Charlie Presnell

[MikeBoyette]

Here is another name y’all have seen in many of my posts. If you attended Bensen Days in the late 80’s through about 2003 you know who Charlie was. He was the air boss for manny manny years and voluntold me I was his assistant for the years I was not away in the Army. He always wanted me to take over once he was gone. I guess he got his wish just a little later than he thought.

We met Charlie in the summer of 1986. Dad, Davie, Chuck and I had been over to Lake Wales Airport flying Sunday morning which had become our routine. Let me tell you with these bachelors our life was one big routine. That’s for another story. This was the time when we put a 447 Rotax Chuck bought and adapted to the B7 that we got in all the junk Chuck bought in Sebring. Initially it was just a bare bones airframe with an upside down 447. It had a tall tail that was 12in in cord with no HS. Dad decided one day rather than break down the gyro and trailer the little thing back he would fly it. It was about an hour drive and he flew right over us as we drove. It was decided that he would land at a field behind the AG department at my school. Well he got impatient and sped ahead of us. We were supposed to load the gyro on the trailer but Dad got tired of waiting so he took his belt off and looped it around the blades so he could keep them from moving. He then proceeded to taxi the gyro down the rather narrow sidewalk. Just about the time we get home this guy in a little red diesel Toyota pick up starts hollering at us that he bought a KB3 and would be building it soon. We had no idea who he was or how to get in touch with him so we just kinda forgot about it. One day Dad and I went for a drive in his little Fiat X-19 with the top down. When we pulled out on to Turkey Creek road we saw the bare airframe of a gyro on a trailer in front of us. We followed it. It ended up being Charlie Presnell and this machine was special it was KB3 serial number 001.

We met our other friend at the time Richard Masker as well. He was helping Charlie build the gyro from a kit. Charlie was as handy as my dog is. So Richard was basically doing all the assembly while Charlie did all the parts fetching. We went over a few times and made suggestions to make the machine a little better. However these suggestions fell on deaf ears because Charlie bought the kit from Ken Brock and he believed it to be perfect the way it was. This proved to be an incorrect assumption for this pilot and operating in this environment.

Charlie was a retired Major from the US Army. He told us he flew Huey’s in Vietnam. We had met quite a few guys that were flying gyros after flying helicopters in the Army. Charlie was no average pilot during Vietnam. He also was not an average soldier before that. He joined very young. I believe before he was even 18. He was a 11B or grunt. He was a smaller man only about 5’5” with his boots on. He weighed about 145lbs soaked and wet. Well this gave him little man’s disease. He was determined to be the baddest soldier ever. He went to Airborn School at Benning. Then to Ranger School. He went to every school he could. He was one of the first Rangers to go HALO.

He became a First Sargent at 21 years old. This was confirmed with the certificate on his “I Love Me” wall. It stated he was the youngest First Sargent in the Army ever at that time. I didn’t appreciate this accomplishment until later when I was in myself. During the time just before Nam there was some kind of skirmish we were involved in. I don’t know the police action it was just that it was on an island. I want to say in the Caribbean or near Africa. I’m not sure. He was sent there and they were involved in some combat. During this time his LT was killed. Charlie took over and was given a battle field commission. Now 2LT Presnell was brought back to the states after the quick combat and told because it was earned during battle he could choose what corps he wanted to serve as an officer in. To everyone’s surprise he choose aviation. This meant once he went to OCS he would go to FT Rucker for flight training.

To be continued.

 

[okikuma]

Keep 'em coming Mike!

Wayne

 

[GyrOZprey]

Wonderful & priceless historical gyro-personality recollections !
We need MORE of these gems to be recorded for those who come after us!
Thank-you Mike for taking time to write down these memories &share!

 

[MikeBoyette]

He ended up flying Huey’s in Vietnam. He became quite the pilot despite having his co pilot killed by a large caliber round on his very first mission. Without getting into all the war stories told to me just know he was a hero. He turned down the Congressional Medal of Honor because he said it was for dead people. This was to be awarded for rescuing troops who were trapped and pinned down. Charlie flew three helicopters in and took so much fire he had to unload his crew and fly solo home to get another ship. The fourth one was the charm. He was way over gross and was still able to get everyone home. This being said Charlie’s first ride in a gyro turned this American Badass into a scared mess

Dad offered to take him for a ride in his 0320 powered side by side two place we called Blunder Beast. It had a hand made fiberglass body similar but much more round than a scorpion. It had twin tails on it that were full flying symmetrical airfoils. It had no HS on it. We built a prop for it. The prop was wide at the tips. The thing that scared Charlie so bad was the two per rev stick shake. It was so harsh that you could barely see Dad’s hand when he was flying. The thing should have shook itself to pieces except it was built like a tank. It had a half inch teeter bolt. The check plates were a 1/4 in thick. The mast and cheek plates were all bonded together like Dad’s rotor blades were. Well as soon as Dad broke ground Charlie was screening at the top of his lungs for dad to get that MFer back on the ground. Dad told him to cam down that it shakes like that all the time. That they had to go around and he would land as soon as he could. Once on the ground Charlie said I have been shot down and was never as scared as o was in the POS. Dad said I promise it’s ok it shakes like that all the time. Charlie said not with my ass in. He never got in it again.

One he got his gyro done and began to want to rest it he asked Dad to test fly it. Dad discovered a couple of things he considered concerning for someone just learning to fly a gyro. One was the hard coupled nose wheel. Out where Ken flew it probably worked good on the sand. We were were operating off asphalt and the 532 required a lot of rudder input because of the torque. Charlie wanted to fly it as Ken designed it so they let him try. After nearly balling it up he let Dad and Chuck tweek it. Chuck made the nose wheel have break away with springs in it so it wouldn’t set down cocked and cause him to roll over. The next thing was Dad put a tall tail on it to correct the p- factor. Thus eliminating the torque roll when the throttle was cycled rapidly. It made the gyro docile enough that Charlie flew the pattern after only his second attempt. It was the first time I saw a gyro climb out nose down. He believed in keeping his airspeed up.

Charlie didn’t like the lack of inertia that the stock Brock blades provided. Chuck had one set of Hughes blades left that were cherry. He was saving them flor himself but decided to sell them to his buddy Charlie. Chuck made the hub bar for them including the drag links to keep them in string. Charlie was the airport manager at Vandenberg airport in Tampa. He was going to be flying his Gyro there most of the time and because of the traffic he needed the aircraft to be very visible. Dad shared a trick he learned when we lived in West Palm to keep his Gyro very visible. We painted one blade red and the other blade white. This cause the red blade disappear once the blades up to speed. It made the mind think that the gyro only had one blade. It would drive your mind nuts because you couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t destroying itself. He was elated with it. Everyone at his airport commented on how visible he was. About this time Chuck designed and built Charlie a twist grip throttle on a collective type lever. This lever was pulled up to engage the prerotator. Which by the way although pretty complex worked very well. We had to make the belt go straight instead of criss cross so that it would turn the Hughes blades the correct direction. It would get turned back later when it was equipped with the final set of blades being Dragon Wings.

Charlie hardly flew. When he did it was very early morning and only one time. It usually lasted about ten minutes. Then he was all business of bing air boss. During this time our club was as big as it had ever been. We were having monthly fly-ins at different airports around the state. Dad’s business was beginning to come into its own. Charlie suddenly found himself out of a job because Vandenberg airport was sold, and was becoming Tampa executive. They were coming in and revamping the whole place to accommodate small business jets. This included hiring a whole new FPO, and installing an east west runway. This left Charlie out of a job. He like many of dad’s other friends started hanging around the shop should I put him to work and start paying him. We found not only was he a great air boss, but he was also awesome at the repetitive work of prepping and assembly of the pieces that made up the blades when they went in the oven. He was responsible for installing the end caps and the serial numbers of the blades for many years. This is another amazing man that I called my family.

We lost Charlie in 2004 to colon cancer. The last time I saw him was at Bensen Days that year. When we had the LFINO in the center of the tarmac with all the Dominators in a semi circle around it. We joked that year the Fly-in should have been changed to Dominator Days because we put numbered every gyro there at least three to one. One shot we as a family cherish is Charlie in the middle of all those machines on his scooter. Without Charlie and quite a few of our friends that I would adopt as family Dad’s business wouldn’t have been as successful as it was. RIP Charlie.

PS if you flew at Bensen Days and never received a card that said you officially got your ass chewed by Charlie then I doubt you had any fun.

 

[WaspAir]

I found this amusing :

Chuck had one set of Hughes blades left that were cherry.

given that all those blades had been run out to their life limits by the Army before they were even acquired, as scrap, to be turned upside down for homebuilt gyros (or so I understood from Chuck's postings).

 

[MikeBoyette]

I found this amusing :

Chuck had one set of Hughes blades left that were cherry.

given that all those blades had been run out to their life limits by the Army before they were even aquired, as scrap, to be turned upside down for homebuilt gyros (or so I understood from Chuck's postings).

That is correct but they were fine for gyro use. My point was out of the semi load that he bought he picked that pair out as being the best of the lot. They had very little wear on them. They took very little work to get them rigged up for Charlie’s gyro. They balanced perfect without any work. Charlie thought it ironic he was flying under a set of Army Blades again.

 

[WaspAir]

Well, I wouldn't consider running out the life limit with helicopter flight loads to be "very little wear", no matter how intact the paint might be. Instead that would be "worn out" to me. I guess that coming from the Standard Airworthiness world, I have more respect for the safety margins that life limits are intended to provide. Granted, the gyro was likely much less massive, but you've gone from three blades to two to support the mass, and you're loading them upside down on structures that would ordinarily be red tagged if not run through a bandsaw to keep others from employing them again.

P.S. I think the old 1145 blades only had about 1400 hrs life on the 269, with 50 hr inspections. The blades on my J-2 gyro (differing only in twist) were 1200 hr limited in gyro use, as I recall..

 

[MikeBoyette]

Well, I wouldn't consider running out the life limit with helicopter flight loads to be "very little wear", no matter how intact the paint might be. Instead that would be "worn out" to me. I guess that coming from the Standard Airworthiness world, I have more respect for the safety margins that life limits are intended to provide. Granted, the gyro was likely much less massive, but you've gone from three blades to two to support the mass, and you're loading them upside down on structures that would ordinarily be red tagged if not run through a bandsaw to keep others from employing them again.

Well fortunately Chuck was well versed in metallurgy, and was able to calculate that the blades had plenty of life left in them for the loads a gyro put on them. None of the blades that he bought and adapted for gyro was ever reported to have failed. In the late 70’s through the early 90’s at least down here they were the blades to have.That is until Dad introduced the Dragon Wings.

I know a particularly infamous gyro pilot now that would love a set of run out Hughes blades with the tip weights cut off of them. They were his favorite blades ever.

 

[EI-GYRO]

There used to be a Bensen days video knocking around of Charlie in a wheelchair and a circle of Dominators. Around the time MJ
succumbed to cancer.

 

[EI-GYRO]

Do you have any stories about David Holmes (he of the blazing tuxedo).?

 

[MikeBoyette]

Do you have any stories about David Holmes (he of the blazing tuxedo).?

Oh yes why yes I do. I just realized we are very odd bunch. Gyros is where the misfits used to end up. I will ponder what I know of Sir Holmes. Not really a Sir but fitting non the less.

 

[MikeBoyette]

There used to be a Bensen days video knocking around of Charlie in a wheelchair and a circle of Dominators. Around the time MJ
succumbed to cancer.

Yes that’s the last one he attended. It was the last one we saw him too. He went to Ft Rucker Alabama to live his final days with his son and family.