The Butterfly Monarch

The Butterfly Monarch is an American autogyro, designed and produced by The Butterfly LLC of Aurora, Texas. The aircraft is supplied as a kit for amateur construction.

Design and development
The Monarch was designed to comply with the US Experimental - Amateur-built rules. It features a single main rotor, a single-seat open cockpit without a windshield, tricycle landing gear with wheel pants and a twin cylinder, liquid-cooled, two-stroke, dual-ignition 64 hp Rotax 582 engine in pusher configuration.

The Monarch's fuselage is made from metal tubing and mounts a two-bladed main rotor with a diameter of 8 m, with an electric pre-rotator to shorten take-off distances. The aircraft has an empty weight of 360 lb and a gross weight of 630 lb, giving a useful load of 270 lb. The tail surfaces are made from Kevlar. The landing gear is of 4130 steel construction, incorporates springs and has a long stroke of 18 in to allow almost vertical landings, including descent rates of 500 ft/min (2.5 m/s) at touchdown. The tricycle landing gear is supplemented by a triple tail caster.

Optional equipment available includes a cockpit fairing with a windshield, rotor brake, auxiliary 6 u.s.gal fuel tank and an airshow smoke system.

Operational history
By December 2012 eight examples had been registered in the United States with the Federal Aviation Administration.