NoWingsAttached
Unobtainium Member
- Joined
- May 21, 2006
- Messages
- 4,871
- Location
- Columbia, SC
- Aircraft
- Air Command Tandem w/ Arrow 100hp; GyroBee w/ Hirth 65hp; Air Command Tandem w/ Yamaha 150hp
- Total Flight Time
- >350
Steve Henry was my first customer in 2013. Then, in 2017 he wanted one of my latest Mohawk Aero Corps (MAC) Yamaha YG4i gearbox adapters for the 150 HP Apex snowmobile engines which, unlike the earlier RX1 motors, has EFI - something that high-altitude pilots love for obvious reasons.
He had just started work on his sixth "Just" aircraft, and fifth "Just Highlander", the "Yee-Haw 6". He had it flying in time for the '17 season, and flew it to Oshkosh this year from his home on the western border of Idaho. Since my adapter was on it, I decided to make my first pilgrimage to Oshkosh and meet Steve there.
As I drove up on Thursday, Steve called and told me he had won every STOL competition event at AirVenture so far, and gave me the time and location of the final contest to be held Friday evening.
When it came time for Steve to compete, the announcer told the excited crowd that earlier in the week he had landed in 67 feet and wondered if he could best that now. His engine was noticably quieter than any other engine in the event, even as he revved up for take-off. When he released the brakes and hit the NOS bottle for another 40 HP (190 total calculated HP), it was wheels up in an incredible 57 feet!!!
I have never seen any FW take off in 57 feet in this weight class or any other. Have you? Is this some kind of record for the books? No big surprise, Steve won Friday night’s STOL competition too, making it a clean sweep for the week not just in class, but overall.
As I sipped my campgrounds store coffee and ate my toasted plain cake donuts (I stick ‘em in the bagel toaster to crisp the outside an warm up the inside) on a picnic table in the warm, Wisconsin morning sunshine, with a gentle breeze licking at my 3-day-old neglected shave, reading my EAA AirVenture daily free newspaper “Today”, I came across the announcements for all of the event winners.
It said you can only win in any category once, and never win in that category for a lower or equal place again. And I read on through the list of winners until I came to the following:
LIGHT-SPORT AIRCRAFT – RESERVE GRAND CHAMPION
Steve Henry
Nampa, Idaho
I just heard someone ask, “Why is this of interest here, to the gyrocopter community?” Because it was the gyro guys who made this happen: first with Todd Reick’s Yamaha Vector YG3 Rotax C kit in 2007, followed by Ernie Boyette’s Apex YG4i AutoFlight kit in 2011, and then with Greg Mills’ RX1 YG4 universal kit in 2012 and again with the Apex YG4i universal adapter in 2017.
By now there are about 100 flying Yamaha’s, the vast majority being gyrocopters and gyroplanes. We now even have a gyroplane manufacturer who is selling Yamaha-specific Eurotub air frames, known as TangoGyro.
With the announcement of a Yamaha-powered EAA Grand Champion which also won every STOL event at AirVenture 2018, it is safe to say that Yamaha aircraft power has most definitely arrived, and is apparently here to stay.
He had just started work on his sixth "Just" aircraft, and fifth "Just Highlander", the "Yee-Haw 6". He had it flying in time for the '17 season, and flew it to Oshkosh this year from his home on the western border of Idaho. Since my adapter was on it, I decided to make my first pilgrimage to Oshkosh and meet Steve there.
As I drove up on Thursday, Steve called and told me he had won every STOL competition event at AirVenture so far, and gave me the time and location of the final contest to be held Friday evening.
When it came time for Steve to compete, the announcer told the excited crowd that earlier in the week he had landed in 67 feet and wondered if he could best that now. His engine was noticably quieter than any other engine in the event, even as he revved up for take-off. When he released the brakes and hit the NOS bottle for another 40 HP (190 total calculated HP), it was wheels up in an incredible 57 feet!!!
I have never seen any FW take off in 57 feet in this weight class or any other. Have you? Is this some kind of record for the books? No big surprise, Steve won Friday night’s STOL competition too, making it a clean sweep for the week not just in class, but overall.
As I sipped my campgrounds store coffee and ate my toasted plain cake donuts (I stick ‘em in the bagel toaster to crisp the outside an warm up the inside) on a picnic table in the warm, Wisconsin morning sunshine, with a gentle breeze licking at my 3-day-old neglected shave, reading my EAA AirVenture daily free newspaper “Today”, I came across the announcements for all of the event winners.
It said you can only win in any category once, and never win in that category for a lower or equal place again. And I read on through the list of winners until I came to the following:
LIGHT-SPORT AIRCRAFT – RESERVE GRAND CHAMPION
Steve Henry
Nampa, Idaho
I just heard someone ask, “Why is this of interest here, to the gyrocopter community?” Because it was the gyro guys who made this happen: first with Todd Reick’s Yamaha Vector YG3 Rotax C kit in 2007, followed by Ernie Boyette’s Apex YG4i AutoFlight kit in 2011, and then with Greg Mills’ RX1 YG4 universal kit in 2012 and again with the Apex YG4i universal adapter in 2017.
By now there are about 100 flying Yamaha’s, the vast majority being gyrocopters and gyroplanes. We now even have a gyroplane manufacturer who is selling Yamaha-specific Eurotub air frames, known as TangoGyro.
With the announcement of a Yamaha-powered EAA Grand Champion which also won every STOL event at AirVenture 2018, it is safe to say that Yamaha aircraft power has most definitely arrived, and is apparently here to stay.