This would be the average time required – just like anything there are going to be people who learn to fly faster than others.

If you already have some sort of pilots license there is a conversion course that takes around ten hours on average, depending on how much flying you’ve been doing recently.

Your training will allow you to receive a PPL (G) which is a gyroplane license. After this you will need to do 80 further hours of flying by yourself before you become eligible to receive your passenger rating, allowing you to take friends and family up flying with you.

The majority of your training is of a practical nature, although there is a small amount of theory and a few small exams that must be completed.

Once you have your solo certification, it is also recommended that you get your cross country endorsement which allows you to make longer trips than would otherwise be possible.

There is no need to pass a medical to receive your solo certification – as long as you are the current holder of a drivers license you are fine to fly in a gyro by yourself.

If you want to learn to fly one of the safest, most enjoyable aircraft on the market then an Autogyro is exactly what you are looking for.

• Newcastle Herald story about potential use of gyro’s for shark spotting
• Eyes in the sky needed for shark spotting
• Sharks cleared from Newcastle beaches
• Shark attack at Avoca beach

Older Stories

The past couple of weeks have been fairly busy at East Coast Autogyro with the launch of our Shark Watch initiative. And while there are still a few bugs that need to be ironed out, the overwhelming response so far has been very positive.

We have had news stories written up in seven or eight newspapers as well as being interviewed on ABC radio.

We have been been lucky enough to have a regional newspaper, The Daily Examiner in Grafton agree to help as a sponsor, and we will be working closely with the Super Radio network in the coming months as well.

I thought I would include a few links to some news stories that have been written about us. If you know of any others please let me know – its hard to keep track sometimes, the papers don’t always tell you they’ve run something.

I will continue to add links to any stories that are written about the initiative – hopefully there will be plenty more

• Story On The Coffs Coast Website
• Shark Watch Gyro Takes To The Skies
• Eye In The Sky For Shark Watch
• Shark Watch Along Our Beaches
• Shark Watch Over Clarence Beaches

Bill & Chris Turner

Over the past few weeks we’ve had plenty of people come and take their first ever gyroplane flight with us as part of the Shark Watch, and without fail the response has been amazing.

From experienced pilots to absolute novices, farmers to aerial photographers, 10yr olds to 65 yr olds – everyone has thoroughly enjoyed their experience and come away longing for an aircraft of their own…

…and in some cases have actually decided that this is the aircraft for them and have committed themselves to learning to fly.

We’d like to thank these future pilots for taking their first lesson with us, and in so doing helping us to fund the Shark Watch initiative.

Congratulations…Rudy Van Drie goes solo

New Pilot Rudy Van Drie

Having been a student for a while now, recent months had seen him a bit short on time and unable to get those crucial last few hours of training completed.

Rudy finally found some time in his schedule over the past fortnight to hit the training hard and this eventually paid off for him as he was cleared to take his first ever solo flight, out of Kempsey airport.

He immediately put his new license into action flying our training Autogyro solo from Manilla, across The Great Dividing Range to Kempsey, before heading north to Yamba.

He was joined on the journey by our Instructor, Mick Riddle who was delivering a brand new MTO Sport to Peter Coulter.

Which brings me to the second part of the update…

Congratulations…Peter Coulter’s New MTO Sport

Handing Over The Keys

Operating out of Palmers Island near Yamba, Peter Coulter has been offering instruction in his MT ’03 for the past year or so and felt it was time to upgrade to the newer version, the MTO Sport.

He took delivery of his new aircraft on Thursday, and the big grin on his face at the end of his first flight was all the proof needed that he was more than happy with his purchase.

Peter will be flying the northern leg of the Shark Watch which will begin operations on the first weekend in October

Mock Run Of The Northern Shark Watch

The Shark Watch Aircraft!

While Mick was in Yamba with Peter, they felt it was the perfect opportunity for them to do a trial run of the northern section of the patrol to get an idea of the best way to go about it.

Willi Ewig, our importer from Manilla (NSW, not the Phillipines) was in the area as well, so beachgoers from Yamba to Kingscliffe were greeted with the impressive sight of three Autogyro’s flying along the coastline on a sunny Thursday morning.

The boys timed out the run and were happy with how it all went. Visibility in the water at the moment isn’t great, with an unusual amount of fine sand clouding up the surf – but the guys still managed to spot a number of sharks in the hour and a half they were in the air.

So here it is…thanks Aaron, look forward to having you back soon mate.

_________________

Commercial Pilot Aarron Deliu

First off let me give you a background of myself.

I am an Aviation enthusiast and have been all my life. However my Career in Aviation started when I was 15 years old. I started learning to fly in Gliders and then progressed onto Powered Fixed wing Cessna’s and the like.

I continued my training and obtained all my licences right through to my Commercial licence. After that I progressed onto small turbine charter aircraft then onto corporate jets, then before I knew it I was flying for an Airline.

I have been an Airline pilot for some time now and must say I have the best job in the world.

HOWEVER, Airline flying yet enjoyable lacks the exhilarating feeling that you can only get at 500 to 3000 feet above the terrain while flying a small aircraft.

So why Autogyro’s, well it all stemmed from my curiosity of how Helicopters and Gyrocopters actually manage to fly that led me to come across a company called EAST COAST AUTOGYRO.

Once at their website I decided instantly that this is something I should do. So I contacted Craig, the PR manager, and he set everything up.

I flew into Sydney and boarded a flight up to Port Macquarie; I was greeted at the airport and driven to Kempsey airport, where I met Mick Riddle and the craft that was going to take me into the skies.

Now I have never flown a rotor craft, so seeing the Gyro sitting there with no wing, I did not know what to expect, yet I was extremely ready to see how this contraption flies and master it as soon as I can.

Prior to arriving I did some research on Gyro’s on the Internet – from what I read I could not help but get the message that Gyro’s are dangerous, they always crash, insurance company’s hate them and that they have lots of problems, so with that in mind I had developed an impression that the Gyro is a vicious flying machine and that I will have to be very careful.

Mick introduced me to the red machine that would teach me about Gyro’s. He pointed out every important component explaining how it works. I then learnt that this is the one of the few Gyro’s that are certified to Europe standards.

Aarron In The Pilot's Seat

Most of the Gyro’s that are flying in Australia and the world for that fact are home-built, so maybe this is why they have a bad rap, but still I needed to get in a find out for myself.

We then got in and he had me start the engine, taxi out and do the appropriate checks. It was surprisingly simple.

So we were ready the rotor pre rotated to 200rpm, Mick gave me the go ahead to apply power.

From there the Gyro accelerated very smoothly, shortly after the nose lifted off, Mick told me to apply forward pressure on the stick to hold it there, the Gyro then lifted of smoothly and we climbed away. We went out and just flew, Mick showing me how to hover like a helicopter and how to do 180 degree turns on the spot. Things that you can’t imagine possible as a fixed wing pilot.

It was incredible to be able to stop on the spot and then turn around and fly again without losing any altitude. While all the while only burning 15 litres of Car Petrol an hour, such an economical way to surf the skies.

Mick showed me the characteristics of the gyro; many of the myths just are not true with gyrocopters, well at least the MTO Sport.

I found that the Gyro is very stable only requiring a light hold on the stick, it holds it attitude and altitude very well when in trim, yet its incredibly easy to manoeuvre in all axis. We then did some slow speed flight and I mean slow 20-30knots slow and once again right down towards a hover. We were well behind the drag curve so to speak.

In fixed wing we are taught not to fly behind the drag curve as when on this, ie slow speed, if you want to increase speed you need to lower the nose and accept an altitude loss. But in the Gyro this altitude loss in the order of 10 or so feet and it is very easy and quick to increase to normal speeds.

However that’s not the worst trait of flying behind the drag curve, the main one is stalling.

You can get to a point by where you are too slow and the wing stalls, that is it loses its smooth airflow and hence the lift component is insufficient to support the weight of the aircraft, thus the aircraft will normally descend abruptly towards the ground, with a high potential (if the pilot is not ahead of the aircraft) for it to go into a spin, if one wing stalls prior to the other.

However in a gyro this is not so, it is Impossible to stall or even spin a Gyrocopter, you can hold that still fully back and all that happens is that you slow down, followed by a temporary hover, then followed by the Gyro slowly descending vertically. To stop this all you need to do is apply power and put the stick back to a central position.

So long gone are the days where a pilot can stall while coming into land as he gets too slow close to the ground followed by the pilot losing control.

So while we were still flying I pondered on why are these aircraft given such bad rap, Ok it must be the landing, they must be brutal to land.

Time to find out, we join the circuit, hold on there’s traffic on base, so we need to allow for more spacing, so we slow to 30 knots, ok enough spacing, we accelerate and continue, now on base I reduce power and start descending, 55 knots, checks complete where coming in.

We turn finals, 100feet, 50feet, 20 feet, 10 feet, Ok its going to be a tough one, 2 feet FLARE, close the throttle, pull back on the stick, touchdown an incredibly smooth touchdown, but hang on we just touchdown and we are stationary.

Wow, This Gyrocopter is amazing, its stable, manoeuvrable, extremely smooth in turbulence, safe to fly, can hover, can fly faster than a helicopter yet can’t stall or spin and can land on a postage stamp, a 50 cent one.

We taxied in shut down the engine and got out. I had a big grin on my face and a new outlook on Gyro’s.

I went on and continued my training and am now a licensed Gyrocopter pilot and can say that Mick Riddle and East Coast Gyro is a great school and I thoroughly recommend them to anyone wanting to learn to fly.

So to that end we’ve decided to start collecting stories from people about their positive experiences with the newer styles of gyro that are available these days.

And I’m not necessarily talking just about our brand.

Even though our gyro’s have been certified to a standard no other manufacturer has attained, there are some other decent manufacturers worldwide and people every day are experiencing for themselves what it is about a ‘New Generation Gyroplane’ that makes them such a fantastic recreational aircraft, no matter what your skill or experience.

Gone are the days where flying a gyrocopter meant low level flying within a 10km radius of your landing strip.

There are gyrocopters available today with a range approaching 1000km, and capable of flying to an elevation of many thousands of feet, making them comparable to any other light aircraft available.

If you happen to come across any such stories (or maybe you have one yourself) let us know and we’ll include a link to it here.

Airline Pilot’s Perspective On The Safety Of Gyro’s

A commercial pilot with over 5000 hours flying 707′s, 727′s, 737′s and 767′s talks about his experiences flying a gyrocopter.

Around Australia…In Twelve Days

Two Australian and two German pilots fly their Autogyro’s to the most northerly, westerly, southerly and easterly points of mainland Australia in under a fortnight.

And while we obviously can’t give you the advantages of every other kind of aircraft you might be considering, we can definitely fill you in on what makes the AutoGyro such an awesome machine to fly.

Cost Effective

This is one of the most popular reasons people choose to fly an Autogyro.

The costs of buying a gyro, even the top of the line models from Europe like the AutoGyro, is less than what it would cost you to buy a helicopter or most fixed wing planes.

Then when you factor in running costs which are far cheaper than any other kind of aircraft, you have a great reason to choose to fly a gyroplane over some of the other options available.

Much Cheaper To Learn To Fly

Each person is different in how quickly they learn how to fly an Autogyro. But as a rough average you could expect to take around 35 hours of practical instruction if you’re starting from scratch before you’re ready to fly solo.

This will cost you somewhere in the region of $6,000.

When you compare that with the cost of getting your Private Pilot’s License (PPL) which can cost you well into 5 figures, the gyro alternative is definitely starting to look pretty good.

Easy To Learn To Fly

Learning to fly an Autogyro is far easier than you might think – much easier than learning to drive a car, because there’s no traffic to contend with and you have fewer things to worry about.

The controls are very intuitive – as a pilot you’ll be using a control stick, rudder pedals and a throttle to control your speed, height and direction.

Handle Windy Conditions Very Well

The Autogyro handles windy days with ease – in fact once you build up a level of skill and experience you’ll actually welcome a bit of wind because it lets you have a bit more fun by using the wind to your advantage.

Fixed wing aircraft really feel the effects of wind because of their larger wing area, and this is exaggerated greatly in a light aircraft like a trike.

You’ll never miss a day of flying in your gyro because of windy conditions…cyclonic conditions aside.

Fantastic Visibility

The visibility from an open cockpit gyro is second to none, and the visibility from the two closed cockpit versions is not far behind.

This makes it perfect for both recreational flying and aerial observation tasks like patrols, surveys and photography.

Fantastic Safety Characteristics

The AutoGyro is an extremely safe aircraft to fly. It’s factory manufactured to exacting standards and has passed extremely strict certification testing in both Germany and the U.K.

The next point also explains why this is such a safe machine to fly…

Autogyro’s Can’t Stall Or Go Into A Tailspin

When a helicopter engine cuts out, the rotor on top of the aircraft is no longer being powered and therefore stalls.

In this case the pilot has to very quickly try and turn the aircraft into a gyro to get the blades spinning again and create enough lift to allow the helicopter to land safely.

You also potentially have the problem in a helicopter of tailspin, where the blade at the rear of the chopper no longer counteracts the torque being created by the rotor.

With a gyro you never have either of these problems. There’s no power going to the rotor, so there’s no torque being generated meaning there’s no chance of the gyro going into a tailspin.

And if the engine cuts out, the rotors continue to spin in autorotation, which continues to create lift, allowing the aircraft to safely descend.

Open & Closed Cockpit Options

There are currently three different types of AutoGyro available for sale.

One of these – the MTO Sport – is an open cockpit aircraft. The other two are closed cockpit gyros.

The Calidus is a tandem seat gyro (front seat/back seat) with an enclosed canopy.

The Cavalon is a side-by-side gyro with an enclosed canopy.

Easy To Transport & Store

You could probably fit 3 or 4 gyro’s in the same hangar space as you’d need for a small fixed wing aircraft.

Moving them around is a breeze – you simply push them into and out of the hangar, and up onto a trailer if you ever need to transport them from one place to another by road.

Minimal Take-Off And Landing Distance Required

While it’s true that you can’t take-off vertically in an AutoGyro (unless you have a really strong headwind), there is much less runway required than for a fixed wing aircraft.

And when you have a nice headwind to take-off into, the runway required is well under 100m, making them perfect for people who live on a nice block of land with room for a small runway.

So hopefully that’s given you a better idea about some of the reasons you should consider getting your gyroplane license.

A gyro isn’t for everybody…but at the very least it’s worthwhile booking yourself in for a trial flight so you can experience one for yourself before making your decision about what sort of aircraft you learn to fly.

It’s sole purpose is to educate readers about our ‘new generation’ gyrocopters – the MTO Sport and the Calidus ’09.

If you are after a general history of gyrcopter flight, or want to know what’s involved in building your own gyro this isn’t the book for you.

But if you want to learn about the Autogyro and why it’s just about the easiest, safest way for new pilots to get up and running then this is a ‘must read’.

This book takes readers through the basics of gyrcopters and how they work, through safety aspects, and all the steps that new pilots go through on their way to receiving their solo certification

You’ll learn about the different controls and how they work together, what procedures should be followed for pre-flights checks, take-offs, level flight, turns, landings and more.

If you’d like to buy a copy, the price is $90 plus $10 for S&H. For orders outside Australia, an extra $20 S&H will be added – make sure you select the international option from the drop down menu below.

‘New Generation Gyroplane’ Book

Australia Wide Shipping $100.00 International Shipping $120.00

How Do The Numbers Add Up?

Flying is expensive…that’s just something you can’t really escape. If you’re looking for a cheap hobby, I hear the bowls clubs are looking for younger members.

But if you’re looking for the cheapest possible way to fly a certified aircraft…and possibly even own one yourself…then flying the Autogyro is about the best place you could start.

One of the things that surprises many people is the fact that our Autogyros run on unleaded petrol. And best of all is the fuel economy – the Autogyro burns about 15L an hour, making it as expensive to run as it is to hire a canoe from the local leisure centre.

“But what about the maintenance…” I hear you say.

Just like any other certified aircraft, the Autogyro requires a safety inspection every 100 hours of flight time. This will set you back just $500…putting the cost at $5/hr – far from expensive in the scheme of things.

“Well, surely there must be hundreds of hours of training required?”

Not quite

The average student can achieve their solo certification in around thirty hours of pilot training, which will set you back about $5,000. So for 5 grand you have the ability to fly a certified aircraft by yourself.

After this you will need to build your experience by yourself before you are certified to fly with a passenger on board.

Buying your own gyrocopter is a big step…but if you have been looking for a way to own your own aircraft, without having to fork out hundreds of thousands of dollars, then this may be exactly what you’re looking for.

When you take into account training and equipment such as flight gear and helmets, you have the ability to be flying your own fully certified aircraft for less than $100,000.

The freedom this can give you is far greater than with any automobile, so it is impossible to compare the costs with those associated with a car.

An Autogyro is more expensive than the majority of cars on the market…but the majority of cars on the market can’t give you an aerial view of the beautiful coastline of Australia. Or the stunning vistas of our vast interior.

The fact that you have found this website shows there is an interest in aviation…the next logical step is for you to take to the skies and check the Autogyro out first hand.

The easiest way to do this is by organising a Trial Instructional Flight in one of our Autogyros…find out for yourself how well they fly and how simple they are to operate.

After that the costs will seem a whole lot cheaper

Summary Of The Costs Associated With The Autogyro

Cost Of Training

For people with absolutely zero experience, the average amount of training required is 30 hours. Training starts at $180 per hour, with discounts for purchasing hours in bulk

Average Cost Of Training is around $5,000

For licensed pilots looking to convert, the average time required is around 10 hours.

Cost Of Operation

The Autogyro runs on about 15L of unleaded petrol per hour. Every 100 hours they require a service which will set you back about $500. Various pieces of the Autogyro (engine, hub bar etc) will need to be replaced after a certain number of hours…but for the vast majority of owners it takes many years of flying before you need to worry about this.

Cost Of Purchase

A new MTO Sport starts at $87,000 and the Calidus starts at $112,000. At the moment there is no real second hand market as the Autogyro has only been available for a couple of years. If looked after they hold their value extremely well.

Contact us to find out more about how you can get started with your training

The Calidus

The Cavalon