Page 14 - MFW Dec 2024

Jim McEwen

Background
Many years ago I became interested in gyroplanes and
joined what was then the NZ Rotorcraft Association. I
attended fly-ins and was fascinated by these strange little
chairs in the sky with noisy engines and props roaring
away behind the pilot’s seat. I loved the whop-whop-whop
of the rotor blades as they executed tight manoeuvres and
the way they could turn on a dime and land on a sixpence,
to mix my currencies! Speaking of cash, like many other
club members at the time I had none but I dreamed
anyway and learned a great deal just by reading, watching
and talking to other club members. Eventually I started to
build my own. Life got in the way and it took me five years
but I finally made it. I subsequently spent a few hundred
hours in the air, mostly as a “patch flyer”, just doodling
about in the sky and looking at the world I knew from a
different perspective.

Model flying
When the time came for me to hang up my flying suit I
made a planned move into model flying. I joined the local
club and found a great group of guys building and flying
planes and generally having a ball. I started with a basic Author with final version of his Dominator
AXN foamie and progressed on to a Tundra, with which I
got my wings. Next was a Radian glider that offered a
whole different type of flying before I built a Fokker
Eindecker from a kit, then a Tiger Moth (also from a kit),
and most recently a Terrier from plans. I’ll never be top-
gun but I love the flying, the building, the repairing (but not
too much of it!) and the camaraderie the hobby brings.

A club member acquired a model gyrocopter based on the
original Bensen-type machines that several of the NZRA
pilots were flying when I joined. He had no interest in it but
thought that I would be a suitable recipient. I know nothing
of its history other than it had reportedly flown “with
varying results” at some time in the past. I stuck it in the
garage where I kept tripping over it until I eventually CAD model showing printed plastic seat, carbon tubes with printed
joinersand hinges, alloy mounting plates (motor plate purple). Torsion
thought I’d better do something with it. I decided it wasn’t bars (red) for landing legs (blue tubes, green caps)
really worth rebuilding in the same form and set about
designing a whole new machine based on the Dominator halfway to the pedals; I decided he deserved better and
gyro that I used to fly. I expected to use some of the parts deliberately scaled the new machine to fit him.
but they were gradually discarded until hardly anything
remained. I settled on aluminium extrusions and plates for the frame,
much like the full-sized machine. The only difference
A new beginning between the frame of the model and the original
With a work background in CAD design I started roughing Dominator was the size of the parts, which looked
out the general layout on the computer and gradually the strangely familiar as I cut them out. I’d bought a 3D printer
new machine took shape. It was a much more challenging for making dummy rotary engines for my Eindecker and
project than anticipated but I enjoyed every hour of it. A other bits and pieces and I decided to make the motor
key element I retained from the donor model was the pilot mounting frame and landing gear from carbon fibre tube
figure; he was a very realistic chap who looked to have with printed end pieces and junctions. The Dominator
been custom-made as a gyro pilot and cleverly painted by design features very tall landing gear (to allow a large prop
someone with a real talent. The problem was that the and align the pilot and centre-of-gravity with the centre of
original model was far too big and his feet reached only thrust) and long-travel suspension. I scaled the landing

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