Ideas to Promote the Sport

Dawnsdad

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There are comments in other threads concerning the need to promote the sport, but I didn't see a thread specifically devoted to ideas of HOW to promote the sport. So I thought I'd start one.

I've read comments that more people need to attend fly-ins. That may be true, but it seems to me that this would be mostly "preaching to the choir" since most people at fly-ins are already interested in gyros. So it would seem more advantageous to try and reach people who have no idea about gyros.

Other types of "shows" are certainly a good idea and should be done. But here's an idea I have had for a long time and plan to do if I ever get into the air. All too often the news carries a story of a missing person, usually a child. We see masses of volunteers on foot, on fourwheelers and horseback searching the fields and woods for the missing. Those are great but a gyro flying low and slow above could cover much more ground much more quickly and efficiently. If you have the unfortunate "opportunity" to participate in such a search, not only would you get in some flying time and perform a much needed community service; but you would also get a TON of very positive publicity from the news media.

Here's another idea that's a little more off the wall. How about contacting the producers of the program "The Amazing Race" and offering to make a gyro ride part of the competition? I've seen them do mock combat flights, hot air balloon rides and hang glider rides. Gyros would be perfect. The tv audience for that program is huge.

Anybody else got an idea how to reach the masses?

Dawnsdad
 
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Gyrocopter use in humanitarian service

Gyrocopter use in humanitarian service

I am glad hear from some one else who has thought of using a gyro for search and rescue (SAR) work. I had intended to do that in association with other organizations such as Texas Equusearch and K-9 search organizations. It will be an uphill battle though. The organizations I have approached thus far do not want any experimental aircraft or ones that are not insured. So any assistance given to them will be as a “friend of” and not as a “member of” in any official capacity. Some organizations such as the Civil Air Patrol strictly forbid any experimental aircraft even participating in any activities. The Minuteman Project is looking to purchase a helicopter to aid in their patrols along the border. Flying with them in a gyro has some real possibilities in drug interdiction and border security. If the existing organizations don’t want to associate with "us gyro nuts" :wacko: then we could form our own squadron specifically organized to do just the things mentioned in Dawnsdad’s post.

Keep in mind that SAR missions even in two engine aircraft are by their nature more hazardous flying. It may require flight over tertian and in configurations you would not normally do. Low and slow over trees is not recommended for normal flight operations.

Is there any interest out there in forming a gyrocopter squadron for SAR and aerial observation etc. ? :plane:
 
"Amazing Race" is not a bad idea EXCEPT for the $5,000,000 or more liability insurance the prodution company will require. Don't ask me how they got coverage for the hang gliders.

Most of the Columbia space shuttle pieces were found by ultralighters. That little tid-bit was all over the news at the time. I don't know of any effect it had on the ultralight market.

Attending fly-ins, other than just gyro fly-ins, is very necessary. Oshkosh and Sun-N-Fun doen't achieve much. All the "unusual" aircraft are hidden away well out of the main stream. All the other fly-ins are fair game.

One point I tried to make earlier is: go where the money is. Watching the Barrett-Jackson auction on TV only gives you a rough idea how much money is walking around on site. When you actually go, you learn the place reeks of big time money. I watched a couple on Family Day that were looking at a custom chopper. The wife sat on it, turned to her husband and "I want one just like this." So he calls the builder, identifies himself, describes the bike and says to have it delivered to his house when it's done. After he hangs up the wife asks how much it costs. The husband said "Beats me, I didn't ask." I happen to know the builder and the bike. He dumped nearly $100,000 the same way I would drop $5. It's not just showing up at events, it's picking the right event. Showing a gyro at a flea market or swap meet probably won't increase the flying community.

Unless you are around gear-heads and aviators a gyro probably won't get much notice.
 
I've read comments that more people need to attend fly-ins. That may be true, but it seems to me that this would be mostly "preaching to the choir" since most people at fly-ins are already interested in gyros. So it would seem more advantageous to try and reach people who have no idea about gyros.

Dawnsdad,

When I posted that I should have made it more clear. The fly-ins I go to (almost every weekend in the summer) are not gyro fly-ins but UL or GA events.

Car/motorcycle events are a fantasic idea and I will be working on that good idea that someone posted in the other thread early next year.

Other types of "shows" are certainly a good idea and should be done. But here's an idea I have had for a long time and plan to do if I ever get into the air. All too often the news carries a story of a missing person, usually a child. We see masses of volunteers on foot, on fourwheelers and horseback searching the fields and woods for the missing.
Dawnsdad

I think that is a great idea.

I have not spilled the beans on this yet but Connie and I have been doing work for a non-profit org in simular activites this summer and fall. When the work is done in a few weeks I plan to submit articles to several Sport Pilot and UL publications on the work.

Cobra, I get your drift about the 'right' events but I think a motorcycle swap meet would be a great place because alot of these people are 'open-cockpit' - Kitbuilders already. They just need to want to fly-em!
 
Tim,
I was't thinking "car swap meet", I was thinking more like where Larry the Cable Guy buys his furniture. Larry in gyro...that was a visual I really didn't need right now. ;)
 
I had an idea pop into my head a few times. What if gyro instructors were to try to work with a fixed wing or helicopter flight school. If the kept their machiene with the flight school's other aircraft, people who are interested in aviation may want to try a flight, or maybe two? Well you get the idea, they may change from fixed wing or helicopter to gyro.
 
I had an idea pop into my head a few times. What if gyro instructors were to try to work with a fixed wing or helicopter flight school. If the kept their machiene with the flight school's other aircraft, people who are interested in aviation may want to try a flight, or maybe two? Well you get the idea, they may change from fixed wing or helicopter to gyro.
That's an idea I am working on up here in Columbus. Starting next spring I'm going to tie down the TwinStarr on the ramp close to the Cessna traininer each morning, and put the machine back in the hangar each evening. Hopefully, the FBO fixed-wing instructors would pass on my business card to anyone expressing interest in it (and yes, I'm on good terms with the other CFIs).

Cheers,
=Ed=
 
The FW instructors may not like the idea of some of their potential students wanting to shift over to gyros. I think if they perceived any competition they may badmouth gyros (more than they already do).
 
It's back to reputation, and the past track record and public image that the gyro has acquired has left the fixed wing community not wanting to associate with us and this goes for many instructors. Granted there are some exceptions, but in the majority of the community we are "persona non grata"

Tony
 
Attending fly-ins, other than just gyro fly-ins, is very necessary. Oshkosh and Sun-N-Fun doen't achieve much. All the "unusual" aircraft are hidden away well out of the main stream. All the other fly-ins are fair game.

You know, normally I would agree with you, Cody. But today (below instrument minimums here... duck-walking low ceilings) a flying bud had Flying magazine. I canceled it over the Michael Yon/Hachette Filipacchi thing (I knew Yon on active duty almost 25 years ago) but when I got home I had one (NAFI started sending it again I guess -- I don't pay for the freaking thing).

Friend: "Hey, isn't this the thing you wanna fly?"

Me: "**** a duck, it's Larry Neal's Super Sky Cycle!" Sure enough, the SSC was a featured part of Les Abend's column, in which Les discussed going to Oshkosh with his elderly father. When I got home, and turned out to have my own copy after all, I was able to read the whole thing. Abend clearly really, really liked the Sky Cycle. Even though he isn't entirely sure if there is a difference between a gyroplane and a gyrocopter.

The significance of this is that Les Abend is not really much of a GA guy. He's an American Airlines 75 captain, and his columns are usually about airline life one way or another. And probably 95% of the readership of Flying magazine never flies except in their imagination -- or Seat 32B. The magazine is normally not very interested in anything that sells new for only six figures.

Yet the gyro caught Captain Abend's eye. Interesting, huh?

cheers

-=K=-
 
Kevin, I'm not sure how Larry manages to stay away from the "back 40". Did you happen to notice what company his booth was right next to? :D
Larry copped a pretty good location. Like I said, it's all in the marketing. When your neighbor attracts the high rollers, you ge noticed too!
I agree with you "Flying". I dropped my subscription years ago. Even before I found out Budd lives just down the road. Now when I want to hear what's going on in the industry, stuff that ANN missed, I just drive down the street.
That reminds me, BBQ next weekend with the Bearhawk crowd! Oh yah! The "Arizona Red-head" puts out a nice spread.
 
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I realize that organized SAR groups might have some legitimate reasons for not wanting experimental aircraft to participate in their searches. But I suspect that most of their objections are much akin to the turf wars you sometimes see between law enforcement agencies. Ask the loved ones of a missing child if they mind you helping just because your bird is experimental.

I don't know if it made national news, but in September two women went missing from their jobs at the State School in Lubbock, TX. Several days later the body of one of the women was found in tall weeds not far from a country road. The family of the other woman organized searches every day for the first few days, then every weekend. Each week the number of volunteers has dwindled. And each week the local news covers the story. I think last weekend it was less than 40 searchers. How long do you think it takes 40 people to search a section of land? And how long do you think it would take one person in a gyro to cover the same ground? Around here there's hardly any trees, just tall grass and weeds. Perfect for an aerial search.

And consider this: if you hava a two seater, you could call the tv news department and tell them what you are doing and offer to let a reporter or cameraman ride along. News departments are always looking for an angle to cover a story that their competition doesn't have. You'd have an extra set of eyes and you can bet that they'll do a story on you and the sport, too.

Dawnsdad
 
Why arn't gyros used over there like they are ere, for mustern, or wot ever you mob call it.?

Be'n a practical, cost effective machine for the job, its definatly given gyros ere plenty o lime light.
Leagle or otherwise, people can easily see the benifits.
 
Birdy

Most of the people here are members of the SUE nation They don't want to do anything with someone they can't sue. Even tho there are many benefits most that have heard of the Gyro can't see how it flies. When they say that I normally retort very well thank you.
There are very few small heli around my area and a lot of people think it is me. I have to stop and tell them my bird isn't in the air yet. I had a mate ask me the other day if I had flown over his house. I said no.

I guess my point is until the farmers and rancher around here can be shown how a gyro can benefit them it won't happen.


Thom
 
The FW instructors may not like the idea of some of their potential students wanting to shift over to gyros. I think if they perceived any competition they may badmouth gyros (more than they already do).

I'm not saying set up something with the instructors, I'm saying with the flight school. Say you'll give a few bucks to the flight school for every flight in the gyro if they advertize they do gyro training as well. I'm just suggesting this as an idea based upon the way flight schools around me work. Maybe the ones by you are different
 
I have several times went on a volunteer mission to try and locate stuff scattered from the windstorms that we have a lot of here in Illinois.

My favorite one is when a farmer called and asked if I could locate a trampoline that had blown out somewhere out in his cornfield he was getting ready to start combining. He didnt want to run the thing through his combine.....lots of cables...springs...and the thick material as well.

That was immediate priority for me as I left the stairway I was working on and went and fired up my RAF2000. I flew over the guys farm at 1000 feet and soon saw the blue trampoline out near the back end of a big 160 acre corn field. My gps tracks my path so I simply flew over the trampoline with two intersecting tracks...and flew back to the airport with the info in my gps. My gps was built in the dash if you all recall...but it was held in with velcro so I could take it out and use it in the truck.

I took my gps to the farmer and we went to the field where I had located his trampoline. I had made a waypoint where the intersecting tracks on my screen showed the trampoline to be at. The farmer looked in amazement as the screen had an arrow pointing to the trampoline....and showed the distance at 740 feet. We slowly made our way through the tall corn...and when we were about 20 feet from it...I told him we should see it in a few more steps. There it was just 10 feet from where I had waypointed it. The accuracy of the system at that time was 10-20 feet if I recall correctly.

He thanked me bigtime and I left feeling I had earned some of the airspace I used all the time for free over his farms.

I can see tile holes in the growing crops all the time and I call farmers telling them where they are....and this gets them out there to fix them before any more soil goes down into the drainage tiles.

Last week a developer called and wanted to know if I could take some pictures around a wooded area that they were considering making a housing tract out of. I love missions like this as it gives me more reasons to fly my SparowHawk.....like I need any more reasons:whoo:

The city of Paxton has me do an aerial demonstration on the Fourth of July and that always draws some interest.

The Sheriffs office contacted me about searching for marijuana in the summer. I politely declined...I cant do it for hire....its dangerous flying low over tall corn looking down fencerows....plus....everyone knows me and should I stumble upon a big find...I just may be in jeopardy.

Around my home town of Paxton....EVERYONE knows what a gyrocopter is and most think its a very diverse aircraft. They are right....there is nothing like it.

Stan
 
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That is a great post Stan!
 
Useless to twist and jerk your A.S.S. to make it right! you must have a good product to sell, if we want to sell it, at long time!...As i told in many former posts, at this time, no gyro is satisfactory yet; so, all knowledgeable people in the gyro domain must meet and design what could respond to the market, to what the pilots-maintainers want!...Even if we must pay a specialist as Martin Hollman or who ever!...I thought that the prizes given by the P.R.A., each year, could have been used to this purpose...am i dreaming!?...
 
Yea Stan those Pot growers might just fix your Rotors for ya if you found(and i'm sure you have) their plants.


Good Post


Thom
 
The FW instructors may not like the idea of some of their potential students wanting to shift over to gyros. I think if they perceived any competition they may badmouth gyros (more than they already do).

Tim I think your right when ever I talk with FW pilots about flying a gyro they all have negative things to say. At this point I have given up all together talking to other non pilot friends about gyros they just think I'm crazy and kinda make fun of me which is really pissing me off. I had one friend say to me lately what are you going to be for hollow ween a GYRO PILOT? :twitch:

I am hoping someday though that I will show them all and fly my gyro in a air show here at Hemet and show people how fun and save they can be.
 
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