24 | December 2017 | Powered Sport Flying by Stephanie Gremminger New Gyro Design Mentone has changed a lot over the last ten years. As European gyroplane manufacturers ink deals with more and more US distributors, those distributors then come to the leading convention for personal rotorcraft in the country, the Popular Rotorcraft Association’s Annual Convention. So in a sea of newer-style gyroplane models being offered, I saw a manufacturer offering something new. Well, something new that looks like something we have seen before. A gyro that looks like a throwback to the early days of gyro flying. I see three of these at a manufacturing newcomer’s display. Of course I had to go over and see what was going on. There I visited with Denis Shoemaker of Gyro Technic. He was introducing a new single-place gyro. He explained his offering as filling a gap he perceived in the gyroplane market between the very old and the very new. At one end of the gap were people building the old fashioned plans-built machines, which is a waning segment of the sport. Then on the other side of the gap there is a price jump up to the more expensive European designs that may be too pricey for some people. In between, he saw an opportunity to offer a single-place kit that the average man could buy, easily build, and fly. And he is in a unique position to make that happen. Denis is a man who builds machines to build other products. His main business is called Prairie Automation, Limited. His work there is designing and making automated fabrication machines. The things he does during his ‘day job’ include custom industrial automation, robotic End-of-Arm Tooling (eoat), robotic assembly cells, assembly fixtures including tooling and work holding fixtures, vision applications, machining, integrations with existing systems, and control panel wiring and operator interfaces. He is not your average backyard builder! With his own in-house cnc machining services, utilizing computer aided manufacturing software, he already was set up and has experience designing and building parts. That means that he wasn’t a designer trying to figure out how to manufacture something. He was a gyro enthusiast who wanted to build a better gyro. Designing and building the parts for it is what he does day-in and day-out. He got involved in the sport nine years ago and he has been flying his current design for about five years now. He has taken the time to experiment, change geometries, and design custom components for it. The ability to design, draft, and machine those parts in-house has made the design process a lot more fluid for him. And while Denis’ design may have a retro look about it, a closer inspection reveals something really different from the old Bensen and Brock designs of a few decades ago. He has incorporated a lot of new ideas that he has tested himself. An improvement over the older designs that he points to right away is his modified tall tail, which features a fixed horizontal stabilizer and vertical leading edge, which is very near to centerline thrust. He likes the control authority that the tall tail gives him, along with the ability to eliminate the torque effect from the prop blast. The leading edge of the rudder assembly is stationary, with the pivot for the rudder control surface located behind Gyro Technic: Filling a Market Niche So in a sea of newer style gyroplane models being offered, I saw a manufacturer offering something new. Well, something new that looks like something we have seen before.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTUwNDI3MA==