The Air Command Commander Sport is an American autogyro that was designed and produced by

Air Command International Air Command International, Inc. is an American aircraft manufacturer originally based in Wylie, Texas, later in Caddo Mills, Texas and now in River Falls, Wisconsin. The company specializes in the design and manufacture of autogyros in the form ...

of Wylie, Texas. Now out of production, when it was available the aircraft was supplied as a kit for amateur construction.Purdy, Don: ''AeroCrafter - Homebuilt Aircraft Sourcebook, Fifth Edition'', page 316. BAI Communications, 15 July 1998.

Design and development

The Commander Sport was designed to comply with the US ''Experimental - Amateur-built'' aircraft rules. It features a single main rotor, a single-seat open cockpit with a small

cockpit fairing An aircraft fairing is a structure whose primary function is to produce a smooth outline and reduce drag.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, Third Edition'', page 206. Aviation Supplies & Academics Inc, Newcastle Washington, 1997. ...

with a windshield,

tricycle landing gear Tricycle gear is a type of aircraft undercarriage, or ''landing gear'', arranged in a tricycle fashion. The tricycle arrangement has a single nose wheel in the front, and two or more main wheels slightly aft of the center of gravity. Tricycle g ...

with a steerable nose wheel and wheel pants, plus a tail caster. The standard engine supplied was the twin cylinder, liquid-cooled,

two-stroke A two-stroke (or two-stroke cycle) engine is a type of internal combustion engine that completes a Thermodynamic power cycle, power cycle with two strokes (up and down movements) of the piston during one power cycle, this power cycle being comple ...

, dual-ignition Rotax 582 engine in

pusher configuration In an aircraft with a pusher configuration (as opposed to a tractor configuration), the propeller(s) are mounted behind their respective engine(s). Since a pusher propeller is mounted behind the engine, the drive shaft is in compression in nor ...

. The Rotax 503 and Rotax 447 engines were factory options. The aircraft

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...

is made from metal tubing, while the fairing is

fiberglass Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass cloth ...

. Its two-bladed rotor has a diameter of . The aircraft has a typical empty weight of and a gross weight of , giving a useful load of . With full fuel of the payload for the pilot and baggage is . The standard day, sea level, no wind, take off with a engine is and the landing roll is . Original factory kit options were a pre-rotator, cockpit fairing, wheels pants and long range fuel tank. The manufacturer estimated the construction time from the supplied kit as 30 hours and put completion time as 3–4 days work.

Specifications (Commander Sport)

References

External links

Photo of an Air Command Commander Sport
{{Air Command International aircraft Commander Sport 1990s United States sport aircraft 1990s United States ultralight aircraft Homebuilt aircraft Single-engined pusher autogyros