Day 1 -- Assembling the gyros
Day 1 -- Assembling the gyros
I was wide awake by 4 am due to the 6 hours time shift between Austria and the East Coast. The Days Inn we are staying at serves breakfast from 7 am, so I spent the 3 hours reading email, surfing the internet and preparing for the day.
We were supposed to meet the truck with our gyros at 8:30 and got a call at 8:25, announcing the truck´s immediate arrival. We had met Angelo Koschier ("akoschier") at a nearby Dunkin Donut joint just minutes prior, gulped down our coffees and hopped in the car to meet the truck at the airport´s gate. We were truly excited to see in which state our gyros were in the container. So Pipo, Robert and I waited impatiently for the driver to open the sesame.
And that´s the picture we were presented with:
A maze of yellow straps and bubble wrap that left not just Robert a bit confused. Unloading the gyros took longer than expected with four people giving each other good advice about how to proceed and everybody too polite to take charge. Eventually, we managed to unload both gyros unharmed, though and sot right down to assembling them. They had the prop taken off, the wheels and wheel pants taken off, the fuel system disconnected, the stabilizer and the rotorhead taken off.
This picture shows Robert after is initial confused state and already immersed in the action.
Here are three more pictures showing the battlefield and work in progress.
Finally, by about 2 o´clock our stomachs´ grumbling was getting the better of us and we decided to break for lunch. In the meantime, a forum member "Sweeny" had joined us. I am embarrassed to admit, that although I thought I had stored his phone number, I just now realized that I can´t dig it up anymore -- my phone somehow ate it. I hope that he reads this and gets back to me so that I can get in touch with him (my email is
[email protected]). It was a pleasure to work with him and we had great fun doing it, too! It would be great if we could go flying together on Sunday or Monday as the weather permits.
Just before our lunch run we met Rebecca in her beautiful ´61 Desoto. She is a great lady bent on flying (she flies missions for the Coast Guard) and restoring antique cars.
Just around 6 pm we were done: here is the proof.
In the meantime we had to make two runs to a local hardware store to buy missing bolts and washers. The manufacturer, who crated to gyros, was everything but careful in doing so, unfortunately. We were missing rotor tie-downs, two tarps and several items of hardware. Oh well...
In the end we all had a great sense of accomplishment, when we admired the assembled gyros. In the process Robert managed to dowse himself with gasoline, I got a stiff back, and "Sweeny" bled from his finger. There are a few small taks we still have to complete, like bleeding the brake system on the red gyro and buying new tarps for them. This we´ll do tomorrow.
A couple of people stopped by during the day, and they all were amazed when we told them of our trip to San Diego in these flying motorcycles. It just served to whet our appetite.
Tomorrow we plan to finish the work and maybe even go for a small sight seeng tour over to Plum Island. We´ll see. I hope that "Sweeny" reads this and gets in touch with me because I´d love to go flying with him (my mobile number is: +43 (664) 2524653).
-- Chris.