Larry: Here's a spring flight I had to help those with the winter blues:
One spring day several years back, our chapter was meeting @ Jack Lenhardt’s airstrip in Hubbard, south of the Aurora airport.
Jack used to fly a gyro himself, being a long-time airplane and helicopter pilot. He restored many of the early helicopters seen in the military museums.
It is 22 miles from the Estacada airport, along the path I wanted to fly, according to the aeronautical chart.
Others had flown in there over the years. Jim Vanek and Evan Dagle, in the Sport Copter gyros, from Scappoose, and Dan Darling, in his KB-3, from the Hood River area were the most recent ones. Also, Don Stuart and Tim Elliot from Salem, in their Vancrafts, and Dave Stubblefield in his Air Command from the Hillsboro area.
All of these fellows have flown a lot further mileage than this trip was.
I was a part-owner in a Vancraft Rotor Lightning, a delightful gyro to fly. Five of us had bought a share of ownership from Dan Robertson, who bought it used from Steve Beck, a former chapter member that wasn’t flying it anymore, w/ about 22 hours on the Hobbs meter.
It was the second Vancraft gyro that Dan had owned. He sold the first one to help finance the building of his home. He had flown helicopters in the Army, as well as in the reserve.
The day arrived w/ clouds, winds, and rain squalls, at least in the Estacada area. I had already arranged w/ Marv Waldner to have a return supply of pre-mixed fuel ready.
Marvie was a former chapter member, along w/ his wife, Ruthie, who lived near Lenhardt’s airpark. He has since passed away due to cancer. He flew an Air Command gyro.
I called Marv that morning, and asked him what the weather situation was there @ his place. He advised me to not fly to the meeting, as it was windy and gusty.
I discounted his advice due to the difference I had read as well as heard from other chapter members about how "hot" the Air Command stick controls are compared to the docile Vancraft (now Sport Copter models also).
Windy conditions are suspected in many deaths of that (early) make of gyros when the pilot is flying at high speeds (over 65 MPH), due to extremely sensitive control inputs and a higher thrustline than recommended by gyro experts.
I had already driven over an hour from my home in Cornelius (near Hillsboro), to the Estacada airport, where we had the Rotor Lightning hangared. I had done the pre-flight, fueled up, warmed up the engine, then had shut it down and called Marv.
The weather there @ Estacada looked a lot like it does in Scappoose during the spring…some cold winds and rain squalls, w/ brief dry spells interspersed.
I was agitated w/ the idea of not flying after all that work and driving to the meeting. (MISTAKE #1: "Get There-itis").
I should have grounded myself due to the weather conditions, Marv’s advice, and a degree of impatience. I had since learned to do so after gaining some hours in the air in this marvelous little flying contraption we call gyrocopters.
I went ahead and took off, w/ extra fuel on board, accessed by an ingenious electric fuel pump system that Jim Ginn (one of the other owners) had installed. It took about five minutes to transfer the extra 2 ½ gallons after burning that much off in the five gallon main tank.
Although this idea of extra fuel worked well for sustained flight, it caused me danger further on, once again, due to my impatience. That’s a further story to tell later if anyone is interested. Let me know if anyone is!
It was fortunate that the extra fuel was available, as it took over …SIX…!!!!!! gallons to make it 22 miles, in about 50 minutes, on the Rotax 503 twin carb, due to head winds and thermals!
After rising above the outskirts of Estacada, I headed for Highland Butte on the horizon. It’s situated southwest of there, and was a landmark along the path I had plotted to Lenhardt’s airstrip.
I saw rain squalls off to my right about 3-4 miles away, headed in my direction. Just about then, around 700’ up, the turbulence started. I was amazed at the gusts and how quickly the rain squall got to my location.
I had flown in mostly calm winds in my learning stage, so this was disconcerting, as the machine started getting buffeted not only from the side of the rain squall, but from ALL sides!
I continued on, which was...(MISTAKE #2: What's in front of you may not be safer than what you know is behind you), seeing lighter skies ahead. If I only could get out of this system.
I should have turned around and landed back at the airport.
The old saying for pilots came to mind, as I wished I was then on the ground, instead of up in the air.
I had learned of the stability of the autogyro over many other aircraft, and believed that w/ a little bit of perseverance; I would be able to escape in to calmer skies. Good idea, but it took awhile!
The windscreen/fairing of the Vancraft/Sport Copter is great for when you get caught in a rain, as well as let’s you fly in colder weather w/out the air sucking all the heat out of your body. One just scrunches one’s shoulder’s inward a bit and one doesn’t get wet at all!
The rotorblade performance seems about the same as in dry conditions. (These were 23’ white Skywheels).
I hope others are learning from this novice’s mistakes!
Soon, the rain squalls were behind, but not the rest of the weather system. It wasn’t done w/ me yet.
I was comfortable flying around 600’-800’ of altitude. Any higher, and I was afraid of getting run over by other aircraft that is supposed to maintain 1000’ above the ground. I have a few other stories about that point.
I started encountering extreme updrafts that made me want to revert back to my limited fixed-wing tail-dragger experience of SHOVING THE STICK FORWARD to lower the nose to avoid going way up.
I had read in ROTORCRAFT magazine over the years, as well as in other publications, to not do this if I didn’t want to end my life. I have much more years planned in flying gyros, as well as other aircraft, so I held the stick still in cruise position and backed off the throttle whenever another severe updraft took me on the fastest elevator I’ve been on.
It is amazing how much the arm wants to shove that stick forward quickly, as the brain is shouting @ it to do so. Imagine the fastest elevator you’ve been on, the kind that make your knees start to buckle a little when it catches you unaware as it goes up, and double or triple that!
This is the one weak part about the autogyro. One cannot shove the stick hard forward like this, particularly when you are suddenly light in your seat (less than 1 g) as the rotorblades might become unloaded and cause them to rapidly lose their flight speed and flap, causing a tumble from the sky w/out any known way of recovery.
These thermals were making me light in the seat near the top of them. In the space of several seconds, I had shot what seemed to be straight up. I had no variometer, but the ground had stopped moving away behind me, and was moving down. It is the opposite of a vertical descent, my most favorite maneuver in a gyro.
The altimeter showed my gaining about 500’ above where I had been. After the machine had flown through the thermal, and I slowly lowered the nose and flew back down in altitude until hit w/ the next one.
This is where I probably flew most of the time in getting to Lenhardt’s. Up, and then down. This happened over and over again. It got to be routine. There had to been about 40 of them. I soon learned to relax my death grip on the stick and on the seat frame, holding the stick lightly like before.
Subsequent flights over this same terrain took a fraction of the time this one did.
I soon exited the thermals as I neared Highland Butte. Flying directly over it, I saw fir trees all around it, as seen from the roads nearby, and on top there was a small crater also w/ fir trees in it. It appears to be an old volcano cone like the ones scattered around the Portland area (Mt. Tabor, Kelly Butte, Rocky Butte, and Grant Butte).
I’d heard stories of lava caves around the butte that area farmers told about. These caves have supposedly been dynamited shut to prevent anyone from getting hurt exploring them. Those having been around lava know of the very sharp edges it has.
After descending from the rolling hills, I followed Barnhart Road to Lenhardt’s. The wind was coming out of the southwest rather briskly as I tried first crabbing into it, then angling the rotorblades into it.
I settled on crabbing into it, as w/ the angling, such as you do when landing in a crosswind, is more tiring to me when the wind hits you in gusts or suddenly stops, and you have to constantly adjust your rotor disc. Would someone more knowledgeable tell me if you could fly faster by angling the rotorblades than crabbing into the wind??
The farmlands and folk’s homes flew by underneath me. The constant amazement I feel when flying by the scenery is what feeds my desire to fly again and again.
Another neat thing to see from the air is watching a gyro take off below. First, the rotorblade is spinning slowly around; looking like it doesn’t want to go any faster. Then is begins to speed up, going faster and faster until it becomes almost a blur, at which time you see it come up toward you as the pilot lifts off. It’s exciting to see that, compared to watching a plane slowly lift off and climb out.
Jim Vanek has probably seen that a lot from the air. I know he has seen at least one, if not more, ground loops of beginning gyro fliers while flying around his home field. It probably is just as interesting to watch the rotorblades suddenly stopping also. The one I know about that Jim saw from the air was another guy in our co-owned gyro who got too much airspeed while taxiing and lifted off a few feet and immediately was crabbed. He panicked and chopped the throttle.
Arriving @ Lenhardt’s, I noticed the windsock straight down the runway, much to my delight. I had already enjoyed playing in
straight-down-the-runway winds, taking off and landing w/ little ground speed. Even flying backwards is fun, but it is harder to have @ least 40 MPH IAS, in case of engine failure, to have sufficient airspeed for a flare to land when flying backwards.
I was getting ready to land, when I saw Bob Johnson and others trotting out from Jack’s clubhouse. He signaled me to go around w/ emphatic movements. I wondered the reason why, as I couldn’t see any other aircraft in the pattern area and the runway looked clear of any people or animals.
I circled around scanning for any of these problems and came back in and landed.
I asked Bob "Why the signal?", and he told me that there were some guys there that hadn’t seen a gyro fly/land/takeoff before!
Darrel Conklin had trailered his gyro in to the meeting to do some more runway taxiing. We had all seen Darrel and John Flenna do scads of that over the past few years, balancing on the mains.
Some of us were conjecturing that they would never do anymore than that. They both have since lifted off and have done quite well flying their gyros. Both I believe have never damaged their gyros, especially their rotorblades, something many of us gyro fliers have done, me included (another story).
That is pretty admirable since I recall that John had no flight experience before gyros, only learning through the coaching from Scott Malone prior to and after getting his two-place trainer up and running.
Darrel. I believe, has some fixed-wing experience.
That day, Darrel did his first lift off (more than just a few inches like @ Scappoose where they hangar together), flying 10’ or so off the runway in many series of crow hops. He said that he just powered up his 583 Rotax (snowmobile version of the 582), w/ it’s some 100 horses.
It was neat to see the big smile on his face after he landed and then went back up. I think that winds down the runway make an excellent way for the gyro beginner to experience flight close to the ground w/out much ground speed.
The chapter meeting and lunch over, I flew back towards Estacada. The winds were still 20+, maybe even 30 MPH. I like to fly along about 60 IAS, so I figured my groundspeed was 80-90. It was great, after the slowness of the arriving flight. The total fuel used flying back was about half of what going out used.
I saw storm clouds in my intended path home, so I decided to skirt over to the north, over the Molalla area, as it looked clearer that way. Crossing Molalla airport, I headed northeast to the left of some hills blocking my view of the Estacada area. Going around them, I saw the Estacada/Clackamas River area looked socked in by the clouds that I did not like the looks of.
MISTAKE #3 did not happen!!!!
I turned around to go back and land @ Molalla. It was still in sight.
I tied down outside and came all the way back the next day and flew our little magic flying carpet back home to Estacada. It was a much more lovely day for flying.
Flying the autogyro is a special experience. It is unlike flying in a fixed-wing aircraft. The visibility is MUCH greater; the flying sensation is more in tune w/ the human body, like flying powered parachutes or fixed wing ultralights.
Driving in a car is about the same as flying regular fixed wings. Riding around on a motorcycle compares favorably w/ flying a gyro. Perhaps that’s why some call it the motorcycle of the sky.
(Photo at Lenhardt's Airstrip at another time) was taken by a digital camera, taken of a newsletter photo, explaining the grainy look!
