Happy to report that the maiden flight (& 2nd flight) went perfect.

Hand launched into a breezy 7-10mph wind and she flew away perfectly.

Several clicks of elev. trim (wanted to climb too much) and a few more left ail. clicks (already had some left ail. subtrim in) of trim and she was doing super.

With the decent winds today I could hover in one spot easily and then power away.

Made a few paint changes to mine (not done yet), along with larger wheels, packing taped the blades (highly recommend), balanced, etc.

One mod I HIGHLY suggest is to remove the inner blade attaching bolts/nuts leaving only the outer bolt. I then oversized the inner holes slightly so that a standard round toothpick would friction fit. This becomes a "fuse" and will break if you have a blade strike, hopefully preventing any damage. Just after landing the wind shifted and caused my A-G to tip over while the blades were still spinning pretty fast. No damage at all as two of my toothpicks sheared off allowing the blades to fold and not break.

THANKS TO THE H/KING DURAFLY TEAM FOR A GREAT GYRO!!

I thought I'd jump in and share a couple ideas/necessities I had.

First of all, there is no way I'm going to run to launch an aircraft. O I devised a simply ducted fan on a stick. The fan is on channel 8 (it's own receiver) so once the rotor is spinning adequately, I flip the throttle switch (er9x) and my tractor prop advances to where the stick is set and 3 seconds later the ducted fan stops.
Works very well.

My landings were not as successful...yet. I broke the piece in the head that seems to be designed to be the force fuse. Sure I had a spare but I used that as a template to make another piece out of plywood. I pressed both sides with two layers of carbon fiber tissue bonded with C.A.

Pictures show my replacement pieces for the head. I needed 16mm long 2mm screws -- but those were not in my quiver -- so I changed to 3mm cap head bolts and nylock nuts on the bottom.

I've not flown again with the repairs, but spun up the head and it seems to be just great. .

Originally Posted by scott page

I broke the piece in the head that seems to be designed to be the force fuse.

That piece is also designed to flex so that each blade can "flap" up/down as needed. Making it completely rigid with ply/carbonfiber may not work out the best...

Originally Posted by Sammy70

That piece is also designed to flex so that each blade can "flap" up/down as needed. Making it completely rigid with ply/carbonfiber may not work out the best...

That's what makes the hobby so much fun. Can't improve on something without failing many times first.

Scott...that's awesome!
So do the blades flex at all upward at the hinge point?
Make sure you grab the video camera!

.....add two more to the successful flight list, I needed to add 30g lead to front due to only having 1000mah packs and had perfect flight. Second was a flying buddies, first ever auto gyro and first flight he nailed it like a pro. They love wind and do not require running to launch

[QUOTE=Paradude;23297608They love wind and do not require running to launch[/QUOTE]


Agreed.

I had a nice steady 7-10mph yesterday and I took about 3 steps forward and she flew right out of my hand...

I could not maiden it yet due to bad weather

Hi All,

I had another 4 flights with the Auto G today in almost calm conditions. I needed a longer take-off run to ensure that the rotor was up to speed, but this was not really a problem. The Auto G flies beautifully.

Here is another headcam movie of one of the flights. Higher quality movie shot by my mate Bob to follow soon.

Enjoy,

Al

Durafly Auto G 18 November 2012 (3 min 27 sec)

I put the first two flights on today. By watching all the videos, I was ready for the left hand lean on take off. The second flight I set the dx 8 timer for 10 minutes. I think it was too much. Thunderpower 1010 charger put 1087 mah back in the 1300 nano lipo. Next flight I'll back the timer to 9 minutes. What flight times is everyone getting?

I maidened one of my buddies new Durafly today. After a 3-4 minute trim flight I brought it in to check everything out. I took it back off, turned her into the wind and handed it over to him. He flew it around for another 3-4 minutes and landed successfully! Although he has plenty of heli experience, that was his first time with an Autogyro. He was very excited. We have a new convert!

Don

This is my plywood repaired head. An my I'm not going to run .. spin-up device.

I had problems getting it trimmed right .. well...left. It kept rolling to the right so I was fighting it most of the time. I should have kept the throttle up. O well.

HobbyKing Auto-G using Ducted Fan for spin-up (1 min 41 sec)

Man, I hate that new autostabilisation program that YouTube offers. It will make the picture black out if the light isn't bright.
Scott, it looks like you might be trying to rush the takeoff. If there's no wind, your spinup devise looks like a big help. I had about a 5mph breeze and didn't need to accelerate much at all before it lifted off. If it is trimmed right, at about half throttle it should maintain altitude. After that, think of the throttle as a control surface. A little more and it climbs, a little less and it comes down. The elevator is more like a speed control. Push and it speeds up, pull and it slows down.
I'm not sure why it needed so much right aileron. Does it look like the rotor is tilted much either way when level on the bench? These birds are real pussycats so I'm not sure why yours is so off unless something was assembled wrong from the factory.
See if you can repost your video on YouTube without their "enhancement" so we can see what it was doing better.

Don

Dynam Auto-G Autogyro (8 min 0 sec)

Another two sucessful maidens by relative newbies, this looks the goods for an entry level machine alrighty.

Well, it was crying out for it

Had some lights laying around and found some time yesterday to play with a soldering iron. Got a chance to try it last night but after a dead calm day all the time the sun was up, it got a but windy (complete opposite to the normal state of affairs!). Still excellent fun though.

Only added 13g to the total all up weight and the white ones are particularly bright - easy enough when you've got a 3S setup on these 12v strips