The ArrowCopter is a series of

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

autogyro An autogyro (from Greek and , "self-turning"), also known as a ''gyroplane'', is a type of rotorcraft that uses an unpowered rotor in free autorotation to develop lift. Forward thrust is provided independently, by an engine-driven propeller. Whi ...

s, designed and produced by FD-Composites GmbH of Zeillern. When it was in production the ArrowCopter AC20 series was supplied as complete, factory built, ready-to-fly-aircraft.Bayerl, Robby; Martin Berkemeier; et al: ''World Directory of Leisure Aviation 2011-12'', page 180. WDLA UK, Lancaster UK, 2011. ISSN 1368-485X By the summer of 2018 the company website had been removed and the company had filed for

insolvency In accounting, insolvency is the state of being unable to pay the debts, by a person or company ( debtor), at maturity; those in a state of insolvency are said to be ''insolvent''. There are two forms: cash-flow insolvency and balance-sheet ...

protection. In October 2019 the Sichuan Dahua General Aircraft Manufacturing Company of China purchased the assets of the company.

Design and development

The ArrowCopter was designed to comply with British BCAR Section T rules. It features a single main rotor, a two-seats in

tandem Tandem, or in tandem, is an arrangement in which a team of machines, animals or people are lined up one behind another, all facing in the same direction. The original use of the term in English was in ''tandem harness'', which is used for two ...

configuration enclosed cockpit with a

bubble canopy A bubble canopy is an aircraft canopy constructed without bracing, for the purpose of providing a wider unobstructed field of view to the pilot, often providing 360° all-round visibility. The designs of bubble canopies can drastically vary; s ...

, stub wings,

tricycle landing gear Tricycle gear is a type of aircraft undercarriage, or ''landing gear'', arranged in a tricycle fashion. The tricycle arrangement has a single nose wheel in the front, and two or more main wheels slightly aft of the center of gravity. Tricycle g ...

and a four-cylinder, liquid and air-cooled, four-stroke,

dual-ignition Dual Ignition is a system for spark-ignition engines, whereby critical ignition components, such as spark plugs and magnetos, are duplicated. Dual ignition is most commonly employed on aero engines,Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, ...

turbocharged

Rotax 914 The Rotax 914 is a turbo-charged, four-stroke, four-cylinder, horizontally opposed aircraft engine with air-cooled cylinders and water-cooled cylinder heads. It is designed and built by the Austrian company BRP-Powertrain, owned by Bombardier ...

engine in pusher configuration. The normally aspirated

Rotax 912S The Rotax 912 is a horizontally-opposed four-cylinder, naturally aspirated, four-stroke aircraft engine with a reduction gearbox. It features liquid-cooled cylinder heads and air-cooled cylinders. Originally equipped with carburetors, ...

and a BMW boxer engine with a reduction drive were reported as being under consideration in 2011 as alternate powerplants. The aircraft

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraf ...

is made from an

autoclave An autoclave is a machine used to carry out industrial and scientific processes requiring elevated temperature and pressure in relation to ambient pressure and/or temperature. Autoclaves are used before surgical procedures to perform sterilizati ...

-cured

carbon fibre Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (American English), carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers (Commonwealth English), carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic (CFRP, CRP, CFRTP), also known as carbon fiber, carbon compo ...

kevlar Kevlar (para-aramid) is a strong, heat-resistant synthetic fiber, related to other aramids such as Nomex and Technora. Developed by Stephanie Kwolek at DuPont in 1965, the high-strength material was first used commercially in the early 1970s a ...

sandwich and mounts an diameter rotor. The main landing gear wheels are mounted on the tips of the short wings. The AC 10 has an empty weight of and a gross weight of , giving a useful load of . The AC 10 flew for the first time on 20 November 2008 and the first production examples appeared in 2011. Production of the AC 20 began in 2012. By 2015 at least 40 aircraft had been produced, going to customers in nine countries. In September 2018, FD-Composites GmbH filed for insolvency protection due to management and financial issues. In October 2019 the Sichuan Dahua General Aircraft Manufacturing Company of China completed the purchase of ArrowCopter's assets. Sichuan Dahua indicated that they intended to retain manufacturing in Austria and set up parallel manufacturing in China.

Operational history

By January 2013 one example of the ArrowCopter AC10 had been registered in the United States with the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic ...

Variants

ArrowCopter AC20 at AERO Friedrichshafen 2018 (1X7A4507)

;FD-Composites ArrowCopter AC10 :Initial version with a maximum takeoff mass of ;FD-Composites ArrowCopter AC20 :Production version with an empty mass of and a MTOM of

Specifications (AC20)

References

External links

{{Commons category, Arrowcopter
ArrowCopter website archives
on

Archive.org The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

2010s Austrian sport aircraft Single-engined pusher autogyros Aircraft first flown in 2008