Hi Pitts
Feel free to give any of us from GTE a call or drop us an email if you have any questions.
To answer your points above:
The first is according to a point made elsewhere on the same site you can't
rent a Gyrocopter so does that mean all the hour building is done in a
machine the instructor owns?
In the UK gyros operate on a Permit To Fly, which precludes aerial work such as renting. We do have an exemption which allows instruction - so we can teach you on school aircraft and we can allow you to fly solo on school machines. Once you have qualified we cant rent you an aircraft - so you will have to do hour building on your own machine. There are moves afoot to allow us to rent out gyroplanes - we are hoping that we will be able to do so early in 2013.
Then secondly why is the ground school only available in the UK from this company? Surely there is a published course requirement and you could pass any required exam as per any other licence?
The training for an AFI(G) rating requires 40 hours of ground school. The Gyrocopter Experience is the only organisation providing this course at the moment. There is nothing stopping another suitably qualified provider from doing the work and delivering a course should they choose to do so.
I run The Gyrocopter Experience Salisbury, at Old Sarum airfield. Feel free to give me a call or drop in some time.
Steve