DISQUS

SolidSmack: SportCopter GyroPlane Designed in SolidWorks, No Turret Guns

  • Rod Uding · 1 year ago
    Cool design! Be nice to have to to play with on the weekends.

    I am glad to hear that I not the only person who also has the fear of planes crashing on me.
  • Orville Wright · 1 year ago
    Josh-

    With such a small lifting surface (the small rotating blades), that plastic egg shell will drop like a rock when it fouls a spark plug. It looks a little shy when it comes to any type of safety protection. I would never get into a pipe dream like that.

    Devon
  • Blair · 1 year ago
    A man in Cranbrook, BC, I believe was just killed a couple of weeks ago by a helicopter that crashed on him. He was walking to pick up the mail.
  • Josh · 1 year ago
    It's definitely a design improvement, but like 'Orville' says, I'd hate to be on it if a rotor stopped. Still, it would be fun to fly and to get outta dodge if you needed to quickly.
  • Mike · 1 year ago
    The main rotor of a gyroplane is unpowered and rotates as air is forced through it and is always in autorotation. In the event that the engine quits, the rotors will continue to turn as air is forced through the blades as the aircraft starts to descend (in fact they will speed up) and a perfectly safe landing can be made. The angle of descent will be fairly steep but gyro pilots routinely make approaches with a 30 degree glide slope (compared to a standard 3 degree slope for fixed wing aircraft). Rotors will not stop turning in normal flight envelopes and should the gyro be put into a situation where the rotor RPM declines significantly, lack of rotor disk rigidity will have serious consequences well before the rotor stops. The Sportcopter is not an approved type in the UK, but I for one am looking forward to trying it out on my next Stateside visit.
  • Shenaniguns.com · 1 year ago
    This plane is cool lookin. Somethin you can store in you garage, roll down the driveway and take-off down the neighborhood street. This would be a sweet funny t-shirt or vector t-shirt design.