Free ground school prep
Gyroplane ground school prep
Walk into your first lesson already knowing the words. 22 lessons with diagrams and quizzes, free, with an account.
This is prep, not a certificated ground school
Gyrocopters.com is an independent reference site. We hold no training approval from any civil aviation authority, we issue no endorsements, and nothing here counts toward a certificate or rating. There is no graduation certificate and no logbook entry at the end. This site is run by Sean Hakes, who holds a Private Pilot, 14 CFR Part 61 certificate. That is a pilot certificate, not a flight instructor certificate.
What it is: the ground knowledge, taught in order, so the expensive hours you buy from a real instructor go on flying rather than on vocabulary. Where anything here disagrees with your aircraft flight manual or your instructor, they are right and we are wrong. Find the real thing in our training directory.
What is inside
22 lessons, about 157 minutes of reading, and 66 quiz questions. Each lesson is taught in steps, with diagrams drawn for the lesson, and ends with a quiz that tells you why an answer was wrong, not just that it was.
- Written from the FAA's own public-domain handbooks.
- Diagrams for the things a paragraph cannot teach.
- Your progress is saved, so you can stop and come back.
Create a free account to start
The course is free. An account exists so your progress and quiz scores are saved against you and are still there next time. No payment, and you can work through it at your own pace.
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The curriculum
Seven units built against the FAA's own standards: the aeronautical knowledge areas of 14 CFR 61.309 and the ground-knowledge tasks of the Sport Pilot Gyroplane practical test standards (FAA-S-8081-29A). The aircraft, the rules, the weather, operations, navigation and planning, emergencies, and judgement. Work through it in order; each lesson also stands alone.
The gyroplane itself
- How the rotor really works Autorotation, why a gyroplane cannot stall like an airplane, and the two rotor mistakes that actually matter.
- Engines, fuel and instruments The Rotax engines that power most modern gyroplanes, carburetor ice, fuel discipline, and the gauges that matter.
- Weight and balance The computation every pilot signs up to: weight times arm, moments summed, and a centre of gravity that must land inside the envelope.
- Rotor principles for the checkride Flapping, coning, dissymmetry of lift, load factor and the downwind-turn trap: the rotor theory the examiner picks three of.
Rules and airspace
- US airspace, class by class What the letters mean, roughly where each class sits, and which ones a sport pilot needs an endorsement to enter.
- Sport pilot privileges and limits What a sport pilot certificate lets you do, what it does not, and what changed under the MOSAIC rule.
- Certificates, documents and airworthiness The papers the examiner asks for first: what must be aboard the aircraft, what must be current on you, and how to tell an aircraft is legally fit to fly.
- Special use airspace, TFRs and NOTAMs The airspace that is not on the wedding cake: restricted and prohibited areas, MOAs, temporary flight restrictions, and the notices that warn you.
Weather
- Weather and the decision not to fly The handful of weather numbers that decide a gyroplane flight, and how to set a personal limit before you are standing at the hangar.
- Reading a METAR The coded weather report every pilot checks before flying, decoded field by field until it reads like a sentence.
- Weather that kills flights: fronts, storms and shear The weather theory behind the go/no-go call: stability, fronts, the life of a thunderstorm, and wind shear.
Airport operations
- Crosswind components How the wind splits into a part that helps you and a part you fly against, and how to size up each in your head.
- Airports and runway numbers Why runways are numbered the way they are, how the traffic pattern works, and the difference between a towered and a non-towered field.
- Radio calls at a non-towered field The self-announce pattern that keeps everyone in the circuit aware of everyone else, and the one sentence shape every call uses.
- Seeing and avoiding traffic The scan that actually finds traffic, the right-of-way rules, and staying out of the invisible wake of heavier aircraft.
- Ground procedures: preflight to runup The walkaround, briefing your passenger, starting safely, taxiing with a rotor, and the before-takeoff check.
- Runway markings, signs and lights The painted lines, coloured signs and lights that organise an airport, and the hold-short discipline that prevents runway incursions.
Navigation and planning
- Reading a sectional chart The VFR map: airport symbols, the colour code for airspace, and navigating by pilotage and dead reckoning.
- Planning a flight, start to finish Runway numbers, performance, fuel with a real reserve, the briefing, and the alternate you pick before you need it. Plus what the NTSB requires if things go wrong.
Emergencies
Judgement
- Fit to fly: aeromedical basics The IMSAFE self-check, why altitude and dehydration sneak up on open-cockpit pilots, and the honest self-grounding call.
- Aeronautical decision making PAVE, DECIDE, and the five hazardous attitudes: the structured judgement that separates old pilots from bold ones.
Reference modules
Longer reading, open to everyone, no account needed. Modules marked as an outline have a scope and a source list but no body text yet: they get written when the cited source has actually been read, not before.
- How a gyroplane flies Autorotation, the driving and driven regions, why forward airspeed matters and what happens when the engine stops.
- Reading a listing and a logbook What airframe hours, time since overhaul, airworthiness directives and liens actually mean when you are looking at an aircraft to buy.
How to become a gyroplane pilot · Find an instructor · Glossary of terms
