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Aircraft

The EUR65,000 Cavalon side-by-side, fully-enclosed gyrocopter

By Mike Hanlon
April 20, 2011
The EUR65,000 Cavalon side-by-side, fully-enclosed gyrocopter
Auto-gyro's Cavalon at Aero Friedrichshafen this week
Auto-gyro's Cavalon at Aero Friedrichshafen this week
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The Cavalon's cockpit
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The Cavalon's cockpit
Auto-gyro's Cavalon
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Auto-gyro's Cavalon
Auto-gyro's Cavalon
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Auto-gyro's Cavalon
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Auto-gyro's Cavalon
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Auto-gyro's Cavalon
Auto-gyro's Cavalon at Aero Friedrichshafen this week
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Auto-gyro's Cavalon at Aero Friedrichshafen this week
Auto-gyro's Cavalon at Aero Friedrichshafen this week
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Auto-gyro's Cavalon at Aero Friedrichshafen this week
View gallery - 8 images

The newest addition to the gyrocopter genre arrived at Aero Friedrichshafen this week in the form of a side-by-side, fully-enclosed, composite construction Cavalon gyrocopter. The gyrocopter is to the helicopter what the microlight is to traditional small aircraft. Invented in 1923 by Spaniard Juan de la Cierva, the gyrocopter uses quite a different layout to the helicopter to give it stability at low speed. It is cheap to run, takes off and lands on a ridiculously small footprint, and has a powered pusher propeller in addition to an unpowered main rotor.

Certification for the EUR65,000 Cavalon is almost complete in Germany and France, and AutoGyro will assist with certification documentation for other countries. Additionally, there are still ten units up for grabs in this year's production run.

Auto-gyro's Cavalon
Auto-gyro's Cavalon

The closest competitor to the Cavalon is the Xenon gyrocopter built in Poland, though the Xenon has the one-axle cyclic control while the Cavalon has a two-stick arrangement and the Cavalon stores its fuel outside the cabin.

View gallery - 8 images

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AircraftHelicoptersAviationGyrocoptersAero Friedrichshafen
16 comments
Mike Hanlon
Mike Hanlon
As a photojournalist, Mike’s work has been published in a dozen languages across 20+ countries. He has edited or managed over 75 different print publications, each with a different target audience: sports, automotive, advertising, marketing, design, ad infinitum. Mike has been working in the internet for more than 25 years and was the veteran of five internet start-ups before founding New Atlas in 2002.

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16 comments
Brillig
I wonder what they mean by \"unpowered main rotor\". That can\'t be right.
PeetEngineer
An explanation of the difference between one-axle and two-axle cyclic control would be interesting. I searched, and found a forum covering largely the same points as this page.

http://www.rotaryforum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=417174
Lixrus
Gyro Copters are not like helicopters. The \"unpowered main rotor\" or, the large rotor on top of the craft, is powered by the wind moving across the blades. As described in the article, the \"push\" propeller behind the passengers provides thrust. As the aircraft is pushed forward, the main rotor begins to spin and provide lift. One of the advantages of a Gyro Copter is that, since the main lift rotor is not dependent upon the engine for power, if you were to run out of gas or encounter a catastrophic problem with the \"push\" rotor, the copter will not plummet to the ground. Rather, it will \"float\" down as the wind continues to provide lift. Without the push rotor, the craft will descend sharply, but you could land it relatively easily, providing there is hard earth underneath you! Also, much of the noise from helicopters is from the rear, smaller vertical rotor. A gyro copter does not have one of those either, making them somewhat quieter. Most push rotors can do the job with only about 90-120 horsepower making them very efficient.
joe.huard
To Brillig: The main rotor doesn\'t have power, but it spins and gives lift when the pusher motor pushes the gyrocopter down a short runway. It\'s not like a helicopter that can go straight up. A gyrocopter needs some runway about 75 feet. Look up gyrocopter on YouTube, and you can see them taking off and landing.
Graham
@Brillig - its true! An autogyro rotor is not powered. Its still a rotating wing that provides lift. It only needs to be \"started\", and in some older models, I understand the thing is started by giving the rotor a shove by hand. I saw one (Wallis -type as in James Bond movie version) at an air show. The rider moved it slowly, kind of sideways along the crowd front, with his hands clasped above his head. It steers by \"leaning over\", somewhat like riding a bike, though I guess this 2-seater probably has a more developed control scheme.
andyt
an un-powered rotor may not sound right, but it works well. It\'s an airfoil -- like a wing -- and it provides lift when it moves through air but while a wing moves with an airplane, at exactly the same speed as the plane, an unpowered rotor relative to the plane -- almost as though it were flying in circles around the plane -- so it goes much faster than the gyrocopter and the gyrocopter can take off, fly and land at much lower speeds than a fixed-wing plane.
Terotech
I think the correct, or alternative name for this aircraft is \'Autogiro\', and Wing Commander Wallis is [or was], the holder of the world altitude record.
MAQ
Some gyrocopters also have a pre-rotation system that allows almost vertical takeoff by spinning up the rotor prior to takeoff. It's usually hydraulic or pneumatic.
McCulloch built a certified model, the J2, back in the early 70s. I saw it fly a few times.
http://www.pimaair.org/collection-detail.php?cid=176
warren52nz
It might help to get a feel for the physics of the rotor by thinking of a maple (?) seed falling to the ground with a single blade and the seed at the axis. The falling motion makes it spin and the spin gives it lift. If you add power to such a system the lift can exceed gravity\'s downward pull. That\'\'s how I think of them anyway.
Michael Mantion
To be honest Gyrocopters are so much safer then actual helicopters.
That said gyrocopters are super cheap and simple, i like the idea of enclosing it for aerodynamics, but it really isn\'t going to improve anything. it takes away the whole point of a gyro, they are simple, fun, wind i your face, toys.
They have many advantages over ultralights, but they are less practical in many ways..
I could be wrong, perhaps this thing has a range that elevates it above a toy, but I doubt it..
I look forward to seeing a video and hoping I am wrong.
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