Wisconsin Company Targets Q2 2024 Customer Ship Date
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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