Gyro Safety Statistics

[schmoe90]

Ron Wanttaja started a thread on the EAA forum about gyro safety statistics: https://eaaforums.org/showthread.php?10326-Gyro-Safety-Statistics

TL;DR: gyros (accident rate of 0.57% per year) seem to be safer than the homebuilt fleet as a whole (0.75%), but have a higher fatality rate (38% vs 25%.)

 

[Abid]

His stats about only having 156 gyroplanes listed in FAA database as Exp-AB seem wrong. AR-1 alone in the US is above 50+ in number and we did not even begin till mid 2016. Magni has been around since 2+ decades and AutoGyro since 2009-10 in US market. Not even counting older ones and other brands

 

[Abid]

I think once he corrects the total numbers his rate will go down and will look better than Experimental Amateur Built aircraft fleet as a whole

 

[AgentCheese]

The confusing part (FAA is confusing????) is many gyros are listed as Rotorcraft, and not gyro specific. You have to look into both categories. I looked at the 2020 FAA registration data (line by line) a year or so ago, and found 176 aircraft registered as Gyroplanes, and 325 gyroplanes registered as Rotorcraft - basically 500 registered aircraft. This seems closer.

 

[Abid]

The confusing part (FAA is confusing????) is many gyros are listed as Rotorcraft, and not gyro specific. You have to look into both categories. I looked at the 2020 FAA registration data (line by line) a year or so ago, and found 176 aircraft registered as Gyroplanes, and 325 gyroplanes registered as Rotorcraft - basically 500 registered aircraft. This seems closer.

Yes the number is closer to 550

 

[TyroGyro]

N-reg machines from ROTORSPOT (an incomplete list, at least at the global level, judging by gaps in the serial numbers)

ROTORSPOT - Rotorcraft database search results

Rotorspot is the online hotspot dedicated to rotorcraft registration and production data. Rotorspot detailed search results can be found on this 'database search results' page.

www.rotorspot.nl

(then manually counting, roughly)

About 320 RAFs
About 236 AutoGyro Europe/USA/Rotorsport UKs
About 115 Magnis
About 100 Sport Copters
About 35 ELAs
About 34 Tangos
About 14 Celiers
About 11 TAGs
About 7 Trendaks
About 6 Apollos
About 3 Brakos
About 3 Nikis
About 1 DTA
About 1 Trixy

then presumably hundreds (thousands?) of homebuilts.

All the above not factoring for w/os, etc.
=======================================================================================================

Approaching it from another, more systematic, direction, downloading what ROTORSPOT describe as

"Current (active) civil rotorcraft register for USA", and filtering by make we find

50 SIlverlights
108 RAFs
229 AutoGyro Europe/USA/Rotorsport UKs
111 Magnis
61 Sport Copters
30 ELAs
27 Tangos
16 Celiers
10 TAGs
5 Trendaks
6 Apollos
4 Brakos
5 Nikis
1 DTA
1 Trixy

664 machines from common manufacturers out of a total of all 1,402 machines with the designation "[gyro]", supposedly on the "active register".

If anyone's interested, the rest (most of them)

364 Bensens
91 Air Commands
49 Dominators
42 Brocks
41 Sparrowhawks
14 Butterflys
12 Barnetts
8 Air & Spaces
7 Gyrobees
7 Airgyros
6 Aviomanias
6 LIttle Wings
6 McCullochs
5 Parsons
5 Twinstarrs
4 Vaneks
4 Pitcairns
3 Gyro Technics
3 SnoBirds
2 Predators
1 PItbull
1 Kellett