There is no doubt that flying can be an expensive hobby. If you’re looking to get into aviation on a very tight budget, I’m afraid you might run into difficulties.

But if you’re looking for the cheapest method of getting into the air, and maybe even owning your own plane, then you might want to consider looking at the latest generation of gyroplanes.

These rotorcraft are now at a point where they are one of the safest recreational aircraft on the market and have the added advantage of being cheaper to buy and operate than almost all other options.

A gyroplane like the Autogyro MTO Sport will burn only 15l per hour of unleaded petrol, giving them a range of around 4-500km.

As with any other aircraft, they require scheduled maintenance every 100 hours, but this will only set you back around $400.

All of this means that your direct operating costs for this exciting new aircraft are around $25 per hour. Add things like insurance, hangar and other incidentals and your costs are still well below those of a light aircraft or small helicopter.

And to top it all off, these planes are extremely easy to use, as the average novice pilot can solo their certification in around 30 hours of flight instruction. After this, you will need to log another 80 hours alone at the helm before you can take a passenger to fly with you.

The MTO Sport offers around 90% of the functionality of a small helicopter with its main limitation compared to a helicopter being the inability to take off vertically. But there are things you can do in a modern gyroscope that you just can’t do in a helicopter, so this balances it out.

A new MTO Sport costs around $87,000 AUD. Therefore, the operation and maintenance costs are not only much lower than a small helicopter like an R22, but they are also much cheaper to buy.

Flying an open cockpit gyro is an experience like no other. It has all the maneuverability (and more) of a sports plane, combined with the advantages of a rotary wing, in particular, the inability to stall.

And the autorotation principle combined with the best of German engineering gives you an extremely safe and reliable aircraft suitable for pilots of all levels.