Gyroplanes of the World

From Sport Copter of Oregon:

In case you didn't already know, "gyrocopter", "gyroplane", "autogiro" and "autogyro" all mean the same thing, and the most important feature shared by gliders, airplanes, helicopters and gyroplanes is that they all use wings to fly. It's just that on helicopters and autogyros the wings are mounted on pylons and spin in circles, but they are rigidly affixed to the sides of airplanes and gliders. Other than that, they all get into the sky the same way: You move a wing rapidly through the air and it produces Lift. The rotating wings of a helicopter are directly-driven by the engine, enabling it to hover; whereas the rotating wings of the gyroplane are free-spinning, meaning it can't hover – though it can come astonishingly close to it, because it needs very little forward speed to stay airborne.


The cardinal virtue of the gyroplane is its ability to do nearly everything a helicopter can do, at only a fraction of the cost, while doing it more safely than any other kind of flying machine. While even the most mundane gyroplanes are true STOL (Short Take-Off/Landing) vehicles, they can be configured to take-off and land with no ground-roll at all. Moreover, their exceptional STOL capabilities make them terrific for "bush" or water operations. Helicopters are vastly more mechanically complex than any other kind of aircraft, with a host of critically interdependent moving parts, which is why they cost several times as much to purchase and maintain as a same-sized gyroplane. Meanwhile, many gyroplanes can be purchased and operated for less than some motorcycles, and because they fly in a constant state of autorotation, even a total engine failure results in a parachute-like descent, making them the safest of all aircraft.As if all that weren't wonderful enough, a typical gyroplane can stay aloft at 5 to 10 knots airspeed, and even a small gyroplane (in the hands of a competent, experienced pilot) can be operated safely under high wind conditions that would keep gliders, ultra-lights, blimps, balloons, space launches and most private airplanes on the ground. Moreover, gyroplanes are capable of the same forward speeds as helicopters. This is so because of the rotating wings, and their "wing-loading", a term describing how many pounds of an aircrafts total weight are supported by each square foot of its wings; Gyroplanes have very high wing-loading because their rotorblades have so little total area, using rotational speed rather than size to generate lift. So gyroplanes really do offer exceptional utility. _SportCopter

SportCopter of OregonGyrocopters provide an amazing freedom of movement at a relatively low cost. They can be equipped with skis for snow and ice, or floats for water TO/Ls. If you need to make a quick getaway from a gridlocked mega-city when the fecal matter hits the rapidly rotating blades, consider the lowly gyroplane.

Auto-Gyro

The newest addition to the gyrocopter genre arrived at Aero Friedrichshafen this week in the form of a side-by-side, fully-enclosed, composite construction Cavalon gyrocopter. The gyrocopter is to the helicopter what the microlight is to traditional small aircraft. Invented in 1923 by Spaniard Juan de la Cierva, the gyrocopter uses quite a different layout to the helicopter to give it stability at low speed. It is cheap to run, takes off and lands on a ridiculously small footprint, and has a powered pusher propeller in addition to an unpowered main rotor.Certification for the EUR65,000 Cavalon is almost complete in Germany and France, and AutoGyro will assist with certification documentation for other countries. Additionally, there are still ten units up for grabs in this year's production run.

The closest competitor to the Cavalon is the Xenon gyrocopter built in Poland, though the Xenon has the one-axle cyclic control while the Cavalon has a two-stick arrangement and the Cavalon stores its fuel outside the cabin. _Gizmag

CellerAviation

CELIER AVIATION is proud to welcome you to the world of the finest and now legendary gyrocopters: Xenon 2 R, Xenon 2 RST and XL. The KISS serial, under preparation is the 2011 next winner. Do not forget to look our news often, get the abonment to our RSS system. _Celier Aviation