PRA Chapter 5 News: March 2000


George, Troy and Mark parked at Nut Tree, over 50 miles from their home airport!

Troy prepares to head back home

George's pre-rotator in action!

Mark climbs aboard his one-of-a-kind attention-grabbing Predator...

and takes the front seat for departure.

Now off to the runway, with blades spinning
The next meeting of PRA Chapter 5 will be March 26, 2000 at 1 pm, Yuba County Airport, Marysville.

Two Reports from One Awesome Cross-Country Flight

The Fourth of March was worth a special celebration this year for the Marysville coterie. Clear skies were promised to break the weeks and weeks of rain and wind; when Troy and Mark suggested breakfast in Woodland, I was delighted to join them. Sure enough, weather was clear, with only a bit of headwind.

Troy and I started first in our bandits, while Mark tarried with run-up and mag check; his predator had no trouble catching up and ultimately shooting way ahead, as it doesn't like to dawdle at our cruise of 55-60 mph. I had an easy time of navigation: both Troy and Mark had GPS units, and kept me apprised of distance to airport and ETA. Good thing, too, as the headwind was enough to require a full hour, and I'd've felt pretty uneasy if I'd been on dead reckoning, especially with the difficulty of consulting a paper map in an open frame machine.

Our flight of three gyros attracted the attention of an ag pilot below: he took a break from criss-crossing his field to zip up and salute Mark with a wing-waggle and a puff of payload. At Woodland we decided to take advantage of the fine weather and forget breakfast in favor of brunch in Vacaville.

Gary B. and Rod welcomed us at Nut Tree, and Gary chauffeured our contingent to a gourmet lunch at Wendy's, abbreviated because of the approach of a weather front from the west.

Gary snapped a few pictures with a digital camera to commemorate our visit, and mailed them over the Internet while we were still airborne towards MYV. The excursion was most pleasant: for me the first real flight of 2000.

George Atkinson

It was March 4, 2000, The first dry day that we have had in quite some time. Myself, Troy Taylor and George Atkinson all met at the Marysville Airport at approx. 8am. We did our pre-flights and by about 9:15am we were all airborne. This is to be the first cross-country flight for my Predator autogyro, and it was George's first as well. The skies that morning were partly sunny at best and the winds were out of the south at about 10 - 15 mph. As this was the first for the Predator we planed a stop at Woodland Airport just to look things over and to top off our fuel. In route to Woodland just after we crossed a large, rain swollen river we saw a crop duster down low dusting a field. We stayed a little east of were he was just to make sure we stayed out of his way. After we passed the area he was dusting I looked back to see were Troy and George were and here was this crop duster coming up to my right! I broke left a little just to make sure that he had seen me and he continued up till he was right along side. He then slowed to stay just off my right so I waived at him. He replied with a wave of his wings and then followed with a puff of smoke! (Turbine biplane crop duster with smoke system! Must be for when he gets bored with dusting crops!!) He then pealed off, down and to the right and went back to crop-dusting! We continued our journey to Woodland. Troy along the way decided to climb up to 1000 feet to see if the winds were any less at altitude but found they were worse. The GPS was showing us that at 500 feet we had a 15 mph head wind and at a 1000 feet it was up to 25 mph! The final approach into Woodland kept you on your toes until touchdown! Winds were about 15 mph at about a 30 degree cross to the runway! After we parked, we had the usual crowd that wants to know what they are, how they work, etc. (and some you could tell they thought you were nuts!). After fueling up I check my fuel burn and it was about 6 - 6.5 gph! Not bad for a Lycoming O-290! The trip from Marysville to Woodland took us 1hr to complete. We then took off for our destination, the Nut Tree Airport. We were still averaging a 40 - 45 mph ground speed while indicating 55-60 mph on the airspeed. When we got close to the Nut Tree I made the call asking for airport advisories and Bob Aspegren replied back (who was waiting to take off in a Beach T-34) that the winds were out of the south and down the runway at 15 gusting to about 20 mph. After parking we hitched a ride with Gary Brewer to the local burger establishment (Wendy's) and had lunch. Just after returning from lunch Gary received a phone call from Bob Lewis up at the Marysville Airport to tell us that the weather was not looking good and that we better head back as soon as possible. George and Troy topped their tanks and we were off. By now the winds were up to about a steady 20 mph and when we left we had just about the whole airport watching us leave. Bob Aspegren later told me that he had over heard one older gentleman talking with another saying that "That is the strangest looking aircraft that he had ever seen!" We then made a straight line shot back to Marysville. This time though we had the winds to our favor! We were now averaging an 80 mph ground speed while indicating 55-60 mph. The weather held and actually got better than when Bob had called and we arrived uneventfully back at Marysville a quick 40 minutes later! Well we all had a great time! (Although when we got to the Nut Tree Troy had to get new batteries for his electric socks so he wouldn't get cold on the way home!) The Predator gyro flew Great! It handled the winds and the thermals fantastically! I can't wait for more sunny weather to do the next one! Hopefully we will have even more gyro's going! Well see you all at the next club meeting!! Fly Safe!!!

Mark Givans

Spring is here, time to get your rotors spinning! Thanks for the reports guys, what a great way to enjoy the improving weather! Something tells me we'll have more fun-filled weekends of flying coming up. Here are some specific upcoming events, both near to home and far away: The February meeting was held on the 27th at Nut Tree. Bob and Gary somehow got some flying in before the meeting and between the drizzling rains. Attendance was a little low from the weather, but the meeting still took an hour! That's OK, it's always a good time talking gyros, especially on a rainy day when you can't be flying one.

After the meeting we moved our hangar flying to the hangars. The rain paused enough to let Gary fire up his new P-tipped Prince propeller. Compared to the original blunt-tipped Warp Drive, this prop is silent! OK, maybe not silent, but the noise reduction is amazing. Gary is getting similar performance out of it too. Also at Nut Tree, the Brewer Special has now flown and Bob's Continental powered Bandit Pro has taxied and is getting closer to flying. Next month we're back at Marysville and will report from the biggest hangar full of gyros in Northern (or all of?) California. See you there!

PRA Chapter 5 meetings are regularly scheduled for the 4th Sunday of the month at 1pm unless they need to be rescheduled. The next meeting is March 26, 2000: Yuba County Airport, 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: Sun Mar 19 15:35:22 PST 2000