Autogyro Project

UPDATE MAY 2004

The tip rockets are now installed on an autogyro glider, type Bensen. The glider is owned by the Swedish Rotorcraft Flyingclub, but their board has aproved that I use it in this project. The glider was donated to the Club, by one of our senior members, Mr Arne Johnsson in Eslöv. Original builder is Uno Elving.

Total weight of the autogyro with the tip rocket system is 78 kg (= 173 lbs). The rocket system alone is 5 kg.

I have pressure tested the system with water and made a pre-test of the system using compressed nitrogen. The rotor speed reached 150 rpm! Not so bad, having in mind that the gas has to run through 6 mm tubes in the rotorblades!


Next step will be to test the system – on the ground – with hydrogen peroxide!

Two short movies and photos of some installation details can be seen below.

A short movie with the rotating rotor is shown here:
Hand rotated rotor

(I found when I checked the movie that I had happened to start the rotor clock wise by mistake, instead of counter clock wise as it is supposed to rotate at flight.)

As a pre-test I was running the rockets with compressed nitrogen from a bottle. The rotor speed reached 150 rpm. Test with cold nitrogen gas. 15 Mb


Previous project reports:
Autogyro Project Report 1
Status Report Oct 03
Status Report April 04

Next report:
Autogyro First Test on Ground

This article was updated on November 30th, 2006