Insane Flight Characteristics (Video)(youtube.com)
youtube.com
Insane Flight Characteristics (Video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oaEEM42lzY
2 comments
My guess is that he used rudder to initiate the "spin" rotation. It would take careful inspection of the video to prove that.
Stall/spin recovery demo was educational...
I hadn't considered that a gyroplane would spin at all; I guess I assumed you'd get it flat and auto-rotate, where the air flowing through the vertical-lift rotor as it descends causes it to windmill, generating a lot of drag and hopefully some lift. You'd hit the ground harder than you might like, but would leave a smaller hole in the ground than a stalled-out brick.
For a brick, or an aircraft totally full stall, air moving over the control surfaces is too turbulent, or just too slow, to generate enough force to control the aircraft. Not only have you lost lift, you can't do much about it but hope to catch an opportunity in the resulting chaotic tumble to push you back towards controlled flight.
General-aviation aircraft designers spend a lot of time on stall and spin recovery behavior. I've flown in little planes with really forgiving spin a recovery. Even so, with a super experienced flight instructor, we practiced stall recovery with way more altitude than the pilot performing this remarkable demonstration.
I wonder what that gyroplane spin feels like!