By Robbie Culver
Gyrocopters are a misunderstood segment of light aviation. Joe Covelli, owner of Air Command International LLC, describes gyros as a “fun flying experience. It’s like flying a mini sports car in the sky … 100 percent of the time, fun flying. If you’d like to have wind in your face, this is a great experience.”
Air Command has been around a long time, and is preparing a revised version of a gyrocopter as well as a new engine. Joe said, “We’ve shown it here at Air Venture … the last few years, which has been great. We’ve answered a lot of questions about it. There’s a ton of interest because there’s the need for a reliable, safe, affordable engine in our market space.”
The new engine is based on a Polaris ATV engine. “We feel this will fill that space, that void that’s out there right now. It’s a 100-hp engine at 8000 rpm. We’ve had this engine in testing and then this project for seven years now. And so we’re ready to start flying this in September and building time and proving out what we’ve done behind the scenes with all the data collection, the numbers, running the numbers, that type of thing.”
The gyroplane itself is experimental and is sport pilot-eligible.
“Gyro Air Command has been around since 1984. So the gyro is really based off of the experiences of those 40 years and just a really solid, good flying product. The intent, the last several years, has been to refresh the look of the gyroplane, so we can update the look, but we can also add safety enhancements, new features, other options.
“For example, we have adjustable rudder pedals. This is a great scenario, being a single-seat airplane. The intent with that is to have the instructor step in, take the flight for the first day, tune, trim the aircraft, bring it down, and have the student then get into the aircraft, and with the adjustable rudder pedals, that adjustment can be made in about two minutes, no tools required.”
Keith Lemire, senior design engineer, said, “A few years ago when we were looking at this and looking at adding a higher horsepower engine, we decided to take a look at the mast and stiffen that up.
“One of the other safety enhancements we did was to reinforce the lower link on the joystick. We discovered quite by accident that the bolt in the back was torn out by just a literal accident that Joe had. [He] hit a low-hanging branch with the mast when he had it on the trailer, and it tore the threads out.”
Keith said the engine “conversion has been an ongoing thing for several years, and I would say, at this point, it’s safe to say we perfected it… It’s not gonna get any better than this. The engine tends to have a little less inertia, so we’ve done some things with that. Less relative to the [Rotax] 582, I should say it that way. So we’ve done some steps to take care of those issues, things that can ruin your gearbox and ruin your day really fast. So it’s about managing engine vibration, basically, internal vibration to the engine.”
Joe added, “We’re still in prototype development. We’re at the end of the process, but we want to prove out what we’ve known and make sure it performs before we make any other commitments as to production.”
Air Command is located near the ultralight runway in Booth 928.