Why dont' they make safer gyroplanes?
I feel a better question might have been why don’t they make safer pilots?
I don't know. Why not?
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Or, one might ask, why do some of us try crazy $#!t?
Once I thought I'd give it a go at trying something no one ever tried before in a gyroplane: Taking off from a beach. Turned out my nose wheel equipment wasn't up to the task and need improvement. I learned something, but my choice to try something new caused an expensive accident. Could I have known ahead this was going to happen? I dont' see how, since no one else had ever tried it before, and although I had hundreds of hours flying numerous Air Commands with that same nose gear configuration, I'd never tried using it in compact sand and so was totally unaware of the danger of the thing doing what it did.
Another time when I was trying something new, landing in a rolling horizontal tube of wind, I also had a rollover. Lesson learned: next time, when the wind is unpredictable, do a go-around and land in a different spot on the runway with less turbulence.
A third accident was also trying something new: just plain flying. Thing was, I knew I had three gallons on board, but just didn't realize it was all unusable. with just 10 hours solo under my belt I was freaked out by the engine out and made a terrible choice where to land. Lessons learned: (1) Know your usable fuel load; (2) When the engine quits and you are at decent altitude, don't be afraid to turn around and go back to the best available LZ instead of choosing what appears from the air to be a great place to land straight ahead and then turns out to actually be very irregular terrain.
What makes a better gyroplane? Good controls and proper aerodynamic design, weight, balance, trim, and power.
What makes a better pilot? Experience(s).
Rare is the pilot with innate knee-jerk response and talent like a Ron Awad.
Nope, 99% of us have to learn by good examples, ground training and CFI lessons, and then lots of stick time with minimal time lapse between flights.
So should we stop trying new stuff? Well, it's certainly more dangerous than sticking with what we know, but then how would any of us ever get past flying dual time in 5-10kts winds, off a paved RW with no trees and flat, clear land all around? Did the Wright Bros ever decide to not try anything new?
With what we know today, collectively, there is enough knowledge that most of the gyroplane accidents should be avoidable.
No one will argue that good training and plenty of experience are the two most obvious factors leading to good piloting and decision making.
But I suggest that along with that a bit of pre-flight mental time is needed in order to tune in to one's inner peace and balance.
And when flying, if you lose touch with your inner balance, then it is definitely time to land safely and take 5.
Sound like a lot of hippie nonsense to you? I'm serious. I don't care if you are some gun-totin', cigar-chompin NRA redneck or a Zen Buddhist monk.
In each case of every one of my three accidents I later realized in retrospect that I had lost touch with my inner balance and had ignored it at the time, pushing unease aside in favor of the excitement of the moment.
This is one of the keys I found when learning how to win racing GT1 Porsches. Before a race, I meditated and found my calm. During a race, if I lost that calm I found that that was when I was on the edge of getting inot serious trouble. Anyone can drive a car to 90% of its potential and get around the track. The true race drivers are the ones who take it to 99%, most of the time. The winners are the ones who can go to what we call 9/10ths - which is to say 99 & 9/10ths %. That's not just a skill, it is an art and it takes terrific awareness and foresight. I tell you, I avoided some horrific crashes using "the force" and getting my car to go where I wanted it to in my mind, first, during trouble.
I have used this practice to fly and found it helps me to stay safe and make better choices. When I have forgotten and not first sought my calm before and during flying, I have experienced some bad results on occasion. Virtually each time I damaged my aircraft I can tell you I was not in tune with my inner peace.
Good mental preparation is a great way to stay in touch with your inner spirit - which is there to keep you safe in the first place. If you won't tune in and key yourself to listen, then you can't hear your inner voice and you won't know when it's telling you something is wrong.