My Parsons Tandem gyro

Its more than 15 years old but still flys great.... and yes, it can carry two heavy persons.
If you have time watch it at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QRZb-fZMd8

Giorgos

Very good. What size engine is that?

Timchick said:

Very good. What size engine is that?

Click to expand...

It's a Rotax 582.

Giorgos

Nice!

.

Hey, what happened to your passenger, eh?? I hope he had a parachute and you were high enough when he bailed out. Good to see the older stuff still flying. How many hours on the Parsons? And on the engine? The engine seems to be doing a good job, by the sound of it.

Jerry_Forest said:

Hey, what happened to your passenger, eh?? I hope he had a parachute and you were high enough when he bailed out. Good to see the older stuff still flying. How many hours on the Parsons? And on the engine? The engine seems to be doing a good job, by the sound of it.

Click to expand...

Jerry,
You make me worried, I don t remember what happened, how and where he disappeared…… joking…

Actually he is a journalist for a private TV station and I flew with him for a very funny 30 minutes (gyro program). It was shown on the New Years day.
How many hours I have on the Parsons, I have to look in my log book which is in the hangar. Its over 1400 hrs. and the only thing I replace every 50 hours its the teeter bolt and the rotor head bearings. Actually doesn t need
so often but I do it. The 582 Rotax, if you know how and what to do with them they are very reliable engines.
Giorgos .

The Parsons Tandem was, and still is, one of the best trainer aircraft for the most common open-frame gyro. Glad to see a "clean" basic gyro having so much fun. I used one for ten years and would gladly have one in my hangar today. Everyone gets spoiled with prerotators and all the extras. Nice things to have but some basic skills get missed along the way. We had the MAC Super 90 with the short mast. Needless to say, the engine got replace every two years on average. With a good engine, it is one great workhorse.

Chris Burgess said:

The Parsons Tandem was, and still is, one of the best trainer aircraft for the most common open-frame gyro. Glad to see a "clean" basic gyro having so much fun. I used one for ten years and would gladly have one in my hangar today. Everyone gets spoiled with prerotators and all the extras. Nice things to have but some basic skills get missed along the way. We had the MAC Super 90 with the short mast. Needless to say, the engine got replace every two years on average. With a good engine, it is one great workhorse.

Click to expand...

Chris,
You are right and as you can see from the video, the rate of climb with two persons is fantastic, much–much better than most modern dual seat gyros and with turbo engines 130-150 hp. As I mentioned somewhere else here I have the habit to subtract and not to add any unnecessary weight just to keep the gyro as light as possible. The 27 feet long McCutchen blades really help and I can repeat that they were the best compare with any other metal blades same size or even with longer ones. They are heavy but this moves the CoT closed to CLT and once at flying speeds have more inertial at zero g . It is also fantastic how easy it is to hand starting them. Anyhow this is how they work on my gyro, on other gyros maybe are not the same.,

Giorgos