St. Patrick's Day Fly-in, Dublin, Texas (9F0) 16-17 March 2018

[Txgyropilot]

The First Annual St. Patrick's Day Gyroplane, Light Sport and General Aviation Fly-in will be held in Dublin, Texas (9F0) on 16-17 March 2018. The airport is 2 miles south east of town on F.M. 219. The airport manager is Brad Stanford, 254-445-4404, who is planning to have both 100LL and Ethanol Free MOGAS available for sale. There will be primitive camp sites and possible 110 power for some on a first come first served basis.

CFI and Autogyro dealer Craig McPherson from Blum, TX is also helping Brad plan the event.

https://www.facebook.com/events/123...U-Kc7AX0dPN7ZgT_GJb0GYer0sbJOtGhQl82-_VcW5RXY

Dublin hosts a very large St. Patrick's day celebration each year that includes a 5K run and many other events in the downtown area. More details to follow. There is plenty of farmland in the area for yanking and banking! Here is the link to the current FB page for the celebration that does not yet include the fly-in:

https://www.facebook.com/St-Patricks...2458752443266/

If you plan to attend, please let me know and I for the running tally below. I plan to arrive on Thursday and depart Sunday morning in order to help with the set up and clean up. It would be awesome if any of the Texas PRA Chapters want to help Brad turn this into a great event not only by attending, but, by showing up early and staying through Sunday to help too!

Here is the start of the attendee list:

Georgia:

Tom (shootthrees)- Bringing a CLT Air Command

Texas:

Craig (Craig McPherson)- Bringing an MTO?
Ray (Rainman)- Bringing a Calidus?

 

[Rainman]

Thanks for posting this, I saw a posting with an erroneous date earlier this week. I've penciled it on my schedule to attend. Ray

 

[Txgyropilot]

Thanks for posting this, I saw a posting with an erroneous date earlier this week. I've penciled it on my schedule to attend. Ray

Awesome! Are you bringing or flying in your Calidus?

 

[Rainman]

I do plan to fly the red Calidus from my home drome near San Antonio (5C1). Ray

 

[Txgyropilot]

[No message]

 

[GyrOZprey]

Should fit in nicely with the trek to Bensen Days .... unless winter gets to me well before then! ... & I go to FL sooner!

 

[Txgyropilot]

Should fit in nicely with the trek to Bensen Days .... unless winter gets to me well before then! ... & I go to FL sooner!

Chris, It would be awesome if you can attend! The first Australian to visit my Dad was John Knight that I attended college and high jumped with in 1977. John was eventually the Australian record holder in the high jump from Quambatook and he now lives in Canberra.

 

[Berkut13]

Gonna have to remember this one! I'll probably bring the Calidus down and tent camp.

 

[Dublin9F0]

Hello, all! I'm Brad Stanford, with the Dublin airport. Working on a tentative schedule for Friday and Saturday and will share soon. If there's anything you'd like to see included, let me know. Looking forward to seeing you all in March!

 

[All_In]

Hi Tom

Most excellent more flying fun. Good on ya!

I'll Put it on PRA calendar and our front page.

Would you like PRA to mass advertise it for the next few months?

Here is a link to what they will read from either our calendars, home page and mass advertising.
I just copied the above. http://www.pra.org/default.aspx?p=FlyInStPatrickDay
Please audit and let me know if you wish any changes.

 

[GyrOZprey]

Hi Tom

Most excellent more flying fun. Good on ya!

I'll Put it on PRA calendar and our front page.

Would you like PRA to mass advertise it for the next few months?

Here is a link to what they will read from either our calendars, home page and mass advertising.
I just copied the above. http://www.pra.org/default.aspx?p=FlyInStPatrickDay
Please audit and let me know if you wish any changes.

You can add me to the list ...will swing by on my trek to Bensen days via Propwash,Anahuac & Autogyro of Louisiana! ..IT IS ON my calendar!!!:whoo:

 

[Eric S]

I'm planning to come up in my RV with my gyro in tow.

Most likely, I can come early and help with setting up. Let me know how I can help. I will expect payment for my time and effort in green beer. ; )

Eric

 

[Rainman]

Unless something good happens soon, I won't be able to attend. The Rotax 912 on my Calidus quit on takeoff several times when I was near Austin. I found a Rotax A&P and am waiting for him to figure out what happened. Fingers crossed. Ray

 

[All_In]

Unless something good happens soon, I won't be able to attend. The Rotax 912 on my Calidus quit on takeoff several times when I was near Austin. I found a Rotax A&P and am waiting for him to figure out what happened. Fingers crossed. Ray

Well that sucks! Hope you get it fixed soon!

 

[Rainman]

Mechanic hasn't even looked at my 912 ULS yet, and my Mooney is also in the shop, so I'll drive up (3.5 hrs). See you there. Ray

 

[Alan_Cheatham]

Any updates on how things went at the fly-in?

 

[GyrOZprey]

As usual some pictures and commentary on FB ..... https://www.facebook.com/events/123008165054887/permalink/160523451303358/

 

[Rainman]

I drove my car up from San Antonio, lots of gyros on Friday when I was there. As busy as it was with news media and arrivals, the airport locals took time to drive folks into town, and Craig McPherson and friends brought many AutoGyros and a Tercel. He was also nice enough to give some rides and to answer a ton of questions for me. I presume that Saturday was even busier. Ray

 

[RotorRambler]

In short, the St. Patrick's Day fly-in at Dublin, Texas, was great. The airport manager, Brad Stanford, did a superb job of managing this event, which I understand was suggested to him by Tom Duncan, a former resident of the town who's currently misplaced in Georgia, but who was able to get back to Texas for this affair. Here are a few photos for now. I'll post more photos and commentary later.

Descriptions of photos (left to right and top to bottom)

An overview of the ramp area on Saturday morning. Some of the gyroplanes aren't on the ramp; they're flying.

Tom Duncan, wearing his leprechaun shirt, with his Air Command. Tom's the tallest leprechaun I've ever seen.

Mark Kincaid with his and Larry Hauptrief's American Ranger AR1.

Craig McPherson's AutoGyro 2017 model MTO Sport and Trendak Tercel.

Don RieMondi, retired Delta airline pilot, with "Cricket", his AutoGyro Cavalon.

A closeup of Don RieMondi as we're flying with the gaggle of gyroplanes overhead the St. Patrick's Day parade.

People gathered in the hangar to hear Craig McPherson 's Gyroplane 101 seminar.

Craig McPherson holding forth at the Gyroplane 101 seminar while holding the Light-Sport Gyroplane 2017 supplement (see larger photo in signature blow).

 

[RotorRambler]

I thought the Dublin, Texas, fly-in was a remarkable success, especially for a first-time event, and it didn’'t just happen by luck. It was obvious that a lot of thought and effort was involved in planning and executing this affair, things like coordinating the fly-in with the town’s local St. Patrick’s Day celebration, a flyover of the downtown parade; a shuttle service to and from town; an all-day food truck and an ice cream vendor at the airport; a schedule of activities so that participants and visitors could look forward to something special any time they were there; hangar space for aircraft overnighting; and provision for the new Swift 94UL, unleaded, ethanol-free fuel, the first airport in Texas to offer it on-site, beginning just a few days before the fly-in. Equally important, maybe more so, was that Brad Stanford, the airport manager, made everyone feel welcome.

In a broader context, four observations from this fly-in suggest that people—both those already into aviation and those who are not—have a growing interest and positive perception of gyroplanes and these observations also indicate that significant changes are occurring within the gyroplane community.

First, although the fly-in wasn't limited to just gyroplanes, most of the aircraft that flew in for this event were gyroplanes. And although there were only about a dozen gyroplanes during the two days, they outnumbered all the other kinds of aircraft there, including the few airplanes and the one helicopter that made a brief visit. Furthermore, it appeared to me that nearly all the people who came to see the aircraft were much more interested in looking at the gyroplanes than the airplanes.

Second, I thought the kind of gyroplanes there was noteworthy. Compared to other fly-ins I've been to that were centered around gyroplanes, the Dublin event may have had a fewer total number of them, but the ones at this fly-in were almost all modern gyroplanes. Aside from one single-place SportCopter, the one single-place Air Command, and a bare Snowbird airframe on exhibit, the other gyroplanes were modern, two-place models, including three MTO Sports, a new 2017 model MTO Sport, two Calidus' (Calidi?), a Cavalon, an American Ranger AR1, and a Trendak Tercel.

Third, the backgrounds of most of the persons who flew their gyroplanes to this event were different from the majority of gyroplane pilots I’ve met at other events. I didn’t talk with every one of the pilots at this event, but I did talk with most of them, and virtually all of the modern gyroplane owners I talked with were already licensed pilots for other, standard category aircraft before they took to gyroplanes. That’s unlike other gyroplane oriented fly-ins I’ve been to and where the pilot/owners there were nearly all first-time sport pilots with no other aviation experience or had transitioned to gyroplanes from ultralights or other light-sport aircraft such as powered parachutes or trikes. For example, one pilot at this event, and with whom I flew, was a retired Delta Airlines Pilot who also had flown Robinsons enough to pick up a helicopter rating, but was now flying his Cavalon exclusively. I also met another pilot who had flown helicopters commercially and was also rated for airplanes, but said he much preferred flying gyroplanes. These are folks who weren’t particularly attracted to gyroplanes because it was a low-cost option, but people experienced in other kinds aircraft and who could afford other choices, but preferred gyroplanes. As another example, a married couple that flew in from Iowa Park, Texas, in their (yes, “their”, not “his”) yellow Calidus were both seasoned airplane pilots, he an engineer who sold his RV-10 when he discovered gyroplanes and she a PhD candidate who hadn’t flown her (yes, “her”) Cessna 140 since last September because she preferred to fly their gyroplane. And it wasn’t only those who came in their gyroplanes that had that degree of past aviation experience. While listening to the people who had come to look at the gyroplanes, I overhead several conversations about the kind of aircraft they had flown, or were now flying, and remarking about how much fun they thought it would be to fly a gyroplane, not just locally but actually to go somewhere, another indication that pilots who fly other kinds of aircraft are accepting gyroplanes as legitimate aircraft rather than the flying lawn chairs they remembered from earlier days. Furthermore—and admittedly this isn’t a conclusive indication—I heard these kinds of comments more often from those gathered around the side-by-side aircraft: the Cavalon and the Tercel. According to my theory, pilots experienced in airplanes, which are predominately side-by-side aircraft, tend to gravitate toward side-by-side gyroplanes more so than persons without prior experience in airplanes, a theory for which I’d accept a multi-million grant to study in more detail.

Fourth, I thought the ratio of participants and observers noteworthy. At other fly-ins featuring gyroplanes which I’ve gone to, even when the public is invited, they're usually attended mostly by persons who are already actively involved with gyroplanes, but with the Dublin fly-in, the number of persons who came to see the aircraft far outnumbered the ones who brought the aircraft. This event wasn't one of those drowsy, Sunday morning services where a preacher spouts a repeat of the gospel to the choir. No siree, brother. The Dublin fly-in was a fevered, Saturday night tent revival where the unwashed heathen multitude, lost souls who had known not gyroplanes at all, and the up-til-then gyroplane doubters and agnostics, and even hardcore airplane sinners who had once blasphemed gyroplanes, all came running down the aisle, falling on their knees in repentance, and crying for forgiveness.

Ira