Ultralight aviation provides an excellent pathway for those who want to fly, but don’t want to get licensed. These quite often cheap and cheerful DIY aircraft often hide some excellent engineering underneath. This is no more true than in [ultralight helicopter’s] four-year-long helicopter build saga!
While most ultralight builds are fixed-wing, a rotocraft can meet all the legal definitions of ultralight aviation. This helicopter is an excellent example of what’s possible with a lot of time and patience. The construction is largely aluminium with some stainless steel on the skids. A 64-horsepower Rotax 582UL engine powers the two-bladed main rotor and tail rotor. The features a multi-belt engine coupler and three gearboxes to ensure correct power output to the two rotors.
It features a control layout familiar to any helicopter pilot with foot pedals that control the tail rotor pitch for anti-torque control. A cyclic in front of the pilot controls the rotor’s cyclical movements, resulting in forward and sideways flight control. A collective with integrated throttle controls the overall main rotor pitch for altitude and climb control. Finally, a simple clutch sits next to the collective for engine start and idles.
The build was meticulous, with nearly everything from the swashplate to the gearboxes custom-machined. The balance and alignment of everything, from the rotor blades to the input trim, had to be checked. The build is a masterpiece of home workshop engineering.
We’ve seen ultralights before, so make sure to check out this electric fixed-wing ultralight next! Or, if you want really light, try foam.
That Redbull sticker reduces safety by factor of 10.
But it adds 10hp and +50% social media clicks.
Yes, this is an impressive build, but I would not call it “meticulous” or a “masterpiece” Weight of a helicopter is quite important and this once seems a bit heavy in a lot of ways. For example, why the (nearly) 1:1 multi V combined with the big gears on the top? The big steel gear on the top also looks like it’s some standard gear and could be made a lot lighter. The gearbox for that gear also has a very thick sidewall, while normally such walls are just a few mm thick, with thicker sections for where the bolts are.
Shaving off 20kg may not seem like much, but it directly translates to an increased flight time. Small helicopters need some 30 to 50kg of fuel per hour, so even 20kg is quite significant.
I did not see a website with more info. According to his youtube channel, the guy is from Switzerland (surprising). I’m not sure whether he designed the whole thing himself, or started with some kit. From the “roughness” of the overall design, it looks like it’s a completely DIY design. USA is quite generous in regulations around “experimental” aircraft. Here in Europe it’s a bit more restricted, but I don’t know more details.
Agreed! Even the R22 is mostly flown without doors for the same reason. With two people in there you can’t even fill the gas tank all the way and make gross takeoff weight.
I think it goes without saying this thing is a death trap but that’s not “bad” per se. Especially if self-designed but hey, that’s up to the dude building it. One major issue with small heils is the near complete lack of rotor head mass meaning the dead-man curve for autorotation is basically “engine quits you are now an unrecoverable rock in the sky”. Even the R22 has something like 0.6 seconds from motor trouble to falling meteor and that’s if you are high and/or fast enough already. Remember folks- Helis fly slow and low that’s kinda what they are for.
.
I do admire the fortitude of this guy!
I think “death trap” and “home-made aircraft” are synonyms at this point.
They say this is an ultralight. In the US any recreational aircraft with a single seat, 5 gallons (19L) or less fuel capacity, and a weight of 254 pounds (115kg) or less with a maximum stall speed of 24 knots does not require annual inspections, airworthiness certificates, or pilot licenses.
While technically correct, I’ve never seen these flown by anyone that built it themselves from scratch and had zero training or pilot license. I’ve seen a few at the small private airfield I used to use. They were all otherwise “regular” pilots flying ultralights as a side-hobby. Those look sort of like a hang glider but with a small chair and a big fan motor behind the pilot. Again, while not mandatory, it is surely in your own best interest to have a second party inspect your work and at least check for basic airworthiness. I’m also pretty sure no airfield would even gas up your creation without some manner of credentials. While “legal” no one wants some yahoo killing themselves on your property. Similarly, it is not legally required to insure an aircraft, but in reality-land no one will let you use their airfield or rent an aircraft without insurance, and yes, the owner/operator checked licenses, logbooks, maintenance records and so on. I loved that place.
My stepfather and I built a Bensen Autogyro from a kit in 86. In 93 we built an ultralight from plans, It was a fixed wing, not a hanglider “trike” type. When we bought the bensen the guy we bought it from gave us a 3 day crash course in flying it. When we built the wingflyer we had a friend who had been flying ultralights awhile give us a few pointers but pretty much just “winged it”. Ive owned 3 other ultralights and several PPGs since. I only fly PPGs now.
Airfields have never been an issue, We always launch and land on private property. Most hobby flyers Ive met NEVER fly into or out of real airfields, and most of them ARENT licensed pilots. Thats the whole advantage of ultralights, flying without the expense of licensing. I did have insurance through Avcover when I was still flying ultralights though I never had occasion to show it to anyone though as my only crash so far only damaged my plane and body.
Word to the wise: never take a “crash” course for operating any aircraft.
Your fuel consumption is ballparking a R44 (57L 41kg) to R66 (87l or 62kg) turbine aircraft both in the 200hp.
The total consumption of the 582 is given for 16L or 12kg per hour which is not great mainly because it is 2strokes. 100Hp Rotax are doing the same but weighs more.
So yeah weight is everything in helicopter but your assumptions are way off.
The pedals control tail rotor pitch for yaw control.
I remember seeing adds for personal heli kits/plans in the back of popular mechanics etc. never really heard of anyone actually building one.
As far as I can tell this misleading title card implies he flew it- it seems to be just a build log. Would love to see it fly – if anyone wants to put a timestamp that would be great.
Where did you go to get the blueprints of this project?
There are free plans online for this. I believe it is Furia
But it didn’t fly!
Adding the word “tail” there makes it easier to understand quickly.
Basically, pedals = yaw, cyclic stick = pitch/roll, collective = Z-axis (up/down) force.
Except, with manual controls, everything affects everything else, to some extent.
I wonder if the computerized controls available for RC copters are easily available for human-sized ones?
The computerized controls can make it so that the copter moves only according to the stick commands and is not affected by the indirect mechanical influence of other control actions. For instance, yaw can change during collective actions.
Production helicopters accomplish this with a mechanical mixing box, not computer controls
I have never flown a full size heli, but have flown an RC heli with modest proficiency. To say the controls are all tied together is super accurate. There is no such thing as a single control surface input like (simplified) fixed-wing. Just taking off straight up requires a complex interplay of throttle, collective, cyclic and tail rotor. Eventually it’s kinda like riding a bike but at first it makes no sense! Even in a stable 6′ hover with a mentor, pushing the cyclic forward does not make the thing go forward because… reasons, gyroscopes, something something physics.
Minute 2 or so of the video and I cringe at the single nuts being used (they are self-locking, but that rubber may fail because of the vibrations).
Landing gear has no amortisation or crumbling area in case of had landing.
He needs explosive bolts for the main rotor blades and a big parachute.
“explosive bolts and a big parachute” are pretty much useless for ultralight helicopters. When they fail they fall like a rock, and they are rarely flown high enough for parachute deployment to be practical.
No chance for auto rotation?
Just found a name for it: “head roller”.
Minimal chance for it to be effective, and then ONLY when there is the ability to disconnect the rotor from the drive, which few ultralight helis are designed to do.
All helis, even ultralights, have freewheel clutches (I think I saw it mentioned in the video). You REALLY want the main rotor to continue to spin if the transmission or engine seizes.
Most people think helicopters are way safe because you can just autorotate if you have a power failure. Unfortunately, for most heli flight modes, that just isn’t the case. In particular, you must have a certain amount of forward speed and/or altitude (total energy) to even be within the parameters necessary to autorotate. If you are going low or slow (or both) you simply do not have enough energy to autorotate, and you are for all intents and purposes a non-flying rock. Uncontrollable, too, as a bonus! And flying low and/or slow is most of what helis do.
.
Two examples: I live next to a river that the law enforcement helis fly over all the time. I actually talked to them at the “meet the cops” day in our community. They said that at the altitude they fly, if the motor quits they will ditch into the river instead of just crash into the city somewhere. Second example: the R22, by far the most common trainer heli (it’s garbage for that but cheapest to fly as these things go so is the most popular), at best and at sufficient altitude and/or airspeed has about 0.6 seconds from motor quitting to take all proper actions before the aircraft becomes an uncontrollable, unrecoverable ball of metal. If you are too low or slow like, say, takeoff, landing, etc… you get the idea. Boom.
.
Finally, all the above is improved slightly by higher rotor head mass, in direct conflict with every other goal of aviation and aircraft design. I’m not an aeronautical engineer, but with all the above, if this thing ever flies, it will have a deadman curve (airspeed x altitude) that is basically a red box.
I agree with you that if you’re flying really low and have an engine failure, you’re going to have a bad day. I’m curious where you got the .6 second time to recover or die info. There is a company that sells the Mosquito Air ultralight helicopter and there’s a bunch of videos of them autorotating quite well.
I recall the 0.6 seconds number from when I was looking at even approaching learning to fly helicopters.
A quick search turned up a AOPA article, which states 1.1 seconds. So my memory from 20 years ago maybe was off by a half-second. still is not a long time.
.
“One second in a Robinson R22 could mean the difference between life and death. It may sound melodramatic, but it’s a fact. If the engine fails the pilot has 1.1 seconds to react. If he doesn’t lower collective to go down or pull aft cyclic to slow down and get air to come up through the main rotor, the blades will stall like an airplane’s wing and the helicopter will tumble.”
https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2014/february/20/advanced-autorotations
I cringe at your lack of education. Russia has been manufacturing ejection seats which work even at 0 m height since at least couple of decades. By the time of MiG-29 it was pretty much old news, but A MASSIVE SURPRISE for the US Government who were spoonfed bullshit by Boeing.
… and you think they are available to backyard hobbyists, and also they are light enough to work in a craft like this?
I cringe at your lack of education.
So you think that you can safely separate a helicopter rotor, put enough distance between it and the craft, and THEN launch a rocket powered chair out of the craft, attain sufficient altitude to then deploy a parachute, ALL while maintaining a 254 pound weight limit and NOT exceeding a 5 gallon fuel limit. I cringe at your lack of education and your delusions of adequacy.
FWIW the 254 pound limit is airframe structure and does not include safety items, so if you take your 253 pound ultralight and add a 22 pound ballistic recovery system, it still counts as an ultralight.
FAR 103.1.e.1: “Weighs less than 254 pounds empty weight, excluding floats and safety devices which are intended for deployment in a potentially catastrophic situation;”
@smellsofbikes
A ballistic parachute is NOT a russian ejection seat system that user Hussein arrogantly implied would be applicable. Id be shocked if the FAA allowed that extra 227 pounds to be ignored as safety equipment.
A ballistic parachute would be extremely difficult to implement in an ultralight hobby copter as you would still need to eject the main rotor and deploy the chute. At the altitudes these are typically operated at you the chance of you being able to use it effectively would be pretty slim. Though you are correct, the weight would not be counted to the 254.
Could 1/2 pounds or less of high explosive around the main shaft do the separation job, then launch a rocket parachute (it could separate the canopy from the susteining chords, but how do you fill the canopy with gas? Bigger car airbag system, a gas generator capsule).
Children, you are making something complicated that the FAA has already addressed. You shouldn’t be a pilot, licensed or otherwise.
Auto rotation is if it’s rotating, some of that rotation is used to provide “lift” like a wing. Moving forward above stall speed you stay in the air, control. A wing or rotor will not provide lift just sitting there (static).
This. Is. Awesome.
I wish I had the spare time to put into this like he did, its a bucket list item to build and fly my own ultralight helo, like one of the Composite-FX series.
Been noodling around with solid works to try and come up with a synchromesh version, similar to the Flettner Fl 282 Kolibri (Hummingbird) developed by the Germans during WWII; minus the stability issues. I’ve been looking at the Kaman K-Max for ideas, but they are surprisingly stingy about handing out their engineering drawings. Seen a couple scale models but I’m not sure how well they scale back up to something a man could carry.
Homemade helicopter? What could go wrong!
I could have SWORN rotorcraft were ineligible for ultra-light exemptions because they don’t have a ‘stall speed’.
NaN !<= 24 knots
Hat makes this a… Ultra-large drone that happens to have a pilot?
So you WOULD need a license and registration… for a drone.
It is not an ultra large drone, The FAA doesnt use that term. The term used is Unmanned Aircraft System. so having a pilot on board would make it ineligible for license and registration as a UAS (drone).
FAA regulations for ultralight aircraft require a power off stall speed of NO MORE than 24 knots. Helicopters do not attain lift from forward motion but rather from prop rotation. 0 knots is NOT MORE than 24 knots.
Provided the unloaded weight is below 254 pounds and it has a fuel capacity of 5 gallons or less it is AN ULTRALIGHT and requires no license nor registration.
Here is an example of a part 103 legal ultralight helicopter
https://composite-fx.com/models/xel/