Ask The Candidates

I'll bet Rick Marshall does!
 
Increase of funds, increase of members, promotion of safety and increase in public's perception of gyro's and the sport in general, .

Seems to me John has been doing a lot in implementing and pushing that recently and he is just a newcomer.
 
Okay folks. It's analogy time again.

The crime rate in this country is getting out of hand. People have to much access to guns, so what we need to do is outlaw gun ownership or pass some more laws to protect the innocent.

Sounds goofy huh. It gets better. We have enough gun laws on the books but hardly any of them are being followed as it is so why would you want to make more gun laws? So we wont follow them either?

Why is everyone trying to reinvent the wheel. Why dont we just beat it in to everyones head. There is enough information out there, and enough control imposed by the FAA already.

We just need to move on and show people what gyro flying is all about. Show up at the pancake breakfasts in your machine. Go to mini flyins. Trailer your machine to car shows, bike shows. Be inventive. Dont overwhelm the general public with the safety stuff. Hell they dont even have machines and your pounding the safety issues in to them.

I might be wrong here but I for one was on the fence about getting in to this sport just based on what I was reading on this forum. If you folks want to go at each other then there should be a forum closed to the players and not open for the public to see all the dirty laundry. thats the first thing that has to be done. Get out of the publics face with this forum and stop airing the laundry for all to see.

In other words there should be a closed to the public forum for owner/pilots, and an open forum for all to be in so this stuff stays where it belongs.

People are leaving in droves for all the above reasons and some I will not bring up here. since the thread was closed, thank god.
 
Jim, we are just humans, the good kind ones!! :D
It is a great bunch of guys, fear not . . .
Heron
 
Im not worried about us as much as im worried about the unedcutated public. Talk about safety before they show an actual interest and you will surely scare most of them away.

The people that are involved with this sport will not be swayed by all the conflict amongst the pilot/owner/PRA members. We will continue with our love of the sport, we must stear clear of all this safety stuff as far as the public is concerned.

The public goes to an airshow or flyin because of curiosity, not to have safety crammed down their throat. When a FBO has flight instruction available, they do not advertise the safety practices of the sport. This is reserved as part of the instruction process.

If you told everyone about the consequences of not getting training up front they would not even look further in to getting involved in the sport. Not only that but the majority of people interested in the sport would already think of safety up front.

Nobody has a death wish when they start training for the sport, unless your a terrorist or something like that.

It is part of the process after the fact so to speak.

When you buy a car the dealer goes over the operating functions of the vehicle, but you had to have passed the DOT written test and driving test to get your license. Those are the checkpoints of the system. Not the fact that anyone drove the safety issue down your throat first.

Thats all I am saying here.
I like to be asked, not told anything. And Im sure the general public feels the same way.
 
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Im not worried about us as much as im worried about the unedcutated public. Talk about safety before they show an actual interest and you will surely scare most of them away.

The people that are involved with this sport will not be swayed by all the conflict amongst the pilot/owner/PRA members. We will continue with our love of the sport, we must stear clear of all this safety stuff as far as the public is concerned.

The reason we are looked upon as the lunatic fringe by the rest of the aviation community is because of horrendous safety record in the past.

That seems to be changing because of the increased focus on safety, training, and proper design. Not because we avoid talking about it to the public.
 
I would much rather have someone consider gyroplanes and go away when they find out they are not safe than to have someone buy a poorly designed gyroplane and try to teach himself to fly and end up in an NTSB report.

Everywhere I go I have people explain to me that flying gyroplanes is suicidal. When I first started flying a gyroplane at SMX there was a pool for how many hours it would take me to fall out of the sky. The highest hours in the pool were 33.

Arrogant fixed wing pilots regularly try to teach themselves to fly without a syllabus and end up destroying the aircraft a very low altitude in very short order.

It is my hope that people thinking of taking up flying gyroplanes will see this and if they feel training is too expensive will go away instead of adding to our poor safety record.

Gyroplanes can do things safely that other aircraft can’t.

I love flying my gyroplane.

Thank you, Vance
 
I was introduced to PRA and gyro's at the 1994 Greencastle National flyin by Walter Bullerwell. I fell in love with this type of flying, and the people in the PRA community. It would seem to me that the personality of PRA has changed over the past 15 years. My observations lead me to conclude that it was a bunch of like minded guys and gals coming together for the friendships that were built around the flyin's, most flying Benson style machines. and only a minimal number of the larger heavier enclosed machines. $6000 machines vs 50 - 100k machines, that most individuals can not afford. It seems the thrust around the flyins started catering to the commercial vendors, and the desires of the vendors, and we have lost the heart of what we were. Don't get me wrong, the commercial side of things are needed to help fuel the economics in the gyro community. I enjoy the Shelbyville Flyin more than others I have went to, primarily because of the atmosphere. (milder temperatures - also).
I have heard stories about all the articles written about PRA and gyro's in any and all magazines by editors which were friends of Dennis Fetters; and the membership numbers have only declined since the lose of constant media exposure.
I think we need to find our identity again, and get the word out in any and all means, about our type of flying. (magazines, newspapers, FIXED WINGED flyins, video, etc.)
The PRA board has a job to do, and provide leadership and direction, with us the membership of PRA, but it is our (members) job to promote our community, daily to the world.
Good luck and best wishes to any person, who pitches their hat into that ring to be considered for a board nomination. Hopefully they can bring the heart of our organization to the Board and leadership back to the membership.
 
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Forum administrators is there a way to lock this thread so that no more posts can be made until it is time for board elections again and then unlock it?

This thread has so many irrelevant posts in it now that it has become hijacked and doesn't serve its original purpose. Those 'hijacking' posts should either be deleted or moved to another forum category.

I'm not knocking those who have made those posts because sometimes we can't immediately identify where we should be posting our comments. But, that doesn't mean that those posts should be left here; they serve no purpose in this thread and just create noise and distraction.
 
Great post John but I wish you had started it in a new thread. This one is older than dirt. Your buddy, Stan PRA 41973
 
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This post has been moved please do not respond here at the suggestion of Stan above.

See this post http://www.rotaryforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=37756 instead.


Great post John but I wish you had started it in a new thread. This one is older than dirt. Your buddy, Stan PRA 41973
Hi Stan
I had called to thank you for the help and the PM. Talked to your bubbly wife most delightful and got to thank her for her spelling help. I'm not sorry for NOT interrupting you while you were busy having fun!

I hadn't consider that, buddy! I do pride myself in recognizing and changing to a better idea than mine in a heartbeat.

I saw the sticky and that was 1/2 of the reason for the post. I think your right Stan and I'll move the post.

Thank you buddy, I love this site and you people my world wide friends all helping each other. Have I mentioned that?... Well how about in the last 10 min's? Oops might have.
 
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I have understood that as a leader of men you should never ask the men in your charge to do a job that you yourself wouldn't do. Lead through example. With that thought, it is obvious to even the most casual observer that all board members current or those running for election are PRA members. These men, the PRA leaders of men, are asking everyone else to become PRA members. The cost? About two tanks (12 gallons) of fuel or 2 hours of flying time. If everyone does this act this year, right now, then with the new board members in place along with seed money for development of programs I feel everyone can be very proud of the next steps of the PRA. Oh yeah, one more benefit to being a PRA member, since we all now have a stake in the game, when someone asks questions about wanting to learn to fly a gyroplane, the first thing everyone should say is "Join the PRA, there is a lot of good people and information within the organization to help make an informed decision on this sport." I will admit, I was a member last year and as of this post have not renewed my membership, however, writing this post has motivated me to “having a steak in the game” of PRA and I will be sending in my dues. Bury the past and look forward because we can never go back to the past. Life is ahead. The sacrifice is just two hours of flying time this year….not much.
 
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Originally post from here: http://www.rotaryforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8601&page=4

I have understood that as a leader of men you should never ask the men in your charge to do a job that you yourself wouldn't do. Lead through example. With that thought, it is obvious to even the most casual observer that all board members current or those running for election are PRA members. These men, the PRA leaders of men, are asking everyone else to become PRA members. The cost? About two tanks (12 gallons) of fuel or 2 hours of flying time. If everyone does this act this year, right now, then with the new board members in place along with seed money for development of programs I feel everyone can be very proud of the next steps of the PRA. Oh yeah, one more benefit to being a PRA member, since we all now have a stake in the game, when someone asks questions about wanting to learn to fly a gyroplane, the first thing everyone should say is "Join the PRA, there is a lot of good people and information within the organization to help make an informed decision on this sport." I will admit, I was a member last year and as of this post have not renewed my membership, however, writing this post has motivated me to “having a steak in the game” of PRA and I will be sending in my dues. Bury the past and look forward because we can never go back to the past. Life is ahead. The sacrifice is just two hours of flying time this year….not much.
Albert you have become one of my new heroes!!!
I love this site and you people!

The 1st sentence is one of the things about me that guaranteed success on most projects or businesses I'm involved with.

ALL IN is a disease in this regard and is why I volunteer my skill sets to PRA and I volunteer even when not my skill set when no one else will volunteer to it get done.
If it isn't getting done I JUST DO IT my entire life! Cannot hire a programmer? Just learn programming and do it yourself no matter how many 20 hour days it takes for years.
If you don't quite it hard to fail with your advice in the 1st sentence.

Wow and what a concept you have!!!

For two tanks of gas if you could get another 1000 people to help we would have $42,000. to buy one and a half member gyro's. If PRA was a co-owner on the two-place with PRA it only needs about 10 to 15K to finish funding the rest of it so that would leave $27,000. Then we would have a two place trainer to start training and advertizing much sooner gaining more revenue from marketing paying for the rest of the PRA growing fleet of rotorcraft and still have 32K to 27K left to buy a single place and start building her right away and we would have two gyro's traveling the country chapter to chapter NEXT YEAR!

If others see the wisdom in your most excellent plan and will follow your example and give me and the PRA a chance to really make a difference and if I can get the BOD to take a risk to save itself.

We could really help ourselves with co-owned member gyroplanes we can all fly at all the fly-in's and teach so many new people who could never afford to fly be able to and growth like our sport has not seen since Bensen started.

His effort was for profit ours is to make the world a better and so much more fun place to be!!!

I'm going to suggest to the BOD, that it would be better to try something risky and be sued out of existence than to die from lack of any real member benefits.

If 1000 or anywhere near that number would join you Albert, and say we would like to try and be sued out of existence rather than die a slow death I think it would be difficult for the BOD to say no to the revenue if nothing else!

Every time I've rolled the dice in life I've found a way to overcome any problem that stood in our way and it as always produce a positive results.

This is such a great solution I wish I had thought of it!!

U-ROCK Albert!!
PS:
You guys put $42.00 in and I'll put whatever labor it take to make it happen and I'm already loaning PRA 31 the money and have convinced 'PRA 31 members' to share it with PRA for the good of the sport, if PRA national will just try it!

I'm going to duplicate this on the thread the explains the concept so folk in the future can read your solution too our funding! http://www.rotaryforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=37756
 
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We have some excellent candidates running for the board this year.
They are:
Brent Drake Current President = please vote for him I need him.

Tim O'Connor Current Vice President = please vote for him I need him.

Robert Rymer Current Treasure = please vote for him we need him to be Treasure or I will have to do that too and have little time left.

John Rountree = If you wish the rest of my vision or raffles to earn the money to pay for free two-place trainers for chapters, Group insurance fund that will pay for 1/2 the cost of each accident reducing anyone in the group to 1/2 the cost of your current insurance, discounts on everything offered from Aircraft Spruce and there is more on my list of member benefits.

Dr. Bruce Charnov = I need him too.

Francisco Munoz = He will actually put in time as he has for PRA 31 and I need him too.

You can vote for all of them as there are seats on the BOD for them all.
 
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Greetings my rotorhead friends.
Elections are coming up as 3 board members, 3 year terms, will expire at Mentone and one of them sadly is Robert Rymer our treasure is retiring and will be sorely missed.

Brent Drake our President & myself John Rountree will be running for another 3 years to create new income streams so PRA can make a meaningful difference in our personal rotorcraft community.

The good news is we have funds available for you and this board to help make a different as we have turned PRA from losing money to over $30K in the black and paid for a new roof on the office/ house, that was about to blow away, and other long over due maintenance. We hope to have doors on all the hangars and the runway repaired by our convention too.

WHAT WE need is people who will put in TIME not just at board meeting but like Robert hours each month doing the books.
  • We need a Manufacture & Vendor representative: We will be contacting the Manufactures & Vendors about our new membership type and it's benefits. And later this year helping them run their portal where the public can do an easy search of all manufactures rides looking for single or two place, open or closed cockpit, and tandems or side by side and find exactly what they are looking for in seconds.
  • Group Insurance Coordinator: Contacting underwriters.
  • Press Release Manager: Works in conjunction with PRA's business manager and the Manufacture & Vendor representative to batch email press releases.
  • Donation Coordinator: Contacting the ads of the people selling person rotorcraft and letting them know they can donate it to PRA as well as copy a link to the ad in PRA section of our forum. Later this year put it in our new classified ad page.
  • Newsletter editor: (We would like to collect from as many chapters as we can news letters and publish them each month)
  • Volunteer Coordinator: volunteers when we cannot find a volunteer, normally supplies the tools volunteers need to be successful and follows up & report on progress and needs. As phase two of growth requires many more hands on deck.
  • Web-Programmers: Windows in either C# or basic.
  • Convention Marketing Director. Task is to contact all the developing manufactures for vertical takeoff aircraft and invite and get them to come to next years conventions well in advance.

Ideas we can get from you and the general public but board members who put in time like Robert is what we need.

For now if you would like to make the commitment let me know. I will post more about the rules and nominating process soon.
 
No Title

I just joined the PRA yesterday after lurking here for a few years. I still consider myself an outsider having never flown in a gyro so I have some thoughts on my first impression of the sport and the way it is presented to the public.

I would consider throwing in support for developing the PRA website and capturing the knowledge of the experts here. Navigating through the website, two forums, and googling a ton of youtube videos shows me that a wealth if info is out there but it is scattered about the web. I see it on many forums. Good things are discussed but no one has the time to take nuggets of value from the thread pages and repackage it as gospel. It's something that I could try to do if everyone thinks its a good idea.

I am also seeing a lot of activity in the area of new gyros, rotors, engines coming to the market in the past couple of years that should be bragged about on the PRA site.

BTW- I would like to donate to this forum but I can't find a donate button anywhere. A donate or join button on the top menu bar might bring in some $$$ to this forum.

I recently retired at 59 so I finally have a lot of free time for the first time in my life. We are moving from Lake Tahoe to the Nevada desert near Las Vegas. (Mesquite, NV). My 1946 Ercoupe should love the lower altitude LOL. She flies up to 10,000 here in Tahoe to get out of the lake to go anywhere but it takes a little finesse to get there. The drop in altitude has reignited my interest in gyro flying. Now I have to research the effects of the wind. The Valley of Fire was formed by wind and is my new backyard!
 

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No Title

Less than 1% of the people in the USA are pilots and less than .1% of those are gyroplane pilots making us a fringe avocation.

I am excited to finally cure your lack of gyroplane flying experience soon and have no doubt you could help a lot with making the PRA grow and gyroplanes more common.

The PRA has no outside support. It was started as a marketing plan by Igor Bensen and it is very challenging to get it aimed in a particular direction without industry support. So far the PRA has not found significant industry support and what support there has been is waning.

The PRA is operated as a not profit further limiting what it can become.

Less than 1% of the people in the USA are pilots and less than 1% of those are gyroplane pilots making flying gyroplanes a fringe avocation.

Mentone is where the PRA shines and it is amazing how that little airport is transformed once a year.

Hope to see you there Tim.
 

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