No, I don't follow trends or compile data like UK steve, etc....
But extruded blades have been discussed on this forum for over a decade. Men I consider true experts like Chuck Beaty have explained why extruded blades are a poor choice.
You build a Euro style gyro in America... I don't understand why you wouldn't want to use american made blades on your american made gyro regardless of whether extruded blades are considered ok or not.
Well men like Chuck Beaty also say that using stainless steel will work harden and crack in little time. Well, from what I know the only ones cracking engine mounts and frames are a couple of different models. They are made way too light and have fully penetrated welds that were suffering from sugaring/cauliflowering. We fixed a couple right at our shop. We saw their welding on the back side because in front its all very pretty. That is not the fault of stainless steel. That's not welding SS properly on a fully penetrated weld. It is true, that sugaring is not an issue on a 4130 Chromoly frame but it can have other issues like normalizing depending on material thickness and welding techniques. Everything requires a production process that is executed properly in any aircraft in any material.
My choice for gyroplane rotors are/were what in America?
Dragon Wings - Meaning doing business with Ernie. His quality control and precision left a bit to be desired I am sorry to say. Plus his rotors are 7 inches wide while what I would like is 8 to 8.5 inches wide. He did make high inertia rotor blades a few years ago and when Greg flew them, he said we need to test them more before making a decision but Ernie wanted them back within the same day. I could not in good conscience do less than a day's worth of testing on a new model rotor blades and offer them as standard on production gyroplane. But that seemed to be what Ernie was willing to do. A blessing in disguise because a couple of years later Ernie sold the business to a fraudster and then the business is shutdown for good and no blades to be had for anyone.
Sport Copter - I tried and basically got told I can buy their rotors at retail price and when I asked about being an OEM basically got told straight out quite emphatically I might add that we don't care. Plus the fact that they are competitors not just blade manufacturers.
Skywheels - Tried those and they were divergent and dangerous and found out there are big personality issues there as well when negative feedback was provided constructively to improve or solve the divergent behavior. Can't do business with people like that. May be its the gyroplane industry from the past in the US but I am used to much more level headed and professional outfits in trikes and airplanes. I am not about to lower my requirements. Since then Skywheels has been sold to new people but I do not know how technical they are and if they know of these problems. And new people also mean no historical knowledge of the design and production system so they will learn as they go. That puts them in the new rotor production in my book. Its not like Skywheels was such a technical outfit that every process was documented to a T and all tribal knowledge was captured for even such a critical part as rotors
We tried GyroTech composite rotors (Poland) as well. Side by side with Averso on the same day on same machine with same weight. Obviously we don't use them so you can draw your own conclusions from that.
Averso has 17 years of history and I could not find a single cracking or in-flight failure in my research. They have produced this specific model of blades since 2004 and over 1400 are out there. The data supports that while AutoGyro and AirCopter rotors (basically copies of each other really) had already had cracking issues even 10 years ago, Averso did not and has not. Averso has a steel rod alloy all the way through the blade submerged in a non-conductive layer of glue. Its not just the extrusion. Dealings with Averso have always been professional, product always consistent, dialog always constructive and reasonable and they take responsibility when they screw up which is hardly ever. Whatever they do seems to work and is proven in the field.
In training Greg has had over 800 hours on single Averso rotors without an issue. I have a trainer with 550 hours of hard core training on it (350+ just this year). That's a lot of cycles of taking off and landing (and not always nicely with students). A normal owner would not do in 2000 hours what we do in training in 500. Basically on average 8 landings and takeoffs an hour on each training hour is a good estimate.
As much as I would love to use US manufactured rotor blades that are well proven in the field by years of experience, I would also like reasonable level headed professional people who have high standards personally and tight tolerances for one of the most critical parts of the aircraft, to deal with and that combination does not exist in my limited exposure in the US blade suppliers for gyroplanes yet. I could get into manufacturing our own blades but I have other things I can work on like developing a side by side gyroplane and working on an Agro version of AR-1 for which we have funding and potential customers.