The adventure continues!

Vance said:

...I added a little power to slow my decent and turned into the wind. I dropped in when I had stopped moving in any direction. I didn’t realize just how far I had turned until I was on the ground. I was near the center line of the runway and pointed into the wind...

Click to expand...

This is exactly how I would land any zero-roll aircraft, Vance. It is easier to make a last minute turn into the wind and land with no roll than to make a cross-wind no-roll landing. Also, it is safer for the after-landing rotor management. People have been rolled over by cross wind after landing.

Udi

Thank you Udi,

I am glad I am not the only one who would have done that.

I respect your skill and experience.

I turned with trepidation.

I felt as though I was out of options.

I had been caught over my cross wind limit a little too late to go around.

I was pleased to be pointed into the wind as my rotor spooled down a little.

I will report on what Terry, my friend and CFI, recommends for that situation.

Thank you, Vance

X-wind landings

X-wind landings

Vance, I agree with your last minute landing turn into the wind. You probably saved yourself a real problem. I too fly from a towered airfield. We met with the tower manager some time ago & explained the nature of our unusual aircraft to him & some of the controllers. We now have an understanding that if the winds are too high, we can land cross runway as you did. The only thing that the controllers can not do (per the FAA) is give you permission to land off runway like the helicopters. Therefore, in high winds when we do not choose to use the distant runway, we can simply fly parallel to the runway and turn into the prevailing wind just prior to landing and can land on the runway (up to 90* crosswise) adjacent to an alleyway and simply taxi directly off safely if need be...(does that make sence??) They said that it doesnt matter how we land as long as we touch down on the runway. Always remember, you can still go around & size up another landing. Plan it before you stick it....

Thank you Mark,

The thing that made it iffy was how suddenly the wind came up and how close I was to the ground when I gave her throttle and turned.

I look forward to Terry’s take on it.

The boys in the tower have been very nice.

They told me that once I am cleared to land any way I get her on the ground is fine with them. They have even offered me the taxiway.

Thank you, Vance

It was a red sunrise as I taxied toward alpha. I called ground and I could barely hear them and could not understand them. I had a little challenge with the radio the last time I flew and oddly enough, it got worse. I was getting some kind of noise in sync with the engine. I turned off the alternator with the mystery switch and it did not help. I tried my hand held and it worked fine with the engine running. I removed the radio from its tray, re-installed it and after that it worked great????

Back to Alpha I went, the winds were starting to come and I was afraid it would be like yesterday with too much wind. It is supposed to rain tomorrow, so I was particularly anxious to fly.

Terry has me beginning my pre-rotation before I pull onto the runway up to about 75 rpm. This makes for a shorter delay on the runway and has not caused any problems so far.

I continue to expand my grasp of the environment. When I cut back to 1,800 rpm abeam the numbers I am at 600 feet agl. I turn at the lights and I am descending at 500 feet per minute from 400 feet above ground level. If I reduce the engine to 1200 rpm I descend at 900 feet per minute. I climb out at 1100 feet per minute. At 2450 rpm I am level at 75 miles per hour.

I feel like I am getting to know her and just starting to caress her.

Today I flew for 2.3 hours and every landing, every take off and every tower communication but the first one was lovely. When I made the first tower call I was still on the ground frequency, ooops!

I had several landings that looked like they weren’t going to work out. They ended up being very smooth. I believe that I am developing a feel for it.

There were a lot of commercial jets today and I was cautioned about wake turbulence. I was careful to land further down the runway than they touched down. I followed a Fed Ex jet that landed late and it felt like stairs as I descended. I don’t know if the is wake turbulence or not. It started getting bumpy about eight feet up. Any opinions?

I now have 31.4 hours in the Predator with 25 hours at Santa Maria. I have 127
landings. I am pleased with my progress.

I had my camera with me but when I took my gloves off to take a picture I nearly dropped the camera because my hands were completely numb. I was not successful. The view at sunrise was stunning with the red clouds, the white sand dunes and the deep blue water.

I have not figured out where it would be safe to climb until she runs out of steam, there is a lot of commercial traffic around here headed for San Louis Obispo and Santa Maria. They are moving faster than I am and even with my strobe lights on the other aircraft are reporting they have trouble finding me even when they are told where I am. I don’t want to get up into their flight path.

A pilot in a Citation said to the tower, "I have the Gyrocopter and he looks like Fred Flintstone." I landed in a most elegant way as he was preparing to take off. I suspect that I was having more fun than he was.

I had so much fun I could hardly get out of her today. I could not feel anything below my knees and I missed the step. It could have been trouble. Can you imagine! “What ever happened to old Vance? Why he landed on his head while he was exiting his aircraft.”

Thank you, Vance

Hi, Vance,

I enjoy reading about your flights. You have a talent for painting pictures with your words.

Do you think your radio problems could be caused from bad electrical connections? You might want to give this a try on the contacts:

http://store.caig.com/s.nl/sc.2/category.188/.f.

I use it on my XM radio cradle, on flashlight switches, bike lights, etc, and it really works well.

LT

Thank you Larry,

I am glad you enjoy the reports, I am having fun writing them and I usually learn something about myself and my progress. It is kind of a solitary pursuit and it is fun to have my friends from the forum along on the journey.

I was going to try some dielectric grease. I have not heard of this stuff. It will be fun to try it.

Thank you, Vance

Hi Vance,
I like you informative post. I agree it is hard to take a picture while flying a gyro. But you must take some of the gyro and airport before you leave the ground. It will go well with your flight recording here on the forum.

Looky here!!
My mind and heart were there today!
Heron

It was supposed to rain on Friday so I didn’t hold out much hope for flying. As I drove up to the airport about a half hour before sunrise the sky was turning red. The ADIS said winds variable at four kts. I performed a through pre-flight the night before so I rolled her out, checked the gas and oil, gave a quick look at the controls and the rotor tower integrity and off I went. I made my radio call to ground and it is starting to feel familiar. I made the call to the tower and I was to fly a close left pattern.

Each takeoff and landing felt better than the one before. I am starting to feel what to do instead of thinking about it. I had several landings that seemed to be going badly and I found a way to turn them from bad to good. The tower was realy working with me and it allowed me to be more consistent. I flew for 1.4 hours and made 12 landings.

I felt like I was running out of forward stick and I stopped to inspect the rotor controls and filled up with gas. I couldn’t find anything wrong and went out for .75 hours and 6 landings.

The last four landings had a gusting tail wind with the last two being with a straight out wind sock. The extra speed was intimidating and I lost rudder authority as I touched down at around 15 miles per hour ground speed. Adding power just picked up the speed and delayed the problem. I had to use my brakes to steer. I thought that this was good practice, now that I have thought about it I think I should have made a full stop after the first downwind landing. The tower didn’t want to reverse the traffic flow because there was a lot of commercial stuff coming in IFR and they were spaced a little tight.

I realized at four am that I was running out of forward stick because I was more relaxed and I was sitting back instead of hunching forward. It made my arm too short.

Saturday was supposed to be a rainy day also and I had a little work to do so I didn’t get to the airport until 9:00 am. I was flying by 9:30. There was a lot of traffic and I was often number three in the pattern. I was flying a close right pattern, normal pattern is left and many of the larger aircraft land strait in. It was a challenge keeping track of the traffic and the spacing. I think it was good practice for a busy airport. Toward the end of the hour I had the airport pretty much to myself and it allowed more consistency. They changed tower personnel and the new guy would clear me for the option as I was abeam the tower. It made it much easier to be consistent. After an hour of touch and goes I stopped for gas. As I was heading back out I checked the ADIS and wind were variable at 8. Some of the wind socks were strait out and as I turned toward taxiway alpha I felt the wind across my face. I headed back toward the hanger. I turned around once more and the wind was even stronger. I suspect that I looked silly doing 360 degree turns. It seemed like such a waste to not fly.

I had two landings that I felt weren’t going well and I was able to save them with more aggressive stick inputs. It feels as though the Predator is an extension of my body and I think her down.

Thank you, Vance

It is 6:00 am and fog with visibility of a quarter mile. I am headed down to the airport to wait for the fog to burn off. I hope to focus and make progress on hitting my spot. I feel that as I develop more ways to have elegant landings I should be able to use some of them to put her down where I want.

Thank you, Vance

Vance, Kudo's on your flying progress, Thanks for your postings here. I enjoy re-living my early flying thru your writing. I miss the adrenaline rush that I used to get at every liftoff, I feel it again, flying with you. I respect you for training at such a busy field, radio operation and communication was the most tedious part of my FW training. I think that when you are able to fly out of a small, uncontrolled field, without the pressure of large traffic and comm., your "feel" of your bird will blossom.

Yahoooo!
Big progress today! The fog burned off early and I got to test my 4:00 am epiphany.
I do some of my best thinking when I wake up in the early am. I was replaying some of my saved landings and I realized that I had learned not to be too rough with the stick in a Robinson 22. I had been too gentle with the stick in the Predator. In the helicopter I would rest my arm on my leg so I could control my movements and just apply pressure. In the Predator my arm is free and I use more than pressure to make things happen. The way I learned to turn an untidy landing into an elegant landing was to be more aggressive with the stick. It occurred to me that I could use the same aggressive moves to plant my aircraft where I wanted too.

For my first 9 landings I picked a ten foot set of white stripes as my target and I hit every time. If I was floating too far, I could pull back hard and plant the tail. If I needed more distance I could slow my pull back, bleed off more airspeed and then aggressively cushion the landing at the very last moment. This would not have worked until I managed to be more consistent with my landings so in my opinion, I am building on my experience. I am not able to express what a big deal this was to me. I went out to the Guadalupe Dunes because I now felt confident that I could land successfully if the engine stopped. I am now working hard at not becoming overconfident.

I experienced the pitfall of overconfidence in my second mission. The winds were at ten and straight down the runway, the tower let me know when they increased to twelve at 310. I was landing on 30 so this was right at my limit and I called for a full stop. I wanted to land near the high speed taxiway in front of the tower so I came in a little high. I watched the wind sock go straight out in a direct cross. I was still high enough to go around. Instead I got somewhere around 35 degrees of lean just to stay lined up with the runway. The move was so extreme that the tower asked if that was intentional. I was set to go around and the gust died down and I planted her exactly where I intended to, tail wheel first at zero roll. “I withdraw the question!’” came from the tower. I should have gone around and landed on 20. I feel this was poor aviation decision making based on overconfidence. I spent the next hour watching other aircraft have much bigger problems with less wind. I love gyroplanes.

Thank you Lee, I was so excited today that I got dry mouth. I checked my pulse after my last landing and it was a 74, indicating that I did not have the judgment to be frightened. I am pleased that I can bring that excitment back for you. It is one of the high points of my life.

Thank you, Vance

Vance, Your story makes me so happy inside. I'm out of words.

I love that Tom,

that is exactly how I feel when I sit down to write about the latest excitement. Finding the words helps me to relish the event.

Thank you, Vance

Way to go Vance!!

Dan Reagan
Cincinnati

Tom said it as I feel, “Vance, Your story makes me so happy inside. I'm out of words.”
I have been following your exploits with vigor and almost can’t wait to check into the forum to get your updates daily. It is fun to see your excitement with your newfound freedom and it has me inspired. Today I started moving into my new house in Glendale and took a drive to Buckeye just to see how long it takes to get to the airport, 26 minutes with moderate traffic. So much better than the 4 hour drive I had before and maybe I can get a bunch more flying in.
Vance, keep up the great work and thanks for sharing, it is inspirational and a joy letting us fly with you.

Vance,

You're doing great, guy. Less hours in your bird than I have in mine and you skill level is past me.

You are absolutely right not to get cocky, but you should pat yourself on the back for doing so well in such a short time. Having such a beautifully designed and built bird helps, but it still takes a good pilot.

Continue to fly safe, and enjoy that bird every chance you get.
Rocky

Winds are 040 degrees at 11 kts, gusting to 19 kts.

I will try to get some work done on my studies for the knowledge test.

I would like to learn how to work my Garmin. I had it on yesterday and it warned me that I was in controlled airspace and it warned me when I was approaching restricted airspace. I had to press enter to make the message go away. I can see where this has value.

I also lost KSMX in the sun as I was coming back from Guadalupe. I think I may go into work for a faster connection so I can study the Google earth pictures and pick up more landmark references. My version air card makes things happen a little slow.

Thank you all for the encouragement. I feel like I have a whole band of friends sharing the experience. It helps me when I encounter setbacks and increases the joy of my epiphanies.

I find it challenging to go from my demonstrated ability in motorcycles to my student status in aviation. I feel so foolish when I misinterpret some experience or allow some similar unrelated experience to hold me back.

I used to teach road racing, so I am very familiar with the learning process in a risk environment. I often feel like my worst students. Sometimes I just don’t get it and I am not able to put it together. After I come to some understanding I can’t believe that I was so slow to learn. I feel that I know what proficiency looks like and I have a very long way to go. I don’t think that I will run out of excitement any time soon and I will continue to provide comic relief to those who have been there, done that and have the license.

Thank you, Vance

The first day of the New Year was a great day for flying.

The winds never got over 4 kts.

I flew for 2.5 hours and made 29 very nice landings.

Most of my take offs were good.

Twice a large helicopter passed beneath me and it look like someone had played Frisbee with a very big tarantula. The rotor was so big and turning so slowly you could see the individual blades.

I flew out to the Guadalupe dunes and took some pictures of a very hazy Santa Maria Valley. I will post some of them after Diana shrinks them

I was able to get the ground speed working on my Garmin today and came back from Guadalupe at 92 miles per hour ground speed at 2450 rpm or 75 percent power.

I don’t believe I made any mistakes on the radio.

I used the initial contact from 10 miles out that Jim Mayfield taught me and it worked great.

I had a flat tire as I was landing and I was able to take enough weight off it with full back stick to get to parking so I didn’t close down the airport.

I have the tire fixed now.

All in all a very exciting day with lots of quantifiable progress. I am starting to feel comfortable now and I love every moment of the flight. I am initiating turns in the wind with the rudder and that seems to work well. My heart still pounds but my mouth is less dry. I spend less time thinking about what am I going to do to mitigate this error and more time thinking about what will be the most fun.

Thank you, Vance