Gyrobee Construction?

[spurcd01]

I am a new user as you all can tell, by the amount of listings and such. What I am looking for is an apporximate amount of space and/or time that it takes to build the gyrobee. I have done hours of research on this particular aircraft. Your respone's are greatly appreciate, along with picts of your construction journeys.

[ToddP]

The real quick and dirty: 1 car garage should be enough room. Two Car would be great. It will probably take 4-6 months if you have time to do a little work each day. That could easily stretch out to 4-6 years if you get sidetracked. There are no doubt lots of half finished gyrobee's (and other gyros) out there.

[spurcd01]

I am from Fort Wayne, IN and I had heard through the internet that there is a manufactur of gyros here in town. Do you know if that is true?

[gyroman]

Chris,

I agree with Todd on the space required but for time to build your looking at a lot of variables. If you buy the predilled parts from Starbee you can dramtaically reduce the build time. Then again if you build every part from scratch like I'm doing you could be working at it the rest of your life.

Also how much time do you have to spend on building, money for parts, etc.

If one were to buy all the pre made, pre drilled parts from Starbee you could have it going pretty quickly.

[spurcd01]

Really I have all the nights and weekends it would take. But I am trying to conserve on my wallet. Mygrandfather owns a machine shop. So he has told me that he could fabricate some of the parts if that was necessary. As of the space part about it. I have the worlds smallest one car. But looking at the specs the bee will fit, I just don't know I would fit in there with it. All jokes aside the space should be fine. I am more looking for $$ numbers for the total cost. Aslo some good websites for parts and/or kits.

[gyroman]

Check out my website, the address is listed below, I have several links to vendors websites for materials. I used mainly Wickes Aircraft, very good customer Services IMHO.

[spurcd01]

The website is not working on my comp. / There is not hyperlink also copy and paste is not working

[gyroman]

oops, I see the problem, try it now see if it works.

[Curran3]

I've finished and flown two Gyrobees. About the cheapest you can build one is about $6K. That's using a used engine, used blades, new prop, new rotorhead, and scrounging just about everything else. If you buy all the parts ready made and use new stuff it can quickly get up to $10K. Add a bunch of instruments, radio, gps, powder coating, etc and you get up into a range that you'll have to lie to your wife about. The prices gyro kit makers quote are pretty reasonable in my opinion.
Curran in Jacksonville, FL

[cgmg]

I agree with Curran regarding minimum build prices. My centerline thrust Air Command cost me just under $10k, which was my wife's limit. And I got a screaming price on the used engine. The only new items were the pod, rotors, prop, and instrumentation. That price did not include the helmet, radio, trailer, lessons, and various special tools you have to have when you fly a gyro.

If you can't do it for less than that, in my opinion, you would be better off buying new, even if it means spending an additional $1-$2k. Over the next year, I spent about that much fixing things that came up with used equipment. The other issue with used is it's best to replace all bolts with new, which gets expensive pretty quickly. The only exception to doing so would be if you personally knew the seller. In my case, with the airframe, the guy was from the east coast, and I live in Illinois. I bet I spent $200 just on bolts, etc, going through the machine piece by piece. And I found several pieces which were drilled improperly, which is really expensive when you buy them separately.

Good luck in your gyro search. Take your time, and buy the right equipment, you'll have a ball flying it, and also have a relatively safe machine.

Mark

[donshoebridge]

spurcd01,

I think the company you are referring to is Rotorwawk. I know they make blades, but beyond that, sorry.

I live in Huntington. I saw your profile a few days ago and tried to send you an e-mail, but you had it shut off. There is a PRA club in Mentone - Chapter 81, The Mentone Aero Club. I run their web page. I'm also building my own gyro design in my 2-car "Hangar".

There is a club meeting today (10 Apr 04) at 11:00am in LaPorte. Our club is going to meet in Mentone around 10:00am and make the drive to LaPorte. We are going to be meeting with PRA chapter 18 at the Indiana Aviation Museum. Details can be found at http://www.geocities.com/mentoneaeroclub

Feel free to contact either myself or the club any time. We would be glad to help out.

Don Shoebridge

[Doug Riley]

I own a company, AEROTEC, Inc., that sold gyro parts and supplies for a number of years. One of our products was a series of kits for the Internet version of the Gyrobee. About 50 were sold. Customer reports of build time varied from 30 days (the record!) to over a year. I estimate that a person with some experience building things out of aluminum tubing and other metals will spend an average of 200 hours building.

Cost for a machine from all-new parts (including engine) will be about $8000. I'd discourage a first-time gyro builder from using off-brand or used engines. The LAST thing you need to do is cope with engine failures as you're learning to fly! (I had an offer to fly a prize-winning Gyrobee at a recent flyin, but never got the chance because the used engine on this gorgeous machine wouldn't run right. Who needs this kind of aggravation?)

Build the thing "box stock" if you're new to gyros. Until you build and fly one, you won't know if your "improvement" really is. A gyro is much less casually tossed together than it appears to be. There's a reason for the design to be the way it is. You'll probably not be able to smoke out the reasoning behind some items, however, until you've been around these devices for awhile.

My company doesn't offer kits/supplies anymore, but Dana Linn's company, Starbee Gyros, does. The proper materials for a gyro can be hard to hunt down, so using a specialty supplier who's in the aircraft business makes sense.

I'll attach a few pictures of my 'Bee if the software cooperates.

[GyroRon]

I agree with Doug about the engine choices. I say wipe out the Visa card and buy a brand new Rotax 503 if your building a Bee. The 447 has enough power for lower elevations and with no pre rotator and a pilot around 225 or less, But the 447 does not have dual ignition which the 503 does. The 447 has 40 horsepower and the 503 has 52, That is a big difference for the little bit of added weight of the 503.

I also think the used engines are just a pain in the butt. Barry used a used 447 on his bee - he has about 1500$ into the engine at this point - and saved about 1500$ over buying a new 447. But I am not comfortable with the way this engine is running and would not fly it out of the pattern until it is made to run right which at this point may take a witch doctor.

I am real sorry Doug didn't get to fly the gyro at Bensen Days, but the way the engine was running I felt he would likely have to deal with a dead stick landing and it wasn't worth the risks.