At long last...some real 'news'
At long last...some real 'news'
Steve,
Yes, hearing about baseball caps and t-shirts when you want to hear about the best gyroplane on the market (soon), is pretty lame.
Sorry, I had to do that ☺
When I posted before that the reason we are a bit quiet, is because we are hard at work, I was actually telling the truth. The European website is currently not serviced as much as the US one (
www.phenixgyro.com) because the guys over there are too busy working on the aircraft and related activities.
You would be better served right now, while we build a new European website, to regularly visit our US website and Facebook page as we will be posting info on our blog there from now on. Here too of course.
That said, here is the information you have been waiting for, for so long:
I can officially confirm that we are presently engaged in certification of the aircraft in Germany.
For this purpose we have built and are continuing to make changes and improvements to Phenix serial # 003.
Any certification process is a very time and labor-intensive process, subject to many revisions, changes and delays. Unfortunately, because of this, we cannot with any accuracy predict a date of certification completion. Our expectation is to be done around September 2014, but this has already been pushed back from our initial estimate of March 2014. This was mainly due to regulatory changes with the particular authorities.
99% of our efforts are going into the certification process. That leaves 1% for baseball caps and t-shirts. So you can see how hard we are working at this!
Serial #002 has been our workhorse over the past few years. This aircraft has operated solely from unimproved dirt airstrips doing a lot of flying in different weather conditions, with differing loads and setups. We’ve tested handling at different air-speeds, high and low, different attitudes, side slips, doors-off flight, intentional hard landings, short field operations (as shown in the many videos on the website and the Facebook page), heavy take-offs, simulated 3G+ on the airframe etc.
We’ve also tested different systems, landing gear configurations, rotor blades, props, rudder sizes, etc.
She has been put through the ringer and is still going strong, with no mechanical failures or abnormal situation of any kind. This is testament to the rugged simplicity of the beautiful and stylish design.
More information about stricter flight testing to come in the future.
Regarding sales; at present we can produce Phenix models for experimental registration worldwide but European and US sales will have to wait until certification is completed. Work on a 51% kit will only be possible after the current certification program is completed.
For Europe, we will begin further promotion, attending fairs, etc. when the certification is closer.
We are looking at our options of bringing at least a static display with cabin mock-up of one of the models to the USA. We will be hard pressed to do this considering our efforts with the certification process, but we are trying to make it work.
We are posting new design rendering of the models on our US website in the meantime.
In Europe we are currently working on establishing a new facility to prepare for serial production.
In the USA, we have found a facility to house our Regional Assembly Facility and are working on securing the location.
We know that news has been a long time in coming and we apologize for the delay and stealthiness in our operations. In the end your patience and our hard work will pay off.
Now, like a child who had his ice cream first and still has to eat his veggies; news of the t-shirt competition!
Final two days of design submissions, to be followed by the "Choosing the Winner Poll"!
Please go vote, put your name up there, PM me with your postal address and in a few weeks you might be strutting around in a FREE new Phenix t-shirt!
Thanks for your patience folks, stick with us!