Gyro Tower Flyover at Manchester International Airport (EGCC) in Lockdown

The coronavirus lockdown and the consequent grounding of most airline fleets gave me the opportunity to fly straight through the Manchester overhead. The controller allowed us to orbit over the field and even requested we send him the pictures afterwards! :)
This was only my youngest son's second gyrocopter flight; he's been spoilt now. This is a once-in-a -generation opportunity to fly through airspace that would usually be out of bounds to all GA traffic.
I was testing a new helmet which unfortunately has resulted in distortion on my voice on the recording; I had to crank the volume up loud to overcome the poor passive noise reduction which has caused signal clipping. I have a different headset on order.
The debate about cameras is we chose to leave my son's DSLR at the car because it was raining in the low level corridor; it then brightened up as we entered the Manchester zone.
#gyrocopteruk #gyrocopter #gyroplane #autogyro #stuwithaview

[@lauriebloggs8391]

I know nothing about flying or autogyros, but I really enjoyed that, thank you.

[@elizabethtaylor4419]

Awesome thank you so much great viewing 👍fantastic scenery

[@wandererinadistantland]

That was really awesome. Thanks so much for sharing this! I live out in Vancouver, Canada and there is a helicopter pilot who did the same here in April or May. About a year before Covid, I was able to fly a Cessna 135 right perpendicular, through both approach glide slopes on Vancouver (YVR) over the city on a crystal clear Saturday morning. ATC told us," I have no turbine aircraft due for about an hours and a half. The airspace is yours!" It was unbelievable. What an amazingly beautiful city to see on a clear winter morning!

[@andrewmartin8739]

Brilliant , great video , thanks for posting

[@ExcaliburBahrain]

astonishing! - thanks vm!

[@MandelloJB]

Brilliant, very envious!

[@rbnhood39]

That looks like so much fun

[@metmanjeff]

Absolutely fantastic. I'm sure this video will be used many times in the future.

[@elbowtoe84]

❤awesome amazing loved it

[@roydavies7010]

You fly over me regularly in the low level route at Weaverham. Always great to see a Gyro. Great video guys.

[@bobbelsekwol]

And people pay for that experience. You lucky people.

[@JonathanThackray72]

Wow!

[@jasonrwilkinson9216]

Awesome pics, thanks Stu and thanks to NATS Manchester for being so accommodating.

[@peterclark4685]

"Hey Dad, can I have the keys to the gyro? I want to take Frilly Flimsy-Excuse IV up to the Cotswolds for a spin. I'll be careful." [silence filled with intense, vigorous thought] ... I got the feeling he will become a pilot.

[@danieltheaviationman]

I loved your video, I will look out for you in the skies :D

[@mikechivers5792]

Hey Stu, bit late in seeing this, no idea why I never got notified. That Manchester Airport was amazing. I honestly thought that must be what police/air ambulance pilots must get to see on a daily basis. Oh and great cheeky little hover as well 😜👏. Spot on. Thanks again Stu.

[@daverimmerthedude6760]

Wow

[@whitecompany18]

Awesome experience, I'm sure I saw you buzz the Mersey a few weeks back on a beautiful day, I'm on the waterfront Wirral side working on my boat under lockdown rules. Heard you say in this you did the airport so I'll look out for myself if you release that day. Cheers

[@StuWithAView]

Yep; likely to have been me 😊 Video edits in progress.

[@hunglikeadonkeybutnotassmelly]

I never had the chance to fly in but I am told they used to allow traffic from Barton into MAN Christmas day I believe. Anyone remember the flying school at MAN ?

[@RoadRunnerLaser]

I did a zone-transit of Edinburgh on Tuesday. Was cleared through (both ways) without any holding and the ground was packed with airliners. “Orbit IS required?” I thought he said, “Orbit AS required”. Have you tried the “metal-tape” ground-plane extension we discussed in an FB group, yet? LOL @ you asking for a low-approach - Sad that they wouldn’t allow it.

[@StuWithAView]

Excellent. Tape has arrived; but not yet installed. My issue is with helmet matching for the intercom; transmit and receive on the radio are OK.

[@RoadRunnerLaser]

StuWithAView - Ahhh... I thought you were having the typical issue of howling on transmit, which I’ve put down to bad vSWR and cheap cable - which goes some way to explaining reports of success with extending the ground-plane (which is not anywhere near big enough anyway according to the radio’s manual). I’ve never had any issues with the intercom with various helmets. My issues only arose upon pressing the PTT button and varied depending upon how I had routed the helmet cables (which is one of the reasons that I think they were picking up AM leakage from the antenna cable).

[@StuWithAView]

Nope; not had howling. With just me all is fine; all my issues come when I carry a passenger and need to use a second helmet. But as you say the ground plane is way too small, so the tape is a good idea and will be installed.

[@RoadRunnerLaser]

StuWithAView - I didn’t get any howling unless I was using a second helmet and different helmets in the rear gave different levels of problem (whilst using my own helmet all the time at the front). Another issue I had (which now seems to have been corrected) was a lot of interference from the pneumatic pump. Whenever I would trim (by adding pressure), the radio/intercom would buzz loudly. If the aircraft had received a bit of a soaking in the rain, the buzzing and howling would diminish (perhaps the wet pod was being a temporarily extended ground-plane). For now, at least, my radio and intercom are perfectly fine, although a passenger did complain that he could not hear me over the intercom, even with the helmet’s volume control turned full up... but then he later discovered that he had not seated the helmet on his head properly and he improved matters by getting the cups over his ears more successfully (although the audio still seemed a little quiet, he said - I’m going to have to check that out for myself at some point - I cannot turn the volume up full on my helmet because it’s far too loud).

[@290Alenka]

And they didn't send you a bill for Nav Charges? Lucky you.

[@StuWithAView]

Nope; not yet 😂🙈

[@brianlloyd4796]

Wow, benefits of a pandemic!

[@RoyalCaribbeanFan123]

That's too small for Manchester

[@StuWithAView]

?

[@SpudderRail]

No, That IS Manchester Airport.