Gyromom about to go up

[StanFoster]

I am on pins and needles lately. My wife Barbara has not been up in my SparrowHawk and ever since the tragedy at Bensen days...my hopes for ever having her riding co-pilot again have been in doubt. I even had my own doubt of my gryo flying career after that. If doing so would have bothered Barbara more than I was having fun....I would have sold my SparrowHawk. But...she wants me to live my dream and I feel fortunate to continue doing so.

However... I have had a very empty feeling until she fills that seat once again.

I have left her alone to make this decision on her own and she just mentioned wanting to fly down to our daughter GyroJennys home. There is a private strip just outside of her town and we will be flying there this week if the weather is good.

I will have to hide my emotions as this means so much to me...I cant describe it. I want her to enjoy the flight and want to do it many more times. I will have to put her door on her side as she is not fond of looking at that big open door. :eek:

Stay tuned....I will post pictures of course.:)

Stan

[animal]

Cool deal Stan, how far a flight will that be? Hopefully Gyromom will enjoy the flight and we will start to see more Pics of you and Gyromom enjoying nice afternoon flights together.

[gyro]

Stan, if you remmeber what happened to me and my wife when she went up for her first time. I know what your going through. my wife is ready to go back up but I have been reluctant. She want to try it again so bad but i just want to make sure the engine stays up to par first.

On anothere note:

when I was at Mentone this year I breifly talked to you when you had your sparrow hawk in the hanger (you were putting fuel in it). I had heard about the accident involving the SH and I wanted to a take a close look at the controls. I did see something that concerned me....the rod that moves in and out has a small threaded eyelet bolt in it, I see this as being very weak and could break if stressed to much. perhaps this may have broken on the one that went down. This bolt is clearly visiable behind the pod take a peek at it and maybe snap a pic and put it on the forum for some folks to see and get some feedback from the rest of the crew.

hate to have something happen because of a simple bolt.

[Bob Simmons]

Hey Stan,

My wife was a little apprehensive about me getting my gyro. She knew that it was a dream of mine and let me follow through

with the training that cost me over a 1200 dollars. She also let me buy a trailer, take out a loan, and travel 22 hours to

Michigan to purchase my gyro and that added up to over 10,000 dollars. She watch me struggle in getting it repaired, so I

could train in it, and that cost another 1200 dollars. She let me go every weekend, so I could to train out of town almost 2

hours away, and spend all day at the airport, and some times I did that Saturday and Sunday. The gas money and mileage

added up to about 70 dollars a weekend and that ran me over a 1000 dollars. By the way, God Bless the gyro brothers that

were there for me to nurture me along, because they could have been some where else if they chose to.


It all adds up. 1000’s of dollars for fix wing training. 1000’s of dollars for gyro training, 1000’s of dollars for my gyro,

and 1000’s spent just to attend fly-ins. Where did the money come from? She allowed me to have it for my dream. I asked her

if she wanted to learn how to fly and her answer was no, that is not her dream. Her dream is the cheap little motorcycle I

bought her in 2000 and taught her how to ride it.


She attends a fly-in every now and then , but its not her bag. She only goes because she loves me. Sue likes all the

people at the fly-ins and has a lot of fun watching the gyro’s fly and even goes up with pilots that have a two place aircraft,

but she also reminds me that this is my dream and not hers. I can’t explain it, don’t understand it, but I do accept it. My wife

allows me to come and go as I please, but I don’t abuse this privilege of trust and love. I don’t pressure her about why or

anything that relates to flying. I pretty much feel grateful that she’s let me spend all this money on myself to follow my

dream. I know how lucky I am. This has been an issue with her parents and mine and she has supported me. She brags on me

and my hobby and we are noted as the crazy one’s in our neighbor hood and church. We have become interesting people in

our little group and people talk about us. That makes us somewhat different then the rest of the people that do the simple

things in life to entertain themselves. She like’s the attention we get.


Stan, I have come to accept her feelings and not dig into her emotions. I am sure that she fears that I may have an

accident that may hurt me or kill me and she deals with this and still lets me have my dream, so I have learned not to control

her and leave it alone. Does this help you any ? Love you man, Bob.

[Rando]

I did see something that concerned me....the rod that moves in and out has a small threaded eyelet bolt in it, I see this as being very weak and could break if stressed to much. perhaps this may have broken on the one that went down. This bolt is clearly visiable behind the pod take a peek at it and maybe snap a pic and put it on the forum for some folks to see and get some feedback from the rest of the crew.hate to have something happen because of a simple bolt.I heard someone else describe that same part as a possible cause of the Florida crash so I went to take a look at it while at Mentone. I am no expert so I didn't say anthing but I agree, it concerns me also.

[Rando]

Stan,

Thanks for replying. I knew you would be on top of it!

[Timchick]

Stan, Good luck with your trip with your wife.

Bob, Great post!

[automan1223]

Stan,

You like I have a lucky situation, our better half knows what it takes to keep a happy relationship. Its not that they dont care, its just that gyros are the meaning of life.

Nothing like being under that rotor !

Her concern is well founded, and we could not really say that they loved us if they did not care.

There is lots of speculation about the accident. All of the squawks are well documented and I personally am very dissappointed with Groen Bros, for taking the "post accident" mindset to correct things that many of us had concerns about. This is human nature.

Even a run away trim system has crashed more than one Cessna so we can speculate all we want. Chances are we will never really truly know what brought Terry down.

Fix what we got. Say a prayer. Enjoy living.

We are all in GOD'S hands.

Jonathan

[gyro]

Stan, I figured a man of your caliber would want to ensure your safety and your machines reliability:o I would keep your eye on it till they get an upgraded one out to you.

One thing about buying a kit and building it yourself it gives you the warm fuzzy feeling that everthing was done right. But we are still at the mercy of the engineers and test pilots who have far less time on the prototypes than most of us out here flying!

[dragonflyerthom]

Stan How was the trip to your Daughters???

Good I hope

Thom

[dick]

Bob Simmons & Stan Foster, You both have good support systems in your families. God bless-

[Steve McGowan]

You'll appreciate it and so will she..

[dragonflyerthom]

You know I may be bragging but Bobs wife and mine sound alot alike. I do about anything I want and she lets me. As long as I don't drink alot, fool around, come home every evening she doesn't say a word. She lets me follow my dream. Its not her dream but she is ok with it. I think she worries about me but its ok.
Good Luck with yours Stan and Bob
Thom

[JRB549]

For the thought on Rod ends with the SparrowHawk,I dont believe the rodends were in anyway the cause or linked to what happened at BD.
I'm no expert on the facts but I am close enough to those that feel different about the accident.

FYI I watched the BD video and am of the opinion that every gyro needs to be video taped and watched in slow motion in flight, I have seen things that made me nervous for the pilots so I made contact and told them to look at it, This is a tool that all gyros need.

[gyro]

who has a copy of BD? or si it online to download?