New Zealand crash...

Thanks all.
Appreciate the kind words..
I feel kind of empty.... and when I close my eyes I can still feel the whop whop whop that I so enjoy! I need to get back in the air!
Im looking at a " Wind Ryder" Gyro. There is a local one available needing a litle TLC . Its a single place, but the $ are right. Any of you boys have any comments on them?
New Zealand can be a wet and cold place so an enclosed cabin is nice for an old fella.
My other requirement is to fly in reasonable wind.. No use having a hobby that you can only do on calm days.. eg. Hang gliding or paraponting ... The RAF went well in 20 kn...

I need to add an apology. When Interviewed I said gyros were a handful to fly.... I should have said.. MINE was! Hands free would have been a fantacy!
Cheers
R
 
Kitfox.. Thanks.. Ill check em out

Kitfox.. Thanks.. Ill check em out

BEN S said:
Here in the desert in AZ we have to constantly be on the look out for something we call a "Dust Devil" its a cyclone of dirt that seems to spring up out of no where. I don't know if you guys get them in Oz, but your description sounds like you landed on one! They suck and skill alone at the point of touch down might not be enough to save a rig. I almost got balled up when one nailed my kiester on take off, I don't think it would have been the same result on landing.
try a Kitfox. They look fantastic and you can still take the grandkids for a ride.
Ben S
Click to expand...

Cheers
They sound intersting
R
 
Just goes to show how wrong an impression you can get from a newspaper
report. I should have known better. My bad.

Flying a gyro that is out of trim requiring stick force to correct is very tiring,
plus it is hard to have a reference. Add a disturbance on top of that at a critical
moment, would be difficult to manage.

Also tarmac is less forgiving than grass, if you get a bit sideways.

I hope you get going again. It's good for the soul.

I dont know much about the Wind-rider, but I gather they are a fairly slippy
machine, for a gyro.
 
I'm not much into single place machines, but I really would like one of those. I'll bet it's a hands off machine too.
 
Last edited:
Lovely videos...Look fun!
Just had a look at one... nearly complete.... wrap over canopy.... a tad claustrophobic....
has a rotax 612 78 hp 2 cyl 2 stroke.... well used..
I would miss the side by side seating..
Thinking....
Thanks for the links
Rusty
 
"Dust Devil" its a cyclone of dirt that seems to spring up out of no where. I don't know if you guys get them in Oz, but your description sounds like you landed on one!
This time of year, middle of the day n 40 odd celcius, you can have more n ten to the squ mile. Sum are 50 yards across and sum are only 5' that spin at mind bogglen speed. Excellant divergance from a boren day.
Love flyn though them while given mum nature the finger.
Took me sail plane instructer uncle for a lap im the wasa years ago, and as we approched for a quick 180 spot land, i noticed one of the 5'ers spin'n to the same spot i was aimn for. Me uncles eyes near poped out his head wen he realised wot i was go'n to do. He started breathn again wen we landed in the middle of it with no ill effects, cept for a face fulla sand. ;)

And Rusty, me wasa [ 914 moded RAF] is lookn for a new home. Im sure it wouldnt mind becomen a kiwi. ;)
 
C. Beaty said:
It is not so much gear width and resulting turnover angle as it is dumb peripherals such as hard-coupled nose wheels.
Click to expand...

Chuck, In as much as I respect your opinions and feel as though you are one of the most knowlegable people in gyroplanes I am wondering why a hard coupled nose wheel would be a cause. I feel as though landings should be done straight on and if you touch your tail wheel first then the landing should be straight. If your landing straight then the nose wheel would not cause a roll over. Also if your landing is crossed up, the main wheels aren't castering so they could easily grab in then a roll over can occurr. Crabed in landings should be avoided. A roll over to me is due to pilot error and impropoer landing techniques, not how a nose wheel is attached.
 
Holding the nosewheel off while holding rudder is something that can be learned. But it takes practice and experience.

Why do you think such a disproportionate number of RAFs are involved in rollover accidents?

Steering by differential braking without a coupled nose wheel is easy and removes another gremlin.
 
The rotors are so powerful, even while landing, that the width of the gear is not a factor. You could have gear with the main wheels 3 feet apart and have no issues so as long as you stay sharp on the controls.

Problem with hard coupled front wheels, is if you land with the rudder at anything but straight ahead.... when you touch down and allow the nose wheel to touch the ground, if you have any speed the gyro will dart off in the direction the wheel is pointed. solutions are to soft couple the front wheel to the rudder pedals with springs or some kind of flexible connection..... replace the front gear with castoring gear and use differential braking.... or make sure that you land with ZERO ground speed at touch down.
 
Mike, you are landing on a runway that has a crosswind, you will land in a crab for a lack of better words.

Sure if it is rural airport, no one is around, or the people there don't mind, you could perhaps approach the runway from the side and land across the runway instead of down it, and land more into the wind, but in alot of cases thats not going to be the usual.
 
Mike, you are landing on a runway that has a crosswind, you will land in a crab for a lack of better words.
Click to expand...

I'd call it a "slip" rather than a "crab". But rather than picking on the words I would agree with Ron and Chuck.
 
What I guess I'm trying to say is yes, there are ways to engineer a gyro to make mistakes a little more forgiving but I don't believe that a lot of the accidents that the gyro was blamed was really the fault of the machine but rather a fault of the operator. A castoring nose wheel will not prevent a roll over or a HS stabilizer will not keep a gyro from falling out of the air. Accident investigations should focus more on what the pilot did to cause the accident and what he could have done to prevent it. This would be a better lesson for other pilots rather than saying that if the machine was designed differently then the accident would not have happened. Not learning to come in and land straight is not acceptable, sometimes unpreventable, but it still needs to be learned. Just like if a pilot pushes the cyclic full forward, gets into negative G's, and falls out of the air. We should not be saying that a HS would have prevented this but that if you don't get into negative Gs this wouldn't happen. Keep engineering gyro to be safer, that is great, but lets make sure that the pilots understand that "If you do this then this will happen" and use what we learn from accidents to build better pilots rather than blame it on the machine and no lessons be learned.
 
Mike, you can land straight as a arrow.... if you have a front gear thats hard coupled to the rudder pedals, and you have rudder input to correct for a crosswind, and you let the nose come down while holding that correction and still travelling at any significant ground speed, the gyro will dart off to the side and easily roll over.

Sure a GOOD pilot will know this, and KNOW he or she must not allow the nose to come down with rudder input.... But alot of machines have rolled over due to this design flaw.

I don't think the width of the landing gear makes much difference. If your doing a GOOD job of piloting the machine, your controls are powerful enough to be able to make a safe landing no matter how narrow the gear is.

I would be far more nervous flying a gyro with 10 foot wide gear and a hard coupled nose gear, verses a gyro with 4 foot wide gear and a castoring nose wheel
 
Ron, I do agree with everything here and I do feel as though a castoring wheel can prevent a roll over. The only thing I didn't read when going through this thread is what the pilot might have done to cause this. I would like to see more focus on building better piloting skills and knowledge by learning lessons from others mistakes. Everyone knows that no matter how idiot proof you try to make something, they just build better idiots. (I'm not calling anyone an idiot here). Making safer gyros is a goal that we all need to work towards but we also need to work towards making safer pilots too.
 
Mike, a PPO caused by a machine getting into PIO isn't caused by a pilot pushing the cyclic full forward and getting into negative G's. A stab can prevent the gyro from getting into a PIO.
 
Rusty, very sorry to see you lose your gyro. I hope you can get back in the air.
 
Mike:
My B7m Bensen has a hard coupled nose wheel; and my home airport ( M02 ) is known around these parts as having a builtin crosswind. normally it is quartering. I normally do not do a stop and drop like a Dominator. But rather rollon the mains and let the nose settle in and rollout in about 30 to 50 feet. There was once that I was not paying as much attention as I should have been, and was gettin a little sloppy. There was a signifcant crosswind and I had quite abit of rudder applied. and just as the nose was touching, I realized what I was doing and as the nose touched - yet it started to dart and I pulled more back pressure and got it back on the tailwheel. It was a good save, but sure got my attention and heartrate up.
After that, I started using the two intersecting taxiways for landings, which lines up to the wind, most of the time. fortunately our FBO is gyro friendly!!!
I am going to start an UltraWhite build this year, and I am looking forward to learning to drive a free caster nose and differential main braking!
 
Rusty, sorry to hear about your accident. I think your response to both accident and the aftermath are commendable and hope you get back in the air soon. Accidents happen and generally very rapidly. Even very experienced people can get caught out.

Re the non castoring nosewheel, there is a school of thought over here that a number of MTO3 roll overs may well be attributed just that.

Saw that about the balloon accident yesterday, sounds pretty horrific. Very sad.
 
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