Hey Greg - just picked this up.. Just any impressions from flying / operation. Anything new / innovative or there to snag. Just be useful to give that colour.
Hi Phil
I will table my findings, I appreciate that my comments may upset certain parties? I table that I have accumulated hundreds of flight hours in Xenon and have worked extensively on these gyroplanes having done in depth work on two and a complete nut and bolt rebuild on one taking it apart completely.
RDY Complete rebuild
RGB replaced mast and ext work on the electrical system
RGA removed mast and U/C rebuilt rotor head and complete inspection.
So three different units with some very common faults in build and quality?
Mast cracks on the upper RH mounting point I have seen this on all
three units above and on a
further two units reporting
the same defect at a local club, This is caused by
BAD workmanship short simple!, it seems the factory have not heard that deburring a drilled hole and removing the swarf prior to assembly is a engineering norm? this 6mm hole if left with swarf is the reason the torque (11-12Nm) is false and this final and very stressed point is subject to movement causing the crack, add that they factory failed to install a washer to increase the area of the pressure for the mounting point, is an unforgivable practice.
I found on RDY that the wire tie security was installed (from the factory) the wrong way ? in fact pulling the bolt lose! this prompted a full tear down, because if the wire security tie was wrongly installed in a spot we can see what have they done inside the tunnel where we cannot see?
The build quality was what I would call ‘
very home made’ with a number of parts seem to have been made with basic hand tools with little attention to detail, the reticulation in the tunnel and behind the panel was mess in all three examples, I found the fuse box cumbersome and difficult to access, (who puts a fuse box behind a panel when one can with little effort build a hatch) The Polish do!
The workmanship on all three is substandard and IMO no quality control? No uniformity in the wiring or assembly all three are just different, almost as if being built by three different companies? These are factory-built units not 51% owner build. No attention to detail with the Pitot tube, in short, a job you would expect from a person who completed school in a special needs educare.
The factory maintenance manual is typical from a place that has no clue in English and they get confused between torque values on part X in chapter A and refer to same part in chapter B with a different torque value??
The replacement schedule is also a huge thumb suck with no science behind it? TBO component time (as an example the Teeter Bolt)
Flying it doors off above 60Mph is very uncomfortable. The master pump coming on as you put on the main switch with no way to shut of the pump in flight is a safety concern for me?
I could go on for hours about what I feel is wrong…..
That said let’s move onto
what these guys got right, again my findings and I respect we all have different opinions.
It is the Gyro with the
best visibility, the window by the feet is great and one would be forgiven for thinking you’re sitting in a real Helicopter during flight.
Xenon is no more difficult to fly than any other side by side (myself rated on Cavalon, M24 as comparison)
She is a very docile lady in flight and light on controls with a landing speed that is very predictive, in the right hands a slow almost zero forward roll is easily achieved on landing.
No heavier on fuel than the other side by side Gyroplanes, the big thing is the cabin space, its inflight feel is very R44 with a nice spacious cockpit, bigger than a C172 and the R22 as a comparison.
The airspeed the factory claim is optimistic IMO with a real-time cross-country speed of 75Mph being more reasonable with moderate fuel consumption. Yes you can take it 85-90 but fuel consumption suffers and 100MPh is possible but I don’t think Xenon is comfortable at that IAS.
So its big (and lets admit is a as ugly as a Pig) but that aside it’s a machine that is rewarding to fly, for colder Wx I think it’s the ticket
In the right hands its gem to fly and throwing it around is easy and a very rewarding to the pilot.
