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Crumpled Craft. "The main fear is losing your rotor blade," says Don White, a mechanical engineer at Douglas Aircraft. "I imagine nearly every guy has had at least one engine failure, and this is something you can cope with. The gyrocopter just settles down to earth. But if you lose your rotor blade, you're out of luck. It's like a wing on an airplane." Fortunately, the gyrocopter is what pilots call "a forgiving plane"; the construction tends to give on crashing, and there is little mass to crush or entangle the pilot. "If he lands in any direction but upside down," says one flyer, "the pilot will generally be O.K."
A dramatic case in point occurred during last week's flyin. Rex Evatt, a veteran Santa Clara gyrocopter pilot flying a borrowed craft, banked too steeply in the 30-m.p.h. wind, crashed onto the dry-lake floor. The craft crumpled, the rotor snapped to pieces, but Evatt stepped out unhurt, apologized to his friend for cracking up his $2,000 machine, and the next day was back flying again.