Quote:
Originally Posted by jyl
" have quite a few hours in one of the old Ken Brock (he bought out Bensen I think) gyrocopters and felt pretty safe in it. The McCulloch 72 HP engine quit occasionally but the secret was to stay over terrain where you could land safely."
That is pretty funny. I think I would like to meet some owners of these machines. Then keep my eye out for the estate sale.
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Sorry! I guess I should have given more details here. This was in the late 70's, early 80's perhaps and a Bensen was a high-tech machine. I don't remember there being any other makes out there then. The McCulloch engine was a "drone" engine and a 2 cycle on top of that so engine failures were not that rare. I never flew over woods or anywhere I couldn't glide to a safe landing. Never put a scratch on it or me. The thing belonged a buddy of mine who built it and couldn't fly. There were a few of them around home and I did see several crashes but except for the one fatal one (which was enough) nobody got hurt except for being banged up. I have seen some of the newer gyros at Sun n' Fun and have been amazed at their technology. Enclosed cockpits, radios, GPS, 2 seats, Subaru engines on some and even a "jump" collective (lack of a better description here) that gives them a kind-of vertical take off capability.
I really wouldn't be afraid to fly one of the newer ones again. I do remember that on the old ones, the higher you got, the narrower that seat seemed to get.