I want to say that your camera crew both on the ground and in the air get real good footage, and they do a great job

Cool episode guys. I didn't think it was possible to replace David Windestål as a technical/brains, but Peter has sure come close and filled the role. Well done.

I built one of your planes today! It was SO FUN!!!

I'd like to see a lot more like this (in the sense of unusual air craft not autogyros specifically) like Ekranoplans, hovercrafts (technically you fly them not drive them so why not), dirigibles etc. Thanks for the video was a lot of fun to watch

The aerial footage was really nice. The clips at the end where superb.

The main requirement to the rota head is to have the blades set to a coning angle set on the rota hub and importantly have the rota hub teeta on a yoke. The head consists of a main bearing mounted to the mast, this bearing plate has two vertical posts which resemble a yoke on a universal joint , the center block which pivots on a shaft between the these posts has a second axle at 90 degrees on which another yoke pivots and is allowed to move to a maximum angle of 11 degree each side of level, this last movement is what prevents the craft from rolling over by allowing the advancing blade to fly high and loosing lift allowing the retreating blade to fly at a level angle giving lift. Unlike a fixed wing as airspeed decreases the stick is pulled back increasing angle of attack on the rota head increasing drag and producing increased rota speed ( rotation). Landing dead stick is achieved by pulling the stick back and allowing the the craft to fall and increase rota RPM when the ground is getting closer the stick is pushed slowly forward and the craft will level and speed increase, BUT the rotas will begin to lose RPM, if your wheel are too far from the ground you will crash. There is complicated way of checking your CG but when set your craft should fly (glide) no engine running with the nose down at about ten to eleven degrees, this rate of decent will propel the rotas allowing for the stored energy in the rotation to allow for a flare as described previously to touch down. To keep flying NEVER have the forward rota tips track lower than the rear tips, and any extra weight to be in the rota tips.( momentum)

the autogyro was devoloped by juan de la cierva in the 20s. The issue you guys mentioned with the differential lift of the upcoming and incoming blade was worked out by allowing the blades to move freely up and down on its horizontal axis. The negative pitch of the blade is fixed and that is what makes it fly. An autogyro does not blow air as a chopper, instead it autorotates, it "self-screws" in the air. The propeller only provides forward motion to keep the friction of the blades running. I don't know why your model does not fly properly. if the design is good and well thought out autogyros fly beautifully and can land vertically on a slight head wind.

Cierva invented the Autogyro between the wars - after the second world war, ex RAF bomber pilot, Ken Wallis developed small, very fast autogyros, which he was still flying shortly before his death (of old age),at 97. His most famous autogyro was 'Little Nellie', used by James Bond in the 1967 movie 'You Only Live Twice'. Wallis actually flew the autogyro in the action scenes. The autogyro in the 'Mad Max' films flown by the 'Gyro Captain', played by Bruce Spence, is a Wallis. Now here's the thing: the real autogyro is almost impossible to stall, and very stable - indeed, one of Ken Wallis' favourite tricks at airshows, was to fly one with hands and feet off the controls. I personally have seen him do this at an airshow. Also, the head rotation on take off is not that great at all, and since no torque is generated by the rotor, it is very unlikely to roll or ground loop. It's odd that this model is so twitchy to fly. saying that, it looked awesome in flight.

I like that they saved the episode for all the good parts , but then were honest with the viewers and showed that they actually crashed it !! Great job

What Peter was talking about was dissymmetry of lift. Lift is calculated by an equation, one of the variables is velocity squared. As the advancing blade moves forward in the direction of travel, it has a higher relative wind speed travelling over the airfoil, whereas the retreating blades are moving opposite the direction of travel, so their relative wind speed is lower and produces less lift. Source: I'm a helicopter pilot

I recently flew with a real one they are amazing !

If you take the leap into autogyros - especially in RC, make sure to study dissymmetry of lift and helicopter autorotations to better understand conservation of energy. A strong understanding of heli aerodynamics is extremely beneficial.

Very interesting. Maybe small autogyros are more "sketchy" because their rotor blades are so light they have very little mass and thus momentum. So carbon fibre blades may not be ideal. Maybe you could put weight in the tips so the rotor doesn't lose rpm as much in gusts.

know what guys? I went to the Hobby King link and looked at their gyrocopter, and it hit me that my first impression was it looked like a swappable power pod on steroids, with a tower for the rotor, and "tail feathers". Peter, you should be able to take the parts and do something similar! Great videos guys, as usual; and like most, can't wait for Mondays and Wednesdays.

I fly manned autogyro. When in a turn, bank, then pull back on the stick to stop the nose from dropping. Otherwise, you guys did fairly well.

Good to see Peter back, Awesome flying!

Ah, I feel bad for Peter for the crash. :(

Yes it is challenging to learn to pull back. On full-scale the choppers have a low head speed horn. The horn sounds just like a stall warning horn but it requires opposite input. I have done a few autos with a full scale R44. I would like an autogyro with collective pitch.

I always thought the takeoff roll was the main rotors being too stiff, I've learned something else today. 👍🏼 It sounds totally awesome!

You guys did awesome, disorientation is just part of the challenge.

Great job Peter and Josh!

They've always seemed more trouble than they are worth, although it's pretty awesome seeing Bixler out of his depth for once :D

You mentioned a few things that were educational - the blades are different than heli, and for lift you have to have the rotors at high angle of attack, reverse pitch. You could have explained what the elevator control does on this - leans the rotors back? And that was a pretty devastating crash - that's a lot of money for something that blows apart like that.

The primary thing about autos is that the rotor -must- be under load to spin up. Thats why head spead increases when you pitch up and decreases when you pitch down

Nice episode guys whoever flew the fpv on those shots has awsomely mad skills great shots.

I don’t know what kind of weird setup that is, but one does not steer with the rudder and cross-control a gyro. It is correct to say that one does not use co-ordinated flight, though. The rudder is for maintaining “balance” and a full-sized gyro has a pennant on the nose or a yaw-string on the windscreen much like a heli, which shows when the airflow over the fuselage is out of balance. Although, from the ground, I would imagine it is next to impossible to determine proper balance. To prevent the nose dropping during a turn, roll into the turn then pull back on the stick, add a little power if necessary. All directional control in forward flight is done with roll and pitch. Unless pitching forward and unloading the rotors (which should never be done in a gyro for the reasons stated in this video), the rotors should continue to turn and produce lift even if the aircraft is pulled into a complete stop, at which point, it should enter what is known as a “vertical descent” (although, it’s not completely vertical) - much like a sycamore seed - You will now need to use the rudder to keep the nose pointing where you want and if you have no airflow over the rudder, you will spin, no matter what you do with the rudder. To get out of the spin, roll into the direction of spin and add a little power. The takeoff roll should go something like this - Get the rotors spun up, pull the stick all the way back and then add a LITTLE bit of power, enough to get moving - do NOT throw in full power from stationary. As the rotors reach flying speed, the nose will get light and will pop off the ground. So, as the nose gets light, bring the stick forward a little to keep the nose down, either on the ground or just slightly off it. Feed in more power and allow the aircraft to unstick. As it leaves the ground, level out to build airspeed and then climb out. Starting with the rotors flat and then pulling back on the stick like in a fixed-wing’s takeoff is a way to induce a roll-over. I’d love to fly that model to see how much like the full-sized bird it flies. A channel called Half Rho V Squared has plenty of in-cockpit examples of a takeoff sequence. Here’s one - kzfaq.info/get/bejne/iJuYoKWCz92tqIk.html

Yes! I think Autogyros are very interesting and have been waiting for another FliteTest episode about them! More please!

Yes Peter! Rocking the Taranis :D

AT LAST: a gyrocopter.........Yaaaaay. I had a ride in one of these (Rochester Airfield, Kent, England)........and they're brilliant. We even did a dead-engine landing which was really cool - and a VERY smooth landing

awesome video, liked seeing the use of the frsky taranis transmitter

That constant loud music is doing my head in.

I fly the real ones. A couple of notes in case people are interested. The reason the gyro will tip over if blades are not properly wound up on take off is because the rotors are rotating with one blade into the wind and one retreating away from the oncoming airflow. This means you add the forward airspeed to the advancing blade and take it away from the retreating blade. So in flight in a real gyro lets say rotors are spinning at 300mph and your airspeed is 30 mph then the advancing blade has 330mph and the retreating only has 270mph (the difference is double the forward speed). This is compensated for by the flapping hinges or on this model the teeter hinge which allows the retreating blade to lift washing off angle of attack (reducing its lift) while pushing the retreating blade down increasing its angle of attack (increasing its lift) this automatically compensates for changes of lift for any reason including a thermal hitting the front blade or on either side so gyros are very stick free stable as a result. However in rc planes because you are using servo motors you are flying like a ham fisted pilot which makes the rc versions harder to fly. Try adding a little rubber buffer in there and it might behave more with more stability. On takeoff however there are a couple of difficulties the hinging you are experiencing happens when the rotor rpm is too low and the retreating blade descends until it its angle of attack is stalled. On a real gyro this gets so drastic that the blades flex into an s shape and they can strike the ground at the back of cut of the pusher propellor, it's hard to feel from the seat as before it's noticeable it's literally shaking the whole mast violently. Poorly trained pilots often get caught out. and smash up their rotor blades. The nose pitching down thing is also an issue. In a real gyro should your engine fail you do pitch the nose down but not dramatically, certainly not trying to punch it down. Negative G is deadly. This is because the rotor disk dips below the oncoming airflow and the rotors stop in about 1/2 second. Usually however this happens not at lower speeds and from pitching the nose down but at high speeds with just a gentle push, the trick is to keep to the best airspeed (hard to manage in an RC model). Basically it's hard to do in a real gyro if you are flying at say 30mph at 80-100mph or higher this gets much easier to do. People mistakenly think this is because many gyros don't have a horizontal stabilizer which is nonsense as your example proves. The rotor is not connected directly to the fuselage so stabilizing the air-frame will do nothing one option for rc gyros would be to keep bank on the rotor but to fix the pitch on the rotor and then a stabilizer will work. Then normal elevators would work. However you'll loose pitch control on slow landings. The other factor to consider and the reason they are weird to fly RC is because the rotor disk is literally flying itself into a new plane of rotation. The teeter hinge isolates the rotors rotation about the axis to 90 degrees from the input. Image the rotor is side to side and you at that instant pull the stick hard left bank. The teeter hinge means this will freely pivot around the hinge and rotor will do nothing. Once the rotor has rotated to the fore aft position the tilt in the head now twists the rotor so the advancing blade is pointing down and the retreating blade is point up so the rotor now flys itself into a new plane of rotation (banked left) the lift now pulls the whole gyro in that direction. This takes very little effort and because models are likely to have unbalanced (Chordwise) and extremely stiff rotors you are likely to have a super unstable/twitchy gyro. Older gyros had wooden rotors with external chord weights. I've build and flown on these and they are far more stable infact if you have slightly overbalanced blades, chordwise (not too much or you'll get weave) you'll have incredibly stable dynamics. I test flew a set of rotors that was unbeknown to me drastically overbalanced chord-wise (nose heavy) the machine was incredibly stable as a result even in really turbulent conditions. Basically the rotors did not want to twist from their position and resisted sudden changes. If you could replicate this in an RC gyro you'd have an easier flying experience. cheers

Love how it sounds flying by! They do take some getting used to...

I would like to explain you about the difference in some Autogyros, wherein some have a negative local angle of attack, where as others have slight positive. Before proceeding anymore, please understand that we often misunderstand the real angle of attack with local angle of attack. Local angle of attack is with reference to the rotation plane, whereas the actual angle of attack is with reference to the relative wind. Though local angle of attack may be positive or negative (always positive in case of real Autogyro), relative angle of attack should always positive, or else there will be negative lift. Usually negative local angle of attack is provided to help rotor turn initially, but it greatly restricts the rotor RPM. The advantage of having a small positive angle of attack is that it allows high RPM to rotor, but demerit is that rotor can't spin easily when exposed to wind, instead RPM needs to be induced by connecting the engine to the main rotor for some time until main rotor picks up speed. Cadilus 5E does have an extra motor that gives an initial high speed spin to the main rotor, therefore the local angle of attack is not necessary to be negative. If you have any doubt about Autogyro, reply below....

Put a gyro on it! I did and set the gain to ~80% heading hold on all controls and my I-care Rainbow gyro is very stable now.

First time I can remember wanting one was watching Pippee Long Stocking as a kid lol

that's awesome that they were use a frsky taranis transmitter, awesome video

I'm a 3D and FPV helicopter guy and I love the looks of this thing! I could be biased but I think the thing looks real sleek especially for an autogyro! In particular, it has a smooth bullet shaped aircraft style nose thanks to the rear pusher prop configuration. Anyone if this model allows control over the rotor's collective pitch? I'm thinking, even if that were possible, is it even workable since the rotor's RPM can't be made constant with a governor or throttle curve -- indeed there is no motor driving those rotors! Moreover, without collective pitch control, there would be no way to do a safe auto rotation by using slight *negative collective* for the glide portion of the autorotation descent. Just before reaching the ground, the rotors need to go into some *positive collective* to expend the rotor energy in a nice flare into a soft landing.

Flite Test, there is a difference between a wing (or blade) and an airfoil! An airfoil is the 2D, cross sectional shape of a wing. "Wing" and "airfoil" are not interchangeable terms, they mean different things. I love the channel, but this has always been a pet peeve for me!

So cool! I never knew the rotor was not motored.

The return of the Gyro!

The first helicopters had two sets of props on each side of the fuselage and a single much smaller propeller that cooled the engine that powered the larger and small prop.

Back for another look...Just as mad cool as the first time - if not more so!

Ah, and I always thought my first remote control aircraft would be an autogyro. I am guessing not!

That's COOL! I love the heck out of autogyros. Just love'em. Does it actually make that Huey-like sound? That's so cool.

Like it, a lot of Power this Thing i saw the Big AC-10 two years a go in Hausen Crashed not so easy to fly Respect Guys Thumb up oooppppsss... what was this at the End'' Hard Landing....

Looks pretty wild but once you learn and get over the first flight it is a lot of fun.

I miss this flitetest 😭

wow, I always wanted to get one of these with a ultralight or sports pilots license but this changed my mind lol.

yeah, gyrocopters are very cool! but, if they are so roll sensitive, maybe a roll gyro to help keep it level. good luck Peter!

Let's give some credit to the crazy invetor of this contraption, Juan de la Cierva!

Yet another awesome movie!

Most helicopter blades use a *symmetrical* airfoil, semi symmetrical airfoil blades are only used for scale flying.

Use to fly these in Arma 3. They are so sketchy to fly, but after awhile you get used to it.

Peter S is the Wibi Soerjadi of RC, a virtuoso in the skies!

I miss David. He would have done this but re-engineered it in a proper way to be a cool interesting experience. As it is, this is nothing more than "an episode" as Peter says. :/

I just ordered one of these. I do pilot full size gyro planes and I hold a gyro plane fly in 2 times a year in Wadesboro, NC at the Anson County Airport. I offer free rides to anyone interested in these awesome machines!!

That's cool. I've never seen an RC autogyro. Many "full scale" ones over here, though. Never tried them but I imagine they're a ton of fun.

There was a very good reason that Spaniard designed his as tractors and not pushers, the tractor design has a lot of advantages in an autogyro.

And here goes me putting canards on my radjet 800 soon! I love altering models before the maiden!

I flew a full scale Magni M16 Gyrocopter few years ago. In my profile pic on KZfaq, I'm sitting in it. Never flew a RC one though.

Really liked this one guys!

I fly the HobbyKing Auto G2 autogryro and I only use the rotor spinning assistance for take offs. After I take off I don't need the assistance and I turn it off.

Gyrocopters are the best invention of the world.

I wish I had watched this video before buying the Hobby King Super G Autogyro and flying it today got the same result as you guys LOL

Yea Peter! A whole flight without a crash. I still want to see the Calidus fly. ;-) Great job.

"Checkmark that off your belt" = "Check that off your list" + "Put a notch in your belt"

Oh man, I would cry. Here's hoping you get to write stuff like that off as business expenses...

Great vid

honestly, you're just hitting a learning curve from fixed wing to autogyro. pilots need about 10 hours of training to switch aircraft full-scale. you have to remember that you have no ailerons or elevator, just the main rotor and rudders. play around on X-Plane 10 a bit. autogyros are amazing and loads of fun.

Your better pilots than I, I.m not quite ready to try that just yet

Weird that they were using cross control on "aileron" and rudder?? I built and flew a full scale Bensen gyrocopter and they are very manoeuvrable, if inefficient and slow. The dealer I bought the kit off used to do displays at various air shows where he would weave the gyrocopter around trees with the rotor tips 8-10 feet off the ground, I mean, this guy just threw it around something awesome. The one thing you don't want to do though is take the load of the rotors in a pitch over, as they will then flap wildly in negative G conditions and quite likely hit the rudder or even the prop. I gave gyrocopters away though, after seeing too many accidents even with good pilots...one fatal.

Hey flite test awesome video!!! In the future you should try the hobby king auto gyro (thing-a-mijjiger) it has a auto start so you get a perfect take off every time as well as if you loose head speed you can flip your aux switch and get it up again however you can't have it on the whole time it doesn't have the speed to do that's just a quick episode recommendation there is a new horizon/imurstion rc race quad I don't think it's a 250 but a bit bigger but I would like flite tests view on the product

I was wondering why I didn't want to go there ... Thanks!!!

Awesome vid guys!

I'm still confused as to how this works. As far as I can tell The small props are propelling it while the large one basically acts like a pair of wings on an airplane.

it has a realy nice sound

Go full scale, you have the skills Peter....

Gyro planes are cool! Especially the new real ones, on par with general aviation airplanes! In some case better!

hi, I use to have the benson gyro ,, with 30 ft blads, and a 78 hp motor, it is a good flying gyro to fly, when you do a 180 turn you need to give it thro, in the turn, my gyro would do 80 mph, you can do a dead stick landing al so, just keep you r speed up i would come in at 40 mph and land at 30 mph,

@8:21 and there we go. the mosquito seem to enjoy another of those good ol' adrenaline rush blood opportunity's. Great success! Fly safe ya'll

nicely done

Sounds. Awesome.

wouldn't all of those undesirable characteristics be solved, by having a counter-rotating twin blades, and limiting the forward pitch control?

also, it's weird how gyroscopic procession doesn't work the same on a gyrocopter than a helicopter. when you stall retreating blades on a helicopter the aircraft pitches upwards as the force is transferred 90 degrees in the direction of travel. This stalls to the side, not sure if it's just because of slow rotor speed or if it's because the rotor isn't driven. weird physics black magic

It looks cool. But it sounds AWESOME!!!

Funny. Ultralight Gryrocopter are actually considered easy to fly and quite safe.

Are we not going to talk about that amazing save at 7:35???

Cool job Peter I notice that your flying this autogyro with a FrSky Taranis radio I surely that's featured more on a episode in the near future?

That was fun to watch-) The secret to an auto gyro is RUDDER. The guys didn't mention the rudder as far as I could tell. You have to follow thru in a turn using rudder to keep the turn balanced/coordinated. Autogyro's are the easiest machine to fly IF you understand the way the need to be controlled especially in a turn. You can't bank it like a plane & expect it to turn around, the rudder does the actual turning. HK have these at half price now & I would love one but with no spares there will be no sale.

Nice video

You guys should make a foam build for an autogyro!

woohooo thanks boys for this awesome video.

from the video it Looks like it is a rigid head design which could be the biggest problem with that RC design, Real Gyros built like that are semi-ridged rotors. Basically the issue you have of it trying to roll when flying is caused by that

Oh wow, finally a Taranis

More autogyros! I flew one of these in dayz and it just acted like a plain airplane so... Yeah

Looks like Peter is using the FrSky Taranis YEah Peter!

muito show .assisto todos od videos de vocês ..aqui no Brasil ...como aqui tudo e muito caro ..Você teria alguma planta de um giro simples pra eu mesmo fazer ...brigado Parabéns pelo canal

Do a video on the fresky taranis

I bought the Auto G with autostart. It took off fine and flew for about 3 minutes before just diving into the ground. I repaired it and flew again for a couple minutes and then it dove straight into the ground. All I can figure is I stalled the rotor. Very strange to fly. I think I'll stick to fixed wing.