I agree the gyroplane accident rate is too high;

@TyroGyro interesting data but as you say lacks substance. We need time period, number of machines in each country, number of hours collectively flown in each country to make these numbers anything other than "just numbers" respectfully Phil
Hi JETLAG03
To a degree that is true, and from my previous investigations it is almost impossible to ascertain accurate numbers of machines for all, or even most, countries, while we do have pretty accurate figures for the global number.. We must come down to "finger-in-the-wind" estimates. But today that is not my purpose. It is suffice to say that it is startling that fully 60% of the world's Big-3 gyro fatal accidents have occurred in just 3 countries... I do believe there are reasons for that, some regulatory, some training, some environmental.

I also believe that the UK is one of the safest countries to fly a gyro in. [Statistically, at least. Of course anyone can have an accident. No-one is immune, purely due to statistics, or their nationality]
Again, there is a reason for that. Some regulatory, some training. And the IAPGT philosophy, founded in the UK...
 
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Probably effects the numbers, France has a much more relaxed system of regulation for microlight than probably anywhere else, I think.

We have a declarative set of rules and regulations putting the onus squarely on the shoulders of the pilot for any works on the craft and its airworthiness.

Does your data include only deaths involving the "big 3"? and does there exist data giving numbers for death/accidents due to
A: Pilot error
B: Machine failure

Again, I am guesssing that the huge part is pilot error.
 
Hi JETLAG03


I also believe that the UK is one of the safest countries to fly a gyro in. [Statistically, at least. Of course anyone can have an accident. No-one is immune, purely due to statistics, or their nationality]
Again, there is a reason for that. Some regulatory, some training. And the IAPGT philosophy, founded in the UK...

I am going to get hung for my comments ....that said I do not agree with all you have to say with respect.
Can you table an amount of hours flown in a gyro in the UK against other countries? you saying 'quote' I also believe that the UK is one of the safest countries to fly a gyro in ...this is a very interesting comment? One fact we all know is the UK is envied for it all year round fantastic flying Wx;)

We must further examine the type of flying that is done in other countries? I am not familiar with exactly apart from recreational flying in the UK what else they do with gyro?
In SA (and a few other places I have been privileged to fly in) gyroplanes have been used for various types of operations including power line inspection anti Poaching, and crop spraying, (to mention a few) this type of flying adds significant risks and will quickly blurr the figures.

The comments you make regarding IAPGT are also very interesting? I have flown gyro long before the introduction of this training aid, I use the word training aid, as the little exposure I have to it this what I have seen it is? its a nice tool for an instructor who has many students in a class and enables him/her to monitor via electronic media the students progress log book entries and compliance.
That does not make it better than the training we use or used before this platform was developed IMO. What makes safe Pilots is discipline and the in depth training he receives from the outset, its the instructors duty to demonstrate discipline and knowledge in a one on one during the students Pilot training syllabus.
I do not believe that any program or software platform makes gyroplane flying safer or more safe than methods of training we have used in the past, and while Im not knocking the Gyropedia it certainly does not make the Pilot, his training and culture instilled by his instructor brings those qualities to the table.


The day ticking boxes on a computer screen makes safer Pilots is yet to be tested, Gyropedia certainly brings in very nice training aids and once accepted as a world wide standard will make an instructors work a bit easier but will it make Pilots safer?

Safety is a culture not a Program,.. in flying in driving in handling of firearms
 
A very complex subject. Here in France we had two excellent pilots of many years experience in gyro and flex, frequently flew together in their gyros Magni and ELA 10. Both died in an in air collision, accident report below, these are 2 out of the 20 in France and probably within the figures stated accident date 29/07/2018.

Had one or both of these pilots experienced "brain farts" who can say, but, these are in the figures and used as potential reason for better initial training and therefore not relevant to a training programme. Simply saying, these figures are not informative without a deeper understanding of what, where, when, why and who is also included, poor data is worse than no data at all as it will point in the wrong direction.

Not "taking a pop" at you @TyroGyro, but, as you suggested, there are Lies, damned Lies and statistics

 
Is the UK safer? Maybe statistically there are less deaths but that isn't the only accident one has. If as I suggested in another thread gyroplanes are to gain more traction then having a reduction in the litany of ridiculous take off and landing accidents would (IMO) go a long way.

The accidents listed here it seems the vast majority are either student, low time or new to the aircraft. That can't be anything other than training.

Is training in the UK any better? I don't have any real insight to the US probably not, on the basis one expects all instructors worldwide to be equally professional and I'm sure they are.

As for the landscape in the UK, someone mentioned some web based training. The positive thing about it is that it gives a structure to instructors where one didn't exist before - although do remember that in the UK the AAIB had repeatedly given recommendation after recommendation for a gyroplane syllabus - so the bar was set pretty low. One observation however would be that we can hardly advocate safety and best practice then hide all the good stuff behind a pay wall. That is a very odd methodology in aviation.

The other issue is that the provider of training advice can't get wedded to any particular method because when the facts change any resistance to progress leads to confusion. The new take off technique as is required to utilise the new AutoGyro higher pre-rotation values is an excellent case in point. The accident with your 915 Cavalon therefore is very interesting because even had transition training occurred....what would have been taught?

Finally as a group we are small and that leads to an attitude of "getting along in order to get along" what do I mean by that? Well I mean that very few are prepared to speak out about something they don't like the look of because you get black balled and so the upside is limited. You save the world and blow yourself up? So Vance if you see something in a video that you don't like you should speak up and give everyone colour as to why.
 
Sorry to expand - whilst I think the instructors are equally professional it does presuppose that the pilot needs to go and visit one. So where I think the UK is safer is that firstly even existing pilots need to do a MINIMUM of 25hours and pass a written gyroplane exam and a practical flight test with an examiner. Secondly differences training is required before flight of another make and model or where there are established differences - so tandem to side/side or Mt-Sport to M16 and the new 915 motor is considered a difference.

So here a pilot regardless of experience isn't able to just have a go in a 915 Cavalon without differences training either with the manufacturer or an instructor qualified to give training on the relevant aircraft. It does beg the question what the sales process is in the US as you'd kind of expect something to have been arranged by the sales agent?

As I mentioned in another thread i think there needs to be more done and year revalidation done and each make/model given a rating that needs renewing separately. It can only be implemented by authority.
 
Sorry to expand - whilst I think the instructors are equally professional it does presuppose that the pilot needs to go and visit one. So where I think the UK is safer is that firstly even existing pilots need to do a MINIMUM of 25hours and pass a written gyroplane exam and a practical flight test with an examiner. Secondly differences training is required before flight of another make and model or where there are established differences - so tandem to side/side or Mt-Sport to M16 and the new 915 motor is considered a difference.

So here a pilot regardless of experience isn't able to just have a go in a 915 Cavalon without differences training either with the manufacturer or an instructor qualified to give training on the relevant aircraft. It does beg the question what the sales process is in the US as you'd kind of expect something to have been arranged by the sales agent?

As I mentioned in another thread i think there needs to be more done and year revalidation done and each make/model given a rating that needs renewing separately. It can only be implemented by authority.
In SA a pilot needs a minimum of 30 hours before he qualifies for a gyroplane license, if the applicant has an existing pilots licence he will need 20 hours.
Every gyro has a code and a conversion on type needs to be done with a rated instructor and recorded in the applicants log book with a document to our CAA who in turn furnish the pilot with a type rating, currency and recency regulations apply as they do for any of our other pilots license types.
 
Or, more usually, #fatals/100k hours, as is used in commercial passenger aviation statistics. I agree.
Estimates are required, and it becomes something of a "Fermi" question. "How many piano tuners in Chicago"?, etc.

In the UK, from available stats, I estimate an average annual 80 hours flown per gyro. The median is about 50 hours. As we would expect, the average is skewed upwards by a small number of pilots (i.e. instructors) flying a lot of hours. How does that sound compared to the US?

I have in my database 2 US fatal accidents. [remember, I am only considering the Big-3 Eurotubs. I do not have the resources to do others, and they have the dominant world market share, with the US an acknowledged outlier]

Calidus N221YT, South Carolina, 2018
Cavalon N198LT, Florida, 2018 [pilot a CFI]

If you know of others fitting my dataset criteria, please let me know.

If you want to focus just on those three manufactures than two is the correct number of fatalities in the USA.

One appears to be a medical problem and the other appears to me to be some sort of mechanical problem.

As interesting as fatal accidents are my focus is on all gyroplane accidents.

It is my observation that the difference between a fatal accident and any other gyroplane accident is luck.

If the accident rate continues insurance will not be affordable and perhaps not even available.

A lot of people will miss the magic I find flying a gyroplane.

I have found gyroplane flying in different parts of the USA varies wildly and would not attempt to compare it with other countries.

My focus is on what to teach people to prevent gyroplane accidents.
 

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I will try to answer each in turn, Vance

My analysis only refers to the following machines worldwide

AutoGyto-GmbH
Magni-Gyro
ELA-Aviacion

collectively I will call them the "Big-3 Eurotubs"

They are the mature worldwide market-dominators, by far, as far as I can see. Estimated 6000 machines brought to market since ~2004 (albeit Magni started very, very slowly in the early 1990s)



FATAL ACCIDENTS (to date, based on the best available data)
CountryFatal Accidents
France20
South Africa12
Spain10
Germany6
Australia5
UK3
Sweden2
USA2
Russia1
Italy1
Belgium1
Lithuania1
Kazakhstan1
UAE1
Saudi Arabia1
Iran1
Poland1
Japan1
Finland1
Hungary1
Total71
Now, it is often said "if you torture the numbers enough, they will confess to anything". Which is true.




So, I will 'fess that while I have undergraduate statistical training, and love numbers, I am not a professional statistician.

And we do not have all the data required for a conclusive analysis, such as exact penetration of the Big-3 in each country's gyro market. But we know anecdotally that in the US it is low, due to the only recent entry of the Big-3 there and a historical legacy of the many homebuilds there being the gyrocopter norm. In contrast, I suspect that in most European countries at least, the Big-3 now comprise the vast majority of the gyros that are in the air.

So we need to consider penetration as well as population, but the US is probably a distinct outlier in terms of penetration.

Considering the 3 UK fatals
2009: angry civilian decided to risk his head against a spinning gyro prop. He lost...
2011: new Magni pilot suffered a door opening in flight, which would not ordinarily endanger the aircraft. However, he appeared to disregard radio commands from his instructor on the ground, and rolled the aircraft into the ground.
2016: 80-year old pilot crashed on take-off, the autopsist discovering significant cardiovascular degeneration, recording heart-attack or similar as the most likely cause of the otherwise inexplicable accident.

So, in 2 of the three both the gyro and pilot were blameless, and the third [2011] could be ascribed simply to extreme bad luck.

It is also notable that in the UK no FI/CFI has been killed (obviously from the above), but neither has any been involved in any serious accident, a statistic that cannot be said of almost all of the other countries with more than 1 accident.

While these facts are not conclusive, they are highly suggestive that the UK is, comparatively, a safe(r) place in which to enjoy this sport.
I love math/numbers too. The first book they make you read in economics is "Lying with statistics" We are all trained to make them portray anything we wish.
In this case, we need to know how many gyroplanes and how many hours are flown in each country to be able to say which country is has the least deaths per gyro hours flow by the fleet in that country.
If you compare car accidents in Montana vs California it would appear Ca has 1000 times more accidents until you consider that Ca has more driver with millions of more hours drivers and cars than adding all the states but FL & NY together.
We have no clue how many unregistered gyros are flying in the USA. At some remote fly-in's, I've noticed about 1/4 have no #'s = Fat ultralights.
This is a good start.
 
More recently, I find I sometimes question a plan or decision with "how would this look in an NTSB report?"

The important thing is to stay humble in the face of physics and Mother Nature, and keep in mind that all gyro flights are optional.

Agree completely with this point of view.
Most accidents are a chain of events- - rushed to get airborne, forgot your gloves, did not eat or sleep well, etc, etc. etc.
Once I start to notice more than 1 link in the chain I get super careful. If I notice 2 or 3 links in the chain I start to visualize how the NTSB report is going to read-- that's when I abort the flight.

Regarding accidents there is another element which I have not seen anyone mention- the availability of training.

When I trained to get my FW PPL the airport was a 15 minute drive away and I scheduled my lessons 1 or 2 at a time. I trained every week and there was ZERO time pressure for when I would solo, take my test or any other benchmark. If a lesson or two or 3 or 10 got cancelled for weather or any other reason we just moved on and eventually I would be ready to solo etc. In addition over the 3-4 months from my first flight to my PPL ticket I was also taking really good ground school courses so all my aviation knowledge was progressing in sync. Things I learned in ground school I could put into practice the next week in the plane.

Contrast this with how gyro training is usually done because for most of us there is no gyro instructor anywhere close to where we live. In my case I flew to Buckeye, Arizona rented a car stayed in a hotel for a fixed two week period and tried to get as much training as possible in each day. Both the instructor and myself knew the date of my flight home and there was intense pressure to get me signed off before I left. Once I got home if I needed a tiny bit more training or wanted one more demonstration of something - that was unavailable.

In addition the training syllabus for gyros is often geared to this type of learning which may not be the most effective method. In my FW training we first concentrated on stick and rudder skills, take-offs landings and air work- NOTHING MORE. when those were mastered I moved on to the next phase- radios, and airport operations- then I could solo. Then I could practice all those things for a number of hours then get back in the cockpit with my instructor to work on navigation and XC work- but even when we were doing XC work and long after I had soloed my instructor was there to correct any bad habits I had developed while working on my own. In typical gyro training of 1 or 2 intense weeks this is not possible so both initial training tasks and later tasks suffer. If training is 1 or 2 intense weeks separated by months from another 1-2 intense weeks then everything suffers. The end result is a less prepared and less competent student.

IMHO which matches the FAA's focus over recent years poor ADM- Aircraft Decision Making - is a leading cause of accidents. This is improving in the gyro world in the US for sure, but when I began in gyros about 2004 it was nearly non existent. The attitude in 2006 seemed to be gyros should stay under the FAA radar, ignore as much of the regulation as you can and get away with whatever possible. We were still victims of the Benson "build this in your garage and teach yourself to fly" mentality. By contrast in Europe those buying 100K euro-tubs never had that mentality- they treated gyros just like all the rest of FW general aviation and learned accordingly.

Rob
 
When a piper dealer training 1000's of pilots. There was only a small handful who would have been safe flying anything without 40 HOURS of instruction/training in our program and some needed 100 and one lady after 250 hours with 4 flight schools finally quit when she landed at Miramar (Top Gun base at night, military towers have two blinking white lights one green (how do you not miss that and TJ airport right next to our brownfield on the Mexican border 3 miles away).
18 hours what do the rest of you expect???

PS: The rest of that story...
They surrounded her with swat assaulted vehicles and she never wanted to fly again.
 
As to the guy taking off into the trees. He made the cals but guessed the wrong height??? How many of you have been trained by an instructor on how to know how tall the trees really are?
Without knowing how to measure the exact height of the trees what good would our calculations be?

Part of Border Aeronautics program has to land in a field with trees and get a stick and teach them how to measure the height exactly and do the math?
It is much easier to show someone how than to describe it.

Do any instructors teach how to measure the height of trees???
Boy scouts taught me and I made it part of our course.

You get a long, branch, stick, or used my pin but like a longer stick. I've used my clipboard too.
Then just walk up to the tree until you can sight holding your arm out at full extension until the base and the top of the tree is at then end of the stick. That is how tall it is.
Mark where the base of the tree is. Now do not move at all only turn the pin sideways and notice where it ends on the ground, by a rock, or bush or the best have another person the farmer or passenger walk from the base of the tree until you say stop.

Then just pace/measure from where they are standing back to the base of the tree. That is exactly the height. It's a simple triangle.

Now you have real data needed to do the math. Without that it a guess.
 
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I am going to get hung for my comments ....that said I do not agree with all you have to say with respect.
Can you table an amount of hours flown in a gyro in the UK against other countries? you saying 'quote' I also believe that the UK is one of the safest countries to fly a gyro in ...this is a very interesting comment? One fact we all know is the UK is envied for it all year round fantastic flying Wx;)

We must further examine the type of flying that is done in other countries? I am not familiar with exactly apart from recreational flying in the UK what else they do with gyro?
In SA (and a few other places I have been privileged to fly in) gyroplanes have been used for various types of operations including power line inspection anti Poaching, and crop spraying, (to mention a few) this type of flying adds significant risks and will quickly blurr the figures.

The comments you make regarding IAPGT are also very interesting? I have flown gyro long before the introduction of this training aid, I use the word training aid, as the little exposure I have to it this what I have seen it is? its a nice tool for an instructor who has many students in a class and enables him/her to monitor via electronic media the students progress log book entries and compliance.
That does not make it better than the training we use or used before this platform was developed IMO. What makes safe Pilots is discipline and the in depth training he receives from the outset, its the instructors duty to demonstrate discipline and knowledge in a one on one during the students Pilot training syllabus.
I do not believe that any program or software platform makes gyroplane flying safer or more safe than methods of training we have used in the past, and while Im not knocking the
Gyropedia it certainly does not make the Pilot, his training and culture instilled by his instructor brings those qualities to the table.

The day ticking boxes on a computer screen makes safer Pilots is yet to be tested, Gyropedia certainly brings in very nice training aids and once accepted as a world wide standard will make an instructors work a bit easier but will it make Pilots safer?

Safety is a culture not a Program,.. in flying in driving in handling of firearms

As previously mentioned, I have estimated the UK annual average hours as about 80, median 50. I don't have any calculations for other countries.
But.... would other countries be significantly different? An order of magnitude different? A factor of 2 different? It seems unlikely to me.

There are two distinct questions:-
a) do different countries have significantly different fatal accident rates? I think the answer is yes
b) are there reasons why that might be so? Again, I think the answer is yes.

identifying b) will contribute to safer flying everywhere, I submit

for example. [I repeat, my analysis is limited to the Big-3]
Why does South Africa have the most wire strikes of any country in the dataset, and why is the modal fatal accident in SA a wire-strike?
Why is France the only country to have had mid-airs in gyros? They have had three...
Why do ELA-Aviacion appear to have 4x the fatal accidents of AutoGyro-GmbH? There are no ELAs flying in the UK, but lots flying in France and Spain...

Regarding Gyropedia, I am perhaps in the fortunate position of having experienced training both inside and outside the system. On the one hand, everything is structured and transparent, recorded, discussed and reviewable forever, discussion and questioning are *welcomed*, progression statistics are clear, aeronautical decision making is as much a focus as the mechanics of flying. There are self-assessment questions for each step, question banks covering everything, automatic recency calculations and logbook, and much more, the whole system under constant review for best practice, by the instructors and pilots who use it. Whereas on the other hand, none of that. Pencil-written notes on pitiful scraps of paper [which I never got to see], little briefing or debriefing, everything seemingly ad hoc, questioning positively discouraged, "my way or the highway" and so on. I certainly preferred the Gyropedia method, trained by instructors who were prepared to be smaller fish in a wider, deeper pond, rather than a "big fish" in his own stagnant tiny pond...

And the Gyropedia (a tool) is congruent with, but distinct from the IAPGT (a philosophy) in any case. So we agree at least on that !
 
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Measuring an obstacle height has just now been added to PRA group insurance checkout testing program.
Might help save the next high time pilot as it fast and easy and you know real numbers.
Without this accident, I'm not sure I would have remembered as I've been doing this since I was 11 and think every adult knows what I know.
 
You get a long, branch, stick, or used my pin but like a longer stick. I've used my clipboard too.
Then just walk up to the tree until you can sight holding your arm out at full extension until the base and the top of the tree is at then end of the stick. That is how tall it is.
Mark where the base of the tree is. Now do not move at all only turn the pin sideways and notice where it ends on the ground, by a rock, or bush or the best have another person the farmer or passenger walk from the base of the tree until you say stop.

Then just pace/measure from where they are standing back to the base of the tree. That is exactly the height. It's a simple triangle.
This sounds interesting, John, but I'm really not getting what you are saying. It seems obvious to you, no doubt because you've done it many times.
For starters, what do you mean by a "pin"? Why do you sometimes say "pin" and other times "stick"? What angle is your arm at, and where is your hand in relation to your eyes? Then, what do you mean "mark where the base of the tree is"? Mark on what? The ground? I think a diagram might help.

An alternative method I learned in HS geometry. Take a small hand mirror and place it on the ground. Step back till you can see the top of the tree in the mirror. Say you are six feet tall and are now three feet away from the mirror (roughly 2:1 ratio in this case, but could be different). The height of the tree will be the same ratio to its distance from the mirror. So if the tree is 25 ft away, in this example, it's a 50ft tree.
(Yah, it's not a bad idea to have a small hand mirror with you on a cross-country flight) :giggle:
 
As to the guy taking off into the trees. He made the cals but guessed the wrong height??? How many of you have been trained by an instructor on how to know how tall the trees really are?
Without knowing how to measure the exact height of the trees what good would our calculations be?

Arh and this is one element of an obvious gotcha. In a fixed wing aircraft the process is (in crude terms) line up and open the throttle until it hits the stop, wait until you have x knots on the ASI and climb away. It is a repeatable process and one that the aircraft configuration and POH take off data will closely match reality. There are many ways a gyroplane will snag you.

First up is the POH data which at best is minimal. Next is technique. If you fly a new AutoGyro then I am confident that the technique required to achieve the POH take off data will be new to 99.99% of pilots and if you try and take off using 300rrpm pre-rotational values (as per the POH) and use a legacy stick fully back, wheel balance technique your take off distance will INCREASE beyond just pre-rotation to 200-220rpm because of drag.

If you now only pre-rotate to 200rrpm then the POH data is not useful to you - so how are you left?

The other issue is that recently in the UK is that achieving 100% throttle is now seen as optional and not a necessity - in which case the take off distance can be anything! As it can depending upon how long you spend wheel balancing, which whilst I know is not a factor at all if you are a 1000hr instructor etc but if you are a newly minted PPL (and some of these guys crashing are just that <150-200hr pilots) then wheel balances can provide an afternoon of entertainment they are so comical - especially if the pilot is in a Calidus/Cavalon type.
 
This sounds interesting, John, but I'm really not getting what you are saying. It seems obvious to you, no doubt because you've done it many times.
For starters, what do you mean by a "pin"? Why do you sometimes say "pin" and other times "stick"? What angle is your arm at, and where is your hand in relation to your eyes? Then, what do you mean "mark where the base of the tree is"? Mark on what? The ground? I think a diagram might help.

An alternative method I learned in HS geometry. Take a small hand mirror and place it on the ground. Step back till you can see the top of the tree in the mirror. Say you are six feet tall and are now three feet away from the mirror (roughly 2:1 ratio in this case, but could be different). The height of the tree will be the same ratio to its distance from the mirror. So if the tree is 25 ft away, in this example, it's a 50ft tree.
(Yah, it's not a bad idea to have a small hand mirror with you on a cross-country flight) :giggle:
Hi Tyger
Thanks to the net I found an example. It is much easier just to show folks. This is the easiest one-man-band only have to walk up to the tree. The method I described is to measure across a river where you cannot just walk right up to it. I'm going to post this is a separate thread as I feel every pilot needs to know this.

 
Here is more proof this works every time.

Now all you need to do is learn your pace by walking exactly 100/50 yards at a time and dividing by the number paces. Done deal.
Start watching at about 3:00 min's in to see the real example and where the tree falls... the rest is boarding. But proof it works everything. Just do not bend your arm or move your eye.
 
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All well and good...but how much do you need?
It should be in your POH for every aircraft in a graph or a table as well as VX and VY.
If not PRA has a black box datalogger we loan out and you will have to create your own tables/graph. Actually you just fly and the program creates the graphs of what it took to clear different heights.
 
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