[PSUBS-MAILIST] Re: U-boats and gyrocopters

Bill,

Yes I came across that fact recently when I was doing a bit of research on the U-166 of which I am sure you must be familiar. http://www.pastfoundation.org/U166/

It was kind of hard for them to crash dive while dragging that thing along, so they abandoned the concept.

As for safety, I have never flown rotary wing ac but my understanding is that the auto rotating rotors are quite safe, like a parachute, as long as a positive load is maintained (no neg g's). My understanding is that autorotation in both helicopters and gyrocopters is quite benign except for that last minute unexpected gust, or misjudging the round out.

The problem you see when you read the NTSB reports, is that people often get into trouble hot-dogging about at low level. (sometimes drunk). Or they use non AN hardware in construction.

I was going to build a two place S.T.O.L ac this one http://zenithair.com/stolch701/index1.html

to operate out of my five acres but, you can do more, and go more places with the boat.

Joe

P.S. I believe flight 19 was found in the Atlantic some years ago, is that not correct?

From: "Akins" <lakins1@tampabay.rr.com>
Reply-To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
To: <personal_submersibles@psubs.org>
Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Another nutcase here.
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2005 21:27:43 -0400

Hi Joe.

Like you, I'm into aviation also. I host a site for the Florida Aviation Historical Society and it's sister site

The Warbird Recovery Team. The FAHS made me the director of the Warbird Recovery Team where we

go out searching the gulf close to where I live looking for crashed WW2 aircraft wrecks. We had a lot of training

crashes in the gulf in this area during the war. I have a buddy in my dive club that has some coordinates

for some sunken wings we are going to check out soon. We did a recovery several years ago on a crashed

P51 mustang. Check out the two sites. Since you are into aviation and subs you might especially like the

Warbird Recovery site. I've always wanted to build myself a Bensen gyrocopter because they are so cheap and

simple (relatively) to build, but with my wetsub project and everything else I don't think I would have the time plus

even though they are short take off and pretty easy to fly, they can be dangerous and my wife would be worried sick

with me flying one of those little eggbeaters. An intersting thing about the bensen gyrocopters is they were actually

invented and used by the kreigsmarine aboard U boats. They would bring them out and fly them off the back of the sub

like a kite to see enemy ships they couldn't see otherwise. Those models were unpowered and the rotors just freewheeled.

Here's the two links I mentioned.......

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/The_Warbird_Recovery_Team

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FAHS_Website/?yguid=204005530

Bill.

----- Original Message -----

From: Joseph Perkel

To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org

Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2005 7:20 PM

Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Another nutcase here.

Cost (as well as weight) is my biggest reason for going ambient. The hull shape for the Nautilus is inappropriate for 1 atm anyway but a natural for epoxy-ply or grp.

As for the wife issue, as an aviator as well I just told her "Honey I'll build this instead of an airplane!" So threatening to take flying lessons might work out for some.

Joe