Thanks for showing these. I was not sure what the term is used for what the term for handles that use a cable type connection. I define a “hard point” handle as one that have the lines connected directly to a not moving point on the handle.
"Hard point" (which I may have coined) is as opposed to "cable" handles like the Baron and Hot Rock. The difference is that as you are moving the handle, the cables have to bend, and putting a curve in the cable makes it act like a spring. The Walker-style handle has the clips hooked right to it and they bear right on the hard parts of the handle with no added compliance.
An interesting feature of the cable in cable handles is that, within reason, the thicker it is, the more compliant, and the less time it lasts. The original in the Baron and EZ-Just (both versions) is that they came with a pretty small, maybe 1/32, braided cable which lasted a reasonable amount of time - although, unfortunately for several notables, not forever. It also had relatively low compliance because it was pretty flexible.
Several of us geniuses, after finding our cables fraying, the hard way or by inspection, got the bright idea to replace the cable with something "stronger" - 1/16 7x7 SS aircraft cable. That has *far worse* compliance as it will not bend as well and thus forms curves that can change and cause control compliance, but worse, frays in a fraction of the time of the originals. As you bend it, the loads from one side of the cable to the other get much worse as the cable gets bigger, that's why it's stiffer, and the extra stress also make it fail faster. So instead of having to replace it every 2000 flights, it might only be 50-100.
This is what ultimately led us to switch (Paul Walker, ahead of the game as usual, copied by Ted Fancher later when he figured it out after going to Shanghai with Paul), when eventually me and the rest of us later. I still fly with the second prototype Fancher Handle, from the master himself.
Orestes' handle (from the Yatsenkos, I think) is a third variant, it is made more-or-less like a Hot Rock as far as the line connections go, but instead of a cable, it uses a strong nylon* cord which bends with no real effort, so the compliance is very reduced over a cable handle. It also has very minimal offset, so you don't have to fight line tension as much as most other types. I have only done one flight with one, and I was also unfamiliar with the airplane, so it felt a bit strange to me but I got the impression it was far less compliant than a cable handle, and slightly more compliant than a Walker-style handle. I expect also that the cord starts out somewhat stretchy along its length and probably settles in with a lot of flights - which Orestes does in an afternoon and I do in a year or two!
There was a bit of a flap about this handle that really made no sense, but, *hypothetically*, we are supposed to test it (by itself) to 20gs instead of 10g. That is an utterly silly result of the earlier silly conflict and has exactly zero engineering validity or logical reasoning, aside from the fact that we had to resolve this issue with a rule change.
It's worth a try.
Brett
Topic: ORESTES HERNANDEZ‘S Handle? (Read 874 times)
