AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2020 - 69

WANT TO FLY GYROS?

FLYING A GYROPLANE gives you a

closer look at the terrain (left).
The panel is simple, and a stick
controls the angle of the rotating
blade (below far left). A pusherstyle propeller provides thrust
(below left).

NOT LAWN CHAIRS

Gyroplanes are part of the eclectic mix
of aircraft at AOPA's home airport in
Frederick, Maryland. On many a clear
morning you can witness a gyroplane
puttering along in the pattern. Local lore
has it that a longtime gyro pilot had an
engine failure and was forced to make an
emergency landing in the nearby cemetery where Francis Scott Key, author of
The Star-Spangled Banner, is buried. (The
pilot was fine; Key remains dead.)
Until recently, gyroplanes at Frederick
were represented by models that to the
untrained eye resembled flying lawn
chairs. I prefer the enclosure of a cockpit, no matter how little flimsy protection
that might offer in the event of an off-airport landing. What was the allure of these
things, anyway?
It wasn't until 2017, when hangar neighbor Frank Noe showed me his
new-to-him gyroplane, that I started
to understand the attraction. Noe's
AutoGyro MTO Sport looked nothing like
a lawn chair, but more like a race car or
Olympic-style toboggan that happened to
have a rotor on top.
FIXED-WING TO GYRO

Noe, a retired military pilot who lives in
Frederick, flies for a regional airline and
earned his pilot certificates in fixed-wing
aircraft. He'd bought a Piper Cherokee
for fun flying, but after only a few years of
ownership, realized he wasn't flying it that
much. "The hourly expense was something I had to think about, and I wasn't
drawn to flying [the Cherokee]," he said.

Private pilots who want to fly gyroplanes can fly under the sport pilot
regulations by adding a gyroplane rating to their certificate. This requires an
endorsement from a CFI or sport pilot CFI for that make and model of gyroplane. The regulations require that you work with one CFI to train you and a
second CFI to test your competency and sign the endorsement. The second
CFI does not need to be a designated pilot examiner. An add-on rating can
be accomplished in 10 to 15 hours. Adding gyroplane privileges at the private
pilot level includes more training requirements and a checkride.
Nonpilots can earn a sport pilot certificate with a gyroplane rating by
meeting the training requirements laid out in FAR 61 Subpart J, completing
a knowledge test, and passing a practical test. In this instance, the practical
test must be provided by a designated pilot examiner. Finding a DPE who's
qualified for gyroplanes can require some searching; Noe had to travel to
Arkansas to find one to conduct his commercial gyro and CFI tests. The
Popular Rotorcraft Association (pra.org) has some resources on its website.
The International Association of Professional Gyroplane Trainers, a newly
established worldwide group, aims to bring gyros into the aviation mainstream a bit more; the website (iapgt.org) offers a standardized curriculum
and books and teaching tools.
-JWT

Noe's introduction to what he calls
"open air flying" was with the 2008 purchase of a powered parachute. He liked
the simplicity of it: no flight instruments,
just some engine monitoring. A powered
parachute is a slow but very maneuverable
type of flying, he said.
The progression to a gyroplane felt natural. "It's a lot of the same concept," Noe said
of the gyroplane. "It's like a powered parachute that doesn't have wind limitations,
distance limitations, or fuel limitations.
"I can go across the country now,
whereas I couldn't with the powered
parachute," he said. Noe has flown from
Texas to Maryland in a gyroplane, and
while many consider the aircraft less
than suitable for that type of travel, others
clearly don't: U.K. gyroplane pilot James
Ketchell stopped in Frederick in 2019 on
his way around the world.
Noe's immersion in gyro culture is
complete; he earned commercial and CFI
certificates and offers gyroplane instruction (gyromojo.com).
SMILES FOR MILES

Noe's a social media evangelist when it
comes to flying his gyroplane, and soon
I succumbed to the fear of missing out
caused by of all the smiling faces I saw on
his Instagram. Our flight took place on a
semi-overcast May morning.
Noe had already pulled the MTO Sport
from its hangar for preflight. The tandem
two-seater has an empty weight of about
600 pounds and sits squarely on three
wheels. Like an airplane, it flies with a
stick and rudder. The stick is used to tilt

the rotor head, and the rudder is used to
align the nose on the ground and in flight.
The 100-horsepower Rotax 912 engine
is mounted, open and pusher-style, at the
rear, where it provides thrust. The gyroplane holds 25 gallons of fuel and burns
about 4 gallons per hour.
The rotor mast holds a two-blade, 8.4meter (about 28 feet) rotor attached by a
single teeter bolt that must be allowed to
spin freely.
"Everything below the rotor mast is
like any other light sport airplane," Noe
said. "The engine's completely exposed,
so I can do a much better preflight without removing the cowling."
The rotor is not powered in flight, as
a helicopter's is. A pre-rotator-gearing
from the engine that engages a belt-is
used to spin the rotor on the ground fast
enough to make it dynamically stable.
Noe checked the rotor and cleaned
off bugs. "If you get too many bugs on
one [blade] than the other, you can get an
imbalance," he said. That imbalance produces a minor shaking sensation that's
usually evident only to someone who flies
gyroplanes a lot.
Noe was dressed for our flight in shorts
and a T-shirt, but after rechecking the temperature-in the mid-70s on the ground-he
added a quilted flight suit. He loaned me a
bright-orange jacket-the better to increase
our visibility to our fixed- and rotary-wing
comrades-and we donned white flight
helmets. A heated flight suit and gloves
lets Noe fly in most kinds of VFR weather.
He won't fly when the temperature drops
below 35 degrees Fahrenheit on the ground;
aopa.org/pilot AOPA PILOT | 69

http://www.pra.org http://www.iapgt.org http://www.gyromojo.com http://www.aopa.org/pilot

AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2020