Honeybee Gyro Story

[Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] for me it all started in 1982 when I purchased that information package from Benson Aircraft Corporation a lot has happened since that time and my dream to own and fly a gyrocopter gyroplane part of that was I met a gentleman by Bob vermeulen and we'd had several conversations about starting an aircraft company that would produce parts for both experimental and ultralight aircraft well while we were having those discussions I was out surfing the internet and went to the popular rotorcraft site and happened to see on their homepage a little animated icon that said new and it talked about ultralight part 103 gyrocopter aeroplane so I went to that site and downloaded the plans and started email back and forth between myself and Ralph Taggert a little time after that I went over to Mesa Michigan they had conversations with Ralph Geiger and we're sitting there with plenty of hot coffee and donuts and talking about ultralights in general gyroplanes in particular and it suddenly occurred to me that this would be more of an opportunity than just getting the the gyre be in kit form and so I posed a question to him that I don't think he expected I said why do you want to get the gyro be when you can kit the next one and he sort of gave me a puzzled look and he said well what next one and I said well I've got a lot of stuff sitting in the computer that's been sitting there for a couple of years now that if I were to build a new ultra light it would incorporate a whole bunch of ideas that we'd gathered in the time Oh since 1990 that we've been flying the gyro bee why don't we do the next generation ultralight gyroplane well he was enthusiastic about that and one thing led to another and pretty soon he starts working on his cad system and I'm starting to get copies of drawings and we're talking back and forth on the telephone and it was a long haul it didn't it didn't take a lot of time to put the design ideas together it's easy to build a gyroplane on paper the really difficult point is when you start to go from paper and you're beginning to cut metal do all the nasty engineering that's involved to take an airplane of any sort an aircraft from a paper concept to something that will really fly and that just seemed to take forever it didn't really if you look at less than a year's development time from the time we sat at this kitchen table munching on doughnuts and talking about concepts to the point where it was actually flying Bob and I built the prototype that meant that we started working some very long hours and that was necessary because we wanted to make the popular rotorcraft associations show in Mentone of that year that meant that the the finish of the aircraft as well as the design was sort of an ongoing process as we were getting ready to start the ground hopping and the ground testing we were looking at a really a brand new airframe brand new engine at that time with a kawasaki 440 fan-cooled and we had rotor rock blades and there were just a lot of things that had to come together in order to make this a success before that the Mentone convention i also want to give Jim and Bob vermeulen lots and lots of credit because it's one thing to take an idea I can sit here and sketch out on a napkin and say well here's how you do a year leg out of fiberglass but it's another thing to know exactly what fittings you're gonna use how those are gonna be machined how you're gonna set it up for the CNC drilling we talked about the possibility of a trike type of nose wheel steering but talk is cheap actually coming up with with the hardware I think one of the most challenging aspects about gyroplanes and it's subtle you don't notice it is nosewheel steering the the honeybee turns out to have magnificent nose wheel steering capability and that's almost entirely due to the effort that Jim and Bob put into it so it was it was really a collaborative effort it was a fun time in terms of development Don Chubb and I got to see it for the first time in real life when they brought it out to the field all about Mentone time last year one of the most exciting days in my flying career to see the honeybee in it it was almost a duplicate of our JRuby and first thing I want to do was sit in it didn't have any blades on it I just wanted to sit in it was just exciting and within a few days we had it on the taxiway doing taxiing with it mm-hmm can do a test pilot analysis of it the aircraft would crow hop but it simply wouldn't fly out a ground effect I began to wonder whether I was getting a little gun-shy flying somebody else's brand new prototype gyro that they just poured most of the year into and maybe I was being a little bit too conservative so I said to Don I said don't want it to run it up and down a couple times and that was a point when it was still equipped with the Kawasaki that they were trying to develop and that was both exciting and frustrating we got through the initial phases of the ground hopping and the ground testing and we were very happy with the airframe and they the ground testing in the ground hopping gave us a little bit more insight as to what we really needed to do was our next step within a few days meant own that Convention was was on and Jim and Bob had taken the honeybee to Mentone and actually had the honey bee and the gyro be in the same display and people were very interested that was gratifying after all the bother of mentone and the excitement of exhibiting the aircraft down at Mentone on a static display the guys buckled down and put the Rotax on it worked with power Finn to develop an optimum prop and Jim was gonna bring it up on a Saturday afternoon so that we could do the first test flying on the new engine but then he he cheated he was out there at Lowell taxiing on a probably on a Friday and that son of a gun rather than giving us the chance to fly it the first time he went ahead and flew it the first time but I think that gives you some sort of a feeling for the stability and ease of handling of the aircraft because although Jim has had some basic ultralight gyroplane instruction it was just a few hours he's an experienced fixed-wing ultralight flier but he was able to take that aircraft up and within days he was flying in 20 and 25 mile an hour winds and I think that's probably the best the best guide that I can give you to the overall stability of the aircraft just a little over a week from solo he went along with me on a 27 mile jaunt cross-country to Fowlerville which is probably one of the neatest days I have ever had an ultralight flying because in all those years Don and I were sharing one aircraft if Don had been there that day one of us would have flown it over and the other would have flown it back never had the opportunity to do a flight like that and be able to look out to one side there's another gyroplane you know that was that was really neat and to have it be not just any gyroplane but the honey bee that we've been working so hard on was really exciting the honey bee really is an evolution because of the time constraints we couldn't continue developing the Kawasaki engine package and that's why the prototype is currently flying with Rotex 447 and in flanker well the prototype that that we have spent all the time flying and ground testing and hopping and improving is much different than the prototype ended up being the actual production version is very different cosmetically still looks the same but overall performance and handling is much different Jim and I are pretty much average run-of-the-mill guys Jim is involved in sales I have a video production company we both work hard we're willing to do whatever it takes to make things happen we're both married we have lovely wives we have each have a son and a daughter Jim's got a dog I've got two cats so we're pretty average and like everybody else we don't make an unusual amount of money both of us do have one thing know we are a bit of entrepreneurs and we like doing something for ourselves the other thing is is we're both willing to work as hard as we have to work do whatever we have to do to make something happen and that was very important was starting up gyro Tech our goal really for gyro Tech from the very beginning has been to provide a high quality innovative safe and affordable flying machine to other people just like ourselves there's so many people that want to be able to fly and they just can't afford it that's the situation Jim and I have been in and so that was our goal when we started gyro Tech was to take people that want to be able to fly and give them a machine that they can afford [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] this is the honeybee gyro it is the prototype it is based on the world standard of dr. Ralph Taggarts internet gyro beef there are a number of features that it has that are different than the gyro be that the basic standard gyro the airframe and seat arrangement are all basic gyro beef if you look at the three major components of the airframe you have the mast you have the keel and then the back of holds a tail you have the tail boom if you were to look at the internet download from dr. Taggarts Jarobi you would find that the dimensions on those are exactly the same with a couple cosmetic differences those differences are you notice in the front there is a angle on the front portion of the tail boom and then in the back portion of the keel behind the cluster plates you do have the little 45 degree angle now based on that standard will go around the airframe and tell you what some of the differences are if you notice right up front one of the immediate differences cosmetically is the is the nose gear it is very similar to a trike type of a nose gear and yet there are some differences to the gyro beef if you notice that the rudder pedals have a active cable actuation in other words we're going to use the top of the pedal to pull the rudder control horn without the crossover that was originally on the gyro B now in addition to that we've also gone to some direct rods and links to the nose gear in doing that it gives one a very good feel of the craft while it's on the ground and at the same time gives you some play as you begin to correct for both P factor as well as airspeed while you're on the runway and it gives you a very good feel of the aircraft now a couple other differences that we'll talk about your your looking at the throttle quadrant it's mounted comfortably on the seat it allows you to fly the craft with your hand rested comfortably off to your left side the control stick is also conveniently located so that when you're in level flight it literally rests off from your by very comfortable flying another feature about the airframe again which is the gyro be standard which we maintain is the three point harness that allows you to take advantage of a bolt up in the upper angles and from that then it gives you a very comfortable yet a secure feel to the airframe when you look at the main landing gear you'll notice three significant elements you have your drag link up front which gives you your triangulated strength for the foreign a floats then you also have your diagonal brace which really gives you the hierarchy in your structure for your main landing gear that those two components coupled with your primary axle which houses your flexible solid fiberglass rod gives you a very forgiving landing gear and yet a very strong landing gear when we initially started working with this landing gear it was very forgiving and very flexible but at about rotation speed it gave you a real squirrelly feel because the the wheel was going after and it would not actually have toe out what we've done is we've lengthened this primary axle four and a half inches out toward the wheel without changing the wheel base of the aircraft or the stance of the aircraft and we've also done is we've linked in this internal fiberglass rod now to a length of 30 inches up inside of the gear leg that by itself will stiffen the gear what you're looking at on this airframe is the prototype tail it has a Sitka spruce leading edge trailing edge and hard points as well as a foam core and a fiberglass shell that basic construction pattern is very similar to the plans that you will find on the honeybee gyro the actual production version of the tail if you buy the airframe kit has fiberglass clam shells with the same internal structure and it all gets bonded into a one-piece unit those one-piece units are bayonet mount and there are three bolts that finish off the arrangement on the tail for mounting it to the airframe in a very simple tale to mount to the airframe and yet strong at the same time this particular airframe has a Rotex 447 powerplant a single carburetor single ignition it is coupled with a 2.5 8 gearbox and a 66 inch power fin 2 blade propeller this combination gives us 283 pounds of static thrust and on a 247 pound airframe gives a gives you the feel of a very high performance gyro now another element in making the gyro where specifically the honeybee gyro fly the way it does is the rotor system this is a 24 foot rotor Hawk control system we use a synchronized system that Neil puts out for us at rotor Hawk that uses his blades which are a three piece aluminum blade we use a Lumina extruded leading edge with stamped and formed skins that are both bonded and riveted to that leading edge and it is then coupled with a two foot hub bar and then it goes into Neil's control head now what we also have for this system to give the the honeybee gyro a very forgiving a very easy feel in terms of flying our some are some different throws we have a longer control arm on the rotor head and torque tube that coupled with the right feel through the control stick gives you a very forgiving yet responsive and maneuverable feel to the honeybee gyro it is not typical in terms of its handling ability because it's not a sensitive aircraft to fly it's very forgiving in a lot of cases it will wait for you in terms of both pitch and roll in looking at the entire airframe you really have the vision that Ralph Taggart had in developing a high-performance altra like gyro copter that started some nine years ago the honeybee gyro is really the outgrowth of that vision it's a very forgiving aircraft a very stable aircraft yet will outperform many of heavier single place and even the to place gyros that are currently on the market we'd like to invite you to be our guest trying a honeybee gyro and we'd like to thank you for your interest in this project when we started putting together the honeybee kits for a gyro tech we realized that not everybody wants to buy a complete gyro and so we divided it up into basically three packages so that being the airframe the critical flight components and the engine package but really in talking with a lot of other fellows they they maybe have started a gyro bee and wanted to convert to the honeybee or they needed they wanted to be able to buy a honeybee but even in smaller bites so we started packaging even smaller bites the the nose gear the landing gear the tail assembly the seat assembly and so on and so guys can actually buy smaller bites at a time and it will package him and send him out if anyone had ever told me that an ultralight and especially a gyroplane could have such incredible and varied flight envelopes and yet qualify under part 103 I would have laughed because I didn't think it was possible when I started playing the honeybee gyro doing across countries of 25 to 40 miles I could not believe how well 247 pounds aeroplanes could actually fly and I'm just thrilled that the honeybee gyro gets to be a part of what's going on on the ultralight side of the gyroplane industry [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: videobob47

Views: 295,445

Keywords: Honeybeee, gyrocopter, ultralight, flying

Id: 6Vg9o3Drkh0

Length: 29min 4sec (1744 seconds)

Published: Thu May 10 2018