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Anita C. Infante, 309 853-5328
For Immediate Release 4/04
Carter is Testing Landing Gear for Licensing
Carter Smart Strut Installed on Monarch
Wichita Falls, TX - Carter Aviation Technologies (Carter) of Wichita Falls, TX announced that they are working with The Butterfly, LLC (TBL) to test their landing gear on TBL's new autogyro model, the Monarch. The Monarch, an upgrade to TBL's original Butterfly kit, is being introduced during the Sun 'n Fun Fly-in 2004. The new Monarch features a 582 Rotax powerplant and a G-Force Landing Gear designed by TBL.
The Butterfly kit was introduced at AirVenture 2003. Its design represents a substantial improvement over conventional autogyros. It features a centerline engine thrust, increased vertical and horizontal control volume, and improved flight controls. The G-Force landing gear has a parallelogram swing arm system which allows the tires to stay vertical at all times and absorb a great amount of energy when landing.
For initial tests, the "Smart Strut" portion of Carter's landing gear was designed to work in consort with TBL's G-Force gear. The patented Carter strut provides 16" of stroke at the wheels. Preliminary stress tests were performed on the strut/gear combination under pressure on the ground. After successful ground testing the Monarch prototype proceeded to flight-testing to gather landing data under actual flight conditions.
During two days of testing the Monarch made approaches to the ground at varying speeds. The final tests were at airspeeds of 15 mph which represent a vertical descent of over 800 feet-per-minute. According to Larry Neal, President of TBL and designer of the Monarch, "The strut/gear combination is fantastic. Most autogyro designs would be damaged if they were dropped in from more than a few feet. With this new gear the Monarch can easily be dropped in after flaring from more than 20 feet high with no damage to the aircraft or injury to the pilot. The aircraft simply sets down. It doesn't bounce and the deceleration isn't even a hard hit. It is unbelievable. This new technology should revolutionize our industry."
Carter's prototype High Energy Absorbing Landing Gear (LG) system has been in use on their prototype gyroplane since 1998 with great success. The primary device making the system unique is a patented mechanical valve that determines the impact energy and applies the proper pressure to vary the deceleration rate based on the aircraft's impact velocity - without exceeding LG load limits. The valve works without external sensors and automatically adjusts to handle any combination of impact velocity and weight up to its design limits. During proof testing, the gear was able to absorb 1200 feet-per-minute landing impacts with a 3000 lb gross weight with no damage.
The Carter LG is fully scalable and can be designed for use on most aircraft including fixed-wing and rotorcraft. The retrofit on aircraft that already use a hinge permitting the wheels to move about as they absorb shocks should be relatively easy. If the aircraft uses a steel spring to absorb shocks, the retrofit would be more difficult.
Testing of the Carter LG on the Monarch marks the first time that the LG system has been tested for use outside of Carter's own development program. When final tests are complete Carter and TBL will look at a licensing agreement. This agreement would be the first contract that Carter would have for the manufacture of their technology. Jay Carter, Jr., President of Carter, commented, "Our whole research and development program is geared toward increasing safety and efficiency within the aviation industry. We are extremely pleased with the results that we are achieving with the Monarch. I believe this new system represents a quantum leap in safety for autogyros and we are excited about its future impact. In addition, the fact that our system is scalable and can be designed as a retrofit provides a safety advantage to a wide range of aircraft. I believe that other airframe manufacturers will soon realize the tremendous safety advantage that our Landing Gear System offers and will want to improve their own safety features."
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Carter Aviation Technologies
Anita C. Infante, GA Marketing & Licensing
9729 E. 3000th Street, Kewanee, IL 61443
Phone or Fax 309 853-5328
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