Real Gyrocopter
3/14/2026
My Gyrocopter journey, by
Mike Brown
Copyright © 2026 – All rights reserved
In July 2025, I went to Oshkosh. If you don’t know what that is, click the link – it’s like the largest annual air show on the planet. It is a week-long adventure. There were over 10,000 aircraft, nearly 1,000 exhibitors, and over 700,000 visitors. It occupied multiple square miles of the airport, the exhibits, workshops, aircrafts tied down, RVs, campers, and parking. And, I have to admit, for such a HUGE event it was the most well organized event I have ever seen. Parking, shuttles, layout, food, restroom facilities, workshop, you name it – it was great. But I digress…
I went with my son, who is rebuilding an old Cessna aircraft, and I was just along for the fun. As we were wondering around looking at what he was interested in, I found a row of gyrocopter exhibits and I bid farewell to him and went exploring on my own. It struck a curiosity in me because I remembered as a kid watching James Bond fly one of those things and I thought that looked like fun. That was a long time ago. But I went to check them out.
Indeed, they are cool, and I was thrilled to find I could go for a “demonstration” ride (for $175 – Yikes!).
I gotta say – I was hooked!!!
I visited all the vendors, and spent a lot of time grilling them about everything I could think of, and concluded I could do this. I started researching and studying them with a book that spelled out a lot of the details of owning and flying one of these.
I learned that the journey from novice to pilot is “a long and winding road”. Tons of studying, lots or training, spending a bunch of money, devoting a LOT of time… but boy, the benefits are awesome. Flying these little things are a LOT of fun.
At first, all the studying was quite overwhelming – the list of topics is long and technical. The flight training is daunting – skills were totally unfamiliar and sometimes counter-intuitive. The regulations and hoops to jump through are never-ending. But hey! Lots of people do it, and everyone I spoke to said you keep banging away at it and pretty soon you’ll pick it up.
Ok. I decided to do it! I’m going to study, get certified, trained, get licensed, buy a kit, build, store, and fly a gyrocopter.
Just so we’re clear about this… by the time it’s all said and done, I will spend over $100,000!!! Oh well, it’s just the kids’ inheritance. Ha!
One of my (and my wife’s) greatest concerns is safety. I’m not keen on the prospect of going out and killing myself doing something inherently dangerous. I think there are plenty of dangerous things people do to remove themselves from the gene-pool, but general aviation is not necessarily one of them. The most important function of the FAA is to assure flying is safe. So as long as I follow the regulations and training, I’ll be as safe as every one of the millions of other pilots out there. You can kill yourself as easily as foolishly walking across the street, or driving recklessly down the road – or not.
Studying everything you need to know is all about giving you a basis for safe behavior, like aircraft control, airport and airspace behavior, weather hazards, etc. Flight training is all about being instructed in skills to confidently and safely flying around. The steps, and certifications, and endorsements are all about confirming you have done everything that is required and helpful to stay safe enough to die of old age instead of foolhardy recklessness.
That said, take-offs and landings are not EXACTLY as easy as they feel in an airliner or look in the movies. And weather and aircraft radio communication is a black-art that takes LOTS of study and practice to figure out. But it’s coming along.
The good news is that gyrocopters are inherently quite safe. You can quite easily get yourself out of terrible situations that would be disastrous in an airplane. For example, we were flying around one day and approaching the airport to land, and my instructor said, “Don’t descend, but just fly level.” (up a few hundred feet) and he pulled the throttle back to idle and tilted the nose up a little so we were just hovering up there at zero airspeed! (that would be the time to panic and wish you had gone fishing today instead of flying in an airplane) But as we slowly began to descend he just tipped the nose down a little and up to hover some more and so on down to the ground and we landed on the runway just as gentle as a feather falling out of the sky! (All the way down without any engine power.) I was totally amazed, so my instructor said, “let’s go around and do that again!” What a hoot!
Right now, I’m still quite away from being a “pilot”, and I think sometimes my instructor wishes he had brought along a stick to whack me with for doing the very thing he just told me not to do… again… But he is very patient and kind in reminding me to perform and practice doing things correctly. Sometimes I really DO get take-offs and landings perfectly. But alas, sometimes I don’t get them right at all. I’m still working on it.
I have absolutely NO interest or intention to try death-defying aerobatics, like loops, dives, and barrel rolls. I just want to wander around in the desert and the mountains and enjoy the landscape from a new perspective. I have a favorite YouTube channel that is EXACTLY what I aspire to do – they just enjoy the forest mountains, canyons, and river paths. Every time we go driving cross-country, I’m always thinking to myself, “I wonder what the other side of that mountain over there looks like.” Well, pretty soon, I’m going to go find out!
After talking to other experienced gyrocopter pilots I selected a Certified Flight Instructor (CFI) to guide me through this maze of aeronautical knowledge and proficiency. Even after I’m well on my way and continuing to talk to others, I am still happy with my choice of a gyro to fly and a CFI to train me. My CFI is very experienced and knowledgeable, an excellent teacher and communicator, he has a certified maintenance shop, a private runway, and a comfortable bunk house to stay at. I highly recommend him to anyone interested in gyrocopters.
Craig McPherson
817-517-3283 (cell)
Blue Skies Gyrocopters
468 GF3049, Blum TX, 76627
(about an hour and a half south of Dallas)
I’m going to post some pictures, videos, and papers below. The papers are some things I’ve written summarizing what I’ve learned (and need to remember).