- Joined
- Oct 30, 2003
- Messages
- 18,363
- Location
- Santa Maria, California
- Aircraft
- Givens Predator
- Total Flight Time
- 2600+ in rotorcraft
Words have meaning and I don’t understand Phil Bennett’s desire to pretend he knows things outside of his window of experience.This forum is a funny place. The first hazard is that a post that you might start casually becomes entangled in language and hyper analysed to prove what?
Shirley so you carried on since '97 to around a decade ago, in most peoples world when you have one or two engaged in an activity in the entire UK that might count as "pretty much ended". In many ways it is kind of irrelevant but you have to be less emotional because frankly you entirely miss the point of my comments.
I'm not down on the past nor the people involved in the past but you have to see the woods for the trees. I have enormous respect for one of the people I'm sure you would call a friend [TM] and the nicest person you could meet but wow he is lucky to be here, and he'd admit it himself. Does that make him a bad man? no. Does that make him a poor pilot stick and rudder wise? no. But by the same token some of the points you hate being made are that, if you are trying to hammer home to the student to keep him safe, there are many many snags beyond stick and rudder.
I used to be a professional racing driver for almost 2 decades but on a track, on the road I'm a terrible driver. That is the parallel here, rolling out the war stories of tales of derring do is fine in the company of peers but students in training possibly less so.
Ironically Dennis Fetters turns up because what happened with his machines in the UK was arguably the greatest shame because of the opportunity lost as for a brief period gyroplanes had become more popular through the efforts of Fetters than almost anyone since Cierva and Bensen. When you speak to many of the people you claim I'm so down upon they [in conversation] whole heartedly agree that many of the activities that went on were regrettable and that is why the landscape is as it is in the UK today. Almost all of the old faces that are around today are quite united in a view that is the biggest show stopper to the Air Command in the UK was the wide adoption of the 532 motor option which had a very narrow power band and the training element where the importer was stacked out and in some cases buyers just didn't want to wait for training - they just had a go.
It is clear he just makes things up and presents them as fact.
The reason for a lack of availability of towed gyro gliders is a good example with Phil Bennett pretending it was a safety issue.
He even went so far as to suggest it would not be workable in the USA.
I suspect he has never flown a 532 Air Command or a towed gyro glider.
It appears to me from his post; his condemnation of the 532 powered Air Command is based on his interpretation of gossip.
I have not studied the Air Command crashes in the UK. The one Phil Bennett posted about on this thread (G-PFW) clearly had nothing to do with the narrow power band of the Rotax 532.
The Air Command accidents in the USA I have studied mostly had to do with insufficient training and poor aviation decision making.
The gyroplane I train in; The Predator is a very stable gyroplane with near centerline thrust, a lot of horizontal stabilizer volume and a 160 horsepower Lycoming IO-320 that makes power in a linier way from idle to 2,700 rpm. The Predator has no noticeable power-pitch-yaw coupling and a very effective vertical stabilizer and rudder. The Predator has a free castering nose wheel, good suspension and a wide track.
Despite all these safety features when teaching someone to fly her I still occasionally have to take the controls to keep a client from destroying the aircraft.
On the other hand Phil Bennett teaches in underpowered high thrust line gyroplanes with noticeable power-pitch-yaw coupling and hard linked nose gear that in my opinion would likely litter the UK landscape without good flight instruction.
I stand on the shoulders of those that came before me. I hold them in high regard and try to learn from their experience rather than condemn them for doing something that is outside of my window of experience.
I make an effort to base the opinions I express on fact and experience rather than gossip and fantasy.
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