1236

Item 1236

DESIGN: Dragonfly ~ Control - Flight - Directional - by Root Brake

Drawing:

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Notes:

Similar to tip brakes, consider a root brakes. The large offset of the SynchroLite's rotors should allow for brakes to be located at the ends of the hub's arms. They would not have anything to do with the blades. Their arm will be only +/- 20% of the arm of tip brakes but their surface area could be bigger.

It should be noted that in forward flight their effects will probable change from that during hover. Because of the direction of rotor rotation, the rotor with the brakes applied is on the side of the craft that is wanted to advance. Countering this is that the advance brake will cause the greatest drag and it will be moving forward in the center of the craft or possibly slightly on the side of the other rotor.

The additional weight of the drag brake and its control is something that is not wanted on a craft that must be at or under 254 lbs.

The control linkage for the root drag brakes can probably be quite simple.

The rod will be located longitudinally inline with the rod that controls longitudinal cyclic. The only difference is that the drag-brake rod is a couple of inches ahead of the longitudinal rod and its lower end is attached to the mixed mechanism at the piviot position for the longitudinal rod. In other words; the brake rod rises and falls with pedal inputs but not with cyclic inputs.
The rods will run up through the middle of the swashplate's uniball to a bearing that rotated with the rotor. The raising of this bearing assembly will extend the root drag-brake.

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Last Revised: August 14, 2003