Lansing, IL Gyrobee Progress

A little bit more to report tonight. The seat belt has been installed. We got ours from here: https://www.gotbelts.com/ Cheap, high quality and it arrived surprisingly quickly. The rotorhead has been mounted on a set of test plates, we will most likely hang test it next time. Our horizontal stabilizer is mounted as well. Not a whole lot left to do, stay tuned for more updates.

Lookin good. What's the status on the custom monster gyros you guys were building?

What's the status on the custom monster gyros you guys were building?

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I'm embarrassed to say that my monster gyro is still not quite finished. The routing of the controls has been a nightmare! Nick has fabricated a really nice teleflex push/pull cable control system based on the UFO gyro design. We are actually ordering the cables today and hopefully this will solve the problem. Everything else is finished and if the new controls work, and nothing else pops up, the gyro will fly at Mentone. Mine is the only monster gyro that is near flying. As far as I know, there are 9 monster gyro kits out there somewhere. I'm sure will see more of them in the air someday.

I,d just throw some fiberglass cloth over that "eco-friendly" core, that way you would end up with an all-weather space age composite matrix, celulose core super lightweight stab. Just to keep up with all the current composite LSA aircraft.

I,d just throw some fiberglass cloth over that "eco-friendly" core, that way you would end up with an all-weather space age composite matrix, celulose core super lightweight stab. Just to keep up with all the current composite LSA aircraft.

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I read somewhere (maybe here on the forum) about a guy building a small airplane using cardboard and resin, no glass at all. The .090 plate was quick and easy. Although I never weighed it, I don't think it's all that heavy either.

First Taxi!

First Taxi!

We finally got our new Ivo-Prop in, so tonight was our first taxi. We really wanted to have this gyro at Mentone, but the big storm that blew through our area last week took down the power to our airport for three days. Anyway, other than machining the rod end inserts for our push tubes, we are ready to go, we even have our nice polished bensen blades all ready to go be hung on our new bee. Stay tuned for pictures of the first flight!

The last picture is of our club hangar, there are 10 gyros in there, can you find them all?

Adam that is great news. Not that you couldn't make Mentone or the storm, that sucks!
Let us know it's looking good though. We love pictures thanks!!!

When do you expect the 1st flight Adam?

man you guys Rock! great looking gyro, you young guys are giveing some of us old farts a run for our money..lol

it was great seeing some of ya'll gyros.

Nick's Honey bee when you looked at it close had many cool ideas incorparated,I tryed to get him to enter it in the judgeings but he was to busy flying. being I was a judge I was really impressed with it.

I am sure if the new gyro is anything like Nick's Bee, then there is so much more the pics just don't show.

looks like you guys have a great club going.

you know Tom has to be like a proud papa every time ya'll unleash a new Gyro...lol

Come on Tom, admit it you know they are like your children.

they are a really great group of guys,even when I was not feeling good about my worse landing attempt in history,they did not laugh at me, but said not to beat my self up and to keep practiceing.

I look forward to seeing these guys again at more fly-in's

Nick's honey bee was one sweet flying gyro and he flew it to mentone.

Hey Animal, it was nice meeting you too. You're right, Tom has helped us a lot, not only does he have about half of aircraft spruce's inventory in his hangar along with a machine shop but being an A&P, he is always showing us how to do something the "right, aircraft" way (notice the lack of zip-ties on the new machine ) Not sure when the first flight will be, probably sometime next week.

Next week great were are pulling for you, what fun!

Thanks for the kind words guys. We're real proud of this latest bee. It is by far our nicest work yet. It may even get a coat of paint and really make it impressive. Us lansing guys get lazy and once the gyro flies we tend not to paint it. You're right Animal, we are lucky to have Tom out at the airport with us. Without his help we probably would have never finished our first gyro. He's been around the block a few times.