I have seen a magazine article on a Robbe `Whopper`. Although an autogyro it used many helicopter parts such as swashplate, flybar, spin up system etc,. all appearing very expensive and perhaps weighty. Much complication compared with the little autogyro I had some satisfying flying with only this morning! Were these regarded as a succesful aircraft? Not my sort of autogyro but maybe some found them OK. Did they? I have never seen one, and I guess never will, but I am wondering just how well they performed and whether they were worth the considerable cost.
Colin Duthie

I remember the Whopper, saw it flying at a model show many years ago. If flew very well but was very heavy and because of this it had a fairly high flying speed. As you guessed very expensive in parts. You would be lucky to find one these days and as for spares..........
Apparently the Micromold Wallis flew ok in the right hands, a friend of mine used to fly one a lot and he loved it though I heard that it could be a bit of a nightmare. I believe the Wallis is an even rarer bird these days.
There was also a model called a 'Robin' made by Kalt, just like the Wallis with one of the wheels used as a drive for the rotor spinup. So far I have yet to hear of someone who flew a Robin successfully.
The last one I recall was the 'Hobbit' autogyro, all balsa fuselage with helicopter type rotor system. Very old design flown with a large 4 stroke, also available as a Cierva C30 and I have to say looked good. I have the promotional video for that one and it did appear to fly very well.

I still believe my Simple G and Huff&Puff models designed by Jim Baxter and Rick Anderson would knock the socks off the whole bunch at a fraction of the cost.

Sean