GyroRon
Former Gyro know it all
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2003
- Messages
- 16,851
- Location
- Fort Mill South Carolina
- Aircraft
- Vans RV4 / Dominator 582 Ultrawhite
- Total Flight Time
- ALOT
So I spent the day yesterday at the carolina barnstormers fly in and got a chance to visit with Dennis and see his machines and blades and whatnot.
Its been a LONG time since I last seen him or his machines. Matter of fact the first few ( and last few ) times I had seen him and his machine, he was just a individual who had built a very detailed CNC work of art gyro for his personal use and he had no plans of going into business at the time. I wanted to fly his machine way back then but it was so new, it had not been flown at all yet and still needed a little work before it would be ready.
So Fast forward to yesterday and here he is with a giant trailer loaded with blades and samples and a real nice black 582 powered single place. We got to talking and catching up, and I asked could I finally fly his machine and see how it handles.... and he said sure thing!
So anyway, I am not the best person at describing how something flies... but I can tell you good and bad things.
First off, as you would imagine, the build quality is second to none on this machine. EVERYWHERE you look, every part is CNC machined, and either powder coated or anodized. NO corners are cut, nothing is done half assed, if painted a different color you could imagine this is how a gyro would be built and put together if NASA was in charge and it was going to Mars....
The seat was also super comfortable, much more so than literally any other gyro I have sat in. The instrument panel was also very nice and all the instruments were very visible and the whole panel was stable.... there wasn't much if any shake present in the pod like some gyros.
The throttle handle is very different from a normal gyro. It is essentially the same type of design you would find in a helicopter. A lever you lift to work the prerotator and the end of that lever is a grip you twist for throttle. I was not a fan of this design.... until I used it. I will say it would take even a gifted natural pilot a little bit of time to get used to the twist grip throttle, and some pilots will take a LONG time for it to come natural for them, but once mastered it is a very elegant and simple way of doing throttle control and prerotation control. After my flight in it, I would want to leave it as is and not swap for a traditional quadrant style throttle.
The pre rotator by the way was super smooth and very effective. I saw over 200 RRPM without trying to get high RRPM. In other words, just engaging it casually at a relatively low engine rpm while taxiing to the runway I saw 150 RRPM and one more engagement of it as I turned onto the runway I saw 200. I would imagine that if I was on a relatively short runway and wanted a short takeoff, if stopped and holding the brakes, I would not be surprised if this pre rotator set up could achieve at least 250 -280 RRPM. On a relatively long runway like where I flew yesterday, there is no reason to pre rotate much more than 150 RRPM so I had no reason to test the max capability of the system.
In flight, not sure what all to say.... It flew great. The tail was rock solid, no tail wag, no rudder corrections needed based on power settings, basically once airborne if wanted you could take your feet off the pedals and not need to touch them again till time to land. If you wanted to add rudder in turns or to play around ( so to fly sideways for example ), the rudder was very effective. Performance-wise it is comparable to most single place 582 machines, nice rate of climb... plenty of reserve power, 65-70 mph cruise speed, would maintain level flight at less then 5000 rpms at slower airspeeds, etc... The gyro felt very stable, yet was still playful and could easily be tossed around if you like to " yank and bank ". I can not say anything negative at all about how this gyro flies. In fact I very much enjoyed flying it, and ended up flying it about twice as long as I had intended to fly it because I was having so much fun.
The only thing negative I could come up with is the pump style control stick. I will admit, the simplicity of a pump stick is great and I believe there is much less chance of a control failure with a pump stick ( verses the usual walking beam controls ) the downside to a pump stick is the stick moves in a arch that can be too much travel for someone strapped in tight in the seat. On this machine I had to have the shoulder harness loose, and even then, during normal level flight the stick was at about where my knee was, about as far away as I could reach.... if the nose needed to go low, I had to lean forward in the seat so my arm would be long enough to keep the stick in my hand. I would expect this machine is set up for Dennis and he is slightly taller and bigger than me, so maybe it is fine for him.... and perhaps in the case of say I bought a kit and assembled it, there is a way to adjust the stick position so it is closer to your lap during cruise flight. To be clear, I don't have any problem with a pump type controls, I actually like it for simplicity and less fail points... but I would not want the stick so far forward if that machine was my machine.... again, this is something that can probably be adjusted or a different bend to the stick could likely solve this.
The suspension did not feel super spongy. I would imagine it is just enough to help it have a smooth ride on rougher hard surfaces or somewhat smooth turf airports. It would not be as smooth at rough fields as a dominator gyro, but.... not many other gyros are any better in this respect.
Otherwise great machine, very clever engineering went into this machine and overall an awesome package.
I should mention that the razor blades were extremely smooth as well. With plenty of energy in them for landings. I even tried a set on a dominator, and was very impressed with them, they were smooth and performed as good or better than the dragon wings that we took off the machine. I am sure Dennis would like me to say more about the blades, but there isn't much to say.... They performed exactly as you would expect a rotorblade to perform, they were very nicely built, and the highlight was they were GLASS SMOOTH, as in NO stickshake. Being that dragon wings are off the market... if I were to need a set of rotors right now, there is absolutely no question... I am buying Razor blades. Even if Dragon wings made a return to market, they would have to be a decent amount of savings for me to wan them over these Razor blades, if for no other reason just look at the hub bar and its adjustments and how the blade straps attach to the blades verses the simple and effective but quite basic set up on a set of dragon wings.
I turned on a Go pro on the gyro before my flight, maybe there will be some good footage off that, that can be posted.... I really put this machine through its paces and came away impressed and wanting one.
Its been a LONG time since I last seen him or his machines. Matter of fact the first few ( and last few ) times I had seen him and his machine, he was just a individual who had built a very detailed CNC work of art gyro for his personal use and he had no plans of going into business at the time. I wanted to fly his machine way back then but it was so new, it had not been flown at all yet and still needed a little work before it would be ready.
So Fast forward to yesterday and here he is with a giant trailer loaded with blades and samples and a real nice black 582 powered single place. We got to talking and catching up, and I asked could I finally fly his machine and see how it handles.... and he said sure thing!
So anyway, I am not the best person at describing how something flies... but I can tell you good and bad things.
First off, as you would imagine, the build quality is second to none on this machine. EVERYWHERE you look, every part is CNC machined, and either powder coated or anodized. NO corners are cut, nothing is done half assed, if painted a different color you could imagine this is how a gyro would be built and put together if NASA was in charge and it was going to Mars....
The seat was also super comfortable, much more so than literally any other gyro I have sat in. The instrument panel was also very nice and all the instruments were very visible and the whole panel was stable.... there wasn't much if any shake present in the pod like some gyros.
The throttle handle is very different from a normal gyro. It is essentially the same type of design you would find in a helicopter. A lever you lift to work the prerotator and the end of that lever is a grip you twist for throttle. I was not a fan of this design.... until I used it. I will say it would take even a gifted natural pilot a little bit of time to get used to the twist grip throttle, and some pilots will take a LONG time for it to come natural for them, but once mastered it is a very elegant and simple way of doing throttle control and prerotation control. After my flight in it, I would want to leave it as is and not swap for a traditional quadrant style throttle.
The pre rotator by the way was super smooth and very effective. I saw over 200 RRPM without trying to get high RRPM. In other words, just engaging it casually at a relatively low engine rpm while taxiing to the runway I saw 150 RRPM and one more engagement of it as I turned onto the runway I saw 200. I would imagine that if I was on a relatively short runway and wanted a short takeoff, if stopped and holding the brakes, I would not be surprised if this pre rotator set up could achieve at least 250 -280 RRPM. On a relatively long runway like where I flew yesterday, there is no reason to pre rotate much more than 150 RRPM so I had no reason to test the max capability of the system.
In flight, not sure what all to say.... It flew great. The tail was rock solid, no tail wag, no rudder corrections needed based on power settings, basically once airborne if wanted you could take your feet off the pedals and not need to touch them again till time to land. If you wanted to add rudder in turns or to play around ( so to fly sideways for example ), the rudder was very effective. Performance-wise it is comparable to most single place 582 machines, nice rate of climb... plenty of reserve power, 65-70 mph cruise speed, would maintain level flight at less then 5000 rpms at slower airspeeds, etc... The gyro felt very stable, yet was still playful and could easily be tossed around if you like to " yank and bank ". I can not say anything negative at all about how this gyro flies. In fact I very much enjoyed flying it, and ended up flying it about twice as long as I had intended to fly it because I was having so much fun.
The only thing negative I could come up with is the pump style control stick. I will admit, the simplicity of a pump stick is great and I believe there is much less chance of a control failure with a pump stick ( verses the usual walking beam controls ) the downside to a pump stick is the stick moves in a arch that can be too much travel for someone strapped in tight in the seat. On this machine I had to have the shoulder harness loose, and even then, during normal level flight the stick was at about where my knee was, about as far away as I could reach.... if the nose needed to go low, I had to lean forward in the seat so my arm would be long enough to keep the stick in my hand. I would expect this machine is set up for Dennis and he is slightly taller and bigger than me, so maybe it is fine for him.... and perhaps in the case of say I bought a kit and assembled it, there is a way to adjust the stick position so it is closer to your lap during cruise flight. To be clear, I don't have any problem with a pump type controls, I actually like it for simplicity and less fail points... but I would not want the stick so far forward if that machine was my machine.... again, this is something that can probably be adjusted or a different bend to the stick could likely solve this.
The suspension did not feel super spongy. I would imagine it is just enough to help it have a smooth ride on rougher hard surfaces or somewhat smooth turf airports. It would not be as smooth at rough fields as a dominator gyro, but.... not many other gyros are any better in this respect.
Otherwise great machine, very clever engineering went into this machine and overall an awesome package.
I should mention that the razor blades were extremely smooth as well. With plenty of energy in them for landings. I even tried a set on a dominator, and was very impressed with them, they were smooth and performed as good or better than the dragon wings that we took off the machine. I am sure Dennis would like me to say more about the blades, but there isn't much to say.... They performed exactly as you would expect a rotorblade to perform, they were very nicely built, and the highlight was they were GLASS SMOOTH, as in NO stickshake. Being that dragon wings are off the market... if I were to need a set of rotors right now, there is absolutely no question... I am buying Razor blades. Even if Dragon wings made a return to market, they would have to be a decent amount of savings for me to wan them over these Razor blades, if for no other reason just look at the hub bar and its adjustments and how the blade straps attach to the blades verses the simple and effective but quite basic set up on a set of dragon wings.
I turned on a Go pro on the gyro before my flight, maybe there will be some good footage off that, that can be posted.... I really put this machine through its paces and came away impressed and wanting one.
