My trail bike of the skies

A friend of mine built one a few years ago. He also used a Subaru engine.

He did all the right things and did some sort of training course to learn to fly it and became president of the state organisation. The way he tells the story, the trainer taught him a particular method of landing which apparently works well if you get it right but is hard to master.

After a couple of undignified and expensive landings, he decided that although he really enjoyed flying it, he had begun to dread the landings. In fact he began to wonder if he would survive the landings, so he sold it.

Shortly after that, while he was still involved with the organisation, he was shown another landing technique by a different trainer. He said that the new landing technique was a piece of cake and that if he had been taught that way originally, he would probably still have his autogyro.

According to him, flying it was easy to learn and landing the easy way was simple, but the other landing technique obviously required a skill he was not able to master.

That is his version of events anyway.

They don't stall and have full Control at zero air speed.
They don't have a dead man curve like a helicopter.
They are light weight and don't they have the mass of a larger aircraft and therefore are very responsive to pilot inputs.
The rotor , depending on design will hold energy for turns or landing.
They are forgiving in opposite ways to normal aircraft, but unforgiving in others.
They are very safe to fly very low to the ground or throw around at low heights.
They will turn tightly just off the deck and fly in wind which will ground light GA aircraft.
If the engine is going to quit this is the thing to want to be flying.
The bad stuff.
These things are solid in the air and turn like if there is no tomorrow and this leads the pilot to push them selves beyond normal caution limits.
Rotor autorotation relies on positive G loading on the rotor........pull negative Gs and there is no recovery.
There fore handling the machine so that it always pull positive Gs is important.
A previously trained pilot will always revert to previous training in a bad situation which is not a good thing for a gyroCopter.

would love to have a go in one of these, had a go in a mico light at gingin w.a. once flaming great :D

A example is in a engine out situation a fixed wind pilot will normally try and keep the wings level and try to maintain height for long as possible and avoid stall.
A gyro pilot should drop the nose (opposite to normal human reactions) without pushing over too hard to avoid Neg Gs and go for the ground soon as possible as this ensures plenty of airspeed and therefore energy in the rotors when you get near the deck and gives you the option of a zero ground roll landing and a soft one .
A gyro pilot should pull a turn as well as putting the nose over if the pilot wants to descend quickly.(there is also a vertical decent option too)as this keeps the rotors loaded.
Death rates in Gyros was very high for many years as there was no two seat training and they wouldnt allow two seat machines because of this.
Finally when two seat machines were allowed the death rate went from 17 deaths a year to some thing like 2 a year.(I was self taught and lucky)
Training is the key.
This sort of flying is not for everyone and not everyone will master it.
Think of siting in a small seat floating above the ground at 2000 ft and looking around you and you cannot even see any wings holding you up and looking down at your feet and seeing empty space.
This takes special people and people with a few years under their belt find it hard to respond to the gyros sensitive controls......but for a experienced pilot it is a good thing as it makes the machine maneuverable

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Originally Posted by vnx205

A friend of mine built one a few years ago. He also used a Subaru engine.

He did all the right things and did some sort of training course to learn to fly it and became president of the state organisation. The way he tells the story, the trainer taught him a particular method of landing which apparently works well if you get it right but is hard to master.

After a couple of undignified and expensive landings, he decided that although he really enjoyed flying it, he had begun to dread the landings. In fact he began to wonder if he would survive the landings, so he sold it.

Shortly after that, while he was still involved with the organisation, he was shown another landing technique by a different trainer. He said that the new landing technique was a piece of cake and that if he had been taught that way originally, he would probably still have his autogyro.

According to him, flying it was easy to learn and landing the easy way was simple, but the other landing technique obviously required a skill he was not able to master.

That is his version of events anyway.

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To have a state organisation means your friend learnt in the bad old days of no two seat training and no system of training and no set standards.
The last of this happen in the 1980s.
Today training is similar to GA standards and the most important thing is two seat training is available.
Trainers train to a standard and pilots work towards endorsements.
Gyros fly now under a Federal Australian standard body called the
Aust Sport Rotorcraft Association and state bodies are now history.
The biggest problem is getting new be pilots and previously trained pilots(especially ones who think they know it all) to take advantage of whats on offer.)
I learnt in the bad days where you paid your money and could hop in the machine read a book, start it up and try to fly.
Gyros are opposite to normal fixed wind aircraft in the fact they are hard to takeoff, fairly difficult to fly straight and level , but very easy to land.

This photo shows me trying to fly with the landing gear in a drainage ditch just for fun.
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...14/02/1082.jpg
More low and slow flying just off the deck

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...009/11/121.jpg

Hi All

Ron your machine looks like it was state of the art twenty years ago, and except for the reduction drive would look pretty much like a new one:D . I'm glad someine put some good and useful information up here about gyro's.

I lack your experience but have had a few flights in a two seater and am looking forward to continueing same, its a wonderful experience that i would tell anyone to have a go at.

When I get some more time and money i will be building my own single seater which i have almost everything for and then getting my licence

Regards Mark

When the Granites Gold Mine out in the Tanami first started up in '86, the Mine Manager had a two seater on site, but it didn't have an engine.

We used to take it out on the airstrip and tow him on a long rope behind a Landcruiser so that he could fly the thing. It used to generally take two lengths of the airstrip (up & back) towing him on the ground before he had sufficient rotor speed up to get off the ground. Once up though, we were surprised at what he could achieve with it, especially while we were slowing virtually to a stop in the tow vehicle to turn around at the end of the runway.

He often invited some of us to come up for a ride in the second seat - I don't remember anyone ever taking him up on his offer.

I do remember one occasion when he asked us to tow him back to the camp once he had it airborne - it was about halfway back when we remembered the overhead powerlines crossing the road. :o He managed to fly under the powerlines without problems.

Some time later, we heard that he had fitted an engine to it (believe it was a VW). We also heard that he pranged it shortly thereafter and did a fiar bit of damage, both to himself and to the machine. Never heard from him again after that.

Good to read your post on this Ron - brings back a few memories, and your description of how these machines fly / handle is much the same as how it was described to me at the time.

Just a question Ron, How much airspeed is required to keep the blades auto rotating?
I have a few hours up in Gliders and your description of a power pilots reactions to a no power situation are so opposite of Gliding when close to Terra Firma. I was taught to put the nose down, get airspeed and make very aggressive turns to avid stalling the wing tips.....Spin recovery in gliders takes a little longer.:)
Our power situations amounted to broken towlines on takeoff.

for machines not fitted with a prerotator the procedure is something like this.
Face machine into wind if the wind is not too strong.
( very strong wind will stall the rotors and stop auto rotation at very low RPMs used for hand starting the rotors)
Start engine and while it warms up reach up at the front of the machine and push the rotors hard as you can across the front of the machine which is usually about 50 rpm the hardest one can push them by hand.
If in still air the pilot quickly gets belted in and and slowly taxi the machine before rpm is lost.
first up the taxi speed is slow as the rotors have mass and too much air going up though the rotors too soon will stall them.
the rotor disc is also tilted back so the rotors get the prop blast and the disc picks up the air from forward motion.
whonce the rotors spin up to 150 rpm they will come up to speed straight away with out delay......this is called getting them over the hump.
With 150 rpm or more on the rotors the machine can be lined up for its take off run and the throttle is just gunned and the machine will get air borne after a short take off run.
150 rpm only requires a normal taxi speed in still air.
At about 300 to 350 rpm the rotors are developing enough lift to get the machine airborne.
the rotors are self governing and will change the rpms in flight with load.
The rotors will hold flying rpms for a short time without airflow up though the rotors.
This effect can be used to flair for a short landing or the hold energy during a sharp turn.
Rotor blade disc diameter, design and loading all have a effect on rotor behavior.
Air flow must go up though the rotor and is done in a few ways and needs to be at least 25 mph to maintain the rotors at flight lifting speed.
Forward flight the rotor disc is tilted back and the rotor catches the wind under it.
Vertical decent is 25 to 30 mph and the air flow is directly up though the rotor.
If the machine is flying at 100 mph the rotor disc has little tilt to it and the nose of the machine hangs low.
If flying slow will use full power and nose high with rotor disc tilted hard back with very high air drag.