Hows it going mate? Am only green with gyros, but from what I have seen..the modern ones have different issues, as the incident numbers show, but most of their problems are handling issues on take-off, due to very powerful pre-rotators, which give a false sense of security in some sort. When you look at these bingles, most are roll overs caused by "blade flapping"..when getting a bit carried away..usually very expensive, but hardly any injuries... all in all, similar to ground looping a fixed wing tail dragger..only in a different axis. As far as gyro design goes...had same thoughts initially re modern.. but you cant really get past a decent, Aussie designed machine..dont forget..most of those "basics' werent designed for recreational flying, but for getting abused for mustering etc...regardless of legal or not. In my time, seen a lot of rec fixed wing UL's etc, which a gyro certainly is not (my little basic has a 500kgs mtow), like even an X-Air etc, which we had too, are made from "Bunnings Aerospace" style materials/alloy tubing etc... never seen an Aussie gyro with anything but aviation grade materials and AN hardware.
Nobody knows what happened really last weekend, however ..really..everyone does... and we all just waiting for the official outcome. As for the 2 ASRA investigators, I know both of them, and we "live" in same hangar...one of them trained me up... and all I can say.. I wasnt there ..but as far as I know Mr Wardill and Mr Barker...there are no fussier guys when going over my gyro to get it all sorted...and if I want/need to get advise...thats the guys I go to...and I very much doubt..either of them would neglect ANYTHING to find out what really happened... if they had the gopro cam, and it was recording... maybe nothing more was required. ...Just another sad incident... irrelevant if it had wings or rotors...
