1500 hours as Pilot in command.

Vance

Gyroplane CFI
Staff member
Joined
Oct 30, 2003
Messages
18,357
Location
Santa Maria, California
Aircraft
Givens Predator
Total Flight Time
2600+ in rotorcraft
Oops; actually 1,533

I have now landed at 63 airports and added six new to me airports since 1,400 hours as pilot in command.

HWD Hayward Executive, Hayward, California; a part of some very complex San Francisco airspace.

MER Castle Airport, Atwater, California; Used to be Castle Air force Base in the San Joaquin valley with a great museum and more concrete than I have seen in one place. I flew in for the Cal Pilots meeting.

SLI Los Alamitos Army Air base, Los Alamitos, California; my first experience flying into an active military base. Flew in for the Rotors, Wings and Wheels event; had a great time and met a lot of interesting people. Thank you Wayne.

REI Redlands Municipal Airport, Redlands, California: A nice little airport on the way to Palm Springs, visited and staid with friends.

PSP Palms Springs International Airport, Palm Springs, California; flew in for the Aviation Expo. It was my first time through the Banning pass which is famous of high winds and turbulence. I had carefully avoided it in the past by flying over the high desert when I was flying between Buckeye and Santa Maria.

SMO Santa Monica Municipal Airport, Santa Monica, California; an airport with quite a history, bleachers with sound to listen to ATC and watch landings. A lot of people want it closed. Flew in to meet some people from the Pilots of America Message Board. My first positive experience with flight following.

POC Brackett Field Airport, La Verne, California; a friend wanted to learn how to take off and land the Cavalon (Puff) and Cable has a rough, off camber downhill runway so we flew the five miles to bracket. The controller was Ryan, the air boss for the Cable air show and he took very good care of us.

Log Book entries:

986 hours cross country

16.1 hours night.

4,525 landings.

I flew in the Cable Air show and had a great time.
The second day was rained out.

That was my twelfth air show and the second in Puff.

I felt very comfortable tossing Puff around.

I have improved confidence in Puff’s ability to handle strong winds. I saw wind shear in the range of 20kts with a few 25knot wind shears with 30+knots of head wind flying in the turbulence of the coastal mountains on my way back from visiting my friend at Cable. This may be an example of overconfidence.

Overconfidence is still my primary nemesis.

I have successfully used flight following several times now. I had not been successful in the past.

I taught a multi-engine land, instrument/ helicopter pilot with no gyroplane experience to land and take off in Puff in an the first hour and a half lesson at an unfamiliar airport with a 3,361 foot, seventy five foot wide runway with a 1,200 foot hill at the end of the runway that causes a rotor midfield. POC has noise abatement procedures that had us making an early right turn at 100 feet above the ground. Winds were 14kts.

By the end of 2.6 hours of dual and two hours of ground instruction over two days he greased several landings and managed the takeoffs well in less than ideal conditions.

This is a prime example of my overconfidence as was the flight home with a weather front moving in.

Flight planning is getting easier and more fun for me.

My altitude control is improving even in very turbulent conditions. I can tell it lessens the workload for ATC when I am flying in busy controlled airspace.

I still don’t grease all my landings in Puff but I no longer take a deep breath before starting the descent.

I continue to learn about teaching people to fly. Either I am improving or I am getting better students. It is not unusual for them to fly to practical test standards in their second hour of instruction. As my experience grows I am getting better at the exchange of controls and explaining and demonstrating the maneuvers.

My love for flying gyroplanes continues to grow and I still learn from every flight.

It brings me pleasure to have my friends along on my gyroplane adventure.

Thank you, Vance
 

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That's a lot of cross country time. You've written quite a bit about your XC excursions, so it must be a great deal of fun out there in the Calli mountains and seashore, eh?

Hope you enjoy the next 1500.

How much PIC time in gyrocopters???
 
That's a lot of cross country time. You've written quite a bit about your XC excursions, so it must be a great deal of fun out there in the Calli mountains and seashore, eh?

Hope you enjoy the next 1500.

How much PIC time in gyrocopters???

Thank you Greg, I feel fortunate to have so many lovely places to fly.

All of the pilot in command time is in gyroplanes.

My only rating is commercial pilot, rotorcraft, gyroplane.

Regards, Vance
 
Very cool Vance. I still remember your early gyroplane training with Jim Mayfield. I think your progress and achievements are admirable, but nothing short of inspirational given your disability. When I follow your gyro stories my main reaction is -- I want to be like Vance when I grow up... I wish you many more hours of enjoyable and safe flying, and keep on sharing the fun.

Udi
 
Very cool Vance. I still remember your early gyroplane training with Jim Mayfield. I think your progress and achievements are admirable, but nothing short of inspirational given your disability. When I follow your gyro stories my main reaction is -- I want to be like Vance when I grow up... I wish you many more hours of enjoyable and safe flying, and keep on sharing the fun.

Udi

Thank you Udi, I am on a great adventure and get a lot of help and encouragement from my friends.

I still struggle with aphasia and poor short term memory.

I misplaced one of my radio call sheets on my last flight and felt very busy making up for the loss. POC was a new airport for me with parallel runways and complex noise procedures. ATC helped me with the information I couldn't find on the TAC.

The frequency and runway information was on my Terminal Area Chart but I did not feel comfortable looking for it, flying and looking out for traffic in in the very busy Los Angles airspace.

I am much more comfortable reading my radio calls from the sheet even though I have made so many.

Part of my preflight list is to make sure the radio call sheets are organized.

I very much admire the way your mind works Udi and I would like to be more like you when I grow up.

I feel that because I have reached 65 years of age without growing up that it is not required.

I love sharing the fun with my friends. I often can feel their presence along on the flight.

Thank you, Vance
 
.

Read it again Greg .... I think Vance was referring to an experienced pilot , see below

At least that is the way I understood it.

.

<snip>
I taught a multi-engine land, instrument/ helicopter pilot with no gyroplane experience to land and take off in Puff in an the first hour and a half lesson at an unfamiliar airport with a 3,361 foot, seventy five foot wide runway with a 1,200 foot hill at the end of the runway that causes a rotor midfield. POC has noise abatement procedures that had us making an early right turn at 100 feet above the ground. Winds were 14kts.

By the end of 2.6 hours of dual and two hours of ground instruction over two days he greased several landings and managed the takeoffs well in less than ideal conditions.
<snip>


Thank you, Vance
 
So glad to see you wringing all this joy out of our sport.
 
OK thanks, I'm glad for a few of you to see my concern and make your responses so I could get your take on it. Enough said. Have a nice weekend, I'll see you all again next week. Hope no one minds if I delete it now that we have some views.
 
Yikes!!!

Yikes!!!

---Quote (Originally by Vance)---
Oops; actually 1,533

continue to learn about teaching people to fly. Either I am improving or I am getting better students. It is not unusual for them to fly to practical test standards in their second hour of instruction. As my experience grows I am getting better at the exchange of controls and explaining and demonstrating the maneuvers.
---End Quote---
“Prudence is not served by this comment...this kind of thing is what leads the uninformed to the wrong conclusions.”

“I'm proud of your accomplishments and laud your track to get your CFI, but don't think this line serves the greater general interests of safety in the gyrocopter community at large.”

“I can't imagine anyone other than a helo pilot being up to practical test standards in just over an hour of dual time training hours. My mind turns to the dangers of even certified instructors prematurely thinking a transitioning student was competent, much less a guy with no certificate training folks to fly a narrowly defined, specific type of aircraft with primary goal being the intent of selling the aircraft.”

“We all know about the death of the Florida PPC guy (880 hours PIC) who was signed off prematurely after just a handful of hours by not just one, but two CFI's resulting in FAA action against both instructors. Both CFI's lost their licenses, one man is dead, and those CFI's are still not teaching anything to anybody - and it is doubtful either one will be anytime soon. From what I understand, one is banned for life, for sure.”

“But perhaps you _are _finding that your trainees (can they be students if you are not a CFI?) are up to speed in the Cavalon. Like the MTO and the Magni, this gyro is also a type gyro that the FAA told me, personally, is not their idea of a good training vehicle for new gyro pilots.”

“The FAA would much prefer to have pilots train in more demanding gyrocopters first, learn about things like PIO, then move on to the smooth Euros afterwards.”

“If you are training gyro and helo pilots to fly the Cav, and they are competent in the Cav after just one - two hours, and these trainees are not folks who have no rotorcraft experience, you might want to clarify that a bit.”

“The last thing we need is a bunch of newbies reading a highly-regarded pilot's postings like this, then running off to tell the wife and kids they can fly a gyro and be ready for a practical in just two hours.”

“In other words: KIDS! THESE ARE TRAINED PROFESSIONALS, DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!”

“Best of wishes, I truly want only the best for you in all you endeavor.”
***************

What amazing leaps you have made Greg.

It is a fact that this multi-engine land, instrument rated pilot for over 40 years along with a helicopter rating was landing and taking off quite nicely after 2.6 hours of training in difficult conditions. In my opinion he would not have tried to fly the Cavalon without me along and I feel there were at least two occasions when he might have tipped her over if I had not intervened.

The same day I went flying with a lady and in less than an hour she was doing steep turns and S turns over a road to commercial standards. She has been an airline captain for the last 19 years and flew A10s and F16s before that.

I took up a friend of mine who is an Aironca pilot for an hour and his ground reference maneuvers were all to commercial practical test standards.

Practical test standards are exactly that, standards. Someone can meet the standards or he can’t, there is no judgement on my part involved. I have them listed on the back of my ground reference maneuver cards.

I have given one student with no flying experience three point two two hours of dual and seven point five hours of ground school and except for takeoff and landing he planned and executed a hundred and sixty mile cross country that was easily to private standards. His airspeed and altitude control through class Charlie airspace were to commercial standards. He made most of the radio calls is the class Delta and the radio calls in class Charlie on the return. I have learned to demonstrate first and we had not flown in class Charlie.

Please read FAR § 61.87 (Solo requirements for student pilots) so you may recognize that there is much more to a solo sign off than performing a few tasks to practical test standards. The knowledge, skill and training requirements are quite specific.

Because I am not a CFI the time my friends spend flying with me cannot be logged as dual instruction so I have not tried to get anyone ready to solo as they would just have to do everything over again. I am learning to teach and write lesson plans.

None of the people I have been working with have any fantasy about being ready to fly. If anything they are over estimating the training they will need because there are aware of the things they are not doing to practical standards and the specific things they need to know and accomplish before they solo.

“We all know about the death of the Florida PPC guy (880 hours PIC) who was signed off prematurely after just a handful of hours by not just one, but two CFI's resulting in FAA action against both instructors. Both CFI's lost their licenses, one man is dead, and those CFI's are still not teaching anything to anybody - and it is doubtful either one will be anytime soon. From what I understand, one is banned for life, for sure.”

We don’t all know this Greg. Perhaps you should share this knowledge with the rest of us here on the Rotary Wing Forum.

I am familiar with the accident. I do not have any information on the FAA actions.

Once I become a CFI if someone came to me and said they wanted to learn to fly in 10 hours or wanted to learn to fly their Air Command without transition training I would not put my name in their log book. It is as simple as that. I feel 20 hours of dual and 40 hours of ground school is probably a minimum for a new pilot to private. I would expect a commitment before I wasted anyone’s time. I have never flown an Air Command and I would not pretend to know how. I would send them to Britta who trains in an Air Command. If they didn’t want to travel that far I would suggest they find a different hobby.

It appears to me that the FAA feels that a Cavalon is a fine aircraft to train in because there are three LODAs on Cavalon’s now. For those of you who may not know; Letter Of Deviation Authority is what is required to charge for training in an experimental aircraft.

I am not anything like you Greg and I don’t think the way you do.

I suspect that people are able to think for themselves and make good decisions if they have the information. I make an effort to separate observation from opinion and interpretation.

I see you delegated your post Greg so I will work around it to dispel any fantasies someone might develop from my post.

Regards, Vance
 
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Great achievement Vance, proud of you.
 
Exactly Arnie.

Exactly Arnie.

.

Read it again Greg .... I think Vance was referring to an experienced pilot , see below

At least that is the way I understood it.

.

Exactly Arnie and in the debriefing he did not have any trouble understanding what was required by the FARs for a private add on and didn’t have any trouble imagining what we would do for 20 hours of dual.

Part of the debriefing was to explain how specific maneuvers that he was familiar with would have prevented some of the problems he was having. He had very specific helicopter pilot challenges that I anticipated. I did not expect to teach him to land and takeoff so we had not covered some of it in ground school.

I have been learning what it takes to teach different maneuvers and how to build on what they have learned.

I am having a lot of fun and feel it helps me to be a better pilot. My students keep coming back for more so I suspect they are having fun too.

There is more about my training adventures in my post to Greg.

Thank you, Vance
 
So glad to see you wringing all this joy out of our sport.

Thank you Joe, it feels to me like the joy just rolls over me.

I am amazed at how the addition of Puff can turn an ordinary day into a great adventure.

I love hanging out with pilots and the whole aviation community.

It seems wherever I go in a gyroplane I have friends even if I have never been there before.

Thank you, Vance
 
Congratulations Vance. I have lots of catching up to do.......
You are a great inspiration.
 
CONGRATULATIONS VANCE !!!! :whoo::whoo:

What a great achievement!!!

Thank you Mark.

It is interesting that I tend to fly a little higher and a little faster in Puff even though they have similar performance.

I am still an open aircraft guy at heart and in some ways miss flying The Predator.

Somehow being too cold and getting a little beat up adds to the adventure for me.

I still don’t land Puff as well as The Predator.

I fired her up last week and she sounded masculine.

Thank you, Vance
 
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