Jordan autogyro

It is tempting to view the gyrocopter as "the worst of both aviation worlds" with the complexity of a helicopter-like rotor head coupled with the inability to land and take off vertically or to hover. However, the gyrocopter predates the helicopter and, as we shall see has certain advantages. Certainly it has not stopped light gyrocopters from being developed, and I've often wondered what they were like to fly.

A trip to Jordan has provided the opportunity to experiment.

The Nazis used gyrocopters during WWII towed from submarines for over the horizon observation, partly because of the compact dimensions of the component parts and the assumption was that this would be developed after the war in to a viable and useful commercial and military product.

However the advent of the practical helicopter and the fact that the STOL advantage of the gyrocopter has now been duplicated by careful airflow analysis of fixed aerofoils down the years resulting in combinations of slats, flaps and vortex generators that allow simply ludicrously short take off and landing runs to be achieved stifled the development of the commercial gyrocopter.

They remain an interesting and easy to hangar peculiarity.

Most very light aircraft are only really suitable for use in favourable i.e. smooth wind conditions but in fact gyrocopters have a much higher high wing loading than your average small aircraft resulting in a surprisingly smooth ride, although a lot of vibration is transmitted through the yoke from all the kit spinning around above your head and I suspect this could be fatiguing on a longer mission. Having flown a weight shift microlite this feels a lot more solid and less like a motorbike as a result.

I don't think they get pilots coming for a ride very often so Timor, my Jordanian ex-Cobra pilot (I'll bet he's got some interesting stories to tell...) is keen to let me have a go in an almost new bright yellow Magni M16.

He flies us off with a surprisingly GA technique: full throttle then stick all the way back for take off then immediately forward once out of ground effect. That initial "forward speed" required is given by the clutched pre-rotation of the rotor to near-flying speed, then acceleration of the airframe by the rear-facing prop completes the acceleration to lift speed. Maybe the full-back stick provides maximum acceleration in to the lift-producing zone?

Then it's pretty much fixed-wing controls movements using stick and rudder (and like a glider it needs the powerful rudder, mounted in the prop airflow, to assist in turns, unlike a C182 where you can quite happily use the rudder pedals as footrests), although not being able to see the turn and slip indicator (a small piece of string in front of the windscreen like a helicopter) from the rear cockpit makes it impossible to fly in balance.

It flies nicely: there is little slack in the control circuitry and the controls are direct. With any aircraft you need to "fly the wing" but the feel of the gyrocopters wing is hard to determine from a short introduction. It would be interesting to spend more time understanding the feel at different angles of attack, power settings and and speeds.

It's hard to understand the actual piloting aspects of all the autorotation dynamics going on, but clearly the equivalent of a full stall (stopping the rotor) would be fatal at height (!), but exactly what a low rotor rpm recovery would feel like and how you might recover is a more advanced topic than poor Timor with his halting English is prepared to discuss.

All flights here are VFR with no flight plan which as close as they are to the Israeli border surprises me. The chart they have shows open FIR to 4500ft in that area but is also vague about Amman airport's controlled airspace and does not report any controlled airspace at the Israeli border, which I find hard to believe. I can’t find a more up to date map to correct me and programs like Skydemon simply refuse to accept that the Middle East even exists for GA.

Timor says the Israelis are relaxed about them flying near to the border (the Jordan river) and we circle Bethany beyond the Jordan so I’m sure at some point we straddled the border at best. I’m just surprised, knowing the history here, but of course Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994.

They have a 1200ft tarmac 01/19 runway they use for skydiving and following some contour flying (he’s a helicopter pilot so is used to it, I get twitchy below 400ft AGL) over the shoreline of the Dead Sea we fly back up (!) to the airfield and join downwind left hand at about 500ft, he simply reduces power and we descend at 50Kts on to Final.

The flare is fascinating: he reduces power and pulls back the stick, and there is so little inertia that the deceleration is huge. He keeps pulling back, using the rotational inertia of the rotor head to cushion our descent, trading forward speed for a reduction in vertical speed. Within a few seconds we are at more like 20Kts and the rollout is of course then tens of feet.

We accelerate for a touch and go and following an early turn and an abbreviated left hand circuit we are back on final. We have a 10Kt headwind more or less down the runway and this time he finesses the approach better so we touch down at virtually zero speed. Impressive.

Apparently you handle crosswinds either with rudder or by leaning the rotor head in to wind, but I think you’d need to be front seat with access to that bit of string to make it work reliably. It is weird to fly with the altimeter registering 600ft below sea level but they fly QFE here so they dont really see it, other than that the air is denser so the heat (Density Altitude) is less of a performance issue than the sandstorms.

In conclusion: fascinating, but I think probably a bit too small and frail for use in the UK, plus no IMC capability (yet) and of course way too slow for serious getting-places.

But of course the subtext here is that one day a Class 2 medical will be unachievable and if you wish to contionue flying an LAPL and self-certification is the way forward. No night and no IMC but its sure cheaper than a C182, and you can fly it out of your back garden!