I took off the other day and kept climbing till I got on top of the clouds…what a different world up there.
I then went to the other extreme and flew 5 feet off the fields.
Stan
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Great pics as usual Stan. How many hours do you fly in a month. Seems like you have got a heck of a lot of air time.
TGNY: I average around 175 hours per year. Whats handy is the airport is just 1/2 mile from my house...and 1.5 miles from my stairshop. I love to fly, it keeps my mind clear. I also am a dealer for this gyrocopter model...and I do a lot of demonstration rides.
Stan
sure.... demonstration rides... get to have fun and write it off? Sheeesh... love the photos. is 12K a hard ceiling? what makes that the limit?
Jeff: The higher you go..the less power the engine has....It takes so much horsepower to maintain altitude. When you finally get high enough that the available horsepower equals horsepower required for level flight, you are done climbing.
Stan
Say, that leads me to a question. What is the max ceiling on your gyro?
Jeff: It will go over 10,000 feet up easy. Probably 12,000 ft. I have had it to 7700 feet.
One of the things I always enjoyed about overcast days -- nothing like that feeling you get when you break out on top.
The average pilot, despite the somewhat swaggering exterior, is very much capable of such feelings as love, affection, intimacy, and caring.
These feelings just don't involve anyone else.
Thanks for posting about the gyro, if you don't mind, what is the price of that thing, how does one learn to operate, licence required? I do like what it can do.
Handyman: The SparrowHawk kit is only $39,500.00 Then you need the avionics...paint job...airworthiness certificate...extra goodies.....Typically you can have a very nice insurable gyrocopter for $45-50 thousand. It takes 3-4 hundred hours to build. Mine took 500 but it was an earlier kit that required more assembly.
Best money I have ever spent.
Here is the wesite. http://www.americanautogyro.com
My enthusiasm for this particular gyrocopter raised a few eyebrows at the company and they made me a sales representative. Then when I started selling several...they made me a sales manager. For the first time in my life I have something competing with my curved stairbusiness. I love both and something will have to give. I am considering slowly tapering off to a 4 day occupation week...(I still refuse to call stairbuilding "work") ...and set aside a day for demo rides, paper work on the gyros.
I have a true passion for curved stairbuilding and a true passion for gyrocopters. I have a finite amount of time. One thing I have never done is give up my weekend family time. My flying is usually done during my working hours....
Thes flying demonstrations are being planned for Saturdays and when I do that....my family will have to put up with me on Sunday and Monday. They cant escape me. ha.
Stan
Stan
Stan,
To each his own, I guess. For that kind of money, I'd get myself a nice PA-18, and fly around with something solid under me.
I've never been able to get my head around a gyrocopter. And that's from someone with 4K+ hours of rotary wing time.
Beautiful pictures, though. When I was flying commercially, that view was the only real compensation for the early morning wakeup calls!
Burt
When I was 30 years old, I ordered a brand new Super Cub with a set of Edo floats.
A few years later, I decided to get into the construction business on a larger scale and needed start up money. I sold the Cub, thinking that I would get a new one in a few years.
Then they quit making them and the price went through the roof! That was the dumbest thing I ever did in my lifetime!!
I wonder who is enjoying my $200,000 plane now??
Hey, if your still interested
http://www.aircraftdealer.com/aircraft_for_sale_detail/Piper_Super_Cub/2004_PA18_Cubcrafters_Supercub_180_HP/10530.htm
I'm still interested!!! I'm turning 60 in a few months and I've been saving to buy myself a nice birthday present.
I love Super Cubs!!!! I think they are the coolest thing to ever fly. I have flown just about everything with wings and if I had to pick one of them to keep, it would be the beautiful Cub that I sold. Stan has almost got me sold on one of his gyrocopters too.
I have been fascinated with his gyro since the first time a saw a photo of him building it. There is something very appealing about building one of these yourself and then using it every day for fun.
I would bet that I will own one before too long.
Unfortunately, it isn't me...
Burt: Hey...I never try to influence someone elses choice for what they want to fly. Its all what your needs are. If you want to get from point A to point B..then no doubt an airplane is for you. But for me...I have absolutely no desire for such flying...I like down on the deck stuff.....the ability to land like a crow should the engine quit. Its a thrill a minute and quite safe.
I look at my gyrocopter as something I built myself...and something I maintain myself. I love working on it...and then go flying it. Now as far as a helicopter goes...it is awesome the way they can hover...land and take off. But I could never begin to afford the maintenance on one...or the initial cost. Plus....there isnt any way that a forced autorotation in a helicopter has near the success rate that a gyrocopter has as its always in autorotation...and the pilots every landing is like an emergency landing.
Stan
Stan
Actually, our interests are very similar. I flew commercially for many years, then quit to start my own machine shop. Now I would like to get back to flying, and I agree that going from point A to point B is not for me. But I still want an actual airplane under me.
No criticism of your choice implied. And I bet if I actually flew a gyrocopter for a while I would probably love it. It's just that first few hours...
Reminds me of the first time I took off with an instructor in a TH=55 (Hughes 300) with the door off. Scared the crap out of me. After a while, no problem.
Keep on doing what you love.
Burt
Burt: Hey..no argument from me against fixed wings. I totally understand the less trust in a spinning wing...heck...I even have that myself.
Stan
Stan,
It isn't the spinning wing, really...most of my hours are in rotary wing, everything from Bell 47 up thru the Chinook (CH-47). But something about the gyrocopter just makes me nervous...
I gotta admit, though, you take some beautiful pictures.
Burt
Burt: Ok...amongst rotorwings? Hands down ...the gyrocopter is by FAR safer. You have just a fraction of the spinning parts necessary for flight. Every landing is an autorotation landing...keeps you on top of it. The helicopter takes much more correct control inputs and timing to successfully landing it without tearing something up. Sure...it can be done and is..but the pilot better be on top of his practice. Again...every gyrocopter landing is practically and engine out landing.
I would take an engine out in a gyro ..and I have had 18 of them with no damage....to an forced landing in a helicopter.
Stan
Stan Isee where you got a foot of snow near your area it will sure be pretty sight to see when the weather straightens out and you can get up in the air.
Stan,
I never said my reaction was rational...LOL...
On the other hand, with more than 4000 hours of rotary wing time I didn't have 18 emercencies of any kind, let alone engine out...
Each to his own, I guess.
I failed to mention that I have flown gyrocopters since 1985...and my 18 engine outs were all on the 2 stroke powered single place gyros. Now that I have been flying Subaru powered enclosed gyros...havent had so much as a misfire.
I was flying the so called flying lawn chairs when these engine outs were happening.
I taught myself engine out practice by shutting off my engine...with no way of restarting it. I would go up to 3000 feet...shut the motor off...and just glide in. The reason I could do this was because of how easy a gyrcopter is to fly...and land.
I have a limited budget for this hobby of mine...and if it were helicopters...I would just be reading about them instead of actually flying them every few days.
Sure....if a bank would back me...I would love to fly a helicopter..although it would not be as relaxing. I enjoy taking my hands and feet off the controls for miles...and just going along for the ride. There really isnt anything flying quite like a gyro.
Stan
Stan,
How about a compromise:
Single-person, airdroppable helicopter developed by Hiller in 1957, originally under the XROE-1 designation. Ten additional airframes (of which this is one) were manufactured under license by Saunders-Roe. Five were evaluated by NASA and the USMC in 1962 and five were sold commercially. One of these other airframes (4024, N4230U), is privately owned and still flown. The example shown here is on display in the Hiller Aviation Museum.
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Still running the machine shop? What do u make? I'm a CNC machinist.
Blue,
Yeah, still doing it. The company I work for now makes airline interior products (basically anything you can see inside the airplane - galleys, overhead bins, lavatories, ceilings, sidewalls, you name it -) and the machine shop I run makes the majority of the machined parts that go into our products.
I can always use a good CNC guy...where you located?
Burt
About 30 miles southwest of Chicago. I do alot of programing/machining on the Hurco mills. At lunch time or breaktimes I would sneak in my program doing those logos and things like Mickey Mouse figures for fun only when I have the DXF files on it. Mostly I do work for those lathemen that can't do those special machining. I'm the only mill guy in the turning dept. Where are u locate too?
Southern California...How's the weather back there? It's about 78 degrees and sunny at the moment here...
could you build a curved stair autogyro? or would the universe implode. It is very cool to be torn inbetween two loves instead of dragging off to work!
Kewl shots bro...on my way to Jamaica a few weeks ago I got me some sky shots too...bet I got higher than you did...lol.
Neocons'll love this...lol~What do John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr, Robert F. Kennedy, and John Lennon have in common?~
http://www.john-lennon.net/whoauthor...johnlennon.htm
http://WWW.CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
Is that pic in Rasta land overlooking the fields.?
Is that pic in Rasta land overlooking the fields<<<
How'd ya guess : ) Neocons'll love this...lol~What do John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr, Robert F. Kennedy, and John Lennon have in common?~http://www.john-lennon.net/whoauthor...johnlennon.htm
http://WWW.CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
Stan i will take 5 feet over 50000 feet any day. The problem with fl 50 your reaction time to your oxygen mask(in the advent of rapid decompression) will kill you. Or did you say 5500? lol have fun. Stinky
Stzn:Looks like great fun. I used to spend a lot of time in the right hand seat of a Moonie 231, criscrossing the country for business or fishing trips. To avoid the need for oxygen, we would normally cruise at 10,000 to 12,000 ft., although the Moonie could handle 25,000. I loved breaking out of the clouds as shown in yur picture -- also also loved summer days of flying between and through tower clouds in a bright blue sky.
9 seconds of useful consciousness is the number I remember. Of course, there's the kick in the gut and chest to deal with in that time.Some Gulfstreams will help you out by turning 90 degrees to the left and descending to 15,000 feet. Good idea, although coming north on the east side of the Andes in S. America it wouldn't help for long.
nine seconds...Ken that goes by real fast as the pucker factor increases exponentially. stinky
Yep, two seconds of "oh crap," two seconds of read light, remember first step of emergency procedure, two seconds of moving the chart or book that was resting on top of the mask, two seconds of sweeping mask overhead and hoping it doesn't get tangled in glasses.Made it with one to spare.Good reason not to put stuff on top of mask holder. Triples the margin :-)++++++++++++++++++
The average pilot, despite the somewhat swaggering exterior, is very much capable of such feelings as love, affection, intimacy, and caring.These feelings just don't involve anyone else.
The first thought that came to mind is ," Boy, he must be freezing his $#@# off - in the winter at that altitude." How do you stay warm? An Eddie Baur down filled jock strap???
Curley" It has plenty of heat in the cabin. I dont even need the fan running.
Stan
Stan
I can tell that you enjoy flying as much as you enjoy building curved stairs.
Have you ever givin any thought to taking on an apprentice in the stair shop? You'd be teaching someone a craft that they could carry on and you'd get the same amount of work out of the shop and still have all the time to do the flying that you want.
You dont strike me as one of those guys that cant stand to have anybody around while working so it just makes sense to me.
Doug
Doug: I may be near sighted...but I just dont want the headaches of keeping an employee busy. I make less money being conservative...but I feel I am enjoying "less" money "more".
Then if you find someone that you can turn loose...they will cut loose and have their own business in competition.
Whatever....I am happy the way its turning out so far.
Thanks for the suggestion though.
Stan
Great Pics