A gyroplane flies just like a submarine!

[Vance]

A gyroplane flies like a submarine according to Jody, a retired submariner with no flying experience. He backed it up with his flying skills.

I called him up Friday because the wind was predicted to come up as a front moved through on Saturday when we were scheduled to fly. In my opinion gyroplanes handle strong winds and turbulence better than anything I have flown. I have found it is hard for a primary student to separate the effect of their control inputs from the effect of the environment. I had been watching the weather predictions closely all week flying with my anonymous client; “Bob”. Basically the National Weather Service knew the winds were coming but were unsure about when. Friday afternoon they decided the winds would reach Santa Maria Saturday. The winds actually arrived Friday afternoon with winds 290 degrees at 20kts gusting to 30kts.

Jody was already on his way from San Diego and said politely yet firmly; “I am not turning around.” I modified the plan and we agreed to meet at the gate at 8:00. I would do the preflight the night before and forgo teaching preflight before we fly. I figured on doing it after our flight and after the wind came up.

At 7:00 AM I checked the Terminal Aerodrome Forecast at Santa Maria (SMX) and San Luis Obispo (SBP) and they were predicting the 20+ knot winds with a ten knot gust spread coming up at 1:00. The weather looked good for Sunday.

There is still a lot to cover before flight and I was surprised how many times that Jody would say; “sounds just like a submarine” to some complex description about how to fly a gyroplane. Jody has a prevailing self-confidence without appearing arrogant. The few questions he did ask were thoughtful and well-reasoned.

We were wheels up by 9:00 and I gave Jody the controls.

I could feel him getting a feel for the cyclic with very little altitude and airspeed divergence. His cyclic movements progressively decreased and I felt he had control of the aircraft. Our ground track was a nice as could be.

I briefly took the controls once we were outside the SMX airspace and demonstrated steep turns and a power off vertical descent before giving Jody back the controls and we heading out to the shoreline.

We were catching some lift off the beach and Jody handled it well. He followed each of my directions with precision.

I was explaining about the wires as we made our way through the Avilla Pass and Jody gave me the controls. I demonstrated flying over the poles and it was a good demonstration of how hard it is to see the wires from the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant (big power transmission lines).

I gave Jody back the controls at the most turbulent part of the pass and he handled it well.

Jody gave me back the controls on our downwind and the winds were already turbulent enough to cause some challenges. We caught a lot of lift over the threshold so I did a power off vertical descent to about 150 feet about the ground before picking the airspeed back up to fifty knots and then just as we were about to touch down a gust stopped and an addition of power and an aggressive flair was required for a nice landing.

We decided to forgo brunch and the owner of the Spirit of San Luis restaurant was kind enough to let us use a table for the debrief.

A bold young man about 12 years old came up and politely started asking good questions about The Predator. He was working on his Boy Scout aviation merit badge. It turns out Jody teaches Boy Scouts about all sorts of things in San Diego. We both felt it was a very pleasant interaction.

I checked with flight service and the wind was coming up so we flew direct back to Santa Maria bypassing Lake Lopez and the Huasna Valley because of expected turbulence.

Jody wanted to see how it felt to fly at 7,500 feet so we began a climb. At a little over 4,500 feet Jody decided he was cold enough and he began some freedom of the sky turns and descents.

His flying was exceptional and I had little to say.

I checked the Santa Maria ATIS (automated terminal information service) and the wind was straight down the runway at 22kts with no reported gusts.

I checked in with the Santa Maria Tower and we were to make a right down wind for runway three zero and report midfield.

ATIS was wrong about gusts and Jody did a great job of lining up with the centerline so I took the throttle and Jody made a very nice landing.

As we filled her up at self-serve I watched our fifteen knot wind sock remain fully erect as it twitched through about thirty degrees. We were done flying for the day.

We had a nice lunch at the Moxi Café and I checked the weather when I returned to the hangar. For the first time they were predicting big winds for Sunday so I called Sunday’s client and he was in route and did turn around. He is a very experience pilot and well understood the challenges of the weather.

We did a careful preflight on The Predator explaining the reason for each line item and explored what it would take for Jody to become a Sport Pilot, Rotorcraft-Gyroplane.

It was a very nice way to spend a day.

We had only flown 1.9 hours so I told Jody if he is up this way we will do some take offs and landings. In my opinion Jody is ready.