Originally based in Wylie, Texas, Air Command International is an American manufacturer of FAR Part 103 gyroplane kit aircraft.
The company’s inaugural offering, 1984’s single-seat, Air Command Commander, was a tremendous success, with over two-thousand kits being shipped during the machine’s 19-year production run. Subsequent models included the Air Command Commander Elite, which was alternately supplied as a kit for amateur construction and a conversion kit for its Commander forebear; and the two-seat Air Command Commander Side-By-Side, an unusual gyroplane featuring a two-seat open cockpit, tricycle landing-gear, and a 115-horsepower Subaru EJ22 powerplant.
In 2016, Air Command International was purchased by Joe Covelli, who moved the company to River Falls, Wisconsin and promptly set about designing and developing a new, single-seat inheritor to the Commander legacy.
The inchoate machine, known as the Air Command International Integrity, sports a spartan-but-robust airframe, a tricycle undercarriage, and a decidedly al fresco pilot station, the amenities and environmental system of which consist entirely of the pilot’s wardrobe.
What the Integrity lacks in creature-comforts, however, it more than compensates for by way of a remarkable powerplant, excellent performance, and outstanding fuel-economy.
Among myriad improvements to the original Commander design, Covelli et al. have made noteworthy strides in adapting a 1000cc four-stroke Polaris engine indigenous to the Minnesota-based power-sports icon’s RZR ATV to aeronautical application. The water-cooled, normally-aspirated, electronically fuel-injected mill makes a reasonable 85-horsepower and a stunning four-hundred-pounds of thrust—the latter by dint of a 68-inch Warp Drive pusher-propeller. Plans are reportedly in the works to produce additional engine options; a one-hundred-horsepower, normally-aspirated powerplant and a 140-horsepower, turbo-charged motor, both deriving of extant Polaris architectures.
The 85-horsepower Polaris engine by which Air Command International’s Integrity gyroplane is powered runs at eight-thousand RPM and incorporates a Rotax E Box re-drive as well as an adapter purpose-designed-and-built by Air Command senior design-engineer Keith LeMire.
All told, Air Command International anticipates Integrity kits—which include engines and rotor-blades—will commence shipping in 2024’s second-quarter. Prospective owners should be prepared to part with $35,000.
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