Gyrocopters

[Pwig]

After speaking to a customer today, they seem quite an interesting bit of kit.

Has anyone flown one? What are they like?

[Eric Mc]

I prefer the word "Autogyro" - which is a better description of how they actually work.

Ken Wallis swore that they were safer than an ordinary aeroplane. Not everyone agreed.

[NM62]

Had the pleasure of doing a tour around Ken Wallis's Hanger & Workshop, with the man himself - we just called in on the off chance as we were passing.

He was very gracious and spent a good hour showing us around, he had around 4 or 5 Autogyro's in there (including Little Nellie) but his 'workshop' was the best he showed us a Rolls Royce Car engine he had made into a two cylinder Autogyro engine - horizontally opposed and he'd crafted it himself, because he loved RR but they didn't offer a two cylinder version.

There was also a documentary on him some years later ( back when we only had 4 channels ) which was fascinating.

[HOGEPH]

I have a US Commercial Gyroplane licence. Sadly not used much in the last 20 years as I have no spare time/cash to own one.

Great fun to fly, albeit a little slow and noisy. I'm sure a trial lesson would be available somewhere.

[mrmaggit]

You're still on here, then?

[MartG]

This one looked quite nimble when I saw it a few months ago

[IforB]

I would get into an autogyro designed by Ken Wallis. I wouldn't get in any others though.

The RAF2000 for example had a nasty habit of crashing due to a design flaw that Ken Wallis was scathing about.

[lee_fr200]

Dad flies helis fixed wing and auto gyros and microlights/ultralights

He flies the cavalon and loves it

He learnt at rufforth airfield at York

[CrutyRammers]

Really fancied getting my licence for one of these. Until I saw the costs involved Still orders of magnitude cheaper than a helicopter though.
That one at blackpool (calidus I think) looks to be a really quite incredible machine.

[Pwig]

Rufforth is down the road, and I'm just thinking they would be a lot of fun.

I might have to book a taster thing and take it from there