Lloyd “Deputy Dog” Poston.

MikeBoyette

Gold Member
Joined
Oct 30, 2003
Messages
3,415
Location
Plant City, Fl
Aircraft
Dominator
Total Flight Time
200+
Lloyd Poston: Mike, I'd seen video footage of Lloyd flying his Dominator.
I've heard the stories of how he may very well be the only person to have stalled his Dragon Wings (w/ even the bystanders on the ground hearing what sounded like a shotgun firing off) & survived that experience.
How did he get to the point of his flying skills to be able to fly the way he could?
No sir. That was long before Dragon Wings. It was actually a 30’ set of run out Hughes Helicopter Blades. Chuck bought a semi load of them as scrap from Ft. Rucker in the early to mid 70’s. Because it’s a symmetrical airfoil Chuck decided to try them on his gyro. He built a hub bar for them. He knew they had opposite twist in them for driven Rotor use. Meaning they had positive twist at the root and it washed out toward the tip. This although might work a wind driven rotor it would cause more drag and be less efficient for autorotation. He decided to flip them over and turn them opposite of US standard. This made the twist more acceptable. He configured his prerotator to turn opposite Bensen standard. On his first flight he knew right away the blades were less draggy ( what most people express as blades having more lift! Which is a bit of an oxymoron all blades lift the same one gyro and crew) this meant less power consumed and considered a success. Chuck built the second set for his friend Lloyd. It was for a machine he was building out of an old military drop tank made of fiberglass and resembled a bomb. Chuck determined he needed a 30 foot disk and made the hub bar balanced the blades. Lloyd loved them from the first flight. Because they had tip weights the inertia on landing was amazing and only sacrificing a little of the snappiness of the lighter less efficient air pumps known as Bensen Metal Blades. Shortly after test flight and becoming comfortable with the rather large O235 powered tight tandem two place Lloyd began flying it like his Bensen like he stole it. Chuck used to say although Lloyd had only training by the Bensen manual,like he and my father did, he was the most natural born gyro pilot he knew. Lloyd didn’t start flying until he was well into his 40’s he took to it like kid to a bike. I don’t remember who said it but after seeing how this what appeared to be an old Florida farmer flew with such precision and smoothness that he might have come out of the womb flying under rotor blades in autorotation. To say the least the man could fly the box it came in. When he did that hammer head at Okeechobee during our New Years fly-in and stalled the blades everyone there thought for sure he was going to crash and die. Not Chuck and Dad. They both told me they knew somehow someway Deputy Dog would save it. He had nerves of steel, I never saw an ounce of fear in that man. You would think after stalling the blades like that he would quit at least for the day. Nope Dad said he went and got a drink went to the bathroom then did a preflight. He got back in fired it up. He took off flew off the end of the runway out of sight turned back the way he came made a low pass at about 100mph passed the row of campers and parked gyros pulled pure vertical until he ran out of steam kicked rudder came back the other way for another high speed pass into another hammer head. When he landed again someone asked him didn’t you scare yourself when you stalled the blades doing that he said nope just won’t stall the blades again. Long winded I’m sorry. I think I’m going to move it to its own thread. I will leave you with these two things about one of the most honorable intelligent gentle men I have ever known. If you knew him he would most likely call you friend and if he did you were family. There was nothing he wouldn’t do, build, or operate for you if you asked it of him. He helped dad build most of the tools and jigs used to build his Dominator. These include the plug and mold for the body used long after his death. He also built a droop mold for shaping the windshields from a flat piece of polycarbonate. He built and contributed so much I could bore y’all to death with it. He had no formal education and was required to quit school in Elementary School to help his family yet he was probably one of the most intelligent people I ever knew. If there was never a Lloyd Poston there would have never been a Rotor Flight Dynamics, Dominator, or Dragon Wings. He and Dad worked very well together. Connie and I used to say it was like Dad wouldn’t say a word but would think of a solution to a problem and Lloyd would read his thoughts and start building it with no words ever exchanged. It was spooky. I will close with this. Anyone who attended Bensen Days at Wauchula in the mid to late 90’s would see him doing an Airshow in his 582 powered Dominator that has ever been rivaled by Barry Thigpen in the last few years. He would do a flat spin from 1500 feet so damn fast it would make you dizzy he could get ten to the left kick out straight then ten to the right then kick straight and fly off. He made that Dominator do things Dad never thought it could do until we saw Barry. The difference was Lloyd was doing it in his 80’s with no aerobatic training at all. I have so many stories about these characters I grew up with in my gyro family. There were so many different personalities from so many different walks of life. I can only think of few that wouldn’t offer to help or supply a tool or even a part to anyone in our family that needed it. I was very fortunate to grow up with these guys as my adopted uncles. Now I know I’m not the kid anymore I’m old saying you should have seen the good ole days. Like the Montgomery Gentry song says “You should have seen it in color”. He’s been gone a very long time but Dad and I have both heard him talking to us when something bad is about to happen in a gyro just as if he was sitting next to us talking on the intercom. He used to call me George all the time. I’m not sure why. I kept saying Lloyd my name is Michael,Mike, or Mikey not George. He would kinda giggle with his old beat up felt hat on and say ok George whatever you say. I sure do miss him and the rest of my gyro family that are gone.
 
Lloyd was a good friend to me.
I was the first to ever fly as a passenger in his green Deputy Dog gyro. The gyro was painted green like to local Sheriff vehicles and Chuck Beaty said that it looked like a Sheriff helicopter so we started calling him "Deputy Dog". He later painted a white star on the side to make it look like a Sheriff helicopter.
Lloyd and I flew from Tampa North Airpark to Brooksville in our gyros. Lloyd flew his deputy dog gyro (I am pretty such that it had an O290). I had a VW powered Bensen with a cabin of my own design. On final at Brooksville, my engine quit and I made a power-off landing on the runway but could not restart the engine. Lloyd’s gyro was not a two seater, but it had a long seat in front of a seat back fiberglass fuel tank. I removed the seat belt from my Bensen and attached it to Lloyd’s seat frame and sat behind him like on a motorcycle and he flew me back to Tampa North to get my truck and trailer so that I could retrieve my gyro from Brooksville. At that point in time, Lloyd realized that he had actually built a two place gyrocopter.
 
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Long winded I’m sorry. I have so many stories about these characters I grew up with in my gyro family.
Mike, I like long wind... ;)

And I would certainly like to read those stories. :love:

Some history of "where it all came from".

Very un-certified......

Cheers
Erik
 
That Bensen is a head turner, did you mold the fairing?
What happened to the cable? Lower knee brace?
 
That Bensen is a head turner, did you mold the fairing?
What happened to the cable? Lower knee brace?
The nose pod is an aluminum drop tank like Lloyd’s. Lloyd, Smokey Castnor and I bought 3 drop tank noses fro
That Bensen is a head turner, did you mold the fairing?
What happened to the cable? Lower knee brace
The pod is aluminum like Lloyd’s. Lloyd, Smokey Castor and I bought 3 aluminum drop tank noses from a junk yard in Ybor City. Mine had a different profile from Lloyd’s.Smokey was killed when the push rod linkage to his joy stick failed and he never did anything with his pod.
Don’t understand your question about cable and knee brace.
 
The nose pod is an aluminum drop tank like Lloyd’s. Lloyd, Smokey Castnor and I bought 3 drop tank noses fro

The pod is aluminum like Lloyd’s. Lloyd, Smokey Castor and I bought 3 aluminum drop tank noses from a junk yard in Ybor City. Mine had a different profile from Lloyd’s.Smokey was killed when the push rod linkage to his joy stick failed and he never did anything with his pod.
Don’t understand your question about cable and knee brace.
The cable from the head to the nose, I didn't see it, so was wondering if the cantilevered front end was supported by knee brace from the mast..
That tank had a nice shape, too bad they aren't in the surplus stores anymore....
 
Well Phil thanks for the corrections. I got some of the particulars wrong. I am too young to remember the machine. Do you know what happened to it?
 
The cable from the head to the nose, I didn't see it, so was wondering if the cantilevered front end was supported by knee brace from the mast..
That tank had a nice shape, too bad they aren't in the surplus stores anymore....
The cable that Bensen used was from the B8 glider that was towed. The cable transferred the tow rope load to the top of the mast where the drag from the rotor occurred. It is not required on the motorized B8M, although many kept the cable and front end to mount instruments on when they converted the B8 to a B8M as per Bensen’s original concept.
 
Well Phil thanks for the corrections. I got some of the particulars wrong. I am too young to remember the machine. Do you know what happened to it?
Lloyd sold the machine to an Architect from the midwest who wrecked it. He did not get killed but the machine was never rebuilt.
 
The nose pod is an aluminum drop tank like Lloyd’s. Lloyd, Smokey Castnor and I bought 3 drop tank noses fro

The pod is aluminum like Lloyd’s. Lloyd, Smokey Castor and I bought 3 aluminum drop tank noses from a junk yard in Ybor City. Mine had a different profile from Lloyd’s.Smokey was killed when the push rod linkage to his joy stick failed and he never did anything with his pod.
Don’t understand your question about cable and knee brace.
I actually had a customer who witnessed Smokey’s crash and tried to help him. I wouldn’t call it an accident since all of y’all warned him, especially Chuck. Chuck said I told Smokey over and over he needed jam nuts on the rod ends. I guess he knew it was going to happen thus the reason his seat tank was made to look like a headstone including his epitaph.
 
You sure raised some characters down Florida way. Lloyd, Smokey, the big boy (originally from Texas) and Van Hoten. Wow what a bunch. I have many stories from them as well. Smokey wasn't very safety conscious. He taught me his preflight routine. Stand back 7 feet,. Take a run at the gyro and kick the MAC. If nothing falls off it's safe to fly! I used to use that method on my Beech until I got comments on the engine cowling being all un-aerodynamic like. I also quit running around then.
 
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