Calidus AutoGyro, Flight Report Aircraft Review.

  / lightsportandultralightflyer   Help support the Light Sport & Ultralight Flyer by becoming a Patron, contributions start at as little as $1.00 per month!
Visit   / lightsportandultralightflyer   to sign up.
You can also purchase a yearly or life time subscription at http://www.ultralightflyer.com
Thank You for your support!

Calidus – Type Certificated or Experimental Amateur Built Kit Available

Just get on board, fly away, fly to the horizon and enjoy the neverending vastness – that’s how your dreams come true. Feel the sky and be part of it: The Calidus guarantees great experiences with the highest comfort and maximum safety. We are proud to offer the Calidus as Type Certificated and also as a KIT. Order yours today!

Engine: Rotax 912ULS (optional Rotax 914 (turbo) 115 HP available)
Rotor: 8.4 Extruded Aluminum
Frame: Stainless Steel Epolished
Firewall Between engine and cabin
Pneumatic pitch trim, roll trim, and rotor brake
Pneumatic assisted prerotor
Cockpit ventilation
Optional: Cockpit heating
Optional: Summer Canopy
Calidus KIT Pricing Starts at $82,000

PC Calidus Pricing Starts at $115,000

That Italian design is an open cockpit tandem seating experience that opened my eyes to the fact that a fixed wing pilot can make a reasonably fast transition to rotorcraft ... so long as we're talking gyroplane. To make another of our video pilot reports, Bob and flew around for nearly an hour. I was reintroduced to the ease of flying gyros and introduced to the AutoGyro family.

The German company is reportedly the largest buyer of Rotax 912 engines of any airplane producer on the planet and they are having a great run overseas. Their models include the open cockpit tandem MTO Sport, fully enclosed tandem seating Calidus, and deluxe sidebyside seating Cavalon (interior photo). One thing is sure: these are not your Benson gyros of years past. The Europeans have shepherded these flying machines into the new millennium and they are some impressive works of construction.

The deluxe sidebyside seating Cavalon from AutoGyro is their topoftheline model.
Building an AutoGyro kit will consume about 40 hours, said Robert. They offer a guided program at their Stevensville, Maryland facility and like to start people first thing on a Monday morning so a kit can be finished at the end of a single week (naturally depending somewhat on the aptitude of the builder).

So while you must build and cannot buy readytofly other than as a used aircraft, the kit endeavor is one of the shortest in aviation. Prices are good, too, running from around $70,000 for a very complete MTO Sport to about $88,000 for the enclosed Calidus to roughly $120,000 for the topoftheline Cavalon.

At below $90grand, the model I flew represents a good value in a most interesting aircraft. Especially given a gyro's ability to handle winds much more easily than a light fixed wing (let alone powered parachutes or weight shift trikes), and since gyroplanes fly significantly like a fixed wing, I found myself wanting more. You can get training from Robert via Chesapeake Sport Pilot and a Sport Pilot certificate is acceptable to fly gyros.

www.autogyrousa.com
www.bydanjohnson.com
www.ultralightflyer.com