It's wonderful that you're taking that additional R-22 lesson. More knowledge/proficiency is definitely going to help with the safety of the helicopter trials you're doing.
Glad you got more instruction in the R22. Hovering competently takes most pilots hours to get down! I didn't get good at hovering until I had about 6 hours in the seat, and it took a couple more than that to have the spare mental capacity to handle radio comms/conversation at the same time. Sounds like you did good!
Thank you. I think 6 hours is good to be able to hover, I don't know what hours I've put on my coaxial but it could be quite a bit which has obviously helped progress. Hovering is a very difficult skill in my opinion but once the brain is trained and you can relax I can imagine the fun starts to Increase. At the present time it's just intense concentration. Dual instruction is a safe way to learn and I would recommend it of course.
@@Ben-Dixey , don't get too excited. I studied aeronautics at Cranfield and did my thesis in helicopter aerodynamics. I did some helicopter flight training, but then turned to the dark side of fixed wing gliders. Looking to get back into currency in something this year.
Hey Ben I have seen an outboard where they have made a large bore water inlet at the top of the the block and the outlet is the two at the bottom by the exhaust and ganged up together to get a larger coolant flrow.
Hi Ben , at 1:57 is that rounded area part of the exhaust system? You may need to isolate that completely from the water system. Fairly easy on the V4. It looks quite difficult to weld fittings there. Another great video, Thanks.
Hi Cam, yes the rounded area is the exhaust port and yes it's hard to weld in that area. Hopefully there is a way to isolate it as you say. 🤦♂️ With the coolant going up and around those exhaust ports it's really not helping as you know. I might copy your idea to make the head cover plate air cooled that surely helped ?
I was wondering about the thermostat, I doubt you are risking running a cold engine. Could you temporarily remove the thermostat to further lessen the flow restriction? I have built cooling jackets for other projects and it has more cooling effect when I run the hot fluid counter to the flow of the cooling medium. It would follow then that hot coolant would enter the radiator at the top and come out the bottom. The hottest fluid will want to stay at the top given it rises. Any possibility of a larger radiator? Or higher capacity fan? Congrats on the flight time! I hope you have some interior footage as well.
Hi, yes I have been running it without the thermostat but have been warming up the engine prior. I intend to put the thermostat back in once cooling is sorted. You are absolute right it should have one Installed. Could you explain the hot coolant flowing counter to the cooling medium? Bigger rad and fan could be the solution but I need to get what I have working as efficiently as possible first before having to add that significant extra weight. I wasn't allowed onboard footage unfortunately.
Pleased to see you getting instruction, I got my PPL with Heliflight. I think your observation about pilots getting funny over your project is because they see the risks, they’ve experienced and lived them. They know that brave pioneers when training wasn’t possible have died and lessons learnt over decades became their syllabus. We’d rather you learn those same mistakes through training with an instructor than experiencing something you weren’t prepared for alone and unable to correct for with knowledge and muscle memory. Love your project btw.
Hi, yes I can understand that and dual instruction is a safe way to learn. I would recommend it. Could there be other safe ways to learn to hover ? Possibly in my opinion, the TR115 training platform might be a future way. Do you fly for a living or private use ?
Everything is a gamble, how risky you consider something to be is down to your judgement. Some people won't drive a car by themselves without a covid mask others are happy to get on a bus full of people without one. It's down to personal judgement.
Great that you are getting some training. That may be useful in calibrating your controls as well. If that section of the exhaust path is no longer being cooled there will be additional heating in that area of the block. I am not familiar with that engine and whether that would cause a problem.
yes I'm not apposed to training and will do more I think, it was great. Yes that part of the engine will certainly get hotter and that will transfer more heat to the rest of the engine. It might not make any difference moving the outlet, I don't know.
If you are using a boat outboard, do they not suck in cold water as coolant then pump it straight out? I would think although a radiator cools the hot water, it might not be cool enough as the original engine design and slowly the circulat8ng warm water overheats perhaps?
Yes that is correct, I'm trying to make the engine run for a purpose for which it wasn't designed. The reason for this is cost as engines designed for the purpose are cost prohibitive. Surprisingly outboard engines were first used in helicopters in the 1950s and they can be modified to work, it's just time in development.
@@Ben-Dixey its great to see that utilised and has enough power to lift you and machine, and as you say part of the development process. Fan on the radiator or able to expose it to the airflow?
@@Drummer2020 I tried a bigger more powerful radiator fan but no improvement in flight duration resulted. I was surprised that was the case so started looking at the flow rate and passageways. When I made the clutch I machined a 'v' pulley into the housing for when I need a belt driven fan, this with a shroud will probably be needed. Keeping the weight down when solving each problem is the challenge. Moving the rad further into the downwash isn't as simple as it might appear as it will cause CG issues.
I was going to say this as well. The ambient temperature of the raw water cooling sucking straight from a lake/the ocean would have to be considerably lower than that recirculating through a closed circuit system. You've got a fight on your hands to overcome the cooling issue.
@@michaelsimpson9779 In a car it’s super heated steam under pressure going through the radiator. So the radiator is much hotter than the ambient air and more efficient. Also steam contains much more heat energy do to the phase change. He’s going to need a big ass radiator to get rid of the heat of just hot water.
There should be a reason why differently placed water cooling outlet comes right out of the factory because it was made by engineer with some thoughts in mind to put in production. Maybe because its marine engine, and since marine engine have different type of cooling , they usually get cooled by straight up water from ocean or though intermediate loop and engine gets too cold on such cooling, but in your case you cooling it with air which is less efficient at cooling that ocean water and you get engine overheated. I heard the problem with marine outboard engines that they are run too cold which impacts lifetime of engine and placing outlet this way increases lifetime of engine by reducing cooling with sea water and making engine run warmer. There is a chance you would need more modification to engine to increase flow, like make flow restricting holes bigger
I think you're right. The coolant first goes into the exhaust chamber which I imagined was to warm the cold sea water. I'm going to have to bypass this chamber. I don't think I can increase the coolant passageways any further so will have to get a higher pressure pump to Increase the flow.
@@Ben-Dixey Sounds like a good plan to check if you can even make engine run at sustainable temps, may be you would also need bigger radiator to dissipate more heat with a fixed flow rate. The only thing that bothers me with this plan is at what degree cooling of exhaust chamber affects cooling of engine head because AFAIK running engine head too hot may result in head warping. Absolutely stupidly crazy idea: what if you modify engine that you can run cooling in passages in parallel instead of serial if you want to go with higher flow rate
Yes the thought had crossed my mind that the coolant flows in series. As you suggest the cylinders will get the lower coolant temperature and the head will get the higher coolant temperature. The temperature sensor is at the top of the head so I should be getting the highest reading on my gauge. Running the coolant in parallel sounds sensible wether it's necessary I'm not sure, but isolating that exhaust chamber I think is going to make a difference. I think if the pump is able to push the coolant through fast enough the head and cylinder temperatures should be similar. A bigger radiator is the last resort, I will do everything else first I think.
Awesome you got some more dual instruction! I would recommend you route the radiator flow from the engine into the bottom of the radiator first. Hot water rises and you are probably getting a lot of mixing in the process? May be a minor improvement. Do you have an oil cooler? That would help as well. Good job on the hovering. Most people really struggle with that for a while. It becomes easier with practice.
Thank you, the coolant direction through a radiator on a car for example comes into the top of the radiator from the engine. On a car the radiator is vertical so using gravity to help flow might be the reason for that but as you say heat rises and you could argue that the fan cooling the water would cause it to sink ? My radiator isn't vertical but is on a slant if the radiator was horizontal which end would you then pump in the hot water, Perhaps it wouldn't matter in that case. An oil cooler would be a big advantage on a 4 stroke but as mine is 2 stroke there's no oil to cool in my case. Yes I really enjoyed the dual instruction and would like more lessons. 👍
@@helicopterdriver I have looked into the simulator stuff and was going to bid on a control setup with pedals, collective and cyclic but I must have missed it. it was cheap quality but the good ones are really expensive. Cameron carter on youtube set up electrical pots on his actual helicopter and placed the screen in front of him. could be an option, might ask him more about it. Did you have a simulator?
@@Ben-Dixey Never flown an actual simulator, just xPlane and Microsoft Flight Sim. It works about the same with just a good joystick. You twist the cyclic instead of rudder pedals. Not the same but at least you get the idea of the controls. XPlane does a better helicopter sim in my opinion. They have a seasoned (Old like me) helicopter pilot on their team that helped them refine the flight characteristics. The guy that invented XPLane, Austin Meyer, lives down the street from me. He is very meticulous about the flight profiles of aircraft he includes. Lots of testing. It's fun to fly them. I have almost all of the helicopters. :D
Cameron Carter on TH-cam had to isolate the exhaust port cooling from the system. He has the coolant going straight into cylinder jacket and out through the head. The radiator needs a belt driven fan lots of airflow through the radiator, it will probably take 1-2hp of engine power to drive the fan. Dual core radiator is another addition, the fan needs to be shrouded and pull through the radiator for the most efficiency. There is also a product called Mocool which you can use instead of water which helps the transfer of heat. I didn't achieve keeping my engine cool, it would only fly for about 2minutes before over heating but I had an electric fan, a single core radiator and didn't do the water jacket modifications.
I've not read all of the comments, so pls excuse if rpting...you really need to have your cooling flow well away from the exhaust, as much as possible. It might be worthwhile looking into an electric "booster" pump to get the flow rate up. Do you have a fan on the radiator? Have a look at a 650-750 cc motorcycle radiator system, they are designed to cool 75-100 hp, so would give you some idea of size and airflow needed? Is your radiator cooled by rotor downdraft?
Hi and thanks for the suggestions, yes I think the next step will be to as you say get the coolant away from the exhaust ports. There is a fan on the radiator but not a good one, I tried a much bigger fan but it made no difference so that's why I started looking at coolant flow rates. I looked at bike engine cooling systems and bought a water pump from a Honda vfr, unfortunately it runs the opposite way to be easily driven by the engine. The radiators off the same bike were an option. I took the cheaper option of a 1.6ltr Honda Civic car radiator thinking it would do a better job of cooling. Time will tell on that one. Rotor down draught to cool will cause some other problems but its still a possibility.
And mast bumping is a major issue for any teetering style rotor head like Robison and bell. If it bumps hard enough the mast can snap and the rotor head comes off. That’s usually fatal. And it happens in zero g conditions
It seems Robinsons tri hinge rotor head has increased the problem from a single teeter hinge though. Suspect the pilots inputs can save a mast bump situation but whether it can save every situation I'm not sure.
I think your cooling system suffers from inefficiency. In a car coolant enters the bottom of the engine as water and leaves the top as steam. Steam contains many times more heat energy of water at nearly the same temperature. Since the steam is under pressure it’s much hotter than the normal boiling point of water. This gives greater efficiency at the radiator as there’s a greater difference between the steam temperature and the ambient air. Just cycling hot water through a radiator won’t give you the cooling efficiency of super heated steam.
Could you have picked a worse engine ?!?!...and that BEFORE we get to the heath-robinson "cooling system" (your words not mine).. Why didn't you just use a seagull !!!
@@Ben-Dixey Motorcycle engine. Whether air cooled or water cooled they’re meant to be cooled by atmosphere and not lake water. They usually have a pretty good power to weight ratio as well. I’m not sure if your cooling problem is solvable with a marine outboard.
It's wonderful that you're taking that additional R-22 lesson. More knowledge/proficiency is definitely going to help with the safety of the helicopter trials you're doing.
thanks and Yes I would happily pay for more instruction, it was brilliant.
Glad you got more instruction in the R22. Hovering competently takes most pilots hours to get down! I didn't get good at hovering until I had about 6 hours in the seat, and it took a couple more than that to have the spare mental capacity to handle radio comms/conversation at the same time. Sounds like you did good!
Thank you. I think 6 hours is good to be able to hover, I don't know what hours I've put on my coaxial but it could be quite a bit which has obviously helped progress. Hovering is a very difficult skill in my opinion but once the brain is trained and you can relax I can imagine the fun starts to Increase. At the present time it's just intense concentration. Dual instruction is a safe way to learn and I would recommend it of course.
Great news you are having a lesson, even though your aircraft is a a Co-Ax the knowledge and experience gained on the R22 will be money well spent.
Nice to see G-ORMB still airworthy. Looking good in it's new red paint after 3000 hour rebuild.
Ah, what is your background I wonder ?
@@Ben-Dixey , don't get too excited. I studied aeronautics at Cranfield and did my thesis in helicopter aerodynamics. I did some helicopter flight training, but then turned to the dark side of fixed wing gliders. Looking to get back into currency in something this year.
Hey Ben I have seen an outboard where they have made a large bore water inlet at the top of the the block and the outlet is the two at the bottom by the exhaust and ganged up together to get a larger coolant flrow.
That's interesting Peter. I'll have a think about that. Did you see it online ? What was it powering ?
Thermo syphon....out at the top.
Is the stat obstructing.
How is the airflow thru the rad?
Hi Ben , at 1:57 is that rounded area part of the exhaust system? You may need to isolate that completely from the water system. Fairly easy on the V4. It looks quite difficult to weld fittings there. Another great video, Thanks.
Hi Cam, yes the rounded area is the exhaust port and yes it's hard to weld in that area. Hopefully there is a way to isolate it as you say. 🤦♂️ With the coolant going up and around those exhaust ports it's really not helping as you know. I might copy your idea to make the head cover plate air cooled that surely helped ?
I was wondering about the thermostat, I doubt you are risking running a cold engine. Could you temporarily remove the thermostat to further lessen the flow restriction? I have built cooling jackets for other projects and it has more cooling effect when I run the hot fluid counter to the flow of the cooling medium. It would follow then that hot coolant would enter the radiator at the top and come out the bottom. The hottest fluid will want to stay at the top given it rises. Any possibility of a larger radiator? Or higher capacity fan?
Congrats on the flight time! I hope you have some interior footage as well.
Hi, yes I have been running it without the thermostat but have been warming up the engine prior. I intend to put the thermostat back in once cooling is sorted. You are absolute right it should have one Installed.
Could you explain the hot coolant flowing counter to the cooling medium?
Bigger rad and fan could be the solution but I need to get what I have working as efficiently as possible first before having to add that significant extra weight. I wasn't allowed onboard footage unfortunately.
Pleased to see you getting instruction, I got my PPL with Heliflight. I think your observation about pilots getting funny over your project is because they see the risks, they’ve experienced and lived them. They know that brave pioneers when training wasn’t possible have died and lessons learnt over decades became their syllabus. We’d rather you learn those same mistakes through training with an instructor than experiencing something you weren’t prepared for alone and unable to correct for with knowledge and muscle memory. Love your project btw.
Hi, yes I can understand that and dual instruction is a safe way to learn. I would recommend it. Could there be other safe ways to learn to hover ? Possibly in my opinion, the TR115 training platform might be a future way. Do you fly for a living or private use ?
@@Ben-Dixey Any helicopter the CAA rule can be logged as instructional hours. Anything less, you’re gambling with your life.
Everything is a gamble, how risky you consider something to be is down to your judgement. Some people won't drive a car by themselves without a covid mask others are happy to get on a bus full of people without one. It's down to personal judgement.
Great that you are getting some training. That may be useful in calibrating your controls as well.
If that section of the exhaust path is no longer being cooled there will be additional heating in that area of the block. I am not familiar with that engine and whether that would cause a problem.
yes I'm not apposed to training and will do more I think, it was great. Yes that part of the engine will certainly get hotter and that will transfer more heat to the rest of the engine. It might not make any difference moving the outlet, I don't know.
If you are using a boat outboard, do they not suck in cold water as coolant then pump it straight out? I would think although a radiator cools the hot water, it might not be cool enough as the original engine design and slowly the circulat8ng warm water overheats perhaps?
Yes that is correct, I'm trying to make the engine run for a purpose for which it wasn't designed. The reason for this is cost as engines designed for the purpose are cost prohibitive. Surprisingly outboard engines were first used in helicopters in the 1950s and they can be modified to work, it's just time in development.
@@Ben-Dixey its great to see that utilised and has enough power to lift you and machine, and as you say part of the development process. Fan on the radiator or able to expose it to the airflow?
@@Drummer2020 I tried a bigger more powerful radiator fan but no improvement in flight duration resulted. I was surprised that was the case so started looking at the flow rate and passageways. When I made the clutch I machined a 'v' pulley into the housing for when I need a belt driven fan, this with a shroud will probably be needed. Keeping the weight down when solving each problem is the challenge. Moving the rad further into the downwash isn't as simple as it might appear as it will cause CG issues.
I was going to say this as well. The ambient temperature of the raw water cooling sucking straight from a lake/the ocean would have to be considerably lower than that recirculating through a closed circuit system. You've got a fight on your hands to overcome the cooling issue.
@@michaelsimpson9779
In a car it’s super heated steam under pressure going through the radiator. So the radiator is much hotter than the ambient air and more efficient. Also steam contains much more heat energy do to the phase change. He’s going to need a big ass radiator to get rid of the heat of just hot water.
At 2:12.........marvelous piece of British humor !!!!!!!
😉 Glad you liked it. Thanks Mr leemnav
There should be a reason why differently placed water cooling outlet comes right out of the factory because it was made by engineer with some thoughts in mind to put in production. Maybe because its marine engine, and since marine engine have different type of cooling , they usually get cooled by straight up water from ocean or though intermediate loop and engine gets too cold on such cooling, but in your case you cooling it with air which is less efficient at cooling that ocean water and you get engine overheated. I heard the problem with marine outboard engines that they are run too cold which impacts lifetime of engine and placing outlet this way increases lifetime of engine by reducing cooling with sea water and making engine run warmer.
There is a chance you would need more modification to engine to increase flow, like make flow restricting holes bigger
I think you're right. The coolant first goes into the exhaust chamber which I imagined was to warm the cold sea water. I'm going to have to bypass this chamber. I don't think I can increase the coolant passageways any further so will have to get a higher pressure pump to Increase the flow.
@@Ben-Dixey Sounds like a good plan to check if you can even make engine run at sustainable temps, may be you would also need bigger radiator to dissipate more heat with a fixed flow rate. The only thing that bothers me with this plan is at what degree cooling of exhaust chamber affects cooling of engine head because AFAIK running engine head too hot may result in head warping.
Absolutely stupidly crazy idea: what if you modify engine that you can run cooling in passages in parallel instead of serial if you want to go with higher flow rate
Yes the thought had crossed my mind that the coolant flows in series. As you suggest the cylinders will get the lower coolant temperature and the head will get the higher coolant temperature. The temperature sensor is at the top of the head so I should be getting the highest reading on my gauge.
Running the coolant in parallel sounds sensible wether it's necessary I'm not sure, but isolating that exhaust chamber I think is going to make a difference.
I think if the pump is able to push the coolant through fast enough the head and cylinder temperatures should be similar. A bigger radiator is the last resort, I will do everything else first I think.
Awesome you got some more dual instruction! I would recommend you route the radiator flow from the engine into the bottom of the radiator first. Hot water rises and you are probably getting a lot of mixing in the process? May be a minor improvement. Do you have an oil cooler? That would help as well. Good job on the hovering. Most people really struggle with that for a while. It becomes easier with practice.
Thank you, the coolant direction through a radiator on a car for example comes into the top of the radiator from the engine. On a car the radiator is vertical so using gravity to help flow might be the reason for that but as you say heat rises and you could argue that the fan cooling the water would cause it to sink ? My radiator isn't vertical but is on a slant if the radiator was horizontal which end would you then pump in the hot water, Perhaps it wouldn't matter in that case.
An oil cooler would be a big advantage on a 4 stroke but as mine is 2 stroke there's no oil to cool in my case. Yes I really enjoyed the dual instruction and would like more lessons. 👍
@@Ben-Dixey You are right. Just didn't think about it being a 2 stroke. Cooler weather ahead should help. Any simulator time yet?
@@helicopterdriver I have looked into the simulator stuff and was going to bid on a control setup with pedals, collective and cyclic but I must have missed it. it was cheap quality but the good ones are really expensive. Cameron carter on youtube set up electrical pots on his actual helicopter and placed the screen in front of him. could be an option, might ask him more about it. Did you have a simulator?
@@Ben-Dixey Never flown an actual simulator, just xPlane and Microsoft Flight Sim. It works about the same with just a good joystick. You twist the cyclic instead of rudder pedals. Not the same but at least you get the idea of the controls. XPlane does a better helicopter sim in my opinion. They have a seasoned (Old like me) helicopter pilot on their team that helped them refine the flight characteristics. The guy that invented XPLane, Austin Meyer, lives down the street from me. He is very meticulous about the flight profiles of aircraft he includes. Lots of testing. It's fun to fly them. I have almost all of the helicopters. :D
my 85hp engine heats up fast. is there anything that has been changed in the cooling water line in the engine sir?
What engine are you using ?
@@Ben-Dixey yamaha speedboat engine 85 hp sir
Cameron Carter on TH-cam had to isolate the exhaust port cooling from the system. He has the coolant going straight into cylinder jacket and out through the head. The radiator needs a belt driven fan lots of airflow through the radiator, it will probably take 1-2hp of engine power to drive the fan. Dual core radiator is another addition, the fan needs to be shrouded and pull through the radiator for the most efficiency. There is also a product called Mocool which you can use instead of water which helps the transfer of heat.
I didn't achieve keeping my engine cool, it would only fly for about 2minutes before over heating but I had an electric fan, a single core radiator and didn't do the water jacket modifications.
I've not read all of the comments, so pls excuse if rpting...you really need to have your cooling flow well away from the exhaust, as much as possible. It might be worthwhile looking into an electric "booster" pump to get the flow rate up. Do you have a fan on the radiator? Have a look at a 650-750 cc motorcycle radiator system, they are designed to cool 75-100 hp, so would give you some idea of size and airflow needed? Is your radiator cooled by rotor downdraft?
Hi and thanks for the suggestions, yes I think the next step will be to as you say get the coolant away from the exhaust ports. There is a fan on the radiator but not a good one, I tried a much bigger fan but it made no difference so that's why I started looking at coolant flow rates. I looked at bike engine cooling systems and bought a water pump from a Honda vfr, unfortunately it runs the opposite way to be easily driven by the engine. The radiators off the same bike were an option. I took the cheaper option of a 1.6ltr Honda Civic car radiator thinking it would do a better job of cooling. Time will tell on that one. Rotor down draught to cool will cause some other problems but its still a possibility.
Not sure I would pull any G's in a Robinson they have that issue with the main rotor hits the tailboom.
Is that a result of zero G's?
And mast bumping is a major issue for any teetering style rotor head like Robison and bell. If it bumps hard enough the mast can snap and the rotor head comes off.
That’s usually fatal. And it happens in zero g conditions
It seems Robinsons tri hinge rotor head has increased the problem from a single teeter hinge though.
Suspect the pilots inputs can save a mast bump situation but whether it can save every situation I'm not sure.
I think your cooling system suffers from inefficiency. In a car coolant enters the bottom of the engine as water and leaves the top as steam. Steam contains many times more heat energy of water at nearly the same temperature. Since the steam is under pressure it’s much hotter than the normal boiling point of water. This gives greater efficiency at the radiator as there’s a greater difference between the steam temperature and the ambient air.
Just cycling hot water through a radiator won’t give you the cooling efficiency of super heated steam.
A nervous flyer(me too) building a helicopter, what's not to like.
God job,👍👍👍👍
Thermostat?
The thermostat isn't installed at the moment but will be reinstalled when the cooling is sorted.
check the abandoned r22 i started rebuilding
Looks Interesting, will have a look later 👍
AS350 A-Star helicopter
Ah thanks. I knew someone would know. 👍
I think the more burning question at 2:08 is why have you got a single red fingernail?
Regards Mark in the UK
😉 Hi Mark, I was trying to make it look like my friend Steve had a red finger nail but think it might have backfired.
@@Ben-Dixey Haha, no problem. I was only joshing anyway.
Could you have picked a worse engine ?!?!...and that BEFORE we get to the heath-robinson "cooling system" (your words not mine)..
Why didn't you just use a seagull !!!
Seagull aside, what engine would you have used ?
@@Ben-Dixey
Motorcycle engine. Whether air cooled or water cooled they’re meant to be cooled by atmosphere and not lake water.
They usually have a pretty good power to weight ratio as well.
I’m not sure if your cooling problem is solvable with a marine outboard.
Have to say, though, little bit disappointed that we didn't get to see the whole journey... including the bump starting the car at the end... 😂
Yeah, I asked to film onboard but wasn't allowed. I expect there is cctv of the bump starting. 😉
@@Ben-Dixey i need to see it 🤣🤣🤣
Brilliant!! Well done mate!! 👌👍