Official UK dealer
Manufaktura Lotnicza
China's first border police gyrocopter unit has patrolled 26,000 square kilometres of the Gobi since 2020 and reports patrol times 70% shorter than on the ground. A Texas police department flies one for about $50 an hour on pump petrol. What makes a gyroplane suit the work - five hours in the air, low speed, low cost - and the three things it cannot do.
Read more100 metres to take off and 60 to land - the ARGON GTL flight manual's own figures at 600 kg, sea level, hard surface. Clearing a 15 m obstacle takes 280 m and 180 m. On wet or unmown grass the manual warns the take-off distance can easily double, and heat and altitude double it again. What that means for a farm strip, and why a gyroplane still cannot leave the ground vertically.
Read moreThere is no European gyroplane licence and no European registration: a two-seat gyroplane of 600 kg or less sits in Annex I of Regulation (EU) 2018/1139, outside EASA, so each country decides. Where the ARGON is accepted today, why the French brevet is usually the quickest licence, what a point d'attache means for registering in France, and how we pair the aircraft with the licence.
Read moreFive written exams at 75% and a General Flying Test in four sections, item by item as the CAA writes it in Appendix J of Standards Document 44: the seven oral categories the examiner asks at least two questions in, the pre-flight section, all seventeen handling items, the emergency discussions - and what happens when you fail one.
Read moreA tandem is narrower and slips through the air more easily; sitting side by side puts the other person next to you, and that decides how you learn and how much you enjoy flying with somebody. Instruction, company, room, the view, and the loading rule people find out late - with the ARGON GTL's own figures.
Read moreThe ARGON GTL's own sequence, in the order its flight manual gives it: a fuel sample from each drain before the aircraft is moved, then hull, tail, chassis, controls, engine, propeller, rotor, prerotator and cockpit - plus the cabin check, the ballast rule, and the three decisions made on the ground before you open the throttle.
Read moreAn open cockpit gives you the flying people describe for years; an enclosed cabin gives you the flying you actually do, in British weather, in ordinary clothes. Helmet against headset, what each costs you in flyable days, what the GTL's 125 cm cabin and 20 kg boot change - and where the open aircraft honestly wins.
Read moreThe rotor turned by air flowing up through it rather than by the engine. In a helicopter it is the emergency procedure after an engine failure - our AH-22 manual gives 80 to 130 km/h and 480 to 565 rotor rpm. In a gyroplane it is simply how the aircraft flies, so an engine failure costs thrust and not lift.
Read moreOn the ARGON GTL: 110 kg on one seat, 200 kg on both together, a 60 kg minimum, and 600 kg all up - operating limits from the flight manual, not suggestions. How to do the sum on any gyroplane, what full fuel costs you in kilos, why there is a minimum weight, and the four questions to ask a seller.
Read moreAdvertised, but not certified anywhere we can find - and the codes do not provide for it: BCAR Section T allows not more than two occupants and 600 kg, EASA's special condition two seats up to 1,000 kg. The weight arithmetic that explains the rule, the three-seat aircraft that does exist, and the three questions to ask a seller.
Read moreNineteen horsepower and 800 hours: the 916 iS gives 160 hp and a 2,000-hour TBO, the 915 iS 141 hp and 1,200 hours, for 3.6 kg less weight and a lower price. Where the extra power actually goes on a gyroplane, why 23,000 ft is the engine's ceiling and not the aircraft's, and which one to order.
Read moreARGON gyroplanes and ARGO AH helicopters are built by Manufaktura Lotnicza in Poland, at its own airfield near Warsaw, since 2009 - titanium machined in-house, carbon laid up in-house, rotors made in-house since 2018, about 1,000 hours of handwork per aircraft. Where the ARGON is certified, and who sells it in Britain.
Read moreThere is no single best two-seat helicopter, and anyone who names one is selling it. Six tests in the order that actually decides the outcome: what fuel it burns, whether it carries a calendar overhaul as well as an hourly one, what useful load survives full fuel, support near you, the licence, and where it will live. Cheapest to buy is rarely cheapest to own.
Read moreNo - it is the opposite of one. Manufaktura Lotnicza prohibits building at home outright: every ARGO AH is constructed in their own factory under licensed professionals, and the owner finishes it there rather than in a garage. Their four answers on the category and on EASA CS-VLR certification, reproduced word for word. From £220,000 and about £97 a flying hour. Not certified in the UK yet.
Read moreBRP-Rotax issued ASB-2026-002 on 3 September 2026, a mandatory Alert Service Bulletin requiring replacement of the turbocharger valve housing on named 915 i and 916 i serial numbers - before next flight on affected installed engines. What it says, how to check your engine, why it is not a recall, and how to read the four classifications ROTAX puts on every bulletin.
Read moreA two-seat ARGO AH-22 is published from £220,000 excluding taxes and delivery, and runs at about £97 a flying hour at 150 hours a year, £82 at 300 and £76 at 500. The largest line is fuel at about £35 an hour, because it burns 25 litres an hour of ordinary 95-octane road petrol rather than avgas. What actually makes a helicopter cheap to run, and the weight sum to do before you buy.
Read moreAbout 18,000 ft physically and 10,000 ft verified - the ARGON GTL flight manual gives FL180 as the physical service ceiling and states the service ceiling is verified to FL100. A British flight rarely passes 2,000 to 5,000 ft, because that is where controlled airspace begins, no gyroplane carries oxygen, and the limit that governs almost every flight is the low one: 500 ft from any person, vessel, vehicle or structure.
Read moreIn the UK, yes - flying a gyroplane as pilot in command requires the CAA PPL(G). There is no lighter category and no deregulated route as microlights have. The one legal exception is flying with a qualified instructor, who is pilot in command: no licence, no medical, no experience, and the hours count towards the 40. Every requirement here comes from CAA Standards Document 44.
Read moreEasier than a helicopter, different from an aeroplane, and harder than the brochures suggest - because the difficult part happens before you leave the ground. It cannot stall or spin and an engine failure costs thrust rather than lift; what takes practice is handling the rotor on the ground in wind. Forty hours, 38 exercises, and first solo two thirds of the way through.
Read moreYes, unless you came to lie on a beach. January averages 16°C and five to six hours of sunshine a day - more than the UK manages in June - with rain arriving in short bursts rather than settling in. Walking, surfing, birdwatching at Ria Formosa and golf are all better now than in August, hotels run at half price, and the winter air is clearer to fly in.
Read moreEight that are not a beach: walking between islands across the Ria Formosa at low tide, the only cross-border zip line in the world at Alcoutim, the Chapel of Bones in Faro, the salt pans at Tavira, clam picking with a fisherman, the Serra de Monchique, stargazing inland - and a coastal flight in a gyroplane, which is ours and which almost no visitor knows is possible.
Read morePonta da Piedade, the cove beaches down the cliff staircases, the walled old town and the grotto boats - what is actually worth your time in Lagos. Plus the one view almost nobody gets: from the clifftop you see the top of the headland and from a boat you see it from the water, but the shape of the whole thing needs height, and that takes about four minutes.
Read moreHelicopter tours fly the Algarve coast from Portimao and Albufeira, and if you want to hover over the Benagil cave that is the aircraft that does it. There is also a coastal flight in a two-seat gyroplane from near Lagos - no wing in the way, low and slow, quiet enough to talk. And unlike a helicopter tour it is logged, and counts towards a pilot licence.
Read moreAFORS carried 153 gyroplane listings from £950 to £65,000 - a flyable two-seater sits between £45,000 and £65,000, and at that budget used is not a compromise, it is the market. Real asking prices, why hours matter more than the price, what the Permit to Fly date is worth, and the six things we would check in order. Written by a dealer who sells new aircraft.
Read moreThree enclosed side-by-side two-seaters, compared only on what their makers actually publish - and left blank where they publish nothing. The AutoGyro Cavalon carries 100 litres and quotes 5.5 hours; the Magni M24 Orion carries 82 and quotes four; the ARGON GTL carries 116 usable and works out at 5 hours 2 minutes. We sell the third one and say so. Neither of the others publishes a price.
Read moreUK schools quote £40,000 to £50,000 for a PPL(H). The CAA minimum is 45 hours; the British average is 60 to 90, and almost all of that gap is the hover. We sell helicopters, so we will say what it buys - and we sell gyroplanes, so we will also say that the UK has a second rotorcraft licence at £8,500 that most people weighing this have never heard of.
Read moreOn 24 July 2026 the FAA’s MOSAIC rule created something American aviation had never had: a way to certificate a factory-built two-seat gyroplane. Until then a sport pilot could only fly one built as amateur experimental. It changes no UK rule at all - we still have BCAR Section T, 600 kg and the PPL(G) - but it opens the largest general aviation market on earth to the factories, and that changes what gets built next.
Read moreGyroplanes on floats exist and fly, and the aircraft suits water better than an aeroplane does - the hard part of operating off water is the run, and the run is what a gyroplane needs least of. Why floats and skis are on Manufaktura Lotnicza’s list of intentions, the 600 kg problem that decides it, and where the idea stands today.
Read moreThe biggest real disadvantage of a gyroplane is that most of them are open to the weather - you dress for it, you wear goggles, and the flight lasts as long as you can stand rather than as long as the fuel. Early cars were the same until somebody built the roof. Open against enclosed, the disadvantages a roof does not fix, and where to buy a fully enclosed one in the UK.
Read moreThree different emergencies, not one - loss of drive, loss of control, and loss of tail rotor effectiveness - and what each leaves the pilot with. Plus why the propeller on the back of a gyroplane is not a tail rotor at all, and why an engine failure gives a helicopter pilot two seconds and a gyroplane pilot none to spare.
Read moreAbout two and a half hours on internal fuel, and about two for the police helicopters over British cities - which is why the National Police Air Service bought four aeroplanes to fly beside its nineteen helicopters. The figures from our own flight manuals, why a gyroplane doubles it, and why the pair beats either one.
Read moreYour Tesla steers itself on a road full of things that will kill you. Our Sling TSi and ARGON GTL steer themselves where none of that exists. What the two autopilots actually do, why nobody in the sky is having a bad day at your expense, and the arithmetic of lunch in France - 35 minutes in the air against four hours of road each way.
Read moreThree answers to owning an aircraft. The Sling and the ARGON share an engine - ROTAX 916 iS - and a Garmin panel with autopilot. The ARGON and the Cirrus share a cabin you would happily sit in for hours. Nobody shares the price. An honest comparison from a dealer who also owns the Sling, including where we lose.
Read moreSagres, Lagos, Alvor, Portimao, Carvoeiro, Benagil, Armacao de Pera, Albufeira, Vilamoura, Silves and Tavira - thirteen places along the Algarve coast and what each one actually looks like from a thousand feet. Half an hour covers the western end; the full hour reaches Benagil and Albufeira. No licence, no experience, and the flight is logged towards a pilot licence.
Read moreBoth are the affordable end of British aviation, and a microlight is cheaper to buy. The gyroplane earns its money back in flyable days: it cannot stall, it is far calmer in rough air, and it needs almost no runway. An honest comparison, including where the microlight wins.
Read more£125,000 to £165,000 to buy, about £35 an hour in fuel and servicing, 40 hours for the UK licence, and it lands in a field. A gyrocopter’s rotor is turned by the air flowing through it rather than by the engine, which is why it cannot stall and why an engine failure does not stop the rotor. What they are, what they cost, and what you need to fly one in Britain.
Read moreAll 38 exercises of the UK gyrocopter licence, stage by stage, from the CAA’s own Standards Document 44. What each stage asks of you, why seven of the 38 are takeoffs and landings, and where first solo actually falls - Ex 32, after every emergency exercise.
Read moreA little over 5 hours and about 470 miles in an ARGON GTL, worked from the flight manual: 116 usable litres at 23 an hour. Plus the numbers nobody publishes - the 20-litre takeoff minimum, what full tanks cost you in payload, and the planning figure to actually use.
Read moreOrdinary unleaded from a filling station, not avgas: MOGAS EN 228, minimum RON 95, no more than 10% ethanol. What that means at a British pump where standard unleaded is E10, why super unleaded is the safer buy, and what an hour in the air costs in fuel.
Read moreFrom £220,000 excluding taxes and delivery for the AH-22, and why the AH-23 and AH-24 are quoted against your configuration. Plus the manufacturer’s own operating-cost breakdown: about £97 per flying hour at 150 hours a year, falling to £76 at 500.
Read moreFrom £165,000 excluding taxes and delivery, to about £202,000 fully specified - what moves the number, what the from-price includes, and about £35 per flying hour to keep it flying on ordinary PB 95 petrol.
Read moreIntensively, about four weeks of flying - roughly 10 hours in five days - against six months to a year of British weekends. And how to split the course into two trips: the three CAA validity windows that decide what goes in which half.
Read moreThe Serra de Monchique shelters the Algarve from the cold northerlies, leaving 450-550 mm of rain a year on the coast against 1,200 in the hills. Why wind is not the problem people fear, why thermals are not the constraint people assume, what to see between flights - and why a hire car for the week costs about £100.
Read moreThe full price of a UK PPL(G), line by line: from £190 per flying hour, from about £8,500 for the whole course or £5,600 if you already fly - plus the £5,000 solo bond most schools never mention up front.
Read moreWhat learning to fly a gyrocopter looks like in 2026: street clothes, a Kanardia glass panel, a turbocharged engine - and the spot landing that makes gyros special, on video.
Read moreReal photos of a gyrocopter pre-rotator ring gear eaten by careless engagement. How pre-rotation works, why 40 training hours beat 15, why it won't hurt you in flight - and why it can strand you far from home.
Read moreA Flight Training News columnist asked it in 1999 and walked away. We answer it today: gyrocopter training cost vs helicopters, safety in turbulence, PPL(G) hours, and why every obstacle from 1999 is gone.
Read moreBehind the scenes at AERO Friedrichshafen, the world's leading general aviation show: the ARGO AH helicopter and ARGON gyroplanes arrive in the halls - right next to the Airbus stand.
Read moreThe ARGON 915 iS in focus: a light, agile two-seat gyroplane with a monocoque carbon cabin, ROTAX 915 iS engine, a 150-170 km/h cruise, 360-degree visibility and a Garmin G3X cockpit. From £125,000.
Read moreBCAR-T is the CAA's gold standard for gyroplane manufacture and the gateway to UK registration. What Factory Approval and full type certification mean - and where the ARGON GTL stands on that path.
Read moreThe ARGON GTL in depth: 600 kg MTOW, a 916 iS engine, up to 5 hours in the air, a cubic metre of luggage space and a Garmin G3X cockpit - the first true Grand Turismo gyroplane.
Read moreYes, in the way that matters most: a gyrocopter is already in autorotation, so an engine failure is not an emergency. No stall, no spin, no tail rotor. More than 150 ARGONs have flown over 27,350 hours with no fatal accident reported by the manufacturer - and an honest answer on whether gyrocopters are safer than helicopters.
Read moreGyrocopter prices in the UK, published by the dealer rather than estimated: a new factory-built ARGON from £125,000, the GTL from £165,000, used from about £45,000, and around £35 an hour to fly. Plus the lines people forget - insurance, hangarage, the annual and the overhaul reserve.
Read moreArgo Aero's intensive gyroplane training in the Algarve: an exclusive ultralight airfield with a hard runway and little traffic, flying weather all year, two hours of flying back to back each day, a Class 2 medical to arrange first, accommodation sorted - and a flight tracing the Algarve F1 circuit from the air.
Read moreIn France you can be flying a gyroplane after about 15 hours; the UK asks for 40. The difference is what you learn - including landing a gyro like a helicopter, on one spot.
Read moreOne question decides it: do you need to hover? We are the UK dealer for both aircraft, so these are our own published figures - an ARGON GTL at £165,000 and £89.11 a flying hour against an ARGO AH-22 at £220,000 and £97.23. Nine per cent apart per hour, not the several-fold gap people assume.
Read moreThe whole PPL(G) route, taken from the CAA's own Standards Document 44 rather than summarised: 40 hours of which 15 dual and 10 solo in gyroplanes, 38 exercises, five written papers at 75%, the FRTOL and a General Flying Test. Including the part that surprises people - first solo comes about two thirds of the way through, not at the end.
Read moreManufaktura Lotnicza, maker of the hand-built ARGON GTL gyrocopter, has officially achieved CAA A8-21 Factory Approval - a vital milestone towards full BCAR-T certification and deliveries to UK customers.
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