Engineering Commons^™

Flight Testing Amateur-Built Helicopters, Jeffrey Scott Bender

Masters Theses

Test-flight procedures for the amateur-built helicopter are presented. Test methods were acquired from acceptable practices for flight testing Normal Category Rotorcraft, Amateur-Built Aircraft and Ultralights. These acceptable practices were modified to overcome the challenges faced by the amateur-built helicopter test pilot. These challenges include limited in-flight instrumentation. A significant modification of procedures was to establish a methodology of flight testing using collective control stick position as an indicator of power during performance testing. Additionally, this procedure provides a method structured to overcome limited instrumentation during testing of stability and control. In-flight test data of a United States Army OH-58 was …