A few have requested me sending some pictures of my gyrocopter I am building. I just started on it yesterday…it will take around 8 months to build.
It will be a lot of fun to work on.
Here are the first steps I have done. Lots of holes…slots..angle bends to make. Wood is one thing…but 6061 aluminum is another.
I did have to fit an oak block inside the mast….
Stan
Upgrading the footings and columns that support a girder beam is an opportunity to level out the floor above.
"I have learned so much thanks to the searchable articles on the FHB website. I can confidently say that I expect to be a life-long subscriber." - M.K.
Replies
"Wood is one thing...but 6061 ....."
Stan,
Maybe, but try working with 7075-T6, Makes 6061 a cakewalk.
Not to diminish your efforts, as I know the time and talent that is going to go into that new gyro is going to be immense.
If you ever feel the desire to bring it up to EAA, (which the almost 1,000,000 people who attend would love to see) I'm only 50 minutes short, AND have a 4 bedroom house with no kids, you have a place to stay.
Jon
Jon: Thanks for the offer.....My problem is that the week prior to Osh Kosh...I will be at a national rotorcraft convention in Indiana. Its too much time off at once to attend both.
Some facts about this gyrocopter. It will have a 165 horse fuel injected EJ25 Subaru engine. Heated cabin that will easily haul a 300 pound passenger with my 220 pound butt as well.
It will cruise at 85 mph...top speed...over 110. It can fly at 0 mph in a vertical descent under full control. It cant stall.
I am not a metal worker by no means...so you can see how this is a little difficult.
I do have to cut..drill....and make most of the pieces. The last picture is what it will look like when done...plus there are doors on it as well.
Stan
That's a pretty thick instruction manual I see sitting on the bench. What do you and the kit maker figure the total hours will be?
Is bending or welding required? Lathe work?
How about painting? Do you do it yourself, or take the parts to a paint shop?
Upholstery work?
Stinger: It takes around 4-500 hours to build one. I am going to have a body shop paint the frame and cabin.
The welding is all done whats needed. Lots of bending though.
Stan
On the average how many hours a week do you think you will give to this project?
I be thinking that you might be sneaking out to the shop in the wee hours of the night to get a little extra work in!
Is this the first one you are going to build? Dont remember you saying anything about the others that you had.
Doug
Doug: Yep...I was out at 5:30 this morning. I am going to try and sneak in 2 hours a day....a little on Saturday..6-8 months....and I am done!
I built the last one I had.....actually it was on wheels and I had to wire it...put the controls in....about 2 months of work.
Stan
More pictures of the gyro project. It is competing for valuable real estate on my workbench. I am assembling the second set of stairways that are identical to the first set.
Stan
Hey Stan- does that machine need a set of stairs to get in it ?-- I know a guy your way that may be able to help...... <G> (just couldn't resist....)
Keep up the good work, keep us posted and have fun
Cheers
Joe
First we get good- then we get fast !
I have been getting up real early to work on the gyro.
Some assembly required.......
Stan
Put all those pics together as a slide show and you could say it is a scene from 007 james bond film."Sir! You are drunk!"
"Madam! You are ugly, and tomorrow I shall be sober!!" Winston Churchill
The wheels seem slighly crooked ! <G>
Jeff: Once about 800 more pounds of gyro is added...those rubber doughnuts will compress and correct the camber. Also...they havent been adjusted yet.
Stan
How many shipments for the whole sheebang? Do you have to go pick it up off a local dock, or do they ship it out to your shop?
jt8
"Most married couples, even though they love each other very much in theory, tend to view each other in practice as large teeming flaw colonies, the result being that they get on each other's nerves and regularly erupt into vicious emotional shouting matches over such issues as toaster settings." -- Dave Barry
John: The first shipment was the airframe which I am about done with. I posted some pictures here. The second shipment is the big shipment....cabin...flight controls... the third shipment is the engine and prop....the last shipment are the rotor blades.
Stan
Stan
If I didnt know better I'd say that thing looks like one of those tools you use to pull the engine out of your car!
Anyway, keep the pictures coming.
Doug
That looks like one heck of a go cart!
Ok Stan, know you got me jealous..............
So tell me, how hard are those things to fly? Vertical landings? But how much runway for a take off?
When in doubt, get a bigger hammer!
Custombuilt: Its easy to fly....but getting the feel for it is the trick. It will fly at 0 mph...in a vertical descent under full control. You just get the airspeed up to 50 mph when landing...then you flare and the kinetic energy of the aircraft goes into speeding up the rotor....the result is it lands like a crow at 0-5 mph. If you land at 10 mph....you didnt flare it right. Now ....if there is a lot of wind..... you can take off vertically.....otherwise....you have to pre-rotate the rotor...then it may take 500 feet to get it off the ground.
The hardest thing for most to understand is that the rotor is totally unpowered in flight. Just the weight of the machine makes it windmill. You can shut the engine off and throw the keys out the door. You will land like a feather. I do it all the time.....except throwing the keys out the door....<G>
Stan
Cool stuff-------yeah I knew about the rotor being unpowered, but your desricptions help my understanding.
As a kid I always wanted to build a gyrocopter! I still have detailed drawings I did when I was 8 years old. I used to get books from the library, and I even got my mom to bring me to the junkyard to pick out materials.....LOL
It never materialized, but now you´ve got me thinking......maybe someday I will build one.
When in doubt, get a bigger hammer!
There's one currently on eBay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Air-Command-447-Gyrocopter-Gyro_W0QQitemZ4578323369QQcategoryZ26428QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
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Or if you'd like more hands on:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/KB-2-STYLE-GYROPLANE_W0QQitemZ4578615135QQcategoryZ63722QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
View Image
I think I prefer the looks of the one Stan is building.jt8
"If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don't be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning 'Good morning' at total strangers." -- Maya Angelou
That second pic looks like the economic model.......
I think that is a set of pedals......good with the gas crisis and all--LOL
What is the minimum engine size you could have on one of these things and make it flay?
When in doubt, get a bigger hammer!
Custombilt: You can fly one with a 447 Rotax. I uswed to fly the open cockpit gyros for years. Then I liked it so much that I wanted to fly year round in a heated cabin.
Stan
So my old ski-do snowmobile engine will work?
Also, the one you're building will have a closed cabin too?----nice
When in doubt, get a bigger hammer!
Custombuilt: Depending on your weight and the siez of the gyrocopter....you need at least 50 horses.....but a 582 Rotax with 65 horses makes a nice powerplant.
Mine will have a 165 horse Subaru that burns just a little bit more an hour than the 65 horse 582 Rotax I used to have.
Its hard to beat four strokes for economy.
Yes..it will have an enclosed and heated cabin.
Stan
In your glass and cherry pixs youhad your gyro hanging from the center mast.Is that to see if everything is "balanced"? Keep posting those pictures, please.
butch: That was just to get it off the floor so I could spray underneath it and spin it.
I will do a hang test when its all done to determine the degrees the keel is inclined.
Here are some shots after I sprayed the frame and wheels.
Stan
I was able to squeeze some time again on the gyrocopter. I am preparing the cabin to be mounted. I had to cut the tunnel for the frame to slip through. The last picture shows my laser being used to project a vertical plane of red light so as I can align the cabin correctly.
Stan
Looks like More fun than a carpenter should be allowed to have<G>
I installed the cabin on the frame today. The nosewheel has to be reinstalled.
Stan
Looks like a fun little side project, when do you hope to have it in the air?
Cag: I should have it flying in April. If it isnt until May...thats ok too.
Stan
My money is on the end of March. :)
jt8
"Real difficulties can be overcome; it is only the imaginary ones that are unconquerable. " --Theodore N. Vail
gyro on wheels. " Some assembly required"
Stan
You can almost hear the James Bond theme ....
(reminds alot of Little Nellie in You Only Live Twice...)
Here the tail is on.. and the instrument pod is cleco'd in.
Stan
My dear ol dad at 84 cant wait to go up next year. He stopped by and sat in it. I just had installed the seats.
Stan
Stan
You've shown pictures of your son and daughter up their with you, has your dad ever been up?
Doug
Doug: He has been up many times and loves it.
Stan
He must be who you get your aviator blood from.
jt8
"Real difficulties can be overcome; it is only the imaginary ones that are unconquerable. " --Theodore N. Vail
Who is the guy hanging on the outside of the Gyrocopter taking pictures? Now that's guts!Chief of all sinners.
I am fitting the doors now. The adjustable seats are in....the heater has been installed.....I am just about ready to send the cabin and tail to the paint shop.
My Subaru EJ25 engine is due in any day....the rotor blades are being shipped. I have a ton of custom wiring to do....I should have it flying by or in April.
Stan
Edited 10/30/2005 8:02 pm ET by StanFoster
impeccable workmenship....i would fly in it with out a doubt. what a heaven hobby. stinky
I have the cabin and tail off getting painted. Here is the Subaru EJ25 fuel injected mill I am preparing to install.
Stan
Fire engine red?
For a sec there, I thought you had a minigun on that engine.jt8
"Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first." -- Ronald Reagan
The engine..radiator..and mufflers are on. Lots of detail that has to be done right.
The middle picture will be the in dash GPS navigation. It has a moving map and shows exact altitude..ground speed....time enroute....bearing...heading....and tons more info. I dont even have to look out the windows.......<G>
I am torn between building stairways and bulding this gyro. I refuse to cause either "work" because it isnt.
Stan
Looking good! I was wondering if there would be mufflers on the engine. The light aircraft I've been around don't seem to ever have any sort of silencing on the engine exhaust, and I've never been able to figure out why.
I see the mufflers are Supertrapps. I've heard they can be hard to tune...you add or remove discs from the end to make them either quiet (but very restrictive) or free flowing (but very loud), and finding the right combination can take a lot of fiddling around.
I don't see how you can even think about stairbuilding with that project in your shop. I couldn't.
For those of us not inclined to kit-build one like yours, if we could buy one, what would it cost?
Stinger: They are only available pre-built to the U.S. Government and law enforcement agencies. If you build it yourself...then you can get a repairmans certificate to do your annuals on it.
Stan
Edited 11/20/2005 4:10 pm ET by StanFoster
Mentioned my grandfather to you a while back in this thread:
http://forums.taunton.com/tp-breaktime/messages?msg=56920.8
I was just going through some boxes of stuff and came across the Rotorcraft magazine from November 1999 with an article by Ken Brock about my grandfather. Thought of your threads on here when I saw the magazine in the box.
Stan, what is the dampener looking thing in the lower right hand corner of pix no. 1. Looks like its of a Mooney landing gear!
Mike
Mike: I dont know what picture you are referring to?
Here is the prop on and other stuff. That bubble is my prop pitch tool. I have to set the pitch of each propeller blade a certain amount and within a 1/4 degree.
My cabin is going on next week . It will be all painted by the weekend.
Stan
Edited 12/7/2005 8:03 pm ET by StanFoster
Back in the late 50's up here in Canada just north of Toronto there used to be a small aircraft company called Avian and they used to build a fairly big Gyrocopter. At least it looked big to me. We used to see it flying around town on test flights . Apparently the American Army was interested in it. I don't know whatever happened to it. It looked like a flying bomb or a short fat torpedo. It had a big enclosed fan at the back which I guess pushed it along and rotors on top and the pilot was fully enclosed. As I said it looked just like a fat bomb. I've never seen another gyrocopter with a fan at the back like this one had.
Back in the late fifties Canada had developed the fastest delta winged (V shaped) fighter in the world called the Avro Arrow. This was at the height of the cold war and the U.S wanted strategic missles (Beaumark Missiles) in the north to protect them from the Russians. At first Canada didn't want anythiing todo with the missles but something happened and overnight production of the Arrow stopped. All blueprints were destroyed and the two or three prototypes were destroyed and about 5000 people were instantly out of work. Some of the brainy people,who were now out of work, came to our small town and tried to develop the gyrocopter.
As an aside, most of the brains went south and developed a fighter that looked and acted just like the Arrow.
Just thought it might be interesting.
roger
I still think one of those would make a nice cabin for a motorcycle based car/trike.
But it's amazing how we've reached the point where we will go to war over anything that bothers us. I think we all have the right to walk away from things that bother us. If it happens in our homes, then we have the right to send the offending person away. Anywhere else, we take a walk. But when did it become okay to think that we have the right to fight with people who annoy us? And when did a little consideration of others become so unfashionable that we can't do it? A little bit of cooperation and consideration would make all of this a whole lot easier. Rules at the job are always appropriate. But we have become so used to imposing rules on how others chose to live their lives that we are ready to beat them for failing to adhere to them. -SHG
Stan, I hope the gyro fits through the doors of your workshop!
Looks like you have a great project going there Stan. Keep the pics and narative coming. I plan on starting a Rotorway 162 this spring. It will be nice reading your trials and tribulations along the way.
RotarWay 162....now that impressive!
Here are some more progress pictures. I used my rotary laser to align absolutely vertically the top and bottom tail pivots. I verified after all the riveting and bolting was done with the ol plumb bob. Its never off.
Whats neat about the laser is is projects a vertical plane of red light 1/16 inch thick. I can align it along the edges of the frame and check the whole frame from front to back ...bottom to top by splitting this beam on the very edge of the 2 x2 frame. I was pleased to see that so far my riveting has been done in a balanced way and the frame was within 1/16 inch of being flat.
Stan
Edited 9/29/2005 9:38 pm ET by StanFoster
After looking through all of Stan's pictures, I noticed something.
We clearly see the progression of the Gyrocopter, but the hand rail in the circle has not moved at all.
Kyle: That handrail probably wont move for another two weeks. I am waiting on the contractor to get some other work done.
I will turn the camera 180 degrees in a few days and show whats going on. <G>
Stan
One has to have his priorities!
Stan, wish we could have gotten your local PBS station to film the assembly (we could later have them film a staircase assembly).
Looks like fun.jt8
"Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing." --Harriet Braiker
Alrighty now, thanks!!!! I will be following closely.
Do you have a link to the manufacturer so we can see
what it is(type gyro) your building?
I don't recall if you mentioned it in your other post.
Do you have Any performance specs?
Those alum square tubes come without any holes, slots or angle cuts already done by the mfg? Are u doing that? Just a drill, hacksaw and file on those 6061 is so easy to do. This is going to be something for me as a machinist to watch you do away on it! I see the manual blueprints for step by step and a thick one! Question, are the ends going to be weld or are u going to tuck a block of wood as I see on one of the photos in between the ends and bolt them?