Of all the aircraft that I have ever flown, gyro flying has by far been the most enjoyable flying experience. The intent of this project was to build a one-off, stable/docile, open, two place, gyro with good visibility for fun local flying and short cross country flights.
During the design process, I checked 82 different weight and balance scenarios and iteratively refined the configuration to establish as little CG movement as reasonably possible. The structure was monolithic carbon fiber/epoxy/Divinycell with localized fiberglass and Kevlar buildups. The horizontal stabilizer was epoxy/fiberlass/polystyrene with unidirectional pultruded carbon fiber spar caps. The fuselage tooling method was a seamless composite shell molded over a removable CNC milled foam male tool.
I compared 44 different engines for this application in the 85-150 hp range, and I decided to go with the Rotec Radial R2800 swinging a 76×57 Culver wood prop. The rotor was intended to be a RFD 28 ft aluminum rotor with RFD double-bearing rotor head. The gyro is now being finished by a gyro enthusiast in Oregon.
Michael Fuchs Personal Projects 