Chayair Sycamore

The Chayair Sycamore is a South African autogyro, designed and produced by Chayair of Musina. The aircraft is supplied as a kit for amateur construction or as a complete ready-to-fly-aircraft.

Design and development
The Sycamore features a single main rotor, a two-seats-in-tandem open or optionally enclosed cockpit, tricycle landing gear with wheel pants and a four-cylinder, liquid and air-cooled, four-stroke, dual-ignition turbocharged 115 hp Rotax 914F engine in pusher configuration. The 160 hp Subaru EJ22 is optional.

The aircraft fuselage is made from bolted-together aluminum tubing and mounts a 9.10 m diameter Advanced Kinetics rotor. The tailplane features five vertical tail surfaces for improved directional stability. The enclosed Sycamore Mk 1 version has an empty weight of 380 kg and a gross weight of 590 kg, giving a useful load of 210 kg.

Operational history
By December 2012 one example had been registered in the United States with the Federal Aviation Administration in the Experimental - Amateur-built category.

Variants

 * Sycamore Mk 1
 * Enclosed cockpit version


 * Sycamore Mk 2000
 * Open cockpit version