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Why aren’t autogyros more popular as drones? It seems like they would have a lot of advantages for photography and package delivery. And they could be cheaper

Why aren’t autogyros more popular as drones? It seems like they would have a lot of advantages for photography and package delivery. And they could be cheaper to build and easier to operate?

geocrasher 6y ago
Drones are typically quad or hexacopters that can take off and land vertically even in a stiff breeze. If you're talking about some other kind of drone then maybe you could specify it. But compared to quad or hexacopter an auto gyro would have a lot more loiter time just as a fixed wing would, and it could come down vertically at least to a point, but would not be able to take off or land vertically. There is one particular brand of autogyro that can take off vertically by pre-spinning the rotor and then applying collective at the same time as disconnecting power from it. They tend to leap off the tarmac. But that is not the norm. Standard autogyros require a takeoff roll just as a fixing aircraft plane does. People often look at the rotor and think that it is like a helicopter but in fact it is more like a fixed wing aircraft in the sense that air must be passing over the wings / rotor in order to produce lift. That being said, an autonomous autogyro does sound very interesting. One could pre-spin the rotor with a typical brushless motor and then leave it unpowered during flight. It does require collective control to be able to do that but even hobby helicopters have collective and cyclic control, so adding just collective control seems very approachable.
askvictor 6y ago
Why would they be cheaper to build? A quad-copter is ridiculously simple in it's design - 4 motors is all the moving parts it needs. The rest is sensors and software.
- mrfusion 6y ago
  Wouldn’t a gyro just have one pusher motor and maybe one motor to turn a rudder? So less motors at least.
  - 0134340 6y ago
    I'm going to guess you'd have more software complexity to account for more dynamic conditions, as OP's link alludes to, along with more redundancy in safety. I'm pretty sure most 4 motor drones can function fine with just three blades/motors and possibly two even. Source: I'm an expert flyer with dozens of seconds flying. I once bought my kid a tiny 2" drone and eventually took over as pilot. Now I didn't take it from him, he just stopped playing with it (What's wrong with kids these days? I would've loved it as a kid) but those little things are so fun to fly.
  - TylerE 6y ago
    A gyrocopter requires a tilting rotor blade for control. This is massively more complex than the fixed blades of a quadcopter. Quadcopters don't really scale past a fairly small point before the efficiency nosedives though.
kejaed 6y ago
We feel the same way about auto gyro based cargo delivery https://www.mmist.ca/cq-10.html https://www.mmist.ca/cq-10.html
Toutouxc 6y ago
It's mainly because they still behave more like airplanes. They can't hover (!), their turns have a certain radius, they have a take-off roll and usually a short landing roll, they need to actually fly a landing approach (albeit a very steep one). Also they have a single large unducted rotor that's easy to destroy or hurt someone with, and you can't have automatic collision avoidance, because you can't easily stop an autogyro in mid-air.

Why aren’t autogyros more popular as drones? It seems like they would have a lot of advantages for photography and package delivery. And they could be cheaper to build and easier to operate?

geocrasher 6y ago

Drones are typically quad or hexacopters that can take off and land vertically even in a stiff breeze. If you're talking about some other kind of drone then maybe you could specify it. But compared to quad or hexacopter an auto gyro would have a lot more loiter time just as a fixed wing would, and it could come down vertically at least to a point, but would not be able to take off or land vertically. There is one particular brand of autogyro that can take off vertically by pre-spinning the rotor and then applying collective at the same time as disconnecting power from it. They tend to leap off the tarmac. But that is not the norm. Standard autogyros require a takeoff roll just as a fixing aircraft plane does. People often look at the rotor and think that it is like a helicopter but in fact it is more like a fixed wing aircraft in the sense that air must be passing over the wings / rotor in order to produce lift. That being said, an autonomous autogyro does sound very interesting. One could pre-spin the rotor with a typical brushless motor and then leave it unpowered during flight. It does require collective control to be able to do that but even hobby helicopters have collective and cyclic control, so adding just collective control seems very approachable.

askvictor 6y ago

Why would they be cheaper to build? A quad-copter is ridiculously simple in it's design - 4 motors is all the moving parts it needs. The rest is sensors and software.

mrfusion 6y ago
Wouldn’t a gyro just have one pusher motor and maybe one motor to turn a rudder? So less motors at least.
- 0134340 6y ago
  I'm going to guess you'd have more software complexity to account for more dynamic conditions, as OP's link alludes to, along with more redundancy in safety. I'm pretty sure most 4 motor drones can function fine with just three blades/motors and possibly two even. Source: I'm an expert flyer with dozens of seconds flying. I once bought my kid a tiny 2" drone and eventually took over as pilot. Now I didn't take it from him, he just stopped playing with it (What's wrong with kids these days? I would've loved it as a kid) but those little things are so fun to fly.
- TylerE 6y ago
  A gyrocopter requires a tilting rotor blade for control. This is massively more complex than the fixed blades of a quadcopter. Quadcopters don't really scale past a fairly small point before the efficiency nosedives though.

kejaed 6y ago

We feel the same way about auto gyro based cargo delivery https://www.mmist.ca/cq-10.html https://www.mmist.ca/cq-10.html

Toutouxc 6y ago

It's mainly because they still behave more like airplanes. They can't hover (!), their turns have a certain radius, they have a take-off roll and usually a short landing roll, they need to actually fly a landing approach (albeit a very steep one). Also they have a single large unducted rotor that's easy to destroy or hurt someone with, and you can't have automatic collision avoidance, because you can't easily stop an autogyro in mid-air.