Mosquito

[TurbineTillis]

Are there any Mosquito builders or flyers here?I have looked at the Helicycle, and I'm impressed with the support they give plus they come to your place and test fly. I just don't have the $33,000 to shell out at the moment.

The mosquito looks great! If it is a safe design, I think it would be ideal for someone to build hours on.

Does anyone know the cost per hour to operate? Is the price tag worth the maintenance cost, or would I be better off buying a Helicycle?

Be Blessed,

Mark T.

[Mosquito Man]

Apart from being an ultralight, cost per hour is one of the Mosquito's advantages over the Helicycle. We burn 5 gal/hr rather than 15 or so that the Helicycle burns. When you include the 500 hr rebuild, operating cost is around $20/hr.
You can also have the Mosquito built for you and have a complete machine preflown for you for $24000 (open frame) or $29000 (enclosed XE). We can do that with ultralights.
There's about 8 flying so far but none are posters on this site. Email me and I'll put you on to a few.

[GyroRon]

I have seen one fly and although I know little about helicopters it appeared to be a well designed machine and it seemed to fly well. It really did fly too mind you, not just sitting around hovering in one spot.

Only talk I have heard of any interest with this helicopter, was talk of replacing the blades it currently uses with better lift blades such as Dragon Wings. I would guess this could only make the heli better.

[Vance]

I spent a lot of time admireing the Mouquito at three different fly ins. It seemed to fly very well and was remarkably steady in a hoover. The parts are particularly nice and the body is very nicely made. John seems to fly it more like a gyroplane than a helicopter and it realy scoots. I have not seen him do an autorotation or a quick stop, but all the flight manuvers I have seen so far looked to be well exicuted. Thank you, Vance

[Mosquito Man]

Only talk I have heard of any interest with this helicopter, was talk of replacing the blades it currently uses with better lift blades such as Dragon Wings. I would guess this could only make the heli better.


Already done. I wanted to use Dragon wing blades for some time but they were twisted for gyro use and so would not suit a chopper. Ernie has since been able to eliminate the twist so now they are standard on both the Mosquito and the Mosquito XE. Excellent blades, very efficient and virtually no center of pressure movement.

[skyguynca]

Wow, that is pretty neat. Should provide alot more lift than the standard NACA0012 and definitely autorotate better. What airfoil is on the DW? I have a set in the hangar but I think they are older and a bit different airfoil.

[Mosquito Man]

I spent a lot of time admireing the Mouquito at three different fly ins. It seemed to fly very well and was remarkably steady in a hoover. The parts are particularly nice and the body is very nicely made. John seems to fly it more like a gyroplane than a helicopter and it realy scoots. I have not seen him do an autorotation or a quick stop, but all the flight manuvers I have seen so far looked to be well exicuted. Thank you, Vance


Hey thanks! The Mosquito is very easy to fly, much easier than an R22 in my experience. Although I don't recommend it I've had three people so far who taught themselves to hover in less than an hour, with no prior training. Naturally they get training before proceeding any further (before I kick off a big discussion on flying without training) but it shows how easy it is to fly the machine.
Were not allowed to do auto's at the shows but I do them regularly at home.

[Vance]

Just for reference, it took me five hours of training before I was able to hoover an R22 in gusting Kansas winds. We were doing other things also as my instructor could only handle so much of cheating death in one sitting and hoovering burns a lot of fuel and is hard on the helicopter. The Mosquito looked less squirly than an R22. Auto rotations took me to hour eighteen in an R44. I have poor depth perception because I am blind in one eye and I always felt that I would dig a trench when I flaired at 40 feet from 70 miles per hour. Thank you, Vance

PS. I would not recomend learning to hoover a helicopter without an instructor. I would began to get behind, start to rock and accelerate rapidly to the right rear. My instructor was very formal and by the time I informed him he had the ship and he acknolegded he had the ship, we were typicaly 25 feet in the air and at about 25 knots backward. I was gratefull he was there.

[Mosquito Man]

The good thing about a chopper is that you never have to be more than 6" off the ground with 0 airspeed to learn how to fly. I taught myself by strapping a 20 ft boom across the back pads of the chopper so I wouldn't tip over. When you're learning you never go more than a foot in the air and you make sure it's dead calm. It's impossible to roll over then. Just keep working at it until you can hold the ends of the skids free from the ground and stay in one spot. One guy timed himself and was holding the boom clear and stable in 35 minutes after first getting in the air.
I've since been forced to get proper training since I live in Canada where we don't have an ultralight category and found the R22 much more squirrely to handle than the Mosquito. I was quite surprised.

[Brian Jackson]

Hi John.

I've spoken with you on the phone before. I was in pre-planning to buy a Mosquito for doing Aerial 3D photography but we never got the funding from the "investor." I've been so impressed with the Mosquito from an engineering standpoint that I will own one eventually. Since then I've been scratch-building a GyroBee (which doesn't require an investor :D ).

I'm very happy to hear you've sold as many kits, and that the interest is increasing. I also didn't realize you'd gone with Dragon Wings, or that DW's (or any gyro blades for that matter) were compatible with helicopters since the rotors are driven. Has Mr. Boyette spec'ed a service life (hours) on the blades when driven?

Also, and forgive me if this is a dumb question, but are firing pulses dampened somehow in the drive train from the engine to the blades? Lastly, are there typically any reinforcement/strengthening characteristics that normally differentiate a gyro blade from a helicopter blade? I seem to recall many helis having symmetrical airfoils and many gyro blades being more-or-less flat bottomed.

Sorry for the long post, but I'm very intrigued by this subject and would like to learn more. Thanks.

Respectfully,
Brian Jackson

[Vance]

I learned a great deal from my helocpter training and I would recomend that any one that is going to fly a helicopter get good profesional training. So many things are best not learned the hard way.

Whenever I read the NTSB reports on helicopters I can usualy find which hour I learned not to do the particular thing that caused that particular helicopter to fall out of the sky. Some of the accidents couldn't be avoided, but many are a series of decisions that I learned from my instructor not to make. I will always be gratefull for the instruction. Thank you, Vance

[GyroRon]

From what I have been told, this fellow in Florida taught himself to fly his Mosquito. I was also told he had no previous flight experience at all. I saw his hobbs meter back in January when I first saw him flying - not hovering, but FLYING - and the hobbs only showed maybe 16 hours tops.

I am tempted to get one myself someday. I have never tried to fly any helicopter, so I would want to give it a try first and see if it is worth it.

[Jazzenjohn]

It is an impressive machine. I'd love to have one but I'd need much more disposable cash than I have right now.... Of course if I had RON's money I'd have TWO of them... ;)

[Vance]

A person surviving self training is not a good indicator of how safe it is to self train.

Hoovering is one of the harder things to learn in a helicopter.

I was able to climb out and manuver in my first hour of training. So "flying" is the easy part.

Hoovering is an important prelude to landing and is important for getting from one place to the next.

Take off is all about minimizing your exposure to the bad side of the height velocity curve and is done badly by most civilian helicopter pilots.

Many things in a helicopter are not intuitive. Please get training.

Thank you, Vance

[brett s]

The other fun things you really don't want to be trying to teach yourself are emergency procedures - tail rotor failures of any type & engine failures in particular. A low time self-trained pilot doesn't have very good odds in the event of a real one either of those without prior practice IMO. On the bright side, it's much easier to find a helicopter instructor than a gyro one!

Question for John - how many hours on the highest time machine?

[gyromike]

Already done. I wanted to use Dragon wing blades for some time but they were twisted for gyro use and so would not suit a chopper. Ernie has since been able to eliminate the twist so now they are standard on both the Mosquito and the Mosquito XE. Excellent blades, very efficient and virtually no center of pressure movement.

John,

How much tip weight is in each blade?

[Mosquito Man]

I didn't want to start a discussion on the perils of not getting training but I figured I might.
I don't recommend anyone try flying without training and give $2000 off the price of the chopper to make sure people go and get basic training to learn emergency procedures and how to fly a helicopter. I strongly recommend customers become a student pilot as a minimum, the point at which the instructor will permit you to fly on your own in the training helicopter. However, many customers can't resist the temptation to at least hover their new creation prior to completing their training and so learn to hover by using the boom. Anything more than hovering without full training in emergency proceedures is an absolute no-no.

Gyromike: The blades have 1.5 lb tips weights in each blade.

Brian: Still waiting for you to complete that order! I've limited the blade life to 500 hours, well below the gyro life. The blade root has also been beefed up. Engine pulses are significantly reduced if not completely eliminated by two cog belt reductions and four flex plates in the drive train. DW blades are very close to a VR7 airfoil which is an efficient airfoil used on modern rotorcraft. Assymetric airfoils are more efficient than symmetrical and can be used so long as there is some trailing edge reflex to keep the center of pressure movement to a minimum. The trick is balancing the shape and amount of reflex required to keep the required characteristics without sacrificing too much efficiency. Since gyro blades dont have feather bearings center of pressure movement is not so important and you can get away with flat bottomed airfoils although they will generally not be as smooth as reflexed airfoils such as DW's.

[quadrirotor]

Where can i see a Mosquito flying in Québec?

[Mosquito Man]

None there yet but there's a couple in New York.

[quadrirotor]

In Ontario?

[Mosquito Man]

None in Ontario. The Mosquito is an ultralight in the US, not in Canada. Our ultralight rules don't allow a helicopter to be an ultralight so every chopper has to be certified and the pilot has to be fully licensed. Makes chopper flying a little more expensive up here.