Passed Away On Father's Day

by ANN E-Media Producer Paul Plack

Aero-News recently learned Chuck Vanek, a pioneer in the development of small gyroplanes, and father of Sport Copter president Jim Vanek, passed away at the age of 86 on Father's Day, following a long illness.

Chuck had some aeronautical education in college, but chose a career as a police officer in Portland, OR. When he saw pictures of Dr. Igor Bensen's first Bensen Gyrocopter, with its frame built of heavy water pipe, he was inspired to explore his own designs.

By 1957, Chuck was flying the first Vancraft gyroplane over Scappoose, OR. By the following year, some friends were joining him. While Bensen quickly abandoned crude water pipe airframes in favor of bolted aluminum tubing, Vancraft machines were made of welded mild steel tube.

Like Bensen, Chuck Vanek used military surplus McCulloch two-stroke drone engines, still favored by some purists today for their power-to-weight ratio. Both Bensen and Vanek later used air-cooled, four-stroke Volkswagen automotive engines. The last Vancraft machines featured the two-stroke Rotax 503.

Where Bensen's designs grew from his experience as an engineer for General Electric, Vanek was pure amateur experimenter. Several Vancraft builders in the late 50s followed Chuck's lead into ducted fans, which were abandoned after weight and rigidity problems. One of Vanek's most outrageous creations, a "flying ring" powered-lift using the notoriously unreliable McCulloch driving a ducted fan, was successfully test-flown, but never developed further.

Vancraft introduced innovations common on today's small gyroplanes. To shorten takeoff roll, Chuck developed a hand-crank prerotator using a 90-degree gear set sourced from Maytag ringer-style washing machines, to allow safely initiating autorotation while strapped in the seat. Vanek was an early proponent of effective horizontal stabilizers on gyros, an idea Bensen and many other designers rejected.

When Bensen said in the 1960s that a two-place version of his Gyrocopter was not feasible, Vanek demonstrated a McCulloch-powered tandem version of the Vancraft, flying with his young son, Jim. Later, he developed a VW-powered tandem which performed well with two large adult passengers, and won EAA's Charles Lindbergh Award at Oshkosh in 1985.

Vanek's occasional one-upsmanship of Bensen got a chilly reception from some in the sport, especially within the Popular Rotorcraft Association (PRA), which began as the Bensen Owners Group. While Bensen's salesmanship and ubiquitous Popular Mechanics ads made his machine an icon for the sport, Vancraft remained primarily a Pacific Northwest phenomenon, despite production which briefly reached 30 per month in the mid-80s, just before Vancraft closed over Chuck's liability concerns.

Chuck's teenage son, Jim (shown above) was around his father's machines all his life, and by the 1980s was becoming a proficient machinist, designer, and pilot. Jim developed the tooling which enabled volume production of Vancraft gyroplanes. After Vancraft ended production, Jim moved forward with his own, new designs, opened Sport Copter after a three-year hiatus, and began sales of the single-place Vortex and Lightning in 1991.

Today, Sport Copter is also an original equipment manufacturer of bonded, aluminum, gyroplane rotor blades for other gyroplanes, as well as serving the aftermarket. The Sport Copter Super Sport, a sophisticated side-by-side, enclosed, two-place machine, will debut this summer at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh. The company is rapidly outgrowing its 12,000 square foot manufacturing facility at the Scappoose Industrial Airport on the Columbia River west of Portland, OR.

Chuck Vanek was honored as a "Gyroplane Pioneer," by New York's Hofstra University in April 2003. He is credited for his early contributions to gyroplane design and the development of the "flying ring" in Jane's All The World Book of Aircraft History.

A 1961 Vancraft Gyroplane, with its Maytag prerotator, is on permanent display at Oregon's Naval Air Station Tillamook, a former blimp base on the Oregon coast. From time to time, Vancraft machines still show up in for-sale ads. Enthusiasts say there are hundreds more sitting in barns, garages and basements across the Pacific Northwest.

And on the second Saturday of each month, at noon, in the Sport Copter hangar, members of The Great Northwest Sport Rotorcraft Association, PRA Chapter 73, meet to enjoy gyroplanes and remember the man they first saw fly one.

FMI: www.sportcopter.com