Okay, this is a little self-promotion, so I'll only give a text link instead of an embedded video, but here goes. Mat Recardo, a fan of CarterCopters over in England, put together a video highlighting our small single place demonstrator. I think he did a pretty good job on it, especially considering that it was all volunteer work. (If you really want to help us out, you can all rate it at 5-stars on YouTube, ahem - John, please vote for my friend's kid, Albers.)
Posted by Fatboy at May 11, 2007 10:40 AMOh my god!. It is the Airwolf theme music!! I am an incredible dork!!! I was disappointed that there were no crashes or mayhem, but I gave it 5 stars anyway. I did enjoy the part about engine quitting on take off. "Engine quit on takeoff? No problem. Land safely back on the ground and get yourself a change of pants."
Posted by: John at May 11, 2007 11:28 AMI think it's understood that we need to get Rick one of these ASAP.
That copter is pretty cool. Have you ever flown it, Jeff, or do you just make it work?
Posted by: Chris at May 11, 2007 11:38 AMYeah- I recognized the Airwolf theme after the first half a second.
No Chris, I don't get to fly it. I can only fly fixed-wing, not rotorcraft.
Posted by: Fatboy at May 11, 2007 12:43 PMNice - the Airwolf theme is the key to sales success really.
Do you think the guy flying it might want a little, uh, protection around him though?
Posted by: Pat at May 11, 2007 02:46 PMActually, there are quite a few open cockpit autogyros like that. We started out with that demonstrator by buying a kit of one of these, and then modified it quite a bit by, well hell, I'll just quote the Carter website, "To enable jump takeoffs, the aircraft has been modified with the Carter propeller & the two-setting Carter prop pitch control mechanism, the Carter designed mechanical pre-rotator, and the Carter rotor with automatic mechanical pitch control. For improved safety on landing, the aircraft now has the Carter smart strut on a Carter designed main gear, and a slightly modified commercially available nose gear with more stroke and a larger tire than the original nose gear."
So back to your point, Pat, there are lots of people that actually enjoy that open frame. Our first production versions will be fully enclosed, though.
Posted by: Fatboy at May 11, 2007 03:28 PMAs the only person probably in the world who has used the Airwolf theme as a ringtone, I think the video should have used speeded-up video to simulate a jet engined powered autogyro. Also, how could the scene where the autogyro took off next to the building not have included the caption, "Leaps buildings in a single bound,"?
Lastly, someone needs to outfit this with rockets and machine guns, that's your protection.
Posted by: Mike at May 11, 2007 06:12 PM