14 foot floats on Bensen gyro glider

Gyro_Jordo

Jedi in training
Joined
Jan 24, 2014
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great white north
I have the option to trade for a set of 14 foot puddle jumper floats with that will hold 1000lbs gross ...would they be over kill for my Bensen gyro-glider with stock sized rotors ?
 

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14 foot floats will work fine on your gyro glider, be sure to put an adequate sized horizontal and vertical stabilizer on it to compensate for the area ahead of the c of g, not good to lose directional control if your tow boat loses power or become disconnected.
 
There have been stability problems with float-equipped gyros, including some bad crashes (one involved a friend of mine). This is especially the case with free-flying gyros, in contrast to gyrogliders.

100 lb. mounted that low moves the CG down the better part of a foot. That changes a Mac-powered gyro from nearly CLT to badly HTL -- creating the risk of power pushover (or PPO). Moreover, the floats create an aerodynamic aft "pull" on the bottom of the gyro that can also easily lead to an uncontrollable forward flip, even, with the power off.

Others have mentioned the yaw-stability issue.

It's a challenging R&D project to fix these problems with tail surfaces alone. It's not a simple cut-n-try project.
 
Ok thanks Doug sounds like I've got some researching to do . Sorry to hear about your friends crash hopefully it wasn't a fatal .
 
No, it wasn't fatal, and it was a REALLY long time ago. Mid-70's. Harlan Gage, the crash pilot, ended up in the hospital with a collapsed lung and other injuries. He said that the gyro got into a power dive, and did not respond to back stick. It simply plunged nose-down into Long Island Sound. There have been some similar incidents, with various results.
 
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