Denis Feders is a live!

[tadgyro]

Hi every body.
I have a pictures to proved , Denis Feders is live and good condition.
On # 4 pictures he try to convince Marion to trust him......Ha Ha
Teddy

[gyrofly]

That El Mirage looks like a great place to fly and hang out.

[enewbold]

Hi every body.
I have a pictures to proved , Denis Feders is live and good condition.
On # 4 pictures he try to convince Marion to trust him......Ha Ha
TeddyDo you mean Dennis Fetters?

[tadgyro]

Sorry I spelled His name wrong
I ment Dennis Fetters.
Teddy

[scott heger]

Maybe Marion was trying to buy a slightly used mini 500? Not like the lakebed would notice one extra dent in it. That would not take long with one of those in high DA's. Or maybe she was trying to sell him burial plots in the desert for the remaining owners at a bulk rate. Sorry, for the remarks, but those machines were a black mark for experimental aviation. About the only thing a mini500 is good for is mounting as a decoration for your mailbox.


Scott Heger,Laguna Niguel,Ca N86SH

[Ga6riel]

what with global warming and all
maybe hess selling beach front property

[Vance]

I have not found value in condemning a person for a couple of dark chapters in their life’s story. I don’t believe that he set out to kill people or lose their money.

He demonstrated that there was a bigger market for gyroplane kits and he manufactured a helicopter that people wanted to buy.

He is certainly not the first or the last person to make mistakes in aviation.

I enjoyed meeting him and he had some interesting stories to tell.

Thank you, Vance

[Rehan K.Janjua]

Hello Teddy.

Thank you for the news. Its always nice to know a gyrohead is alive and kicking.

Hes the one who got me into gyros and I bought the A/C brouchure from him in 1978 for $ 10.00 and life has never been the same.

Vance Thank you.

[Brent Drake]

I give Dennis credit for trying it on his own in business. It takes alot of guts to try something of that size on your own. And risk all of your savings, also probably putting your family's home up for collateral.

[Rando]

The first gyroplane I ever owned was a Dennis Fetters Air Command 447. Dennis may have made mistakes but who amongst us hasn't?

[Heron]

Hey Vance. . . Love you man! :hippie:
Tell'em how it is!
Heron

[tadgyro]

I am glad you guys like my post.
My intention was to let you know Dennis is live
Teddy

[quadrirotor]

What about his fantastic helico??

[brett s]

That's the one that he used to steal a lot of money...took deposits on a bunch & never delivered a single one.

Everybody makes mistakes, it's how you deal with them that matters in the end. There are far too many involving Dennis for me to be very charitable - poor design, poor quality control, and then what amounts to fraud. There's quite a pattern there...

[animal]

That's the one that he used to steal a lot of money...took deposits on a bunch & never delivered a single one.



wouldn't that have been sweet with a turbine conversion. To bad none where delivered.

[gyroplanes]

That's the one that he used to steal a lot of money...took deposits on a bunch & never delivered a single one.

Everybody makes mistakes, it's how you deal with them that matters in the end. There are far too many involving Dennis for me to be very charitable - poor design, poor quality control, and then what amounts to fraud. There's quite a pattern there...

Brett, "Steal" is an ugly accusation. I think you are being a little harsh on Dennis. Were you involved with him or Revolution Helicopters?

It's unfortunate that the probable cause of RHC's bankruptcy and the loss of those deposits AND the orphaning of the Mini 500 were all brought about by a few very vocal detractors who did everything they could to bring down the company. I knew some of the guys enough to consider them friends. They had blinders on when it came to the Mini 500 and Dennis Fetters, they were angry and wanted to end his dream at any cost. They spent a good deal of money to put Dennis out of business and bankrupt his company only to leave their fellow Mini 500 owners without any support.

I sincerely doubt any of the company money was diverted for Dennis' personal gain.

Once again, when Dennis Fetters owned Air Command they were far and away the best promoted and widely accepted gyroplane in history.

Don't bother to respond about "low rider, death trap" gyros. We almost all flew them back then, we didn't know any better.

[Aussie_Paul]

Don't bother to respond about "low rider, death trap" gyros. We almost all flew them back then, we didn't know any better.

So true Tom. Now we know the difference there is no excus to fly unstable gyros. :( :sorry:

Aussie Paul. :)

[brett s]

Brett, "Steal" is an ugly accusation. I think you are being a little harsh on Dennis. Were you involved with him or Revolution Helicopters?

Nope - thought about buying a Mini 500 in the early days, luckily I didn't.

There's no doubt that the Mini 500 design was copied (which is a nicer word than "stolen") from Augusto Cicare, albeit poorly. The numerous quality control issues also can't be disputed. And he certainly did take a large number of deposits on the Voyager without ever delivering a single one. The figure I've seen was over $1,000,000...

Did he try to refund anything, or make it right? Nope - a sudden declaration of bankruptcy & he dropped out of sight for a couple years.

He is great at marketing, no doubt about that.

[Hognose]

Tom and guys

First, I'm glad (as I said in the other thread) that Dennis is alive and that reports of his death were, as Twain said, exaggerated. Sometimes we cannibalize our brethren in this small community.

And I don't believe that Dennis ever set out to cheat anybody or to build an unsafe machine. But then...

I do believe that he did build unsafe machines -- as you said, "we didn't know any better" -- and I'm somewhat annoyed that he still, today, will not admit the shortcomings of the lawn dart-500 or the low-rider Air Commands -- Dennis calls them the "Classic" Air Commands. (I prefer to think that the fine, safe machine that Air Command builds today is the "Classic").

He was, and probably is, a marketing genius. He had a flair for styling -- which shows up right in this thread where someone bemoans the availability of a machine that took the flying public for a small fortune, when it had never flown.

Several buyers listened to Dennis, listened to his detractors, and went with Dennis to the tune of $48,500 for Voyager-500 helicopter kits. At that time that Dennis was selling these kits, not only had no kits been produced, but there was no tooling, no test plan, and no flying prototype. Basically there was bupkus except an unfinished, untested prototype; a bunch of gossamer promises, and a photoshopped image or two of the machine "flying" with the collective at rest.

In the meantime, the Mini-500, Dennis's bread-and-butter product, was amassing arguably the worst safety record of any aircraft in the history of aviation; definitely the worst since World War II. It makes the BD-5 look like a conveyance for timid Swiss bankers.

Dennis advertised the Mini-500 with grandiose, fabricated claims. One that sticks in my mind is his claim that the rotating assemblies were good for 2,000 hours. Tom, you're experienced with helicopters -- you have to know that claim was bull****. (Very few powerplant components in any aircraft are good for 2,000 hours without attention. Even in certified aircraft engines, every A&P can tell you which ones will run far beyond TBO and which ones will never get close, and there are a lot more in Column B). Moreover, he had no justification for making the claim -- no test program (the sales began before the prototype flew), no engineering substantiation. Just, "it will help us sell if we tell them the beast's reliable."

Frankly, a guy's a chump to lay down a large deposit on an aircraft that you haven't flown; that hasn't flown in some quantity; that hasn't flown at all; that has a poor safety record. He's a chump to accept a complex aircraft marketed to low-time or novice pilots as a freedom machine, with no words about the responsibility that's the flip side of freedom. He's a chump to deal with a company that operates as a Ponzi racket, relying on sales growth tomorrow to build the machines paid for today. He's a chump to expect some new design to invalidate the laws of physics that all the rest of flyingdom has to obey.

But people are chumps. That's why EAA's magazines have strict guidelines about advertising... they never advertised the Voyager-500. (Or the BD-5 or teh Adventure Air amphibian, to name a couple of other machines where the grandiose-promise vector was never intersected by the actual-accomplishment vector). Others (including pubs I've worked with or for) did accept advertising for these bogus aircraft. It's the shame of a whole industry.

Another factor in the sales success of the Mini was its lowball price. You would pay more for a Rotorway (in part, because it is a better machine) and more yet for a Baby Belle (now Safari, a still better machine), and somewhere around that point, if what you want is really to fly a helicopter and not to build a helicopter, you intersect the values of certified machines, including the Bell 47, the Hiller, the Hughes/Schweizer, and mid-time R22s. (Of those, the R22 is probably the best deal because its value can always be calculated with great confidence). The Mini-500 program depended on low price to succeed, but the low price contained the seeds of Revolution Helicopter's downfall, because Dennis couldn't make a good, safe product profitably for that money. I believe that he did try.

Some other episodes from history that Dennis has never satisfactorily answered include his non-payment of Cicare for the design of the Mini control system (which Dennis patented in his own name! Despite Cicare having a patent on the same system overseas), and the weird reaction to accident reports by Revolution, with the company both trying to swing NTSB conclusions, and then issing its own reports ... exonerating the aircraft, peculiarly enough... that contradict the NTSB.

I don't believe safety is a subject matter amenable to marketing hyperbole and games. While several Mini fatals are clear-cut pilot error or poor pilot preparation, others point to some Mini-500 flaws.

On the other hand, what you say about his stewardship of Air Command is true. Dennis actually grew the sport with his enthusiasm and marketing savvy. And the machines were as safe as people understood at the time.

With the Mini-500, Dennis again brought new people into the sport. He has a clarity of vision about how to promote flying that is given to very few. He deserves credit for that.

Despite its shortcomings, many who flew the Mini-500 (even some of the guys it ultimately killed) absolutely loved it. I had a long talk with Ken Armstrong one HAI and Ken, a very, very experienced helicopter pilot, was fulsome in his praise of the Mini's handling and controllability in all flight regimes, including autorotation. Armstrong flew Dennis's demonstrator (I believe he autorotated to recovery, not to touchdown, FWIW... which is what you'd normally do with someone else's helicopter, I hope).

Allen Barklage and Gil Armbruster loved theirs, too. It didn't work out that well for them. I think Allen may have been undone by negative transfer from the Bells he flew so much, and he might have had the same prang in another low-inertia ship like the Robbie, if the engine went out.

Still, engines go out frequently in Minis, in part from the heavy load they're under. This is especially true in a heavier Mini (as a lot of them are, crammed with bells and whistles) with a heavier pilot. (Although, if it's heavy enough you won't get out of ground effect, which means you're more likely to survive the coming prang). Some Minis evidenced a nasty nose tuck on power cut, which was reportedly resolved by adding a Gurney flap to the horixontal stab.

Think about it... engine more likely to cut out... craft nose tucks on engine-out... low-inertia rotor system. Boy howdy, that's a recipe for losing RRPM and dying in a helicopter. But I don't think Dennis EVER set out to make an unsafe machine. Flying is inherently dangerous. Helicopters are inherently more dangerous than fixed wing aircraft. Experimental aircraft are inherently more dangerous than certified aircraft. Experimental helicopters compound these risks and so your risk management needs to be top notch, first time, every time.

Dennis himself has said he would not sell an experimental helicopter again. He was shocked, I believe, by the shortcuts that some of his builders took with his aircraft. One extremely responsible and safety oriented procedure that Revolution had was to retain the tail rotor gearbox until the builder documented helicopter training. Despite that, some of the crash victims had little or no instruction before taking their helicopters up...

Brett -- as far as refunding Voyager deposits... I think he couldn't. because the money was gone. It was used for day to day operations in the last flailing, thrashing year before the SBA auction... at least, that's my guess. I've never asked him directly.

Most kit and light aircraft companies are very undercapitalized to begin with. They have little money, little professional management, little depth. Look at all the rotorcraft companies that have rolled over dead after their one key guy died... industry leaders like Brock and Farrington. Or they have just stopped improving their product after the key guy went (RAF was like that, before Duane cooked up the Rotor Stabilator). How many other companies are one heartbeat away from being a dusty entry in the Do You Remember files?

We're not talking about giant companies here with big offices and executive Jacuzzis... although some of the better marketeers might give that impression. We're talking about firms that range from one guy in a ramshackle hangar to a dozen people, probably half of whom are the kids and cousins of the founder that he roped in... when you lay down a deposit on an aircraft you are taking a risk.

When the manufacturer takes a deposit, HE's taking a risk too. If he can't build the product for that amount of money, he needs to have working capital to get through the low-ball depositors into those paying a profitable price. If it doesn't happen, he closes his doors.

As accounted above, I am a pretty strong critic of Dennis Fetters. But I'm also a fairly experienced businessman. And I suspect that, apart from the taxpayers collectively (via an SBA loan), Dennis probably lost more than anybody when Revolution went tango uniform.

When my FBO went paws up I was pleased that my partners and I were able to pay the workers through their last day. I worried about that, because I'd had to make several payrolls out of my own pocket. I wonder if there's somebody that thinks I made a fortune on the business out there somewhere.

cheers

-=K=-

[gyroplanes]

Kevin,
You've done it again. You are a shining light in a sea of darkness.

I was around Mr. Fetters in the Air Command and early Mini 500 days.

Dennis was always concerned with product improvement and provided many of my customers with free upgrade parts.

Brett,
When Dennis sold Air Command and started building the helicopter, he didn't "steal" any ideas from Mr Cicare. Dennis and August were business partners. They were often together at Oshkosh and other events.

The splitting of the ways came around the time Dennis made the open helicopter design into the enclosed Mini 500.

Kevin,
As you said, the Mini 500 was embraced buy it's buyers. The Choppertown flight line at Sun N' Fun was speckled with colorful "Easter egg" Mini 500s. I watched low time pilots flying their Minis and having a ball. I also saw the Mini 500 pilots chopping power and doing practice autos. Whacking off the tailboom in power failure accidents is not excusive to the Mini 500, it is generally attributed to fixed wing pilot reactions to lower the nose ASAP after a power failure. I witnessed at least 3 powerplant failures in Minis, none took off tailbooms.

I was flying with Allen Barklage the week before his fatal flight. He was a strong proponent of the Mini. Allen's attempt to stretch his glide over the electrical substation after an apparent engine failure, was his apparent undoing.

As to the patent deal. If I used the system in my helicopter, in the USA, I'd patent here too as well. Wouldn't you?
Does anyone here have first hand knowledge of the agreement and disagreement with Cicare??

Addressing the quality control issues. As I said before, I was only familiar with the early Mini 500s and the quality control was among the best I've ever seen on any kit aircraft. If the quality fell off at some point, it was after my association with Dennis.

I do know that several upgraded Minis are still flying today and that two strokes don't belong in ANY helicopters other than R/C.

[scott heger]

Vance, I stand by what I said, the Mini 500 was a black mark on experimental aviation. No attack on him personally, I will leave that to the ones that truely suffered financially or with broken body parts. Just too many kit building problems, with frame cracks and transmissions failing with less than 10 hours,too many people with deposits on new helicopters that got nothing, and way too many families that lost loved ones. Autorotating low inertia helicopters takes a experienced pilot. Even some high time helicopter pilots died trying to fly these machines.

His ability to bring this product to market was nothing short of amasing, but beyond that, this vision and his marketing skills would would have been much better placed on another product at the time. Many customers were left with broken dreams, and not much else. Such is the risk one takes when getting a helicopter WAY cheaper than the marketplace has ever been able to do before. Those ploys rarely work out well. A kit like this would have really benifited from a factory completeion center for training and final tracking/balancing/tweeking included in the kit price for those that wanted to take advantage of that option, especially when all the problems were apparent to everyone involved.


Scott Heger,Laguna Niguel,Ca N86SH

[Heron]

Thank you Kevin, I envy your writing skills . . .
It seems we are now on a better path and there is a better future ahead.
I will keep and read this post when I loose sight of my path.
You rock Nariz de Porco!
Heron

[Steve McGowan]

YEP,, He Be Alive alright... An Eattin Really Well TOO..

Almost as Pretty as Me ..

[Vance]

Hello Scott,

I am sorry if you feel that I was disagreeing with what you said.

I have some knowledge of the pain involved with the death of Dennis’s dream. Many tried to share his dream and it cost them a lot and made them angry.

I hope people will continue to chase dreams because that is how much of what I enjoy has come into existence.

I have been told I am child like in my willingness to hurl my dreams against harsh, grinding, unforgiving reality. I don’t want to change. I want to look forward to my next adventure, not back to the ashes of my past. Both my successes and my failures are building blocks to making today worth living and expanding my dreams of tomorrow.

I want to encourage all dreamers to chase that dream.

Scott, the little I know about you says you are a dreamer and I know that you have suffered for it. I hope you can hear what I am trying to say.

Thank you, Vance

[C. Beaty]

Dennis was always concerned with product improvement and provided many of my customers with free upgrade parts.
Product improvement is often in the eye of the beholder.

According to Tony Stone, when he, on his own initiative went back in the shop and cut a pair of shingle size horizontal stabs to fit on the 2-place sugar scoop trainer, Dennis threw a temper tantrum.

To Dennis’ credit and unlike Dan Hasseloh, Dennis, after flying the machine with the stab fitted, recognized the improvement and made stabs standard equipment; at least on the sugar scoop machines.

The bottom line is that homebuilt rotorcraft “designers” in general, are utterly unqualified even to scale a Bensen. Being the World’s greatest machinist or mechanic isn’t enough.

PS: Tony Stone, a footloose Englishman, was Dennis’ instructor during the AirCommand era.

It is my understanding that Dennis paid for Tony’s CFI training at Farringtons and their parting wasn’t on the best of terms.

I have heard, but don’t know, that Tony was shot dead in a bar room brawl over a woman somewhere in Arizona or New Mexico.

[Chuck_Ellsworth]

" To Dennis’ credit and unlike Dan Hasseloh, Dennis, after flying the machine with the stab fitted, recognized the improvement and made stabs standard equipment; at least on the sugar scoop machines. "

I find it interesting reading these threads to note that some posters in this group are reluctant to find fault where fault exists.

About a year ago I remember reading one of Gyroplanes opinions that Don Lafleur and the Haseloh's were well meaning safety conscious honest businessmen.

From my dealings with RAF I found all of Gyroplanes opinions about that group to be so far off the mark it is pathetic.

Therefore when reading his defense of Fetters who I know very little about I take Gyroplanes comments with a truck load of salt, rather than a pinch of salt.

Chuck E.

[Doug Riley]

The original Air Command (an example of which is in my garage with 400 or so hours on it) contained a couple of improvements and several howling blunders.

The improvements were of the "business model" variety. This machine departed from prior practice by being sold, standard, with a professional fit-and-finish and a package of the better accessories then available for gyros. Bensen's standard gyro came with NO prerotator; A.C. had the Wunderlich as standard gear. Bensen's rotorblades were low-performance, low-inertia units; Air Command made McCutchen a (gyro-)household name. Bensen stalled and dragged his feet about using the Rotax series engines, sticking with the atrocious Mac; A.C. offered all the Rotax models. Bensen never anodized anything and left the aluminum bare; every part of an A.C. was either painted or anodized. The A.C. had a soft landing gear when nearly everybody else had a rigid axle.

So much for the nice things.

The A.C. had an elevated prop thrust line which obviously had been subjected to NO analysis. The mast was single 2x2 with five holes at the seat back, even though undrilled masts and dual-tube masts had been standard for over a decade (I changed this before I ever flew mine). When masts began breaking, Dennis published a ****-and-bull article in Rotorcraft, claiming that a breakaway mast was a GOOD thing. The hinge by which the landing gear drag link joined the front keel had such obviously wrong geometry that it was laughable -- unless it was YOUR attachment plates that peeled up-and back from the action of the misaligned hinge.

The engine was inverted, leading to flooding, fouling and crankshaft bearing damage (yup, I had all of the above). The rudder mechanism was somewhat over-center, making it tend to flop to one side (a true rookie mistake). The fuel pump came mounted right on the engine block, where it got hot and vapor-locked. The nosewheel swivel was an abomination, exceeded only by the joystick swivel; both used Oilites set into 1/8" metal, where they would turn in their holes and break.

The general use of misaligned U-brackets in the frame is a cost-saver and looks pretty, but it's structurally an enormous waste. Again, this is a rookie mistake.

All in all, the "classic" A.C. was quite a flawed machine. The business model was pretty clever, though.

[Mayfield]

I do not know Dennis Fetters. I do, however, have very strong feelings about the business case described.

Customers are not investors! Investors go into an investment with their eyes wide open; or at least they should. An investor realizes, or should realize, that he may lose all or part of his investment when a dream goes south.

As long as the investment was described honestly, an investor really doesn’t have much right to be angry when he loses money.

A customer, on the other hand, should not have this exposure to risk. A customer does not care about the dream, or the business climate, or all the wonderful things your product will bring to the world. A customer should not have to concern himself with the vendor’s need to fund payroll, pay rent and utilities, or any other vendor concern.

A customer pays the vendor a certain amount of money for a product. The customer has the right to receive the product as described and when promised. Anything less is dishonorable, deceitful, and just plain despicable! It is theft!

There is, in my opinion, no middle ground here. It is absolutely irrelevant that the vendor wanted to deliver, or tried to deliver, or hoped to deliver, or meant to deliver. If the vendor does not deliver the product that has been paid for he is a thief!

It appears, in the case being discussed, that customers became investors without their knowledge. Inexcusable!

R/S

Jim Mayfield

[Doug Riley]

You bet, Jim. An investor takes a risk in the hope of a large up-side. A guy who plunks down a deposit for a product has no up-side potential, only down-side risk.

The most he's going to get is his product, not a share of the profits.

If aircraft promoters want to take deposits, that's fine. The ethical thing to do is put them in escrow with a neutral third party. That way, the company creditors won't get the deposit if the business tanks.

[Hognose]

Kevin,
You've done it again. You are a shining light in a sea of darkness.

Tom and everybody, I'm just trying to be fair. I think Vance said that especially well. Vance is one of those guys that uses his ears more than his mouth, which makes him more worth listening to than some of us glib types.


When Dennis sold Air Command and started building the helicopter, he didn't "steal" any ideas from Mr Cicare. Dennis and August were business partners. They were often together at Oshkosh and other events.

Rick Stitt showed me marketing stuff he has that calls it the "Fetters-Cicare Mini 500". I think he has put that stuff online somewhere.

Whacking off the tailboom in power failure accidents is not excusive to the Mini 500, it is generally attributed to fixed wing pilot reactions to lower the nose ASAP after a power failure. I witnessed at least 3 powerplant failures in Minis, none took off tailbooms.

Indeed, a Mosquito XE flown by an experienced combat helo pilot experienced that (de-boomination) at Oshkosh. I think a less skilled pilot would have balled it up... this guy was in the shaded area of the h-v curve and should by rights have pranged hard. His skill saved him and left a repairable machine -- IMHO.

The Mosquito lost its engine due to fuel contamination. The MZ202 in the Mosquito seems far more reliable than the 582 in the Mini.

Dennis attributes all the 582 failures to improper jetting or pilot error. Whatever... an engine should not be that subject to operator mishandling, if that's what it was. An engine should not be routinely run at 105%. Look at Rotax specs and you'll see that their TBO is based on an easier duty cycle, and their peak HP is time limited.

I was flying with Allen Barklage the week before his fatal flight. He was a strong proponent of the Mini.

And one of the leading critics of Revolution, wasn't he? With Bill Phillips (who also started as a defender), Joe Rinke, F. Stewart, etc. Most of whom had some connexion with Dennis and Revolution before falling out.

Allen's attempt to stretch his glide over the electrical substation after an apparent engine failure, was his apparent undoing. .

Yep, in a 206 or Huey he'd have gotten away with it. In H-13 days (mil Bell 47) one of the demos was to autorotate to touchdown, weight on the ground, then pick up and pedal turn 360º. Don't try that in a Robbie or Mini. (Of course, in those days you had to demonstrate vortex ring state entry and recovery for an IP upgrade, too. Even the Army learns... it's just a slow learner).

The low-inertia rotor has its pros, but it's auto behaviour is the big "con." Frank Robinson has said that if he ever thought the R22 was going to be the most popular trainer, he would have designed it completely differently. He designed it as a sport helicopter.

As to the patent deal. If I used the system in my helicopter, in the USA, I'd patent here too as well. Wouldn't you?

Er, not without the rights to it, when it was someone else's design.

Does anyone here have first hand knowledge of the agreement and disagreement with Cicare??

Rick Stitt has claimed to. Now, Dennis has been more than critical of Rick... Dennis says that Stitt ripped him off.

I think Glenn Ryerson has heard Cicare's side of the story at first hand. And the Elisport guys who kit the CH-7 told him that they decided to stop paying Cicare because they were competing with Fetters, who didn't pay him either.

Addressing the quality control issues.

Stitt (again, possibly an unreliable source, and certainly a biased one) showed me m/r shafts that were made of seamless steel tubing that were only finished on the outside... rough on the inside. Two problems there: stress risers and difficulty in balancing.

I have seen m/r blades that had all kinds of deficiencies... warping, bowing. Stitt isn't the only one who showed me these.

two strokes don't belong in ANY helicopters other than R/C.

My brother wants to build a kit helicopter. I am trying to steer him away from his first choice (Rotorway) and towards Safari. I believe the Safari to be a superior, better-sorted machine. (Hummingbird is also good, but costs a fortune). Rotorway is a decent machine but its resale value is low, and it requires more maintenance per flight hour than many certified helicopters.

The single-seat market offers two machines that I think are OK, helicycle and Mosquito. Neither sells as well as the Mini did... what is missing is Dennis's marketing touch, IMHO.

I think a wise buyer waits until customer machines are flying before committing on any new experimental design. Now, if all the wise buyers did this, it means that only fools would be dealing with all the teething any new design has, and it would get pretty ugly. The thing is, a lot of generally wise fellows will not listen to my advice and will rush in... only some of whom will prove to be fools.

Helicopters are the second most complex flying machines going (after powered-lift). They make the Space Shuttle look simple, and occupied some of the best minds and best educations in aviation for most of the 20th Century. Designing a helicopter is a challenge you should only take up after reading what Igor Sikorsky (who might have been the best-educated man in aviation at the time, and had at least two brilliant engineers, Hunt and Gluhareff, and a gigantic company behind him) went through to get the VS-300 working.

I've often thought that there was a great book in the Mini-500 story. You'd have to get all the principals on the record, but there's a great deal of human drama here, all wrapped up in the timeless dream of vertical flight.

cheers

-=K=-

[gyroplanes]

Product improvement is often in the eye of the beholder.

According to Tony Stone, when he, on his own initiative went back in the shop and cut a pair of shingle size horizontal stabs to fit on the 2-place sugar scoop trainer, Dennis threw a temper tantrum.

To Dennis’ credit and unlike Dan Hasseloh, Dennis, after flying the machine with the stab fitted, recognized the improvement and made stabs standard equipment; at least on the sugar scoop machines.

The bottom line is that homebuilt rotorcraft “designers” in general, are utterly unqualified even to scale a Bensen. Being the World’s greatest machinist or mechanic isn’t enough.

PS: Tony Stone, a footloose Englishman, was Dennis’ instructor during the AirCommand era.

It is my understanding that Dennis paid for Tony’s CFI training at Farringtons and their parting wasn’t on the best of terms.

I have heard, but don’t know, that Tony was shot dead in a bar room brawl over a woman somewhere in Arizona or New Mexico.

Chuck B.
The eye of the beholder? I think I have a pretty good eye.
Dennis provided my customers, free of charge, upgraded pedals, masts, steering "soft" links, PMSTPs (the bendable plates Doug referred to, sorry you didn't get any) 2" tubing saddles, starter rope mast pulleys and many more items. The Air Command was never perfect, it still isn't.

I think you are off a bit on the Tony Stone stabilizer recollection. Here is how I remember it (and lived through it).
The stabs were NOT part of the "sugar scoop" two place. The stabs were standard with the single place enclosure when it came out. That was far before the two place SxS IIRC.

Tony Stone, was a very colorful character, drove a Porsche and I believe was Welsh, (not to split hairs). Tony flew a single seater with the stabs and NO pod, Tony felt the stabs were an improvement, Dennis didn't. Dennis soon offered them as an option with or without the enclosure, a decision I help him make.

I probably sold a dozen or more sets of stabs, It was pretty evenly split between "wow, makes a big difference" and "I didn't notice any difference, can I get my money back?". Remember, these were short rear keeled models back then. I have no doubt the stabs (although small) make a big difference with the long rear keel.

I never felt a difference with the short keel and stabs, just the added 12(?) lbs of inertia in the flying rudder.

Chuck E.
Enjoy the salt !

[C. Beaty]

I only know what Tony Stone told me, Tom, and made no judgement as to his veracity.

I came to know Tony fairly well when he was trying to earn a living instructing in an AirComand S x S with inverted Rotax 532 power.

The main bearings didn’t last very long. Tony used to bring me 2 or 3 cranks at a time to be pressed apart and have new bearings installed.

Most of the time, however, the bearings would lock up and destroy the crankcase.

[gyroplanes]

I understand Chuck, I didn't mean to imply you were making stuff up or not telling the truth. I visited Liberty, MO. quite a few times while Tony was instructing there. Tony and Dennis were an "odd couple"

We ran our SxS trainers with the plugs down for quite a while. The only problem we ever encountered was the "Mini seizure". We'd have a power loss, land in a field, look things over, find nothing wrong, take off and fly for hours before the mystery slowdown would appear again.

One of our friends / customers was a German and on vacation, visited the Rotax factory. They told him no, no, no on the plugs down. He flipped his engine over and his mystery slowdowns disappeared.

We almost all flipped our's over and that was the last time we had any trouble with a Rotax engine in our club.