Very Sad

[Jonvee]

************************************************** ******************************
** Report created 10/1/2004 Record 1 **
************************************************** ******************************

IDENTIFICATION
Regis#: UNREG Make/Model: EXP Description: EXP GYRO-COPTER
Date: 09/30/2004 Time: 2037

Event Type: Accident Highest Injury: Fatal Mid Air: N Missing: N
Damage: Unknown

LOCATION
City: ITHACA State: NY Country: US

DESCRIPTION
UNREGISTERED GYROCOPTER LANDED HARD ONTO A PRIVATE STRIP, THE ONE PERSON ON
BOARD WAS FATALLY INJURED, 5 MILES SW OF ITHACA, NY

INJURY DATA Total Fatal: 1
# Crew: 1 Fat: 1 Ser: 0 Min: 0 Unk:
# Pass: 0 Fat: 0 Ser: 0 Min: 0 Unk:
# Grnd: Fat: 0 Ser: 0 Min: 0 Unk:

WEATHER: KITH 301956Z 33007KT 10SM BKN022 KNC040 15/11 A3008



OTHER DATA
Activity: Unknown Phase: Landing Operation: General Aviation

Departed: UNK Dep Date: Dep. Time:
Destination: UNK Flt Plan: UNK Wx Briefing: U
Last Radio Cont: UNK
Last Clearance: UNK

FAA FSDO: ROCHESTER, NY (EA23) Entry date: 10/01/2004

[Friendly]

I agree it is sad. God Bless his survivors with peace and acceptance

[Jonvee]

From NewsChannel 36;

A day of flying lessons ends tragically. An aircraft crash in the Tompkins County Town of Enfield leaves one man dead.

The Sheriff's Department tells us 79-year old Gordon Arquit of Cayuga Heights was teaching himself how to fly his gyrocopter at a privately owned airstrip on Mecklenburg Road/Route 79.

The property owner says Arquit arrived around 4 pm to practice flying. He realized he couldn’t hear the aircraft on the airstrip and went to investigate and found that Arquit’s aircraft had crashed on the runway.

Captain Mark Dresser says they are awaiting feedback from other agencies such as the FAA for further investigation.

[PW_Plack]

If every accident is a result of a chain of bad decisions, the first couple links jump out of this report. I feel bad for his family, but lets hope someone considering self-training in an illegal machine, unsupervised at a remote airport, finds this on the database and takes note.

Interesting that the report lists it as an "unregistered experimental." In the fatal crash recently of a 330-pound unregistered fixed-wing near Portland two years ago, the FAA chose to call it an "ultralight." There's no investigation required that way.

[Doug Riley]

Paul, Gordon was not some fool teaching himself. He took lessons from me in AEROTEC's 2-place Dominator briefly last fall and more intensively this summer. He had a limited signoff to transition to single-place. The signoff authorized him to fly a stable ultralight gyro over the runway only, with no crosswind and max 10 mph headwind. I urged him to bring the machine here for the transition, but he didn't have a trailer.

He was friendly, intelligent and generous man, 79 years young (I would never have guessed his age had he not told me). He Emailed me recently to say that had done several sessions (post-signoff) in his 1-place, with and without blades. I called him to remind him to take the process very slowly and to taxi for awhile without blades. He said he was already flying with the blades over the runway. He wasn't that pleased with the quality of his landings, but would continue practicing. He said he would take the process very slowly. He was an experienced FW pilot (maybe 3000 hours) and had the cautious good judgment you'd expect of such a person. I'm at a loss to explain this accident.

[PW_Plack]

Doug and all, my apologies for the erroneous conclusion. In any subject area requiring technical expertise, the media often gets it wrong. "Teaching himself to fly" is hardly an accurate way to describe a student doing approved solos, any more than "teaching himself algebra" accurately describes a student doing homework.

Doug, do you know why the machine wasn't registered?

[Dean_Dolph]

I found after reading this that I had mixed emotions. Sadness because another gyro pilot had been lost. Anger that the gyro rep had taken another hit and that self teaching was a factor. Thankfully Doug has cleared that part up. Then I had to smile thinking that a 79 year old guy was not being a victim of his age and was still pursuing and geting some enjoyment out of living. There is inspiration here, folks.

[Doug Riley]

My reply to Paul hasn't popped up here, so here's the gist of it: I never got to see Gordon's machine. I understand that it was a basic Dominator, with no pod and a Rotax 503. To many gyro people, such a machine is an "ultralight" by virtue of its stripped-down configuration and its likely handling qualities -- though it's not Part 103-legal unless it meets the weight, fuel tank size and other specs in the regulation. The FAA may be calling it an "experimental" based on excessive fuel capacity or precise weight (or because the local rep doesn't know that a gyro can be an ultralight).

[Rando]

http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?ContentBlockID=ffc26aa8-f2c7-4f22-b6e6-ea22553d8589&Dynamic=1&Range=NOW&FromDate=10%2F04%2F2004&ToDate=10%2F04%2F2004&Category=%2Findex.cfm

[Doug Riley]

That sneering Aero News article is obnoxious to all of us -- as well as utterly disrespectful to the very likeable and responsible Mr. Gordon. It's also inaccurate... and not only in that it pictures a lowrider Air Command while Gordon flew a light Dominator. I wish people would hold their tongues until they know the facts. Triple hearsay isn't fact.

The Ithaca Journal (available online) reported today (10/4) that, per the coroner, Gordon died of heart failure. He had had bypass surgery in the past.

As I posted earlier, Gordon had taken powered dual instruction and had demonstrated both good judgment and adequate skill to transition to his single-place machine. Again, he was not "teaching himself to fly," he was merely getting the feel of a lighter version of the model of machine he'd already trained in. He was a methodical "achiever" who held himself to high standards and roundly criticized his own performance when it didn't meet his expectations.

I will miss him and remember fondly our shared love of fiddle music as well as aviation.

[Rando]

Ultralight pilot died doing what he loved

MICHELE REAVES
Journal Staff

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ITHACA -- Gordon Arquit couldn't ignore his love for flying.

He had been a pilot for more than 50 years, his son, Kevin, said Sunday. The Cayuga Heights resident spent years flying his private airplane back and forth from his job in New Jersey to Ithaca, where he owned a home.

"In his retirement, he became very active in the Civil Air Patrol," Kevin Arquit said.

A major in the patrol, which is a U.S. Air Force Auxiliary group, Gordon Arquit went on search and rescue missions in the Adirondack Mountains.

But it was Tompkins County Sheriff's deputies that were brought to search the remains of Gordon Arquit's ultralight aircraft last Thursday evening. The gyrocopter went down at a private airstrip on Route 79 in Enfield.

"He lived to fly," Kevin Arquit said. "He went doing what he loved doing."

Gordon Arquit, 79, died of heart failure while running his gyrocopter up and down the runway, Kevin Arquit said of a coroner's report.
The funeral will be held in North Lawrence, N.Y. A memorial service by the Veterans of Foreign Wars office in Ithaca will be held at a date yet to be determined.

Arquit's work in the Navy during World War II was unknown to his son until recent years, Kevin Arquit said. His job was to send signals to German torpedoes and send them off course.

"My dad never talked about any of this with me," Kevin Arquit said. "He'd start giving me these books on World War II and spies. I finally asked him why."

Gordon Arquit told him: "That's what I did during the war."

After the war, Gordon Arquit returned to school and earned a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Cornell University in 1952. He stayed in Ithaca as a postdoctoral student until 1956 to work with 1936 Nobel Prize winner Peter J. W. Debye, a professor in Cornell's chemistry department.

Then for the next 30 years, Gordon Arquit worked as a chemist and later executive vice president for British Oxygen Corp. in New Jersey.

After retirement, he turned to his love for flying and music to fill his time.

"Where most people would be throwing in the towel, he was just getting going," said Johnny Russo, leader of the Johnny Russo East Hill Classic Jazz Band. "I met him about 20 years ago as he was retiring. I was playing someplace and he's quite a music fan and introduced himself."

Gordon Arquit asked Russo to recommend a banjo teacher. The two remained friends and Arquit joined the band on occasion to play for special events, Russo said.

Russo also went flying with Arquit, while he owned a small plane kept at the Tompkins County Regional Airport.

"The time he took my son and I up it was quite a thrill," Russo said.

The musician added that Arquit liked to take children for rides.

"When he was little he wanted to fly and he went out to the airport and these pilots would always be taking off but no one offered to give him a ride," Russo said. "So, he often took kids up for rides."

But after having bypass surgery, Arquit could not renew his pilot's license and sold his plane, Russo said.

He discovered gyrocopters --which can be flown without a license -- and found a new way to return to the skies.

Kevin Arquit said his father bought the gyrocopter earlier this year and had been going to the Enfield airstrip every day, when the weather was nice. He had also been taken flying lessons in Burlington, Vt.

Gordon Arquit is survived by his wife, Nora, his son, Kevin, his daughters Candace Martel and Christine Arquit, eight grandchildren and several other family members and friends.

Contact: mreaves@ithaca.gannett.com

Email this story

[PW_Plack]

Randy, thanks. Fills in most of the gaps.

Under the current language, he would not have been eligible for Sport Pilot, having been denied a medical in the past.

[Chopper Reid]

It was an unfortunate accident but what a lovely story about a fellow who loved to fly and his life. To be still actively flying at 79 is a tribute to the love of being free to fly .

[bones]

I agree with you on that chopper thats the way i want to go, if i have to go may it be doing something that i love.

[Hognose]

That sneering Aero News article is obnoxious to all of us -- as well as utterly disrespectful to the very likeable and responsible Mr. Gordon. It's also inaccurate... and not only in that it pictures a lowrider Air Command while Gordon flew a light Dominator.

Doug, and all --

I wrote that Aero-News article based on the initial reports. The major screw-up is mine. I also wrote the line that the editor separated out as an editor's note. As I wrote it:

(Readers are reminded that this report is based on media reports and FAA preliminaries. These initial reports have sometimes been inaccurate in the past).

I did not send any artwork with my submission, and the editor, Peter Combs, who has never seen a gyro up close, I think, added the illustrations, and also the subhead: "All Indications Are It Doesn't Work As Advertised -- And In Some Cases, Is Deadly". I cringed to see those changes just now when I looked at the note online. (I have been traveling from Mojave to my home near Boston so have been off the net till now). But not as much as I cringe when I read the Ithaca Journal article, which was sent to me by an Aero-News reader in New Zealand (!), and in the process of writing a correction I looked into RotaryForum and see your comments in this thread.

I didn't write the subhead (which you could legitimately call "sneering") but I did write the erroneous title (Self-Instruction Ends in Tragedy) and these lines: "This report stands as a stark reminder that, Dr Bensen's claims to the contrary, you can't simply teach yourself to fly a gyroplane." As an instructor I am confident that you agree with this line in general, but as a journalist I can assure you that having heard from you it was terribly misplaced in this article.

Aero-News Article (the other link is bad)
http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?ContentBlockID=ffc26aa8-f2c7-4f22-b6e6-ea22553d8589&Dynamic=1&Range=NOW&FromDate=10%2F03%2F2004&ToDate=10%2F05%2F2004&Category=%2Findex.cfm

As I said, I am in the process of writing a correction. Doug, and anyone that knew Mr Arquit, please contact me at 617 335-0301 (cell phone -- not too reliable) or by email kevin at network impossible dot com (the stuff between @ and . is one word). I would like your permission to quote your comments on Mr Arquit in my correction.

Guys, I did it. I was wrong. That's the bottom line. Now I have to fix it.

cheers

-=K=-

[Doug Riley]

Kevin, since you're one of us and (I presume) a fellow Celt to boot, we'll have to cut you some slack. I thought from the article that we'd been blind-sided by that species of narrow-minded FW jerk who trashes gyros based on 30-year-old hearsay (and maybe some envy). Maybe that gratuitously snotty sub-headline IS from such a source. It really was uncalled-for.

Your caution against haphazard self-training is always appropriate. I guess the rumor that this incident was just that started with the airport owner, who couldn't be expected to know all the facts.

I don't categorically condemn self-training as a theory. That would make me an obvious hypocrite. I do think that Bensen's method, followed to the letter, involves an enormous effort and time investment that are impractical for many people. Skipping any of the steps does put you in unacceptable danger.

I imagine Gordon's family will appreciate the correction. Gordon was a good guy and a responsible, competent pilot whose loss was nobody's fault (not even his own). Thanks!

P.S.: I understand that what I post here is public, so it's OK to quote my stuff if you like.

[Hognose]

No, it's worse -- you were blindsided by a fellow gyro guy who went off at half-cock. I think you guys imagine how bad I feel. *I know* how crummy most press coverage of aviation is -- I just watched a USA Today reporter write an article that had *nothing* in common with the actual spaceflight that she and I just witnessed -- so you can imagine how dumb it was of me to report on a gyro accident on *just* a TV News report, passed to us by email, and the FAA preliminaries, which every day has at least one complete howler in it. So it feels pretty bad to be part of the problem, not the solution.

I was trying to cover a news story in the East while covering one in the West, and I got cocky, and we know where you get with "cocky": you either get a scare or a painful lesson.

Doug, if it was you that called me just now (no caller ID, like from a business switch phone), I am sorry the phone doesn't work indoors here. (It used to... time to change providers I guess). If anybody calls me at that number, hang on for ten or fifteen seconds while I go outdoors.

I will post the correction here when I send it to the eds. That way it will always be available (the Aero-News archive is like the impenetrable jungles of the Congo when you want to find something).

cheers

-=K=-

[Mayfield]

I greatly appreciate your taking a stand on accuracy.

You are doing "what is right." In my few years of existance on this planet I have learned that we must always strive to do what is right. It is not always easy.

What is easy, however, is to identify "right." If I have to ask myself "is this right?" I already know the answer. Apparently you feel the same way.

Regards,

Jim

[Hognose]

Correction, as submitted. Editors may alter. It may take some time going up, because the editor (Pete Combs) is sick, and the E-I-C, Jim Campbell, is traveling. I will note here when they publish it. Normally I wouldn't release unedited text of a story, but in this case the memory of Dr Arquit deserves justice.

The publisher and editors are concerned about the impact this correction has on readers perception of our service. I am concerned about the impact failing to publish a correction will have. We'll see how it all breaks out, in time.

Gordon Arquit Gyro Mishap -- Correction
Or, We Thought We Had Information We Could Trust
------------------------------------------------
by Kevin 'Hognose' O'Brien

One of the Best Things about writing for Aero-News is that we are aviation-savvy, generally, but when we mess up, we have the very best fact-checkers in the world: our readers. There are times, like after our recent story on the death of Dr Gordon Arquit in an apparent gyroplane accident, that we need them. Almost every fact in that article, apart from the essential points that Mr Arquit is dead and his gyro wrecked, is wrong. Ouch.

That article was not bylined, but I wrote the bulk of it, and minor editorial alterations did not add significantly to the errors. Therefore, I'm the guy that owes all of you, but especially the memory of Gordon Arquit, a correction.


How We Learned We Were Wrong

Recently, John Baran of Auckland, New Zealand (isn't the net wonderful?) sent us emaiil directing us to an Ithaca (NY) Journal article (isn't the, etc.?) about Gordon Arquit's death in a gyro accident. As the Aero-News "gyro guy" I wrote our article (and also, the editorial disclaimer attached, that the information was from preliminary reports, which are often inaccurate).

According to the Journal, quoting Arquit's son, Kevin Arquit, who in turn was quoting a coroner's report, Gordon Arquit, PhD, died of a heart attack, and the gyro crash was subsequent to the senior Arquit's incapacitation. The Journal also said that, contrary to initial media reports, Mr Arquit had taken dual instruction in gyroplanes.


The Actual Facts

Further investigation shows that Dr Arquit did indeed take gyro instruction: from Doug Riley, a well-known and well-respected instructor. Dr Arquit had taken significant instruction in a machine as close to his own as possible, and had a limited solo signoff for flying ultralight gyroplanes.

"He took lessons from me in AEROTEC's 2-place Dominator briefly last fall and more intensively this summer. He had a limited signoff to transition to single-place. The signoff authorized him to fly a stable ultralight gyro over the runway only, with no crosswind and max 10 mph headwind," Riley wrote in the Rotary Wing Forum. Although it will take months for the investigation to be completed, everything in the initial media reports indicates that Mr Arquit was operating his machine within the limits of his solo sign-off and that his training was not a factor in the mishap. (He also had thousands of hours of fixed-wing flight experience).

"He Emailed me recently to say that had done several sessions (post-signoff) in his 1-place, with and without blades," Riley told forum members. "I called him to remind him to take the process very slowly and to taxi for awhile without blades. He said he was already flying with the blades over the runway. He wasn't that pleased with the quality of his landings, but would continue practicing. He said he would take the process very slowly. He was an experienced [fixed-wing] pilot (maybe 3000 hours) and had the cautious good judgment you'd expect of such a person. I'm at a loss to explain this accident."

Finally, Dr Arquit's gyro was a single-place Dominator, a well-respected machine known for stability and performance, powered by a Rotax 503, which is not properly illustrated by the file photos. "Again," said Riley, "he was not 'teaching himself to fly,' he was merely getting the feel of a lighter version of the model of machine he'd already trained in."
This photo from the Rotor Flight Dynamics (the manufacturer) Dominator website shows a 503-powered, podless Dominator similar to Dr Arquit's. This is NOT his machine but one that resembles his more than the image in the original article.

http://hoglog.com/images/Dominator-UL-gyro-file.jpg

Riley again: "I never got to see Gordon's machine. I understand that it was a basic Dominator, with no pod and a Rotax 503. To many gyro people, such a machine is an "ultralight" by virtue of its stripped-down configuration and its likely handling qualities -- though it's not Part 103-legal unless it meets the weight, fuel tank size and other specs in the regulation. The FAA may be calling it an "experimental" based on excessive fuel capacity or precise weight (or because the local rep doesn't know that a gyro can be an ultralight)."

The gyro in question may not have been ultralight-legal, as RFD lists the minimum weight of a Dominator as 300lb, and the limit of Part 103 is 254 lb. That is for the accident investigation to determine, as is the exact cause of the accident. But cardiac arrest certainly cannot be overcome by the best of machines and the the most thorough of instruction, and I have never heard of an aircraft falling out of the sky because it was a half-pound (or fifty pounds) over the ultralight limit or carried a couple of extra gallons of gas. So the legality or otherwise of the aircraft is both undetermined, and irrelevant to the possible cause of the mishap (which appears, at this writing, to be the incapacitation of Dr Arquit by a fatal coronary event).


A Few Words About Dr Arquit

Dr Arquit was clearly a guy that we at Aero-News, and you our readers, would have loved to have known. He was apparentlyt a chemist of talent, who had had an interesting career before retiring. In retirement he pursued his loves of flying and music. Before he lost his medical after bypass surgery, he used to love taking children for rides. "When he was little he wanted to fly and he went out to the airport and these pilots would always be taking off but no one offered to give him a ride," his friend, bandleader Johnny Russo, told Michele Reaves of the Ithaca Journal. "So, he often took kids up for rides."

"He was a friendly, intelligent and generous man, 79 years young," Doug Riley remembers. "I would never have guessed his age had he not told me.... He was a methodical "achiever" who held himself to high standards and roundly criticized his own performance when it didn't meet his expectations."

"I will miss him and remember fondly our shared love of fiddle music as well as aviation," Riley wrote in Rotary Wing Forum. "Gordon was a good guy and a responsible, competent pilot whose loss was nobody's fault (not even his own)."

(Doug Riley granted permission for us to quote these remarks here).


About Our Position on Gyro Safety & Training (continued in next post)

[Hognose]

About Our Position on Gyro Safety & Training (continued from previous post)

Aero-News takes the editorial position that gyroplanes, while in theory the safest aircraft flying, require pilots to have class- and category-specific training from a properly-qualified instructor. Yes, this is an opinion, but one based on facts, including the poor results achieved by many self-taught pilots. Yes, the current generation of gyro CFIs does include many self-taught pilots who learned in McCullough-powered Bensen gyroplanes twenty or more years ago and have evolved along with the sophistication of gyrocraft. And most of them can tell you about the friends that started this same journey alongside them and aren't here in 2004. Most of them urge their customers to get competent instruction, and some of the best gyro manufacturers demand it, going so far as retaining parts until the owner can show a solo signoff.

Doug Riley, while favoring instructors over self-instruction, takes a more nuanced view than we do: "Your caution against haphazard self-training is always appropriate. I guess the rumor that this incident was just that started with the airport owner, who couldn't be expected to know all the facts."

"I don't categorically condemn self-training as a theory. That would make me an obvious hypocrite. I do think that Bensen's method, followed to the letter, involves an enormous effort and time investment that are impractical for many people. Skipping any of the steps does put you in unacceptable danger."

I was going to describe Dr Bensen's method here, but then decided that I had best not do it. I will continue to urge those interested in this delightful, exciting, and very safe, form of flying to take instruction, from a qualified instructor, in a gyro similar to gyros they intend to fly -- exactly as Dr Gordon Arquit did. My personal opinion is that a gyroplane novice who is not under the supervision of a knowledgable instructor like Doug is unable to judge whether his approach to training is "haphazard" or not. Flight time is not fungible in this case and even ATPs with over 10,000 safe fixed-wing hours have been undone by negative transfer from fixed-wing skills.

Fortunately, most highly-experienced fixed-wing pilots got that way by being responsible, and they do what Dr Arquit did, seek a good instructor. This will also, in all probability, yield faster results than the Bensen method -- the instructor has seen a lot of novices and knows how best to bring them along.

Perhaps this self-instruction caution would have been appropriate in the article, if Dr Arquit had actually been self-instructing. Since he was not, it did not belong. A much better article might have been written under the title, "Heart Attack Claims Pilot" with the subhead: "79-Year-old gyro pilot dies doing what he loves." It could have mentioned Dr Arquit's love of flying and his determination to return to the air after losing his medical. That would have been a much better article both in terms of accuracy, and in being the kind of thing that interests people. But we couldn't have written that article with the information we had, then.


How We Got It Wrong

I wrote the original story based on reports from the FAA and local (upstate New York) media, which were originally emailed to us, and were available online. Those reports quoted Sheriff's deputies as saying that Mr Arquit was teaching himself to fly the gyro. The deputies, in turn, picked that up from the airport manager. Somewhere along the way it changed from "Dr Arquit was doing training flights that his instructor taught and authorized him to do" to "teaching himself to fly."

We, to our chagrin, relied on these media reports. I did include a disclaimer:

(Readers are reminded that this report is based on media reports and FAA preliminaries. These initial reports have sometimes been inaccurate in the past).

That disclaimer seems insufficient when weighed against the inaccuracy of the initial reports.

Because we assumed the media reports were correct, I put our all-but-boilerplate caution against gyro self-instruction into the article.

Pete Combs, the editor, added the subhead and the graphics, and an " -Ed." to clarify that the disclaimer was an editorial comment, not part of the news story. I didn't send any art with the article, and Pete substituted some file photos of gyros that he had on hand. We didn't know (until Doug Riley told us) what kind of gyro Dr Arquit owned. Pete is not an expert on gyros (the picture he used was from a non-centerline-thrust Air Command which crashed in England, and which resembles the Arquit gyro neither in appearance nor handling, but looks alike to a fixed-wing guy). Had I been choosing the picture based on the initial stories, I wouldn't have chosen that but would probably have chosen an ultralight Gyrobee or Brock gyroplane (which also would have been all wrong to a gyro guy's eye, once we knew the machine was a Dominator), from the suggestion that it was an ultralight gyro.

I am suggesting to Pete, to Juan Jimenez, and to Jim Campbell, Editor-in-Chief, that we clearly identify FILE photos with the word FILE right on the photo. The purpose of a FILE photo is to show the reader what an aircraft looks like in general. If the photo is not identified as a file photo, readers assume it is the actual mishap aircraft. It is probably not appropriate to select a file photo for an accident story when the type of aircraft is not known -- there are two many variations in aircraft of the same class and category.

We are human and make errors (I made another one last Saturday night, when I wrote a sentence in the Blackbird Airpark article without completing it. A reader caught that one, too).


How We Will Try To Prevent Future Errors

We are working for a better disclaimer for use in accident articles. Even FAA and NTSB preliminaries are often just-flat-wrong. Local news sources often have the best insights to the character of the pilots involved and the circumstances, and local police are often the only ones who observed the accident scene, but it's rare that any of them know anything about aviation. The original source of the tale that Mr Arquit was self-instructing was one of those local reports.

We will exercise greater caution with local media reports. We'll follow up directly when time, staffing, and workload permit. I hope you understand that they won't always permit. (Last week saw me, Jim, and Wes all at Mojave for the X-Prize flights, leaving Pete and Juan to hold the fort).

It would be nice if we could break our reliance on local media reports, and rely primarily on our own direct reporting, like we did for the X-Prize. Unfortunately, that is just not practical -- we're a small outfit, covering a big world, and we have to run on a budget. So we're going to continue to report on things based on local newspaper or TV station news coverage. We'll try to keep in mind that such coverage has passed through a layer of journalists who know little about aerospace before relying too much on that kind of coverage, but we can't just pull in our tentacles and only report on what we see with our own eyes.

Likewise, if we go too far in the direction of cautious writing, or larding our prose with disclaimers, we wind up with timid stuff that is too boring to read, or worse, that looks like it was written by lawyers. I don't think you'd check in every day to read a version of the eighteen disclaimer stickers on the ladder hanging in your garage, with some aviation content buried in it somewhere.

Also, Pete and I have talked in the past about making an Aero-News sourcing-and-style book. I think that that's a good idea and we ought to move ahead with it.

We always welcome suggestions, corrections, and comments from our readers.


Closing Words

I personally, and on behalf of the entire Aero-News organisation, want to apologize to Dr Arquit's family and friends (and his instructor, Doug) for the article that mischaracterized him.

I cannot guarantee that I'll never make such an error again. I'm a human being and make mistakes: I just get to make them in front of something like 200,000 readers of the Aero-News newsletters instead of in front of three people in my den. I can guarantee that I'll own up to it when I do make mistakes.

And, as always, we will rely on our readers to set us straight when we err. You are the last check and balance in the system.


FMI: (on gyroplanes): www.pra.org
www.rotaryforum.com
(Ithaca Journal, on Gordon Arquit):
http://www.theithacajournal.com/news/stories/20041004/localnews/1350727.html

(Note that the Ithaca Journal article contains an error. It says that gyroplanes can be flown without a license. They can only if they meet the other restrictions of 14 CFR Part 103. The article is worth reading for its insight into Dr Arquit. - Hognose)

[Brian Jackson]

...cannot be overcome by the best of machines and the the most thorough of instruction...
Kevin,
Great writeup. Hats off, man. All I noticed was the double-"the" above. I admire any stand-up guy that takes responsibility. I've worked with too many that point fingers when mistakes are made. It's a fact of life... deal with it.

The way you verbalized, noted and corrected the information for the upcoming publication was respectful and professional, both to the deceased and to the Gyro community. Thank you.

Respectfully,
Brian Jackson

[banaari]

Kevin,
oustanding. To err is only human, to do what you've just done in that gracious manner defines "Gentleman".

If you could just remove the reference to me in the updated article... all I did was pass on the link I got from *this* thread!!

kind regards,
John Baran

[Chopper Reid]

Kevin,
It takes a lot of character and fortutude to say you were wrong, but it takes a lot more to print a retraction and apology in the way you did. Would be a whole lot better world if more people admitted when they stuffed up and said sorry.

[bones]

Kevin,
I too admire you, it takes allot of b*lls to say what you, did to the number of people that you did, if only just SOME of the politicians on all sides of the world could take notice at what you have done the world would be a better place.
My thoughts are with the family, i know what they are feeling.

[Doug Riley]

A class act. Thanks.

[Dean_Dolph]

Kevin, you are to be commended for you decision to write an update and correction to your original story. It is easy to understand why there would be a reluctance to publicize an error since it is a case of damned if you do or damned if you don't.

There is a lot of well deserved mistrust of the media these days anyhow, so some will see this as proof that you can't believe what you read or hear, while others, like myself, will recognize the honesty and integrity that you have displayed. Honest news reporting mistakes made in the course of doing ones job are easy to forgive as opposed to news making errors like the one CBS and Dan Rather just made.

I have no idea what kind of reaction Aero-News will get from your correction but I'm going to be extremely disappointed in the aviation community if you don't receive applause for doing the right thing.

[Vance]

Kevin, I very much enjoy your fine mind and your ability to comunicate complex thoughts. You are an inspiration to me. Thank you, Vance

[Aussie_Paul]

Kevin, I am humbled.

Aussie Paul.:)

[gyromike]

Good show Kevin.
Not many people would go the extra mile to correct a mistake like you did.

But then again, I'm not surprised.

I've read your posts on UseNet for years before you came aboard here, and they were all excellent.

Glad you're around. :)

[ToddP]

Excellent work Kevin.

[PW_Plack]

Hey, Hog...

Good job. If someone else hadn't already mentioned CBS, I would have. Because they were so stubborn about defending their screw-up, they strengthened the conviction of many that their inaccuracy was due to an editorial agenda, not random error.

It's great that Aero will correct this for all the fixed-wingers who read it. We should probably all contact our local media and ask for corrections when they screw up gyroplane incident reports. These misconceptions don't need reinforcement.

[Harry_S.]

By golly Kevin, I really admire what you did.


Thank you.

[KenSandyEggo]

Kevin, has any of your correction appeared on Aero-News Network? I've been checking for it and haven't seen it. Did I miss it? If I did, what day was it posted?

[Chuck_Ellsworth]

Kevin :

I would consider it an honor to meet you some day.

Chuck Ellsworth.