Відео

Hi, I'm Dennis Fetters. I designed the Commander and started the company Air Command. I sold the company back in 1990 so I could start the helicopter company called Revolution Helicopters. Air Command has changed hands again and is now owned and built by the people at this website: aircommand.com I have nothing to do with the company now, but you can contact them and see what it takes to buy a Commander. Good luck!

What kind of a response would you like? Is that skinny of a chance enough response? Sincerely, Dennis Fetters 😁

Hello, and thank you for taking the time to express here your happiness with my little Air Command gyroplanes. You must have been one of my first customers. I will always appreciate you and others giving me the chance to branch off into the aircraft manufacturing business by buying my first aircraft design. I ended up building and selling over 1,200 Commanders before I sold the company, and they are still manufacturing them today. It was also the best time of my life when aviation was new to me, and the Commander is still my favorite thing I have ever flown. Someday I would like to build my newest idea for a gyroplane, but my time is demanded in the UAV helicopter field now. I have been in Abu Dhabi going on 3 years where demand is great. Again, thank you for your kind words, they mean so much to me, and I wish you long life and happiness. Dennis Fetters www.fettersaerospace.com

This is a very misleading statement. Yes, that is the disclaimer that Rotax wrote to protect itself against liability for the thousands of people that didn't install or maintain their engines correctly, and with more than 175,000 engines sold in 40 years, the engine still has a remarkable safety record. In fact, 99% of all Rotax engine failures were due to improper installation, setup, or lack of maintenance. Out of 500 Mini-500 helicopters produced, not even one crashed due to an engine stoppage from a failure of an engine part supplied by Rotax. What engine failures the Mini-500 owners did experience were all completely avoidable if proper setup and maintenance would have been performed.

Thank you for saying so, Mihaly!

At that time, Revolution was needing to ship high quantities of helicopters, and the only engine available "new-in-the-box" and with a warranty was the Rotax 582, so as any aircraft, the Mini-500 was designed around that engine due to nothing else being available to meet the requirements. It was also a very good engine for the time period, and I had used the Rotax 582 on my previous Gyroplane models with good results. However, like any engine in any aircraft, if it's not installed or maintained correctly, it will fail. The Rotax 582 was a very good and reliable engine if jetted correctly by the user for their weather conditions. Rotax could not "force" the customer to follow the jetting directions, so for liability reasons, they wrote the warning it was prone to sudden stoppage. For the 2500 hours I have flown Rotax 2-stroke engines, I have had only 2 forced landings due to engine stoppage. That was due to our crew failing to mix the oil and fuel. After Rotax came out with an oil injection system, I never had problems since. In the Mini-500, the only engine failures that occurred were the operators failing or refusing to properly jet the engine. Owners that properly jetted and maintained their Rotax-powered Mini-500s had no problems and flew many hundreds of hours, those that did not have troubles, despite all the warnings we sent them on how to do it right. It's funny that when something works well no one rights about it, however when they have even a self-inflicted problem, they publish all over the Internet that it was the helicopter's fault.

@@fettersbuiltco thanks for that detailed info. So out of interest was it all to do with having the right oil/fuel mix, or did you have to adjust other parts of the engine, like air fuel ratio etc. (Sorry new to the term jetting)

@@farleym4486 It was all to do with putting the right size jets in the carburetors to achieve the right fuel-to-air ratio. If it was winter you needed larger jets, and in summer you needed smaller jets. If the jets were too small, you could have too high of an EGT and seize the engine. I can't believe how some owners would pay no attention to their EGT readings and seize their engines. It's such an easy and fast thing to adjust before flight.

@@fettersbuiltco I understand now. You would think owners would be super attentive to that when you could drop from the sky! I had a look on the wikipedia page for that engine. And see what you mean about the warning. It seems to have been a really popular engine saying they built more than 30,000 between 1989 and 2021. So they are in a hell of a lot of different aircraft. From my first comment and reading those "horror stories" of engines stopping as if it was common, I was thinking you must be nuts to run that in a helicopter. Now it seems clear, user error and safety waivers as you said which people have taken the wrong way to seem like you were rolling the dice with the engine. Very interesting stuff.

Yes, I saw that. Revolution Helicopter was my company. A Mini-500 is a kit-built aircraft and will only perform as well as it is assembled and maintained by the Buyer. Unfortunately, the one he bought is one of the poorest examples I have ever seen and can never again be flightworthy. His treatment and carelessness presented in his video are typical of the type of people that killed themselves in the Mini-500. I don't foresee a good outcome. The Mini-500 was a wonderful helicopter to fly if built and maintained correctly, as seen in this video over and over again.

@@fettersbuiltco go watch again it’s dead

@@fettersbuiltco lol he destroyed it what a shame

@@skimask5049 - I think it showed how well it was built if nothing else. They kept trying but it took the licking, but kept on ticking. It's sad to see such fools doing this to even a helicopter in such bad shape. It was like seeing someone torture your son.

I no longer manufacture and sell to the public. I now enjoy being a freelance rotorcraft designer where I travel the world and design new UAV concepts for other companies. The one you are showing on my website is the StarLite-2A, the latest one I designed for myself, derived from all the earlier concepts as my final solution to a medium payload UAV helicopter. It's the best work I have ever done. It is for sale to a qualified company willing to buy the project where I would travel to them and help setup manufacturing, and I have been negotiating with a few people already, but nothing final. The StarLite-2A could sell for as little as $450,000 each with fully autonomous controller, or easily for twice that much if the owned so desired to sell it for that much. That is still a much lower price then what is available today from the competition, and the StarLite-2A is a far better helicopter. But, this site is for Mini-500 discussion. You are welcome to go to the Star:ite-2A videos on my UA-cam channel to discuss it, or email me directly with questions, if you would not mind please.

Back then I believe the cost of the Rotax 582 was about $3000. We never offered a turbine engine for the Mini-500. There were no affordable turbine engines available new "in a box" back then that we could have sold, and we only sold new equipment, nothing used or rebuilt. The only thing that could accidently be called a turbine engine was the Solar APU's, and those were not real turbine engines, used too much fuel and too unreliable, and all used or rebuilt. So, the only engine for the Mini-500 at that time was the Rotax 582. Some people did manage to put an APU on their Mini-500 and fly them for very limited time, but to my knowledge, all have failed to outperform the 582.

Dennis Fetters. Did you ever have Hot Rodders that put expansion chambers on their Rotax engines? Make them sound like a Kawasaki 750 H2?

We designed what was called the "Power Enhancement Package", or PEP. It was a special tuned exhaust that took the power from the low RPM range of the engine where it was not needed for a helicopter, and moved it to the operational RPM range of the engine, where it was used in helicopter applications. It increased our horsepower from 65 to 78, and moved the torque to just below the green line of operation which gave us better low rotor RPM recovery. It was later made a mandatory upgrade. It did little to change the sound of the engine.

Hello Shawn, and thank you for the nice compliment. The Mini-500 was great for 20 years ago. It was my first helicopter I ever designed, and I have learned much more since then, and if I ever were to build another manned helicopter, I would start over and use what I learned to build a better design. But, that would never be only a single-person helicopter due to the very limited market. It would have to be a two-person so demand would be better, like the later Voyager-500 Two-Place that was basically an extended version of the Mini-500. Also due to the stupid rules in the USA, I can't provide people with a fully assembled and tested helicopter like they can do in Europe, and that was the main problem with the Mini-500, because people building it just made too many assembly mistakes. Mix that with the few design mistakes of it being my first helicopter, and it gets an undeserved bad rap. But, the biggest problem right now is the economics; You see, your basic manned lite-helicopter right now only sells for $115.3 per pound, while your average 100kg UAV helicopter can sell for $4,500 per pound, and the UAV cost less to manufacture! So, due to market demand and the situation of the economics of the UAV at this time, I can't afford to stop making UAV's to build manned helicopters for the foreseeable future. The USA would also have to change the regulations so that I can provide a fully assembled and tested aircraft before I would go down that road again. I hope my answer makes since, and I do appreciate you watching my video. Again, thank you for the compliment! Sincerely, Dennis

Dennis. it is incredible to see a godfather of aviation replying to all these interested people below. I am 26 and my opportunity to fly a Mini has now passed. I guess will settle for a MD500. Your helicopter kit design was always my favorite. I think you did an OUTSTANDING job with your kit, considering you were always at the mercy of the owners ability to follow instruction. Hope to earn my CPL-H within the next two years, you have been an big inspiration on this journey. Great airframe, thank you! @@fettersbuiltco

@@enneffgaming - what an incredibly nice compliment, thank you very much. I had a lot of fun flying my Mini-500 AND Commander gyroplanes. They enabled me to travel all over the world and see many amazing places and people. I'm extremely glad people enjoyed my aircraft. I would still like to build my new gyroplane design, however that UAV helicopter demand keeps me tied up. Thank you again and wishing you the best of luck. Sincerely, Dennis

Well now you can have one. I see them all the time on marketplace for like 15 to 22 grand

Charles, It is different from the Helicycle in that it is much more affordable. The Helicycle has a larger APU turbine engine. For the money, there is not a better helicopter than the Mini-500, but if money is no issue than I think the Helicycle will give a little better performance.

Thank you for an honest answer. I like the fact that there are actual test videos on the parts of the mini whereas with the Helicycle they are very hard to find (i only found one). The 2 stroke version did not do well here in South Africa but i think the turbine one would do much better.

Chinese aren't too heavy as people go... RPM sounded fine.... Was not setting with power, maintained height.... Too slow for downwind to matter..... Had enough power to land on the road if needed.... Looks to me like poor judgment and just not watching or thinking. My experience; Chinese fly like they drive a car; with no common since and poor judgment.

pretty amazing to watch!!!!

There were two reasons I never came out with another jump-takeoff gyro after this one. 1. The people that paid me to develop it made me sign an agreement not to use the technology for 10 years. 2. After flying the prototype, I realized there would be a lot of people crashing it, so I would have needed to first design one that was a two-place for instruction, and at that time there were no engines suitable to design around. I ended up selling the company and got into designing helicopters, so I never went back to the jump-take-off gyro again...... YET! ;-)

OK GREAT THANK YOU FOR THE ANSWER,I AGREE

I'm sure that is exactly the same question the pilot was asking himself..... just 0.3 seconds after he took out the sign.

+DustyCowdog Well Dusty,....... close. About 1994 or 95.

+Dennis Fetters I was a baby when you built the Mini 500. 😀

I'm sure many people were as well. We didn't stop making babies after 1995. In fact my wife and I just made a new one a year ago.

Dennis Fetters I was born on 7th May 1998. That's why I said "I was a baby." You know, this helicopter could be my twin!

Born in 1998!!?? Sun, you weren't even a sparkle in your daddies eye yet. ;-) I starter building the Mini-500 in 1990, and flew it in 1991.

+Dan Aita Yes he was, and much more. Your father was a good and loyal friend of mine, and a very valued employee of RHCI. He also went to China with me to work, and I saw him there the last time. I have missed him very much over the years and wonder where he is now. I am proud to have known him. Sincerely, Dennis Fetters

sadly he passed away almost 10 years ago flying an ultralight in peru.

Dan, I'm so sorry to hear this. I always hoped to meet up with him again. About 1 years ago I even tried to search for him on google to see if I could get back in contact. He was a good man, good pilot and good friend and always concerned about his kids and expressed his love for them. I'll remember him always, an I'm very sorry for your loss. My email is fettersbuiltco@sbcglobal.net, I sure would like to know more about what happened with him after I left him in China if you're ever up to talking about it. Sincerely, Dennis Fetters

Dave, much was filmed in Excelsior Springs MO, but there are also segments from other location, even Brazil.