Chopter Gyroplane

[GrantR]

http://www.breeseaircraft.com/

Wow that looks awesome Vance!

[Mike484]

Cool Vance, wish you success with it.

[GyroDoug]

Is this for real? I have to admit it it a very neat concept and very good looking. I just want to know if this is more than a concept on a web page and if there has been any work done to build a prototype and test it to see how it flies. I can sure see this gaining a lot of attention really quick. Now how about the rest of the story?

[Vance]

Hello Grant and Mike, this was a project that I was working on as I encountered the fiscal storm that consumed my wealth. Victor did the sight development and we got pretty far down the road with a proof of concept prototype. We even had a flight simulator based on X plane and a fairly large utility patent.

It is actually why I learned to fly a gyroplane. I felt that I needed to understand what made flying fun.

The Harley Davidson twin cam 88 makes around 80 horsepower and weighs around 140 lbs with the alternator. At the time I could buy them for around $2,500.

Harley Davidson had done a validation that sounds like something you would do for an aircraft engine and some of the engineers there felt that the engine would last a minimum of 500 hours in that application.

I had to shrink my dreams as my financial world collapsed.

I keep the site up as a memory of my former self.

Projects like that need to be approached with a lot of money that can easily be lost so I have no intention of bring it to fruition.

Thank you, Vance

[Vance]

Hello Doug,

I had about two years of full time work into it.

We had built a proof of concept re-drive and the main body and empennage was finished.

I was about to start on the airframe when my financial world collapsed.

I had the help of a lot of very smart gyroplane people and I had hired an aeronautical engineer to do stability and structural analysis.

It was real to me and I had every intention of running it down the road in 2005.

The idea was to use parasitic marketing and a dealer network.

Thank you, Vance

[Dirtydog]

GrantR :
Nice looking, so when is you order going to placed?

Vance :
Now that is what I call a bike......

[StanFoster]

Vance- That is one well set up presentation....I still remember you showing me this concept in the motel room. Thats when I realized what a brilliant mind you have. I could not imagine what you had to think out.

Very impressive and I hope someday something happens to cause this machine to turn to reality.


Stan

[choppergabor]

Nice concept. It is not just good looking but I can see its usefulness too. Dreamers rule! Nice job Vance very impressive.

[Joe Pires]

Originally Posted by StanFoster

Vance- That is one well set up presentation....I still remember you showing me this concept in the motel room. Thats when I realized what a brilliant mind you have. I could not imagine what you had to think out.

Very impressive and I hope someday something happens to cause this machine to turn to reality.


Stan

Wow if I knew that that is what Vance met when he said come up to my room and I will show you my etchings, i would have gone. That is very cool.

If you could have built it Vance what do you think it would have sold for?

[Chuck Roberg]

Vance is one great guy. He might be a slow talker. But you know his mind is always racing and coming up with new ideas.

Oops, don't want to leave Ed out. She's one sweet gal also.

[Vance]

Thank you Chris, I was not able to imagine what the ….indicated.

Thank you Stan, the support of friends like you means a lot to me.

Thank you Gabor, I wish I had half of your artistic talents. The aesthetics grew out of an iterative process, trying to combine my love of motorcycles with my love for Art Nouveau. Because it is supposed to fly, functionality often intruded on the aesthetics. I had recently left design at Indian Motorcycle in Gilroy and was trying to add some of that as well. Many of the shapes are from Harley Davidson and Indian of the past. My love of flying gyroplanes was just developing at the time.

Hello Joe, I was trying to use the margins in the motorcycle supply chain so it would not have been cheap. We would ask our Harley Davidson customers what there expectation was and it would generally be around $80,000. The target price was $59,000 including twenty hours of training and 40 hours of builder assist from the dealer. The dealer had a 20% margin plus we would pay him for training and builder assist. The initial BOM was under $10,000 and we felt we could lower that. We took a concept model to one of the motorcycle industry trade show and many dealers expressed an interest. I was surprised how many motorcycle dealers already flew.

Thank you Chuck, you have been kind and encouraging from the very beginning. I am glad to know you and wish I were more like you.

Thank you, Vance

[Lspav8r]

Originally Posted by Vance

Thank you Chris, I was not able to imagine what the ….indicated.

Thank you Stan, the support of friends like you means a lot to me.

Thank you Gabor, I wish I had half of your artistic talents. The aesthetics grew out of an iterative process, trying to combine my love of motorcycles with my love for Art Nouveau. Because it is supposed to fly, functionality often intruded on the aesthetics. I had recently left design at Indian Motorcycle in Gilroy and was trying to add some of that as well. Many of the shapes are from Harley Davidson and Indian of the past. My love of flying gyroplanes was just developing at the time.

Hello Joe, I was trying to use the margins in the motorcycle supply chain so it would not have been cheap. We would ask our Harley Davidson customers what there expectation was and it would generally be around $80,000. The target price was $59,000 including twenty hours of training and 40 hours of builder assist from the dealer. The dealer had a 20% margin plus we would pay him for training and builder assist. The initial BOM was under $10,000 and we felt we could lower that. We took a concept model to one of the motorcycle industry trade show and many dealers expressed an interest. I was surprised how many motorcycle dealers already flew.

Thank you Chuck, you have been kind and encouraging from the very beginning. I am glad to know you and wish I were more like you.

Thank you, Vance

I would love to see this go to production, but 59,000 dollars? It's a gyro for gods sake, not an airplane that can carry people with purpose. Guys we need to use your expertise to come up with something people can actually afford and Im not talking about motorcycle dealers/manufacturers, for gods sake those people are rich. Do we really need to make this a sport for the rich? Some of these ideas are really good but you need to put your expertise in to making a gyro for the masses if you want more people to get in to this sport. And please dont jump on me about liability costs and insurance. That is a hurdle you need to worry about after you make something everyone can afford.

After all the whole thing is a crap shoot anyways so damned the insurance industry and the liability attorneys. Just do it.

Just kidding. Or am I.

[Vance]

Hello Jim,

Thank you for your thoughtful response. I love to learn about business.

When I was a Harley Davidson dealer most of the other dealers had a net profit of less than 5% of the gross. That would mean that if they sold things with a 5% discount they would not have a return on investment and if they sold at a 10% discount they would soon be out of business.

I felt my job was to help my customers enjoy their motorcycle so I put on lots of motorcycle events and tried to get my customers to ride their motorcycles. It took money to do this kind of marketing and I would budget 3% of my gross income for this purpose.

My customer’s annual mileage was more than twice the national average. I felt I was successful at helping my customers enjoy their purchase and adding to the value of that purchase.

If I did not make a profit I would not have the resources to help my customers enjoy the sport and I could not pay my employees a decent wage. I would have failed in my responsibilities.

Labiality was a very real issue and insurance was a significant expense.

I felt that the dealer network was a viable concept for promoting gyroplanes. It adds to the cost but it gives people access to local events and support that is lacking now. Without a profit it is very difficult to make anything happen. Volunteers have lives too and there is only so much time they can give away. Most of the people working on our events were volunteers but the people who managed the event were well paid and there was a large marketing effort that had a real cost.

At this time, if you don’t live in Florida or Oregon there is very little support for gyroplanes outside of nonprofit clubs which do a remarkable job but without resources they are not able to promote the sport on the level it deserves. If the manufactures don’t make a profit they do not have the resources to help the customer enjoy their aircraft.

According to public records AAI spent more than $1,000,000 developing the SparrowHawk and managed to sell their aircraft for about half of what it cost to produce and had no return on investment. They are no longer selling gyroplane kits and the stock has lost most of it’s value. Most of the customers have suggested that it cost around $60,000 to build their SparrowHawk.

There are already several designs out there that are very low cost. If cheap prices were the answer I would think they would be flourishing.

Business is a crap shoot and there is no reason to increase the odds against success by breaking all the rules.

I have done initial design work on inexpensive gyroplanes with an initial BOM under $6,500 dollars. I suspect that could be lowered by as much as 13% as the production numbers went up.

What would I have to sell it for to be a gyroplane for the masses?

What do you feel manufacture, marketing and distribution should look like?

Thank you, Vance

[Chuck Roberg]

Hi Jim,

You are only hearing part of Vance's business plan here. I'll try to not muddy up the waters too much here.

Just like you can buy a wide price range of aircraft from Ultralight to a jet. They all address a certain market. That depends on one's interest and available funds.

Vance's plan, as I recall, addressed a certain niche group. I think he addressed it exceptionally well. Larry Neal with the interest he has generated with the "Flying Motorcycle" proves to me Vance hit the nail on the head.

[okikuma]

Hi Vance,

Way cool! I like it!

Never stop dreaming or reduce your dreams because of a setback. When we stop dreaming, we stop living. So, keep on dreaming Vance!

Chuck: I've told Vance this bit of information several times about Wilbur Wright.

When Wilbur was a teen, he was hit in the head with a hockey puck (other sources say in the face with a hockey stick). The result of being hit was that Wilbur suffered some level of traumatic brain injury, As a result, his personality changed from outgoing to withdrawn and acted with slow mentation (as many would say, became a slow talker). Even though, this didn't effect Wilbur's mechanical intellect and his ability to use logic and deductive reasoning to solve aerodynamic problems. Thus, Wilbur reasoned out his thoughts more completely before speaking and worked out many of his ideas before explaining. Vance does the same now as Wilbur did then. Like many, I also see much intellect in Vance and I enjoy talking with him and learning from him. Vance will argue that he learns more from me that I from him, but I'm going to keep disagreeing with him.

Wayne