PRA Chapter 5 News: October 1999

The next meeting of PRA Chapter 5 will be October 24, 1999 at 1 pm, Yuba County Airport, Marysville.
What a meeting we had last month! The room was full at Marysville with 20 in attendance. And almost half of those were new guests, sharing our interest in gyroplanes and checking out the club for the first time. Hopefully we'll see some of these folks return and get more involved in the months to come. Thank you guys for inviting and bringing guests out to our meetings. Keep it up!

This meeting was a week early on September 19th so that we could attend El Mirage the following weekend. Plans were finalized at the meeting and several were able to trailer their gyros down to the Fly-In. Reports from El Mirage have been positive. Troy had this to say:
Imagine flying for hours just a few feet from the ground. A real rush! There really was no point in flying higher since it took more power getting out of ground effect. There was no difference in depth perception at 100ft, and it was just too fun flying low."
But what about that FAA regulation about staying at least 500 feet from people and objects on the ground? That's a nice thing about the flat dry lake bed that is El Mirage: there are no objects on the ground to avoid! You can safely and legally fly low for miles. If you've never been, plan to be there next year. Chapter 5 is going to have a group fly-in next time, all the way from northern California. Let's leave our trailers at home and enjoy flying through the air instead of driving those restrictive roads!

PRA5 at El Mirage '99
PRA5 at El Mirage '99, Left to Right: Mark, Joe, Troy, Tom, George.

Last month we read an update on George's Boanerges. Still in its Phase I test flight hours, George requested an additional test flight area at El Mirage and it was granted by our friends at the FAA. So George also got to fly at the El Mirage and has written another excellent article which should appear in an upcoming issue of Rotorcraft. I don't want to spoil it, but here is just a teaser excerpt from George's El Mirage Diary:
At the first reddening of the eastern sky Mark Givans pushed his machine over the no-spin line for early departure. His start was interrupted by McCulloch roar from the Brock hangar, as Ken began his wakeup call. The full moon provided enough light for a single gyro, but not enough for a crowd. Mark had the entire moonlit lakebed to himself as the rest of us waited for sufficient light and that first jolt of coffee. After sunup I set forth to cavort with other bandits. Troy's machine had been outfitted with a videocam mount, and a starring role was in prospect. Joe Souza's HKS-powered bandit performed every bit as well as its Subaru-driven stablemates, and we flitted about for some time to capture these antics on videotape. Alas, the videocam had been set on "telephoto" and most of the footage showed sky or ground rather than gyroplanes.
In other news, the Marysville Airport is already making plans for the big event next year. With over 6000 in attendance this time, the Air Expo was successful and next year should be another hit. Joe is going to look into barbeque and tent/awning options and prices for us. As a club, we need to think about how to pay for these things. Perhaps we will sell T-shirts at the show or come up with other fundraisers before then. Any ideas here are welcome.

A few quick project updates:

PRA Chapter 5 meetings are regularly scheduled for the 4th Sunday of the month at 1pm unless they need to be rescheduled. Upcoming events include: Enclosed is the current Chapter 5 mailing list for your reference. If you're reading on-line, I can send it to you by E-mail instead and copies will be available at the meetings. Please send any calendar and list corrections or updates to me, Tim Witham. See you on the 24th at Marysville!

Join PRA PRA Chapter 5 Newsletters are also available on-line at: http://www.quiknet.com/~twitham/gyro/pra5/

Timothy D. Witham <twitham@quiknet.com>
Last modified: Sat Oct 16 20:45:11 PDT 1999