Background
Our Vision and Goals!
Why is The Association Neccessary?
Without question, the number of gyroplane pilots is growing dramatically around the world. Why?
- The high availability of 'new generation' inherently stable gyroplanes.
With the increasing emphasis on safety:
- The standards of production and certification are among the highest of any leisure aircraft.
But...
It takes more than great quality aircraft with superb flying characteristics to make a successful and safe flying community. It requires:
- A robust support network of Flight Training,
- Quality Servicing & Maintenance,
to ensure safe flying.
There is a danger that rapid growth in manufacturing could leave other essential parts of the support network lacking as they struggle to keep pace.
As these aspects of the support network are people based there is a strong possibility that expertise becomes diluted with growth.
Existing expert instructors and engineers are being stretched, with no option but to cram more and more work into a finite time until they reach a point of saturation and they can no longer sustain the quality required.
Additional instructors and engineers can easily be appointed, but as they will lack the breadth and depth of experience, they require robust training and mentoring to ensure they reach the required standard.
We must ensure that we can grow our strength as well as our numbers. The focus of the project for worldwide standardisation of gyroplane training is dedicated to ensuring the rigorous growth of flight training.
The Need to Share Our Knowledge
There are pockets of gyroplane flight training expertise around the world, small groups of instructors who have pioneered the development of flight training based on years of experience with gyroplanes. But, these groups of instructors are isolated.
A group's experience is based upon what they have personally seen and felt, learning from what they tried that worked, and the accidents they witnessed or heard about in their local community when things didn't work. This is natural evolution.
If we could connect our most experienced people and develop a best practice network, we could share it and use it to expand as we desire, worldwide.
The success of such a project requires a collaborative attitude between the key players in the Gyroplane Community:
- Instructors who work with the Regulators
- Regulators
- Organisations
- Manufacturers
- Instructors who teach other instructors
- Instructors who teach the student Pilots
- Pilots.
How It All Began
During a coincidental meeting between a group of instructors and manufacturers who happened to congregate in a coffee bar at Aero Friedrichshafen in 2013, the idea to implement such a project was born.
There was no big international startup conference, no formal development of a committee and no funding or grants. There was just passion and enthusiasm from a small group of individuals who had extensive experience of gyroplanes and a desire to make it happen.
Many of them are competitors in their day-to-day capacity of promoting their own business commercially, but all have the attitude that collaboration and communication to standardise flight training is essential to the ongoing and long term growth of the gyroplane community.
The power of the Internet would be harnessed to facilitate the connectivity and communication of everyone worldwide.
The project would require a framework that would allow it to be recognised and respected by regulators, organisations, manufacturers, instructors and pilots. It became known as the International Association of Professional Gyroplane Training project or IAPGT.
The Internet technology has been designed and implemented as an online product called The GyropediaTM, the encyclopaedia of gyroplane knowledge.
This framework remains a 'virtual' Association, there is no requirement for expensive buildings or large staffing overheads. The development costs are funded by sponsorship from individuals, members' subscriptions and licences in return for access to training material supporting the standardised methodology.
How Much Interest Is There In the Project?
It is estimated that the worldwide gyroplane community consists of about 5000 people. If this estimate is accurate, then more than 25% of the worldwide community have already shown interest in the project.
The IAPGT project is completely independent of country, manufacturer or type of gyroplane. People opt in because they are interested in the goals, they support the project because they see the big picture, they participate because their influence and experience counts.