The Layzell Merlin is a British autogyro that was designed by Scottish designer Jim Montgomery and produced by Layzell Gyroplanes of

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Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...

. The aircraft was supplied as a kit for amateur construction.Bayerl, Robby; Martin Berkemeier; et al: ''World Directory of Leisure Aviation 2011-12'', page 182. WDLA UK, Lancaster UK, 2011. ISSN 1368-485X The type remained in production by Layzell through 2011, although by July 2012 the company website had been removed from the internet.

Design and development

The Merlin features a single main rotor, a single-seat open cockpit with a fairing and a windshield,

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 ...

with wheel pants and a twin cylinder, air-cooled,

two-stroke A two-stroke (or two-stroke cycle) engine is a type of internal combustion engine that completes a Thermodynamic power cycle, power cycle with two strokes (up and down movements) of the piston during one power cycle, this power cycle being comple ...

, single-ignition Rotax 582 engine in

pusher configuration In an aircraft with a pusher configuration (as opposed to a tractor configuration), the propeller(s) are mounted behind their respective engine(s). Since a pusher propeller is mounted behind the engine, the drive shaft is in compression in nor ...

. 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 aircraft t ...

is made from bolted-together square

aluminum Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It has ...

tubing. Its diameter Rotor Flight Dynamics rotor has a chord of . The aircraft has an empty weight of and a gross weight of , giving a useful load of . After taking over Montgomery's design, company owner Gary Layzell expressed an interest in further developing the Merlin, but initially produced it unchanged.

Operational history

By January 2013, 28 examples had been registered in the United Kingdom with the

CAA CAA may refer to: Law * Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 of India ** Citizenship Amendment Act protests, Protests regarding the Citizenship (Amendment) Act * Copyright transfer agreement, Copyright assignment agreement, to transfer copyright to ...

as Montgomerie-Bensen B8MR.

Specifications (Merlin GTS)

References

External links

Layzell Gyroplanes 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, ...

Photo of a Layzell Merlin GTS
{{Layzell Gyroplanes aircraft 1990s British sport aircraft Homebuilt aircraft Single-engined pusher autogyros Layzell Gyroplanes