I've talked about my black box before.
Haven't needed it so all the components have just been sitting waiting to be assembled.

I don't really need it for it's intended purpose but I figured out a use for it as a gift to all of Vance Breeze and my rotor-head friends.

So I put it together and it is now waiting for me to fly Patches up to Vance where I'm going to fly with him and let him borrow it so he can wrap up the gift to all of you!

What is it?
And what is the gift?

Oops I forgot to upload the picture.....

I told all of you what this is for about a year ago on the angry forum.

Yup, alive and still singin'

Here is a hint... Look under her skirt!

I know I know its an electric bong for Jake??

Has something to do with air pressure, at a minute level.

I am gonna guess it measures airspeed. The reason I think this... is measuring through two tubs... one is the constant, the other is measured.

We use electronic manometers in the heating and AC business... to measure 'TESP'
That is Total External Static Pressure... or the amount of resistance to airflow in the ductwork and equipment.
Generally the gadgets can read to .01 (that is one/hundredth) of a WC (water column) inch...
There are around 32 WC" to an oz of pressure.

A ducted heating and AC system should not have more than 5-6 (better 3-4) TESP... which works out to a very small amount of airflow resistance.

.

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Its a breathalyzer


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Maybe a vertical speed indicator and flight data recorder as well?

That makes sense also...

However we know us Gyro folks do not drink and fly... LOL

We have a winner!!!

Good one.. but it is a complete Flight Recorder! G-meter, GPS, Airspeed indicator, GPS Airspeed, GPS Course, barometric pressure altitude, GPS altitude, and more.

Now what is the gift?

Man you were so close!!!

A 20 minute 'joy flight' in a rented Nissan?

A tracking device?

satellite phone converter (smart phone to satellite phone converter?

DANG you are good....

Wrong... But I like you idea and do need one of those and I could use it for that too.

No this gift is for all gyro heads!!

Hint think of what Vance does!

Annoy people?

Vance and I have gotten into at least twice but he is still a good friend we just do not think in the same terms.

Yes, I always got on very well with him, until a couple of days ago, I challenged a certain UK member about a report posted making gyro fraternity look stupid and incompetent, he edited out a lot of relevant important stuff that shone a positive light on us..... anyway I challenged him over it, now Vance is dirty on me and picks on anything and everything I say.... same with a few others that used to be ok with me, but now they are all guns blazing

However, I have had some supportive pm's from a few people whom I respect, which counts for everything in my book.... and now all of the information as to 'why the numbers appeared so bad' is all there to view, the thread has gone quite positive, so that is important to me as well.

I doubt many think on the same terms as Vance some nice friends have pm'd and said he is normally quite amicable, so I hope we can just carry on as before once all the bullshit dies down

You have lost me with the black box thing its 5am, so I am off to bed in a minute.... the cockpit recorder is a great idea well done on that bit

The only thing I can come up with is that since Vance is so incredibly concerned with flying by the numbers that this device will allow him to basically write a POH for a given aircraft.
"Lets see, after going through checklist 17 a sub part iii I am ready to roll down the runway in my cavalon...at exactly 11:02::15 am I rotated at 56.765 mph and my front wheel was.airborne for 23.231 feet before my back wheels becam equally airborne." "I am completely awed at the awesomeness of flying and marvel that I was able to acomplish this in under 24.675 feet!" "I better go post this,now"
John, i think fondly of both you and Vance, but do you not see the pandoras box your about to crack open?
Life is short, there are only so many minuets one can devote to reading posts in a lifetime.
Bravo on the box,
But upon us you have a pox
Giving this to Vance, the pilot of lore
Is sure to only subject us to a terrible
......

Good on ya Muz! He pretty much banned me because Vance cannot think in general terms.

The 3rd time I just let are differences drop but at least understood why he did not get it!

I had posted that by continuing prerotating too 300 RRPMs after you let off the brakes at 200 RRPM that it was also a safety feature if the pilot followed best pilot techniques.
Blades cannot flap if they are turning faster than you can accelerate!

Why because you cannot accelerate faster than your blades are rotating at 200 with power constantly be applied to the rotors much faster than your ground speed.

Best pilot technique meant that as soon as your off the ground you lowered the angle of attack to straight and level while you gained airspeed.

But I did not spell it out for Vance or anyone else as I assumed best pilot techniques explained it.

It did not explain it to Vance's mind he wrote back basically no it would not. Because blade flap is made up of many components like angel of attack, power setting, ground speed, etc.

Really Vance we all knew that. He cannot think in general terms and exclude the factors like angel of attack even thought it was explained to him that angel of attack has be assured to not increase with best pilot techniques.

It hard or he and I to communicate as even when I try my best to exclude all the factors Vance and I both know about. He CANNOT exclude them as the pilot is doing everything right so they do not apply!


I believe it's his brain injury and I cut him slake unless I NEED an anwser to my question.

Good one Ben!!!

I do not think I could guess either without knowing how the Flight Data Reorder could save the data!

So I will tell you all about the Black Box Project.

PRA 31 is building many gyro's and when we fly the 40 hours off we need to make our own POH Pilot Operation Handbook.

This Black Box will record each flight exactly as it is flown and removed the test pilots notes and ground observers too and will print out graphs that we need for the POH for us as a feature of it's software.

Vance posted on Facebook a plot of his Airshow flight it looked like a kid scribbled dash lines over the air-box and I could not really tell in 2-D what maneuvers he flew.

Then I realized that this data recorder also allows me to save the data as a Google Earth View of the flight. It should let all of us see what Vance sees and or you can look at a side view as if flying along side as Google Earth let you change you view.

So if it works as advertized the next airshow he flies we will all really be flying with him!!!

This view on Facebook will be used by PRA for cross-marketing to other groups like motorcycles etc. Any A type personality like me will want to do this is my hope and to enjoy the show as the pilot is cool!

Also any PRA chapter that would like to use it for they POH's just let PRA know and it's there.

I do need to adds some port for recharging and USB port to the outside of the Box. As now you have to open it up and could plug things in back wards.