The Guépard II XJ01 () is a Belgian

autogyro An autogyro (from Greek and , "self-turning"), gyroscope, gyrocopter or gyroplane, is a class of rotorcraft that uses an unpowered rotor in free autorotation to develop lift. A gyroplane "means a rotorcraft whose rotors are not engine-d ...

that was designed by Joel Tilquin and produced by Guépard II Team of

Boncelles Boncelles (; ) is a town of Wallonia and a district of the municipality of Seraing, located in the province of Liège, Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland re ...

, first flown on 28 May 2009 at the Bois-de-la-Pierre fly-in. Now out of production, when it was available the aircraft was supplied as a kit for amateur construction.Tacke, Willi; Marino Boric; et al: ''World Directory of Light Aviation 2015-16'', page 194. Flying Pages Europe SARL, 2015.

Design and development

The XJ01 is a development of the

Guépard AX 02 The Airbus Helicopters H160 (formerly X4) is a medium utility helicopter developed by Airbus Helicopters. Formally launched at Heli-Expo in Orlando, Florida on 3 March 2015, it is intended to replace the Eurocopter AS365 Dauphin, AS365 and Euroc ...

that was designed by Xavier Averso in the 1980s and first offered as plans in 1987. Tilquin decided not to publish plans and instead offer the updated version as a kit, starting in 2011. The kit provided by Guépard II Team included the

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French language, French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds Aircrew, crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an Aircraft engine, engine as wel ...

frame but did not include the rotor system, propeller, engine or instruments. The company seems to have gone out of business at the end of 2015 and kit production ended. The design features a single main rotor, a single-seat open cockpit without a windshield,

tricycle landing gear Tricycle gear is a type of aircraft undercarriage, or ''landing gear'', that is arranged in a tricycle fashion. The tricycle arrangement has one or more nose wheels in a single front undercarriage and two or more main wheels slightly aft of th ...

without

wheel pants 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. ...

and a twin-cylinder, liquid-cooled,

two-stroke A two-stroke (or two-stroke cycle) engine is a type of internal combustion engine that completes a power cycle with two strokes of the piston, one up and one down, in one revolution of the crankshaft in contrast to a four-stroke engine which re ...

, dual-ignition

Rotax 582 The Rotax 582 is a two-stroke cycle, two-stroke, two-cylinder, rotary intake valve, oil-in-fuel or oil injection pump, liquid-cooled, gear reduction-drive aircraft engine manufactured by Rotax, BRP-Rotax GmbH & Co. KG. It is for use in non-ce ...

engine in

pusher configuration In aeronautical and naval engineering, pusher configuration is the term used to describe a drivetrain of air- or watercraft with propulsion device(s) after the engine(s). This is in contrast to the more conventional tractor configuration, wh ...

. The aircraft fuselage is made from bolted-together

aluminum Aluminium (or aluminum in North American English) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Al and atomic number 13. It has a density lower than that of other common metals, about one-third that of steel. Aluminium has ...

tubing. Its two-bladed rotor has a diameter of and a chord 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 .

Specifications (XJ01)

References

{{reflist

External links

Official website archives
on

Archive.org The Internet Archive is an American non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including websites, software applic ...

XJ01 2000s Belgian sport aircraft Homebuilt aircraft Single-engined pusher autogyros Aircraft first flown in 2009

Design and development

Specifications (XJ01)

See also

References

External links