For the past two years I have been reading all material I can get on Autogyros; in addition, watching all the videos in You Tube. The one disappointment I have with all these aircrafts is the inability to carry luggage. I want to be able to travel around the country (two people ) and other places, I can't just take just a replacement wardrove. That is totally ridiculous. I have now been convinced that all of them, open and closed cockpits are just extremely expensive recreational toys. I can't carry important tools as any weight is an important consideration.
Yup, that's exactly what I was thinking. I love the characteristics of these things and would buy in a heartbeat except for this one fact. The inability to carry luggage with 2 people keeps me from buying.
@@TheGroovers71 Precisely, they are meant only as recreational vehicles. Not enough foolhardy motivation to spend that kind of fund for a fun toy. I'd just buy myself a Honda Goldwing and travel the country pulling a small trailer.
Excellent review. I’m very interested in M24. Going to Texas this winter for add on rating. An autogiro would be a great aircraft in NW Wyoming! A cockpit heater is a must for clear cold winter days at -15C
Petty much a cut and paste of my MT-03 comment: "The "Dub" version. So much easier to watch and comprehend with your usual post production narration. For those watching this in the future, the original version had a live talk through of the craft during the inspection. Quite a few mike noise and overall sound level issues. A pleasure to watch as always." Except I realise the huge chunk of information I'd missed about the stick and pre-rotator and the level of force required. I'd originally heard this as a vague, "This may require more force than you're used to."
As you say this addressed some sound issues. On the pre-rotator side its definitely something that gets your attention, more so because (and perhaps I could have focused more on this in the film) but you can't just pull that pre-rotator lever in 100% from the start of the pre-rotation phase as it will too aggressive, give a big torque reaction and likely stall the motor. So you have to feed it in with an increasing squeeze. As said if you have small hands or simply not that strong it becomes a distraction.
Hi - yes that is a good request and some colour from my side. The virus has been very painful for progress in this regard as in the UK we have gone through lockdowns and restrictions in travel and now for example we are back in a lockdown which seems likely to continue until the middle of Spring. The plan is once through that and the virus situation becomes easier is to fill in the gaps and cover the other models Niki and DTA included. As an aside I have been to the Niki factory maybe just over 2 years ago now and it will be interesting to go back and see how things have changed / expanded.
@@gyrocopterflyingclub6148 Thanks for the reply, I look forward to more reviews once travel is safe again. Some of Niki's design decisions I find disturbing. The decision to essentially have the prop shaft support the tail requiring a bespoke gear box in the Lighting seems to me as vanity engineering reeking of form over function. It's hard enough to succeed as a gyro manufacturer with re-inventing the wheel at a $20K premium, hence the Kallithea I suppose. Also, the original design only had one door open. No thought given to the obvious escape advantage of having two doors in a toppled crash landing. It took German certification requirements to force Niki to allow both doors to open. The cherry on top is their decision to use sex to sell on their website. The ultimate in form over function. If you do end up visiting Niki again I'd love to hear these decisions explained.
I'll ask in fact I have an email address for the directors so I will write them an email in the interim and ask for you. I don't know how or if they have expanded but some colour on the company as I found it in 2018. So the company is based in Bulgaria and is effectively a bolt on to a more general engineering company owned by the same directors. See here www.niki-ltd.com/en The business owners are super nice people and hosted me very well - yes there I take your point re: the sex selling but that is part cultural of Eastern Europe, part it does work in this environment [just look at the views for films from gyrocoptergirl...] and part some of the people there are actually quite glamorous. Personally I think their aviation website isn't that bad and its just a style / personal preference thing I guess. When I went over they were preparing for the Friedrichsafen show in Germany and so I didn't have chance to look at the detail of fully completed aircraft as they had been shipped BUT the facility isn't huge - I mean they may have 3-4 aircraft in build at any one time [in 2018 that was true] so I'm not entirely sure how many of these things they have sold. In the UK they aren't legal and in Germany they weren't until the end of that year I believe [end 2018 early '19]. They suggested they were going to try and get them legal in the UK but that hasn't happened and from a cost / benefit perspective I don't think that will ever happen. What all these manufactures struggle with is that they use Rotax power and that just makes them very expensive.
You've said a few times in this video that the left seat is for the Pilot. Just wondering if that is correct because in AutoGyro's, the pilot seat is the right hand seat.
@@gyrocopterflyingclub6148 Ah, I'm most surprised. I thought the right seat was the default because I was under the impression that gyros had a tendency to roll to the left, and so sitting in the right seat gave the aircraft more balance. On that basis, I would have expected a similar characteristic from the Magni, but it appears to not be the case.
Paul Setterfield Hi Paul no the gyroplane with Rotax power will yaw left and roll right. Yaw from prop wash and roll from the reactional forces at unstick from motor. The reason for the differences left to right seat I don’t honestly know BUT if your theory is correct then it might still make sense because you have tool trim in a Cavalon so can simply trim things out pre-take off from experience
