Safety of Gyro's

[Captain Gyro]

Generally there is a lack of knowledge about gyro's out there, and the following is an article I published a few years ago, and it deals with my perspective of the safety of gyro's, as I see it, as someone flying the "heavy metal" as well. Hope that anyone considering gyro's will find it interesting.

I have been flying for about 18 years now. Started off doing my PPL & Commercial Licence in 1991 and then started flying light twins shortly thereafter. Then I did my Airline Pilot's Licence. Got my first airline job at +-1 200hrs total time on Boeing 707's. Since then I flew Boeing 727's for three years and now I'm a Senior First Officer on Boeing 737-800's at SAA. I have about 12 000hrs total time at the moment. Got into the microlight scene about two years ago on trikes and then bought a gyroplane. I feel I have a fairly broad flying background in order to offer sound advice on the safety of gyroplanes

First of all, there seems to be an unbelievable amount of gross, gross ignorance as to how gyrocopters fly. They are often seen as James Bond gimmicks. Few people know that the first gyro flew back in the 1920's. A guy called Cierva invented the "Autogyro" as it was then known. The main reason he invented the gyro was that he wanted a flying machine that couldn't stall. (His best friend was killed in a fixed wing when it stalled.) It is thus possible to fly a gyro right down to an airspeed of 0 mph! The gyro will just be descending completely vertically in this state, perfectly in control. So successful was the "Autogyro" that the critics said,"Right...now make it hover." This it couldn't do so the engineers then redesigned it and came up with the helicopter concept of powering the rotor using an engine. The standard question people normally ask me is, " What if you have an engine failure...Does the rotor stop turning?" Another question..."When you land do you go into autorotation?" The beauty of a gyro is that you are continually in autorotation i.e. the rotor is automatically rotating very much like a windmill or a sycamore leaf, no matter what your airspeed is. Thus if you lose an engine, you just lower the nose, just like a conventional fixed wing aircraft, to maintain your airspeed. This is different to a helicopter - if you lose an engine and do nothing you rotor will run out of RPM and you will literally fall out the sky! People think gyro's are like helicopters. They are actually very different.

Other major advantages of gyro's are that they are minimally affected by turbulence and wind. One hardly feels turbulence during a hot, turbulent summer's day. They can also handle between 30-40kts of wind! This is because the tip of the rotor is doing about 600 Km/h so a 60 Km/h wind is only 10% of the rotor's flying speed. Not too significant. The same wind with a microlight constitutes about 75% of it's flying speed! The gyro also acts as a massive gyroscope (i.e. like a spinning top) so it has rigidity in space. You won't get a wing drop like in a fixed wing during gusty conditions. In gusty conditions the gyro is extremely stable and doesn't get thrown around. Another reason why it handles the wind and the turbulence is that they have a very high wing loading (or blade loading) i.e. their tiny wings (the rotor blades) support the whole mass of the gyroplane in flight. (Wing loading=Mass/Wing Area). Similar mass to a microlight, but a small wing area = high wing loading. Their wing loading is comparable somewhere between a high performance single (like a Cessna 210) and a Learjet!

Although they use similar take-off distances to a microlight, their landing roll is between 0 - 30m!!! This is obviously another very good advantage in case one has engine failure. They also cruise a bit quicker at about 80mph-90mph. (Dependent upon type).

In conclusion, from my experience of microlights, piston fixed wing and jet airliners, every flying machine has an "Achilles Heel". All flying machines have a flying envelope developed by the designers and the test pilots that fly their machines. No aircraft is perfect. The gyro has a couple of golden rules too. Obey them and you will have no problems. Get instruction through a recognised gyro instructor will then ensure these are taken into account. 99% of gyro accidents are pilot error mainly due to little, if any instruction. In the USA one can climb into a single seat, unregistered gyro and fly without instruction or a licence! No wonder they have the accident rate they have! There are naturally good and bad gyro's around. A couple of the bad unstable gyro's have been involved in fatalities in South Africa. The gyro's that I would recommend are the Magni Gyro, the MT-03 and the ELA. These are all two seaters and are very stable machines, and between them have an excellent safety record.

A gyroplane rating is a licence in it's own right. I had to complete a full licence even though I have an ATP licence. i.e. it's not just a conversion. Prior to Part 61, the requirement was 25 hours for the licence.

[giarc64]

Very nice post FO Gyro.

had a chat the other day with a Gyro instructor from Brakpan and he was telling me all about the Gyro and it pros and cons and I must admit I always thought they were extremely dangerous machines , but after the analysis the instructor and you have given me , i am thinking that I would like to try this out one day soon.

cheers
Craig

[Bearcat]

FO Gyro,
Thank you for your interesting post on Gyro safety

I have flown in many types of aircraft from microlights upwards.
I have never flown in a Gyro though and to be honest I have been a bit nervous to do so.

In theory, as you have explained, gyros should be safe... but somehow it seems that gyro pilots find a way to prang them.
I dont know for sure whether these prangs are out of proportion to the number of gyros flying but it seems that way.
Throwing some loose numbers around I would estimate that there are around 300 Gyros in SA and around 3000+ Microlights ... and yet it seems that Gyros seem to be involved in about the same number of serious accidents as microlights

If you have better stats on the real accident situation I would be interested to see them, perhaps it will help me to gain enough confidence to fly in one

[Captain Gyro]

I do admit that there have been a fair amount of incidents and accidents. In almost 100% of the cases, poor handling of the gyro on the ground was a factor. A lot of brand new gyro pilots come from a trike backgroud, where they are not used to 3 axis controls, and they end up making a wrong input at a critical time . The experience levels of these guys are also very low.

I've obviously flown a range of aeries in my career, and can honestly say I've never had scary moments on the ground in my gyro, and would say that it's one of the easiest machines to land or take-off. I can tell you that in turbulence, particularly in the Cape, when the SE wind pumps, the gyro flies beautifully when most fixed wings wouldn't dare take off. I look forward to the windy days!

[Stephan Rossouw]

I do admit that there have been a fair amount of incidents and accidents. In almost 100% of the cases, poor handling of the gyro on the ground was a factor. A lot of brand new gyro pilots come from a trike backgroud, where they are not used to 3 axis controls, and they end up making a wrong input at a critical time . The experience levels of these guys are also very low.

I've obviously flown a range of aeries in my career, and can honestly say I've never had scary moments on the ground in my gyro, and would say that it's one of the easiest machines to land or take-off. I can tell you that in turbulence, particularly in the Cape, when the SE wind pumps, the gyro flies beautifully when most fixed wings wouldn't dare take off. I look forward to the windy days!

All I can say is that Gyro's are much more fun than any other a/c type flying!!

Hoping that the wx in Cape Town will be great this week...

[Learjet]

As per one of the other gyro safety threads on here somewhere, I posted a summary of CAA accident reports relating to gyros over the past 10 years. (Ok found it - it's here http://www.microlighters.co.za/viewtopi ... a&start=15 ) It will give you an overview of the available stats and I think it says volumes about gyros and gyro pilots that not a single gyro enthusiast has expressed any misgivings whatsoever about me posting the "warts and all" stats summary. I've yet to see any other aircraft type accident stats be similarly compiled and published openly! Why not me wonders...?

Anyway back to the gyro stats:

A disproportional number of these accident were ground handling and maneuvering related - taxiing too fast, corner turning roll-overs etc. Gyros have a higher COG than other aircraft (with the exception of helis - most of which are hover-taxied). Gyros are unique in that few other AC get ground-taxied with a spinning rotor! Passopalo hangar

No accidents were attributable to in-flight structural or mechanical failures ( ) other than one incident where I believe a particular make of rotor head had been incorrectly fitted to a different make of gyro. (A tragically negligent <<moderated - language>>-up... ) Apart from this isolated incident, modern day gyro design and manufacture is inherently good and the safety issue is far more related to HOW pilots fly their gyros - not which gyros they fly or how they fly.

Other accidents were the usual array of pilot handling errors / incorrect input controls (on take-off & anding) ... passopalo runway.... and some claiming to be weather / IMC / wind gust / downdraught related - but one or two which may have actually been the result of behind-the-power-curve-take-offs and mushing to ground. (gyros cant stall). passopalo density altitude!

There has been a concerted effort from Johan Meyer & SAGPA to further reduce the number of gyro accidents and improve training standards over the past few years - and the increase in mandatory training hours which has now come into effect will hopefully do much to improve the "pilot & handling error" related accidents gong forward.

[Bearcat]

FO Gyro and Learjet

I really do want to believe that Gyros are safe ... but hardly has my key board cooled down from me expressing my reservations about their safety ... and another one has an accident

[Captain Gyro]

Bearcat, let me put it to you this way.

God forbid, if ever I had to have an accident in a gyro, it would not be caused by 99% of the current causes of gyro accidents. Why, because I am an experienced pilot, that understands the limitations of my gyro. I will never get involved in blade flap, or landing with a crab angle, that toppled the gyro over, or inadvertent flying into IMC.

I might get unlucky with an very badly timed engine failure, or a catastrophic inflight break up, but I would regard those odds as being very small. Don't get me wrong in that I'm saying that "it can't happen to me". Yes it could, but I doubt it because I know my machine, and I have good experience. They say that experienced pilots use their experience to avoid those situations that might require them to use that experience to get them out of the situation.

For this reason, I feel that my flying in gyro's is very safe, and my risk is very low. My risk wouldn't be as low in a high performance single, where the odds of a fatality in the event of an engine out are that much higher.

[Bearcat]

FO Gyro, Indeed I have seen you fly and have photographed you flying several times.
I am not saying a Gyro cant be operated safely ... all I am saying is that considering the number of gyros in SA there seem to be too many accidents. I dont know enough about gyros to debate the causes but considering that "in theory" they should be safer it seems to indicate that they have some vices that are very ready to bite the unwary. Assuming these vices are well known ...is it a training thing ? .... and if it is... surely more training is needed, specifically in these areas.

Just a thought .... perhaps they are too easy to fly and therefore when they do bite ... the bite is very unexpected

[Learjet]

Bearcat - I understand completely where you're coming from! There is no question in my mind that gyros are safe. But you are right, they do bite - and the flip side to having a rotary wing (which cannot stall or spin) is that it stores a lot of energy. The positive side to this "stored energy" is that this is exactly what allows a gyro to autorotate down and flare to a zero ground-roll landing - an outstandingly safe attribute to have in the event of having to perform an emergency landing.

The negative side is that when the spinning rotors come into contact with anything other than air, the results are rather dramatic!

Spinning rotors are unforgiving. There's no getting away with just a nick or a scrape as per the case with a fixed-wing clipping an obstacle, or a ground-looping tail-dragger dropping a wing, uh-uh them rotors are gonna eggbeat themselves to death! So taking care when ground maneuvering and preventing blade-flap on take off are the very basic teachings of any gyro handling! With modern gyros being fitted with excellent pre-rotators, blade-flap accidents should really have gone the way of smallpox and polio! In my view accidents of this nature are really unacceptable and come down to poor training or sloppy airmanship.

[Captain Gyro]

Bearcat, you may have hit the nail on the head there. Gyro's are easy to fly, maybe too easy, but step outside of the envelope just slightly by getting blade flap, and the machine will try to beat itself into submission!

I agree, there have been an unacceptable amount of accidents and incidents, bearing in mind the relatively small number of gyro's flying. Helicopters also seem to be going through a rough patch with high accident figures.

When I think back to my initial training, I do think there are gaps. I was never shown a height velocity graph for a gyro like the helicopter guys have, and was never made away of blade flap, and the danger signs. I only heard about that afterwards. Maybe we need more awareness to be imparted to students of what can go wrong, so that they never venture into those areas (hopefully). I guess you can also only do so much as an instructor. The rest is for the student to learn.

[Obie Gunobie]

Firstly I'd just like to say that I've found this topic most informative.
As someone who is becomming very interested in gyro's and their performance, I'd like to know if anyone has or has a link to some sort of comparison table, between machines such as the MT-03, ELA, Magni and RAF 2000. Met MT pilot who said in his personal opinion he'd stay away from the RAF. Like has been said in the foregoing posts, no aircraft is perfect. What are te pro's/con's of the various types of machines on the SA market?

[Bearcat]

I commend FO Gyro and Learjet for not ripping in to me (as a non-pilot) when I expressed my concerns about Gyros. It would have been all to easy for them to vigorously defend something that they are passionate about and ignore the concerns that I expressed. I still think that I would want the pilots full family history and DNA before I would fly in one but at least I have learnt a lot more about gyros and hopefully their excellent postings will contribute to safer gyro flying in the future,

There are about 3 major importers of Gyros in SA + a local manufacturer. Is it not about time that everyone got together and organized some specific gyro safety seminars. At face value Gyros look like such fun machines, its time they stopped hurting people!

[Ldel]

I'd like to know if anyone has or has a link to some sort of comparison table, between machines such as the MT-03, ELA, Magni and RAF 2000.

Comparison tables on the Magni, ELA and MT means nothing. It is like comparing Mazda, Toyota and Nissan on specification tables. The gyros, and there performance, are so close to each other, each one with its own appeal. My personal opinion is, you can see the German quality on the MT, the Magni is a lot more expensive, because of some certified materials used, but then I have never heard of an ELA or MT that had any material failures.

I've spoken to two instructors independantly, that has done many hours on all of the gyros - except RAF - and they commented that the Magni is the best overall flyer, but if money is an issue, MT and ELA just as good.

What are te pro's/con's of the various types of machines on the SA market?

As above, therefore personal choice. I cannot comment on the RAF, cause I have no experience regarding type.

If you are really interested, I can give you contacts in Jhb, Pta for intro's on all three.

[Learjet]

Hey guys...lets try to keep this thread away from gyro comparisons and stick to general gyro safety. The CAA / gyro accident stats are very clear. The safety critical part of virtually all gyros is located in the cockpit just aft of the stick...