Gyro Pilot Saves a Life today!

[gyro]

Originally Posted by msmfi

Don't want to play devil's advocate role, but ....
helicopter would be a more useful tool in a situation like this...

Yea....but only if it was a helo made to hold at least 3 people and you would have needed a 2nd person to drag the poor guy in....and provided the pilot could hold a hover and manage the rotor well enought. especially when you have a lot of couter balancing to do!

[Harry_S.]

Originally Posted by msmfi

Don't want to play devil's advocate role, but ....
helicopter would be a more useful tool in a situation like this...

AAaah...another ray of sunshine.

Entirely uncalled for in this instance.


Cheers

[msmfi]

Thanks for 'warm' response
Looks like some of You are more about gyroplanes
than Mike Bantum was about his friend.

[Harry_S.]

Originally Posted by msmfi

Thanks for 'warm' response
Looks like some of You are more about gyroplanes
than Mike Bantum was about his friend.

Say what?!

If Mike wasn't there in his GYROPLANE, his friend wouldn't be with us today.




.

[gyro]

Originally Posted by msmfi

Thanks for 'warm' response
Looks like some of You are more about gyroplanes
than Mike Bantum was about his friend.

Mirek, you got that warm welcoming because of the Devils advicate part.

Perhaps simply stating that had he been in a helicopter he may have been able to better assist the guy in the water rather than track down someone in a boat.

I think for the most part the guys were glad that a gyro could prove useful in this instance, where is seem like the guy had only minutes left before he slipped under water!

Most of these guys here are pretty cool so dont take to much offense by this :~)

[PW_Plack]

...helicopter would be a more useful tool in a situation like this...

...and there probably would have been one nearby if they weren't six times as expensive to operate!

[Mike Schallmann]

Aint that the truth!

[barnstorm2]

If he was in a single person helicopter I don't see what the advantage would have been.

The helicopter would have had a down wash (rotorwash) which may have made it more difficult to effectively communicate with the boater.

Furthermore, the rotarwash would have been a bad thing when he got near the swimming pilot that was exhasusted.

Does the average singleplace helicopter have the same range as Mikes gyro?

A single place heli certainly would be foolish to use in an attempted rescue, even 2 place helicopter should not attempt this unless manned by experienced EMS crews IMHO.

I really don't see how a comperable heli helps at all and I think there is an argument that a gyro would do a superior job as a bird-dog craft.

If you are saying a coast guard chopper would have been better then Mikes craft..... well you might as well just wish he was rescued by 50 topless cheerlearders.....

.

[dragonflyerthom]

Gyro, Heli, FW. It doesn't matter what type of craft Mike was flying. He did good at communicating with that boater and getting his friend out of the water. I'll take Mike on my side any time no matter what he is flying.

[StanFoster]

Mike is such a nice guy
and I always enjoy watching him fly at Bensen Days. What an excellent and correct use of his gyro. As I was reading this story, I thought maybe it was going to end up with Mike ditching his gyro to save this guy. I bet ol Mike would have done just that if needed. Mike-you deserve a standing ovation for this. Stan

[Fl90]

Yes, it was good of him to find help. If he had been in a heli, getting help would have been the best thing to do. To attempt a rescue with only a pilot and an exhausted swimmer, might have led to two exhausted swimmers.

Phil.

[Timchick]

Stan,
I was thinking the same thing. I thought we were going to read about Mike ditching his gyro to save the guy. I wonder if that thought would occur to any of us in a situation like that. I haven't started flying around the water here in the Bay yet but when I do I plan on wearing either a life vest or the inflatable suspenders/vest just in case. Do any of the amphib pilots wear life vests when they're out playing in the water?

Oh yeah, Way to go Mike!

[M. Pearce]

Tim,

I live about 45 miles from the Gulf or Mexico and we have a lot of marsh land around here South Louisiana.

I go diving with what they call a BC = Bouyency Compensater basically a co2 inflated life vest.

I will be wearing mine whenever I go flying south of my home over marshes or water.

And put your cell phone, lighter or matches in a ziplock bag in your pocket.

What most people don't understand is anything safety oriented carry on is not counted against the gyro's weight, even a set of floats will save you 60lbs off the craft.

A life vest is like a fire arm, chances are you will never need it, but when you do need it, you need it very badly.

I think anyone and everyone who flies over water should wear a life vest.

At least if they did have one they could take it off to throw dawn at someone in need.

Just talking about this incident here could save another life tomarrow.

[PW_Plack]

You know, they have helicopters up searching the Nevada desert for Steve Fossett right now, and when I hear about a search-&-rescue mission using helicopters, I always think about this.

They tell me just taking off in a big Coast Guard rescue chopper along the Oregon Coast here is a $10,000 commitment. It makes me wonder if seach-&-rescue shouldn't be split into two parts, with the search done at $45/hour by a gyro (or $180/hour by four gyros at once flying grid patterns), and the expensive choppers called in once there's a GPS fix on the rescuee.

This might be a tough sell to distraught family members, who'd want the first set of eyes to spot a survivor to be right there with hover capability and a winch, but I'd bet most searches would be completed much more quickly using multiple gyros vs one big helicopter.

[ventana7]

Mike told me he had already decided that if he saw his friend sinking he was going to ditch his gyro and try to swim him to shore, but they were a long ways out.

He had already gone through exactly how he would flare to a stop at a few feet above the water and drop it in.

Rob