Gov. Norm Bangerter visited the Hawk Autogyro factory, 1784 W. 500 South, last week and congratulated the two men who are behind the firm, Jay and David Groen, for their enterprise and ingenuity.
The Groen brothers, both Vietnam War veterans, have been business partners in several companies over the past 15 years.Last October, the Utah Technology Finance Corp., a quasi-government organization that lends money to promising Utah companies, lent the Groens' company $50,000 to help them design and develop a rotor- blade system that lifts and propels their Hawk Autogyros.
Along with state officials and representatives of law enforcement agencies and the military, Bangerter toured the plant and heard David Groen, a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, explain the vehicles his company is producing.
"This is the kind of thing we need to see happening in Utah - home-grown businesses with enormous potential. I'm happy the state has been able to help your company," the governor said.
Law enforcement officials said they believe the autogyro - which is a heavier-than-air craft supported in the air by a rotor instead of by fixed wings - has promise for police surveillance work.
Military experts on the tour said the Hawk Autogyro has possibilities for military applications, especially in air-to-air combat, since it is much more maneuverable than helicopters, can fly faster than helicopters and can fly very slowly.
Jay Groen said he and his brother have test-flown the Hawk Autogyro and expect to have the first production models ready for sale this spring and will begin taking orders for the craft then.
He said the autogyro was invented by a Spaniard, Juan de la Cierva, in 1919. "It is different from an airplane or a helicopter. A propeller in the nose or in the rear, as in our Hawk Autogyro, moves it through the air like an airplane, but the craft has no wings.
"Instead, it has a rotor, like a helicopter, but the rotor is driven by air pressure and not by an engine.
"The Hawk Autogyro is under Federal Aviation Administration certification. It can take off vertically and, while flying, the rotor is disconnected from the engine, but the blades continue to revolve because of the air pressure against them."
Bangerter and others were told that the Hawk Autogyro is much easier to fly than a helicopter, can fly up to 160 miles per hour and has a service ceiling of 16,000 feet. It cannot hover in the air as a helicopter can, but it can descend almost straight down and can land in a small area.
David Groen said the Hawk Autogyro's superior pilot visability is made even more effective by the use of an optional nose-mounted forward-looking infrared camera. A television monitor in the cockpit can reveal people and objects below hidden from the naked eye.
In the near future, he said, the Hawk Autogyro will be available as a single-place, a two-place and a five-place gyroplane. Someday in the future, the company hopes to build autogyros as large as airline passenger planes.