Sody from Kansas

Sody

Newbie
Joined
Sep 10, 2017
Messages
20
Location
Clay Center
Been flying a Airwolf 912 PPC for year, been kicking around idea of getting a Gyro since my wife took a ride years ago and loved it. I see MTO and Tangogyro? Are there others that are safe and reliable? what should I be looking for? Thanks for letting me stop by.
 
Welcome to the adventure!

It really depends on Your Budget, time, and what kind of mission you have in mind. TANGOGYRO is at the low price point of the European style machines. I hear nothing but great remarks from those that have flown them and Alex or Paul are easy to deal with
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SILVERLIGHT Aviation manufactures the AR1 gyroplane, with state of the art components and design features, plus the rigging is First Cabin, Imo they have the best offering in the market for the money bar none!.

I'm not affliated with either company.

The TANGO guys will put on your choice of conventional Rotax engines or you can save money without losing performance and use a Yamaha offering. Lots of other manufactures out there as well. Take your time, do your research and fly in the different brands. Make your decision based on facts, not just on the spiel!

Just my opinion.

Jerry
435-201-9888
 
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I second the American Ranger.

I spent an hour playing a recalcitrant student doing everything that had caused me to say “my gyro” training in The Predator.

We were flying in horrible conditions with a 15+knot direct gusting cross wind.

I could not find a way to make a bad takeoff or landing as I escalated my efforts.

Greg never got on the controls.

I never ran out of rudder.

I was not able to hit hard enough to upset the suspension.

I was not able to land misaligned enough to excite anything.
 

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Thank you, Vance, for your great description of your checkride in the Silverlight AR1. I would really like to see a collection of these experiences, all in one place here. One of the advantages of this forum is the variety of experience we can draw from. There could be a forum on this category alone. There could be another one on 'Flying Conditions', such as weather, volcanic, and forest/wild-fires.

I wonder how we can help make such things possible.
 
Hi Sody. I see you are from Clay Center. I'm from down in Emporia. I'm pretty new to this also, but have got some hours logged in both the MTO and the Ranger. Give me a call some evening and we can talk.

Roger six-two-zero-342-2263
 
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eutrophicated1;n1124497 said:
Thank you, Vance, for your great description of your checkride in the Silverlight AR1. I would really like to see a collection of these experiences, all in one place here. One of the advantages of this forum is the variety of experience we can draw from. There could be a forum on this category alone. There could be another one on 'Flying Conditions', such as weather, volcanic, and forest/wild-fires.

I wonder how we can help make such things possible.

Your welcome Frank and that is is an interesting idea.

I am not a test pilot and I have particular likes and dislikes so my report may not be valid for everyone.

I don’t like hard linked nose wheels and prefer free castering. Hard linked nose wheels work fine if you are light on the pedals. Many of my clients when they are working on learning cross wind landings tend to be a little heavy footed and with a hard linked nose wheel that can lead to divergence and some say a tip over. I am aware of several accidents that I feel are attributable to a hard linked nose wheel and heavy feet. The American Ranger has a soft linked nose wheel that I liked much better than a hard linked nose wheel because it simulates light feet. I landed more than once in the AR with full rudder deflection and heavy feet as well as substantial misalignment with the direction and it worked great simply aligning with the direction of travel.

I like lots of rudder authority and am put off by power pitch yaw coupling. The American Ranger has even more rudder authority than the aircraft I train in, The Predator and very little if any power pitch yaw coupling.

The airport I train at has seven wind socks and they are often all blowing in different directions so rudder authority is important to me. I prefer to land straight ahead up to about 10kts of cross wind component. At Wauchula we had gusting 15kts plus directly across the runway and I made most of the landings in the AR straight ahead.

New gyroplane pilots tend to bang the nose because they relax back pressure on the cyclic too soon after touch down. I recently put front suspension on The Predator because a student bent my nose gear. I tried the challenged student nose gear drop and the AR handled it well.

New pilots tend to round out high or balloon up and run out of airspeed before they run out of altitude and drop it hard on the runway. Many early gyroplanes had little or no suspension. The AR managed these hard landings well.

None of these things I am sensitive to make the aircraft unsafe or hard to fly; it is just my personal taste.

Because I am a part of a very small world I am not inclined to be critical of gyroplanes I don’t care for.

I feel the best thing for people trying to decide which gyroplane they like should fly as many as possible. It takes a while to develop your likes and dislikes so you may change over time. A nice thing about a used gyroplane is usually they hold their value pretty well so you can afford mistakes. Even the new ones hold their value pretty well.
 

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gyrOZprey is in whitewater,ks and has the titanium explorer line of gyros for sale,she is real close to you
her name is Christine toevs she is a regular member of this forum.
 
Thanks for all info. just figured out how to log back in so I could thank everyone. RogerS I will be calling.
 
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