My Favourite Gyro Flight of 2019

Flight from 1 December 2019 on a perfect, cloudless winter's day from Ashcroft, overhead Hawarden, the Flint Bridge then low level over the Dee Estuary to West Kirby, the Marine Lake and the Royal Liverpool Golf Course before proceeding low level again over the Hoylake and Red Rocks sands towards Seaforth before turning 180 degrees and routing across the Dee overhead Hilbre Island towards the Point of Ayr. The return route is overhead the Halkyn Hills towards the Clwydians, overlooking the Vale of Clwyd shrouded in fog. Shot with multiple cameras including a mast-mounted GoPro Max and including commentary and ATC.
#gyrocopteruk #gyrocopter #gyroplane #autogyro #stuwithaview

[@chrisgosling5408]

Quite possibly the best way to step off the merry go round, where only you are the master of your destination! The Great Reset = an Autogyro flight!

[@jasonrwilkinson9216]

Great images as usual Stu - thanks!

[@SnarlingDog]

Cheers Stu, I always look forward to your videos

[@sugarat333]

Awesome video, thanks very much

[@lagyro]

That was one pleasant flight...

[@Hackamores]

Very nice video once again. Top winter colors. And great job with the editing, specially on the 360 pano sequences. Great promo for gyro.

[@StuWithAView]

Thank you 😊

[@andrewrodger775]

Stu, just discovered your channel. Must say very much enjoying the view and the excellent commentary. As a Cheshire lad, many of your trips are very familiar to me but to see from the gyro, wonderful. I now live in East Devon, there is a chap who flys similar from a place called Farway. We are on the Jurassic Coast with excellent views, any plans to visit this fine location? Id love to see a video of our coastline from above or better still, be your onboard tour guide. Cheers. Andy.

[@StuWithAView]

Thanks Andy. I was actually down your way last week in my Eurofox, to land at Salcombe/Bolt Head. A video will follow, eventually…

[@andrewrodger775]

@@StuWithAView brilliant thanks Stu. I'll keep a look out for that. Take care.

[@RoadRunnerLaser]

Stu, I remember from a previous conversation about your iPad mini that you use for SkyDemon, that you said that one of the drawbacks is that some of the writing is a little small to be read easily (such as frequencies, if I recall correctly). I've just discovered on my iPad (running iOS 8.4) that there is a "magnifier" which can be enabled in the "Accessibility" options under "Zoom". A control can be placed on the screen which, when tapped or double-tapped, will either bring up a menu or immediately pop open a window which can be dragged around the screen and resized. I've not tried it in flight, but it looks like it might be a helpful utility for those times where the Mk I eyeball would benefit from a little assistance. I just thought that I should let you know.

[@StuWithAView]

Thanks for this; very helpful 😀👍

[@cameronlapworth2284]

Terrific. When flying near the fog there were Hills with rectangular shapes. What are these?

[@StuWithAView]

I’m not quite sure what you mean by ‘rectangular shapes’, but those are the Clwydian hills.

[@cameronlapworth2284]

@@StuWithAView Hi Ta for the reply I just checked on my phone so it's a little small but when your waving at about 16:19 I think just curious.

[@StuWithAView]

That’s Moel Famau, the highest hill in the Clwydian range.

[@comeflywithlee433]

Great video again Stu! I’m considering getting a go pro Max. Do you use an external power supply for it as I understand it’s recording in 360 has a rather short battery life. What’s your experience with it?

[@StuWithAView]

Thanks Lee. The battery life is pretty good (at least an hour) but for longer flights I am connecting it to an Anker battery pack and using the GoPro remote to start and stop filming - although this doesn’t always work!

[@comeflywithlee433]

Oh okay, I’ve always used cheaper cameras and considering upgrading to GoPro. That’s reassuring that your getting that long on the battery. Thanks for your reply.

[@arninashbar]

I love your videos, but can't see the iPad because of the sun and the angle to the camera. Could you change the angle and make a cardboard shade to wrap around the sides and top?

[@arninashbar]

Sorry, I meant the angle of the iPad.

[@StuWithAView]

It’s angled at me so I can see it; it’s my main navigation instrument. And I’m afraid a shade would block my view!

[@peterclark4685]

Heated wristbands? Does anyone make those? I'm guessing the heated jacket just takes care of the core. Might be a small market (ankles as a bonus use?). Birds: My father's favourite war story was when the chopper he was riding in, Vietnam, hit a bush turkey, and he was covered with the guts which him being an imaginative kind of bloke thought were his. I would very much like to see video of that moment. I was gonna deplore the video quality till I boosted it up to 1080 HD, it defaulted to 240 which was bloody awful. Technical point. Winter starts with the solstice so it was an autumn day unless you have learnt from we ex-colonials. Australia declares summer from Dec. 1 which as you can guess, annoys me to no end. Where's the bleeding poetry in that? Have you ever been tempted to do a touch and go on the Wirral sands? Very risky one would think... Cheers from the Antipodes which we are in the process of changing to the Podes forcing Europe to become the Antipodes. Viva la Revolution!!

[@StuWithAView]

Astronomical winter starts (in the northern hemisphere) with the solstice; meteorological winter starts on 1 December, the date of this flight :) And yes I've been tempted to try out the Hoylake sands (not the Dee sands, which are too muddy); but not yet sufficiently tempted!

[@peterclark4685]

@@StuWithAView Cheers. First I had heard of that meteorological calendar concept. Looked into it; only to find the IPCC and NOAA and the like were behind it (for the most specious of reasons). They are also the main bodies behind AGW (Anthropocentric Global Warming). Which is a very poor application of Science. See Tony Heller. Global warming is happening but not for the reasons given, nor is there much we can do until we fully understand it. Pollution (which does not include CO² (it is plant food)) is a far bigger problem which more and more people are committing their lives and inventiveness to reversing. Confusing the two is not healthy.

[@fpvflyriding]

Really nice run! 360 is the way to go with flying a gyrocopter like that! Have you ever seen the Chimera weight-shift gyro? Seems like a cool idea but it's not used much.

[@StuWithAView]

I’ve seen the Chimera. Pretty machine, but it’s not for me due to the ‘backwards’ controls.

[@fpvflyriding]

@@StuWithAView I've put 200hrs on a weight-shift trike so it appeals to me, but the stick is nice too, especially since it can be enclosed. I emailed Chimera but received no reply, I wonder if they're doing business. My purposes for another flying machine is for winter mountain flying in Alaska off skis!

[@cameronlapworth2284]

@@fpvflyriding hi mate,. There was some debate about what degree all gyros are weight shift. Certainly when I flew you can turn by leaning hands off. When I instructed in gyrogkiders you try to test students by throwing your weight around. My instructor used to put his hand out the side and then growl at me for not keeping it straight.;)

[@peterkalev3718]

How hard is the mud flat surface? Does it get covered with water in high tide?

[@StuWithAView]

I hope to never find out 🤣 Yes, it gets completely covered by the tide. The sands in the first bit of the video, in the Dee estuary, are muddy and unlikely to support a ‘normal’ landing. The sands in the second part, off the north Wirral coast after turning at the Royal Liverpool golf course, are much firmer.

[@peterkalev3718]

@@StuWithAView so in case of emergency landing you have only limited time for rescue... In any case you got some fantastic flying weather.

[@StuWithAView]

Yep, very true; which is why I only fly low over the sands at low tide and carry an ELB and of course my phone. Hopefully I’ll never need it, but the lifeboat station is very near (I fly abeam it during the second low sand section), and they also have a hovercraft 😊

[@peterkalev3718]

In So California there is the El Mirage dry lake which has been a traditional spot for gyros to train or just have fun away from ATC and civilization as a whole. Hard dry surface and no worries of flooding for the cast majority of the year.

[@StuWithAView]

I must visit 😊

[@RoadRunnerLaser]

I've noticed that this video suffers from audio dropouts (from your helmet's mic) which is unusual for your videos. You've not turned on the voice-activation on the intercom, have you?

[@StuWithAView]

No. But I have had to change the way I record audio because my previous Heath Robinson set up was possibly the cause of radio interference as I was unable to properly shield all the connectors in my home made binder:3.5 mm solution. It’s not easy recording audio in an open cockpit gyro!

[@RoadRunnerLaser]

StuWithAView - I've been trying to troubleshoot terrible radio comms on my MTO Sport. She was originally fitted with the 25kHz spacing FUNKE and was "upgraded" to the 833 MkII (before I bought her) and since then has had all manner of nasties including a terrible howling on transmit. I bought new Flycom helmets to go with that radio (told the guy at Flycom exactly which radio I was using) and although different helmets (all Flycom) produce slightly different results, we've finally pinned it down to the antenna. My instructor has a Miracle Air-Whip and we tried that on my aircraft and it worked perfectly. I suspect that the problem is down to two or three issues, one I can confirm to be the case, the other is only a suspicion. Firstly, the groundplane in the aircraft is woefully inadequate to the point of being next to useless. Secondly, I suspect that they are using crappy RG58/U and thirdly, I don't think they bothered to ensure that the coax to the antenna is the correct length. I think they've cut it to fit rather than ensuring that the VSWR is within acceptable limits. I also get a nasty buzzing over the radio whenever I activate the pneumatic pump (to trim or to engage the pre-rotator). Apparently, this howling is a common problem since "upgrading" to 8.33kHz spacing radios and various people have come up with a number of different "fixes" - mostly involving extending the ground-plane somehow. As for recording audio, I think for the time being, I'm going to go with shoving a mic inside one of the helmet's ear-cups... Though, I suspect it will be a long time before (if ever) I have my gyro bristling with cameras like yours ! ;)

[@StuWithAView]

Interesting. I feel your pain. I too had the Funke 25k radio on purchase and had to suffer the ‘upgrade’ to the 8.33. I also had a new aerial installed beneath the fuselage (the original is up front) with a new ground plane and had it tuned. But... it was worse than the original; I think because of the extra cable length and its location nearer the interference source that is the engine. So... I went back to using the original nose-mounted aerial. In general this gives better results, but the only downside is I cannot use my current (and Rotorsport approved and supplied) LED landing lights, even fitted with ferrite cores, because they cause terrible interference on most (but not all) frequencies due to the proximity between the lights and the aerial. You might want to think again about the ‘mic in earpiece’ solution if you aren’t impressed by the audio on this video - because that’s exactly how it’s recorded! 😂

[@RoadRunnerLaser]

StuWithAView - Your audio isn't quite as good as it usually is and occasionally has dropouts but it's not terrible by any means and a little better than I would have expected from a mic in the ear-cup. I remember from one of your videos that you had fitted a new antenna under the body (same place as mine is - possibly the same antenna) but I did not know that you had reverted to the original. The guy who used to own my gyro tried the LED landing lights - he had to revert to the halogens because of radio interference, too. I don't think I get any interference from the engine - I guess I must be lucky ! ;) It's a shame we cannot route that waste-heat from the halogens to warm our toes. Even without a heated jacket, the only place I really feel the cold is in my feet so I was chuckling when you were saying that you could feel the cold in your feet. In the new year, I am planning on taking a trip to the Midlands (actually, the first of many, I hope) and may schedule a stop at Ashcroft. It would be great to meet up with you at some point.

[@StuWithAView]

Problem for me is it’s either halogens or heated jacket - the halogens draw 100 watts, which is more than the jacket! I actually don’t have radio transmit problems; stations usually report ‘readability 5’. My problems seem to be mostly at the receiving (and recording) end. Let me know if you’re up this way.