Old gyro quiz

[gyroplanes]

Can you identify these four gyros from the early 1990s. Sorry for the quality, these are screen captures from old videos.

[MikeBoyette]

1.Rotorbuggy EB1 (known to family as Blunderbeast)built by Ernie Boyette 1982.
2. I think Frank Blacks machine with a rudder control on the stick.
3. Hollaman Sporster (owned and built by two brothers)
4. Bud's Light (ultralight mac machine built by Bud Swanson)

[gyroplanes]

Dang you Mike, I knew I should have excluded you.

Frank "Black" is Fran Haller, right? (Frank Black is the machinist / gyroguy from Ohio) I think he called his modified Barrett Sky Car a "Hallercopter". Frank used to live in Wisconsin and moved to Green Cove Springs, FL. and I think, made the Rotorhawk blades for a while. The Sky car had a gas and brake pedal and all of the flight controls were on a stalk. The "wheel" controlled the rudder by rotating it like a car's steering wheel. The stalk it attached to acted just like a joystick (cyclic). I always wanted to try one for the heck of it. The Gyro car was either too small, or I was too big. :-)

3) isn't it actually the "Glanville Skymaster", a modified Hollman Sportster? I can't tell if the body is full height or not. Kemp Glanville and his boys built a shortened body and changed up a few things. I think their's was the only "Skymaster" built.

4) I think Bud's last name is Swanson?

Nice work. The next time I won't use Bensen days footage.

[MikeBoyette]

Tom,
I was at that Bensen Day's. I was about 11 or 12 at the time. It was one of the last in Dunnelon. I realize I am only 35 but, since I have been around gyros all my life I guess I am an old timer.

[Doug Riley]

Yes, that's Kemp Glanville's Skymaster. The windshield on the Sportster is more vertical, lending it a stronger resemblance to a flying phone booth.

(For that matter, maybe Tom could post a picture of a phone booth for the edification of our younger members. Phone booths seem to have gone the way of public spittoons.)

[GyroRon]

Doug, your picture in your avatar.... you look like one of those guys that climbs mount Everest or something! Whatcha look like without the beard?

[Doug Riley]

Dunno, Ron, I grew it at age 21 and haven't looked back....

The pic is from early last spring. Pierre LaFlamme and Rene Genest, a couple of the guys from the Montreal area, came down for some lessons. We took pics of one another with the big Dominator. It was chilly. We had to block off the whole radiator with duct tape and plastic.

[gyroplanes]

Originally Posted by Doug Riley

Yes, that's Kemp Glanville's Skymaster. The windshield on the Sportster is more vertical, lending it a stronger resemblance to a flying phone booth.

(For that matter, maybe Tom could post a picture of a phone booth for the edification of our younger members. Phone booths seem to have gone the way of public spittoons.)

Your wish is my command, oh bearded one.

[aerodynamicdon]

That's the booth of the TIME LORD.

[Hognose]

Is Pierre related to Rejean Laflamme who was working on a composite and alloy tandem-rotor helicopter? If he's one of Rejean's sons, I think he's the one with the best English.

That is a police call box, by the way; phone booths were red. The copper box was good only for calling the coppers (and it's how the unarmed bobbies used to call for help, back in the day when even a complete thug would never strike a policeman). The cops had no radios (and many Britons in that period didn't have their own phones). Here is a British phone booth of the period:

http://rclsgi.eng.ohio-state.edu/~ca...ne%20Booth.JPG

An American one from the 1970s-1980s:
http://www.joblo.com/images_movie_re...hone_booth.jpg

The small kind:
http://www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infopol/photos/booth.jpg

I couldn't find a photo of an old German phone booth. I have unpleasant memories of long-distance romance with Plaintiff No. 1 whilst throwing 5-mark coins into a pay phone. It's amazing that something so deeply embedded in worldwide culture should vanish so quickly.

(My 1983 BMW 633 came with a cell phone. A shoe-box sized unit between the seats mated up with another shoebox-and-a-half in the trunk. Occasionally, it even worked!) My Iridium satphone is a fraction of the size (and cost) and works anywhere in the world (outdoors, with a clean shot at the sky where the sats orbit). Of course, you pay for the service.

cheers

-=K=-