Haven't seen such a takeoff, but I have seen a vertical landing in a strong (40+ mph) wind. While driving past Cold Bay Airport in Alaska, I noticed an incoming plane that was not lined up with the runway, so I pulled over and stopped to see what he was up to. He flew directly to a spot over the aircraft parking area, slowed down to zero ground speed, and just set it down. I'm not real sure how he managed to get it to stay there while he tied it down, though.

I get by with a little help from my friends = wind :)

Look up _"jump takeoff"_ in gyroplanes.

A fixed wing stol craft can easily do this just as well.

Just check the take off speed and if wind speed is higher you can do this

Very true! Very honest fact! Very well said! Safe flying to you all!

This is different, clearly it wasn't because he accelerated away with ease

Helicopters deal with Newton’s third law: The engine applies torque to the rotor and experiences opposite torque in return. In the case of a gyroplane the rotor spins freely and the force to spin it comes from the airflow through it. The only torque involved is due to the tiny bit of friction in the bearings.

The rotorhead is not ridgid like a helicopter. The retreating blade is allowed to drop significantly more as its lift is less than the forward blade and that air is passing the blades creating lift instead of forcing the pressure downward against gravity.

Hi Randy the rotor is only powered on wind up (on my machine by hand). This machine has a prerotator which is disconnected in flight. You then keep the rotor quite shallow (in this wind) and gradually introduce a little back stick until the rotors reach full back stick and wind up to speed then very fully. He is feeding in more and more power to counteract the lift pointing backwards this keeps the aircraft from going backwards. As the rotor is no longer connected to the pre-rotator there is no torque effect so no need for a tail rotor. Essentially he is doing all the same things as a zero wind take off only without the need to roll forward to put airspeed into the rotors.

Thanks Cameron, for the explanation. I fully understand the principles of the gyro and how the pre-rotator operates. I guess I didn’t realize that a fairly significant headwind existed during this. If, it makes perfect sense. I’m a FW pilot and already looking for gyro training reasonably close, so I took particular interest in this. Thanks for the reply and safe skies ! 🇺🇸🛫

@@randyporter3491 no probs good luck and check out the instructor very closely. Find out if any of his students have been killed or injured. There are some cowboy about. Also pre-rotators are great especially for the tall machines but remember you still have to let them get to speed. If the gyro sits with the nose too heavy when empty (mine sat on my tail until I got in) then you will use more airstrip to get off pre-rotator or not. This is because when there is enough lift to pull the nose up your rotor gains a few extra degrees and will spin up in much less ground. So check out how heavy the nose is when looking for a machine. Just a little tip. I could take off in my VW bensen in about half the ground roll even though I was hand windings and spinning up on my taxi run had 22ft blades and a 54 inch prop compared to their 582 Rotax 27 ft 8 inch chord blade s and hydrolic pre-rotator s. I arrogantly thought I was just better at flying,. However it was this. My machine was heavy and much slower to climb out but some of these guys were taking 500-600ft to get airborne. This has zero impact in the air but position of main axel is critical and a lot of $100 000+ machines have this wrong.

Great information Cameron ! I’m hoping to get a side by side kit. I had hoped the FAA would have changed their position on LSA by now, which they have a little. I’ve talked to Airgyro Aviation in Utah (and Fla. now) about a gyro they exclusively offer. Pretty impressive. The owner and chief instructor comes from years of search and rescue in gyros. He puts up some good videos on here. He’s not close, but he’s one of the best Ive been told. So, until then, I’ll continue learning as much as possible from pilots like yourself and comparing various aircraft. I may fly to Florida and meet with them in person. There are just no instructors near me. But, I may just have to travel to get it done.

@@randyporter3491 that's great good luck. It fantastic fun.

Amen

No. The blade pitch is FIXED. To explain - the pitch angle is the same as a helicopter MUST GO TO if pilot loses engine power. Only problem is, the pilot must get the collective to that exact pitch (autorotation) within 2 seconds of power loss, or the rotor will slow down too much, lose lift and YOU WILL CRASH. If you get the pitch right (and quickly enough) the wind passing UP thru the blades will keep them spinning enough to provide partial lift and you keep rotor RPM up till a last minute flare. So. A gyrocopter is an unpowered helicopter, (set at autorotation blade angle) with a big fan at the back to increase air speed, thereby causing enough extra wind to generate lift and flight. SIMPLES ** I have a Magni M16 (yellow) here in AUSTRALIA

High end models have collective pitch, but I don't even there's any currentmy in production.

Sudden engine out is not too dramatik, would be an ok landing. Similar to flying at 10 ft 30 kts and then idle. If wind suddenly stopped it would be a bad situation...

Because the rotors are not physically driven by the engine there is no torque reaction, hence why gyroplanes don’t require a tail rotor like a conventional helicopter. 👍

​@@spency787 Thank you for that,i thought the main rotor was powered through a clutch for vertical take off only,then disengaged for forward flight?

@@enoz.j3506 not quite, most modern machines have a clutch driven pre-rotator for the rotor blades which can get the rotors up to approx 2/3rds of actual flying rpm. However they only have limited capability so are only used on the ground and unfortunately don’t provide enough power to allow a true vertical takeoff. The exception shown here was down to the very strong headwind that allowed the rotors to reach full flying speed whilst stationary.

@@spency787 Ok, cheers for insight,the gyrocopter if sketched on paper looks like it would never fly,incredible machine.Having had Robinson R22 hands on,makes me want to try these.

Mine used to take off at 20-25mph and climb out at 35mph but it was lighter than this machine. He takes off a little nose high here but he has plenty of power. It's also lightly loaded with only the pilot.

Nah less, maybe 40 or 55 MPH

Wind was 20-25 kt. Rotor needed only prerotate to 150, then the wind brought it up to flying RPM, approx 300-320. Prerotator is capable of prerotation up to almost 300, perfect for short field takeoff.

Thanks so much!

@@zsmurf I've done this in my VW, not quite this short though I rolled forward about 10 feet. Nicely done. I had to hand wind my blades (no pre-rotator) and had to hold the disk very shallow in the wind to stop hinging and very very gradually ease them back. I imagine with pre-rotator you could power through the lower rpm range which would be handy. I also got to do this on another windy day in a gyroglider with the car parked. The rope stretched about 8-10 feet and then when you eased forward would spring forward. I'd never noticed how much it stretched in normal flight when we were training.

amen brother !

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