I got permission to promote Norman's arrival in the Chicago area by his logistics crew in Egypt. There were several aspects of this flight that made media involvement nearly impossible.
I contacted several TV, radio and print media outlets in the Chicago area and found out that this would be a difficult thing to pull off.
Mid morning, Norman is on the ground in Oshkosh, WI. surrounded by rain, departure time?? Suddenly, he is in the air. Rain shower areas dot his path all 225 miles to us. Rain and storms will be increasing as he heads south. Tornado warnings for our area. Media wants to know when he will arrive at Lansing (I thought he wouldn't, choosing an alternate airport) I told the media I'd let them know when he gets close.
TV 9, WGN says they may have enough ceiling to get their traffic copter up for a video flight of Norman along Chicago's skyline, the visibility and ceiling numbers are poor. I give the media Norman's monitored frequency. A rain free corridor opens up West of Chicago and Norman is now 60 miles West of the shoreline. All traffic copters are on the ground and have no interest in heading to an active tornado warning area. Norman continues south toward the tornadoes. The line of extreme weather if passing 10 - 20 miles south of the course he will eventually make to Lansing. The cells and tornadoes are rain shrouded and Norman later told us he saw a wall of black alongside of his course for the last 30 miles.
As he kept coming, we quit watching the SPOT Tracker and went outside to see a bright yellow MTO fly right over the airport. airport management was notified that he might be coming in. (they were told earlier, of a possible stop)
Not knowing Norman's fuel status, we guessed he might be taking advantage of his weather window to out run the storms and land at an airport much further East. I was guessing he probably had another 200 miles of fuel when he flew past.
Just then, my handheld radio crackled with a rare sounding call sign and Norman was seen turning on a long final.
After landing, and assurance he would be around for a little while, the local media was on scene and our village Mayor came out to greet GYROX.
If we could have guaranteed a flight path and ETA,and had better weather, we probably would have had total media coverage. I kept our chapter members informed of Norman's progress and that we were going to dine with him, all were invited. Sadly, just a hand full of our club members took enough interest to stop by and meet Norman during his 3 day stay. I was surprised at the lack of interest shown by my gyro friends. They were the losers.