backlash.
Had to do a lot of software and firmware updates. The last firmware updates
were a PITA. We fought with those updates almost all day yesterday. Ended up
having to entirely remove the anti virus software to get the last firmware updates to install.
Just shutting it off did not help.

I still don't understand why it had to be removed but we tried it as a last act of desperation
and it worked!!!

The compressor for the central air died last week. I guess that working in the heat did
not speed up the progress. I should have a new one in a few more days.

I should be able to get back to working on the gyro soon.

I will post some pics soon

Marc

BTW that mill is the first tool that we purchased for the machine shop.
around 25 years ago.

It feels good to have it back in service again.

I got it new and the old girl has paid for her self many times over.

And now it's better than ever.

Here is a video my friend Dennis did of the first test cut we did with the new CNC setup

Kind of a dull end mill is in it and we have it feeding super slow on a piece of wood for testing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrYGdS7 ... e=youtu.be

Way to go Bro!!!

I disagree with the weight up high being a problem?

To me, weight up higher will raise the center of mass of the airframe suspended below the rotor.... to me, that sounds better than having the weight lower?

I say just fit it where it best suits, for folded height etc.... the added weight position is a non-issue imo...

Hay John how's that working out? Any Pictures?