The Bee is Back! GyroBee, that is.

"I didn't know it was gone." But the website for the popular open-source ultralight gyroplane was taken down by its designer, Dr. Ralph Taggart. The rest of Ralph's life had made it impossible for him to keep up with the site, so he reluctantly pulled the plug. 

For a less-loved project, that probably would have been the end. But GyroBee builder Kandace Rawlings reported the end of the site on the Rotary Wing Forum. And forum member Tim O'Connor swung into action, setting up the domain name www.TheGyroBee.com and hosting the site, initially with archived material retrieved from the Internet Archive. Ralph came through and sent the files to Tim, and the data will soon be live. Tim is hoping that a Bee enthusiast will step up as a site admin volunteer. 

The GyroBee is not important because it was an ultralight gyroplane or because it's a novel machine -- it owes a debt both to Bensen's original gyrocopter and to Martin Hollman's original Bumble Bee ultralight -- but because it was the first aviation project to use the open-source ethos and procedures from the software development world. In the long run, this may be seen as a much bigger development than it is today -- already, an open-source continuation of the Rutan Long-EZ, called (what else?) the Open-EZ, is in development by a team of enthusiasts, led by Jon Matcho of New Jersey. 

The open-source development model offers many advantages for experimental aviation. Most of these are the same ones it offers to software developers: flexibility, freedom, a from-each-according-to-his-ability ethos, credit where credit is due, massively parallel beta-testing and bug-tracking, and an ability to leverage a decentralized and wildly diverse development team. As the seminal document on open-source culture says, it is the free and chaotic give-and-take of the bazaar, not the top-down and rigid implementation of the cathedral. 

Open-source development offers another benefit that is, perhaps, peculiar to experimental aviation, and which is closely aligned with the reasons that Burt Rutan withdrew his Long-EZ, Defiant, and other designs from the plans market. It complicates the life of the ambulance-chasing plaintiff's attorney by presenting  him with an overbroad target array. Moreover, the majority of the targets have extremely shallow pockets, and their individual contributions to the project are de minimis, making them unattractive targets and, indeed, likely to be received by a jury with sympathy than the sharkskin-suited shark and his carefully coached client.

So, the GyroBee has demonstrated one of the traits of an open-source project: it can't be killed by a single developer's withdrawal (particularly when the developer still wishes the project well). The project, taking on a life of its own, routes around casualties. But to truly succeed as an open-source project, the Bee needs not only to survive, but to grow. Can you contribute? Building a Bee is a good way to start... find the documentation at www.TheGyroBee.com. 

(PS. Yes, aviation is a new category. Didn't seem like it really fit in Plane Porn, which was the closest thing I had... although there are some really sleek, hot Bees out there).