His name is Hank Rouland (pronounced “Rowland”). He is a recruit in the U.S. Navy, possibly on the path to become a naval aviator. He is also a gyroplane homebuilder and one of the youngest people on the ramp at the Bensen Days fly-in. Although his build project is not finished, he brought it to Bensen Days to share a little history with those older pilots and builders who remember the heydays of gyroplanes in the 1960s. That uncompleted project is none other than a bone-stock original Bensen Gyrocopter, being constructed from original kits.
For those who did not experience the ’60s, the Bensen Gyrocopter was the invention of engineer Igor Bensen, who set out to design a gyroplane that was simple to build and inexpensive enough for almost anyone to own. He also designed it to be responsive and fun to fly. He knocked it out of the park. Once a few Bensen Gyrocopters were built, the magazine Popular Mechanics did a story and the public went crazy. Thousands and thousands of plan sets and component kits were sold. Thousands more Gyrocopters were actually completed and began flying. Then the wheels came off the Gyrocopter craze. The demand for gyroplane instructors far outstripped the supply. Many builders forged ahead and tried to teach themselves how to fly, leading to tragic consequences. While many thousands of Bensen Gyrocopter pilots safely navigated the special quirks of gyroplane flight, others, through lack of training, lack of skill, or simply lack of judgment, crashed their gyros, often resulting in their deaths. So, for decades now, Bensen Gyrocopters have resided mostly in the dusty back corners of hangars, tool sheds, and basements. A few old souls still fly them, just to prove that Gyrocopters can be flown safely.
Enter Hank Rouland, who became fascinated with the history of Bensen Gyrocopters and decided to actually build one of these relics. It’s not that Hank got a set of Bensen Gyrocopter plans from some archive and re-created the kit with new materials. He actually found original kits that were purchased by would-be homebuilders decades ago but never started. These kits were literally in their original cardboard boxes, untouched. Hank then purchased these historical objects, conducted hundreds of hours of research, and then commenced to put the kits together.
All but a few of the components are true Bensen parts, even the rotor blades. Hank has deviated in only three areas. Rather than use the original Bensen steel wheels, he has opted for composite rims of the same size. He cannot find original Bensen instruments, so he intends to use other vintage instruments from that era. Finally, he is using an original four-cylinder two-stroke McCulloch drone engine but is opting for a Carter carburetor instead of a Holley. We can all cut him a little slack for these minor deviations.
Hank is well aware of the poor safety record of Bensen Gyrocopters, but his research has led him to the conclusion that most accidents of that era were a result of poor workmanship, deviation from Bensen’s original design, lack of training, and overconfident hot-dogging. With these factors in mind, Hank states that he will receive proper training in a two-place Autogyro and will proceed to flight-testing with caution. He certainly has the right attitude.
Anyone interested in Hank’s progress can check out his build log on the EAA builders’ log page.
Although I was already a fixed wing pilot, when my Dad completed his Bensen, he gave me a few tips regarding it, I took it out for a taxi test, allowed the rotor to speed up until the machine lifted off. My thought was first, I didn’t mean to go this far, and second I guess I am a gyro pilot now and don’t quit at this point. (Fly the airplane). So I gently made a controlled trip around the lake bed feeling it out and returned to land. Good news, they don’t really stall. But they can get behind the power curve very fast. Anyhow, landed safely without bending anything, and was hooked. I was part of the ’60s era and saw much of what you mentioned, poor craftsmanship and poor flying knowledge. The big, big issue is to never unload the blades. If you do, it will tumble and self destruct. That means always fly with a very positive angle of attack. And that means do not open it up to a high speed. When Ken Brock used to do his demo in his machine, it looked like he would do a wingover at the top of fast pull up. But he wasn’t . He definitely was not pushing it over with the stick. He was just, at the top of the pullup, retarding the throttle and letting it naturally fall through. Some folks tried to do an wing over, thinking that was what Ken was doing, and they self destructed by tumbling and killing themselves. Second thing, don’t let the angle of attack get so high that drag, and those spinning blades can definitely create drag, overcomes the ability to fly out of a high drag situation. You either need enough speed or enough altitude to let it accelerate so it still has flare capability. Or you will become a parachute, throttle wide open, and decent straight down. I watched that once as pilot was flying low and slow for girlfriend to watch. He was getting slower and slower when suddenly I heard the engine speeding up, pretty soon full throttle. But too late. He continued straight down with full throttle until he smacked the ground. Blades flexed into the ground taking out lake bed. His feet, on the rudder pedals broke off both rudder bars. As I said though, it doesn’t stall, just runs out of lift, becomes all drag, and comes straight down. I used to see home made blades so out of balance that the stick would be shaking around all over as they taxied past, the tips occasionally hitting the lake bed behind as the blades flapped. And don’t out taxi the blades’ speed as they gain rotation speed. They will flap. Many fun memories.
My Dad eventually did put a pre rotator up on the mast. I believe it was one he bought from Ken. It did make firing up and going, much faster. Prior to that, we had to reach up and start spinning the blade by hand until it reached a speed where nature, the surface wind would take over. Then we would taxi around, into the wind if room permitted, letting the blade to continue to accelerate to a reasonable speed. At that point, with stick back, a faster taxi and the blade would accelerate more quickly until it reached flying speed. You could tell that by feel. You just didn’t want to taxi faster than the blade was accelerating or flapping could occur. The pre rotator could take that first effort up to almost takeoff blade speed. Just made it much simpler.
Never forget the V-H diagram. Gyro pilots should understand this but, basically, if speed (V) gets so low that full power can not stop a descent, you need to be above a minimum height (H) to allow lowering the nose to increase airspeed to the point of recovery.
One of my training maneuvers was the “zero airspeed descent” whereby I would start at around 2-3000′ AGL and reduce the throttle to idle and continue holding off until the airspeed read zero. By that time the gyro would be descending at around 1,000 ft/min straight down. At around 250-300′ AGL, I would lower the nose, gain sufficient airspeed, flare, and land. This exercise was normally conducted over the landing zone of the airfield.