Vance Breese Mentone 2020

I give up. If Phil is correct then it was PRA's fault and I should resign for my failure.
I don't think you should resign as there was no failure on your part, nor do I believe that Phil is correct or incorrect, other than him expressing his opinion on the matter. Over a period of time, one gets a good idea of the different mindsets of the different posters.

In this thread I have seen some posters that would gladly see Vance blamed in the name of regulations. For what, really? For denting a keel? Is that substantial damage? I had a hard landing several years ago in my tandem AC and I dented the keel and two prop blades. What was anyone to learn from it other than myself, as the damage was so minimal.

If that be the case, then how many are reporting themselves for flying while not adhering to weather minima, flying in proximity to persons or objects less than 500 feet, flying over congested areas, etc.

Vance has himself admitted in great detail as to what went wrong, and what lessons were learnt in the process.

Greg Mills (Gerg) has illustrated quite clearly how low one can go as a person. I'd be surprised if he gets much business for his Yamaha conversions. I for one will not buy from him.
 
Hi Ben, I don't talk behind people's backs, thanks for the PM.
To answer your question. No, I wasn't pissed I felt betrayed and really not sure the effort is worth it.

Also, most everyone has expressed that Vanced deserved to eat a little humble pie in private.
By supporting Phil's efforts in assuring that Vance eats humble pie they are also supporting Phil's slander of the Messenger/PRA.

Words have meaning! His direct slander of PRA solely because I told what happen and he assumed we must be covering up and I was on Vance's side.

The damage he has done to my talking years of PRA changing its role and other real benefits to our community can set back new membership for years.

Here are Phil's slanderous quotes.

Any official action by the FAA is less interesting to the action taken on the day and then subsequently which was pure cover up and misdirection over the circumstance. Given the people involved, PRA and THE most vocal flight instructor

... some are mindful to sweep it all under the carpet and hope nobody looked too hard.

When this accident was highlighted and where you become the effective representative of the organising club of the event and Vance commented on the stick and rudder issue that led to the grief not once was either the legality of the flight mentioned nor the airworthiness of the aircraft. Now we all might assume that the aircraft was airworthy but how is that established?


These are the real issues John,
PRA having an aircraft and events unfold as they have is less that ideal
That is the error of your way and very sadly that a high official within the PRA fundamentally can not promote good airmanship is pitiful and it is yet another reason why your situation particularly around insurance is as it is.
. Are you literally insane?

Back to reality...
No, I'm not insane. I was only the messenger. And if you look you will see that in another thread when I first came back after months away from the forum. As soon as someone asked was it registered, I answered in that thread. No, you can turn the owner in if you wish. This thread had gone inactive when I came back and you were discussing in another thread.

It was only after I posted what actually happened and the FAA results agreeing that Phil assumed I was on Vance's side and only then did Phil start slandering PRA.
 
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Well I guess that scab was well and truly picked.

Be nice to give it a rest.
 
I wish I had seen that this thread had new activity before I went to the fly-in this past weekend. Greg Mills was there, even sat down beside me while I ate my lunch. I am bothered that he called the FAA on Vance. I would have loved to have called him out on it in person in front of the crowd.

I get it that sometimes you can have conflicts of personality with others in this hobby. I had my share of haters and there was a few I didn't like as well... But trying to get people in trouble over petty stuff like this just crosses the line. Just agree to disagree and leave it at that.
 
Oh and btw, I flew two gyros at the fly-in on Saturday.... Didn't bother to check the paperwork or legality of either before flying them. Didn't check, didn't give 2 Shiets about it either! Had fun and enjoyed myself, which was the point of flying in the first place
 
fara .... I like your posts (very much) , I like you , and I like your company and your aircraft.
I also think the cautions implemented at Sun and Fun are a good idea ... it is all about safety.

However a person can turn that whole thing on its ear by doing the following:
google ....... "crash at Sun and Fun"
google ....... "accident at Sun and Fun"

Plenty of them , and unfortunately many were fatal to pilots and spectators. I wish that was not true. I know you always focus on safety fara and we all thank you very much.

Thanks for your kind words.
A correction though.
It's not about safety Martin. It's about Sun N Fun foundation covering themselves legally. If a crash happens there in an aircraft they allowed to fly and later it was found that it was not even airworthied by the FAA and thus was illegal to fly, the estate of the dead could easily sue them and would have an easy time getting rewarded. That is the exact reason why they check that plane is at least legal to fly. As a vendor when signing up at these shows, I have to send them registration information of the aircraft we will be bringing to fly in advance.
We all know having a piece of paper from a DAR or FAA does not make a machine safe or unsafe to fly and the accident may have absolutely nothing to do with having that piece of paper
 
John,
resigning ? My foot !
Leave this youtuber youtubing !
you are a member of a respected old gyroplane association, are you going to leave this youtuber giving the PRA lessons ?
are you gonna leave this guy giving you lessons in terms of collective behaviour and say that the british have a better capacity of living toghether ?
If I remember well the United states of America got rid of the UK 244 years, 3 months et 22 days AGO !
stop replying to this youtuber .. let's build and fly

this guy has no mandate, neither from the UK people to teach others country citizens how to behave in society, nor from the gyroplane community to advise on how to fly a gyro in America


try to go on the Russian gyroplane Forum, then start commenting an accident during a Russian gyro meeting , try to accuse a Russian Gyroplane Association ... you would be immediately banned and for ever !

This Guy should start a British gyroplane Forum and mind his own business !
Calm down for ffs, the youtuber is simply highlighting facts, take his geographical location out of the picture, Phil offers a very neutral factual argument for consideration, ... I’m not one for witch hunts or agendas, denouncing Phil is short sighted and a knee jerk reaction to a rather emotional thread.
Phil invests his time and effort in bringing us less qualified guys in depth gyro knowledge at his expense be it time or cost.
This thread highlights the emotive connection between members and camps rather than supporting what’s ethical in favor of doing what’s politically correct

as long as well all grow from this and endvoir to always operate within the guidelines as specified by our respective authorities ...let’s nor single out certain members but rather learn from there experience
as an example if Phil stoped making videos and and if he stopped with his opinion and views would we be richer ?

how many guys have invested what he has to bring us informative and entertaining information?
 
Calm down for ffs, the youtuber is simply highlighting facts, take his geographical location out of the picture, Phil offers a very neutral factual argument for consideration, ... I’m not one for witch hunts or agendas, denouncing Phil is short sighted and a knee jerk reaction to a rather emotional thread.
Phil invests his time and effort in bringing us less qualified guys in depth gyro knowledge at his expense be it time or cost.
This thread highlights the emotive connection between members and camps rather than supporting what’s ethical in favor of doing what’s politically correct

as long as well all grow from this and endvoir to always operate within the guidelines as specified by our respective authorities ...let’s nor single out certain members but rather learn from there experience
as an example if Phil stoped making videos and and if he stopped with his opinion and views would we be richer ?

how many guys have invested what he has to bring us informative and entertaining information?
Hi Greg.
Little of that do I disagree with, Greg. If Phil had only not slandered PRA and destroyed more in one day than I can build up in 4 years in the minds of the bash Vance camp.
Reality check: Phil's 1st complaint/slander I took exception to: "which was pure cover up and misdirection over the circumstance. Given the people involved, PRA and THE most vocal flight instructor"

If he would have only said John/me is to blame or better just blame the pilot. I would have not cared, we could have discussed how I could do it better. Which was my response to even his slander at FIRST. Today, my thinking has changed after fabid's post that they do it at Sun and Fun and would remove liability.
I'm bringing it to the board, the only difference is I have no scales or time to weight ultralights. Easy to change the current convention registration program to add a button to upload photos of the documents. I will vote yes to that. Users do the labor so I do not have to, works for me.


I have not once defended Vance!!! Only told what ACTUALLY HAPPENED.
The messenger only slightly diminished Phil feeding Vance the slices of the pie where he was accusing Vance that it was really major damage, and the other slice was so Vance broke the law in not reporting it. All the other slices of humble per were still TRUE. Phil attacked the messenger who was there and talked to the FAA and only told the truth.

Phil also cannot take back his lies once read. Why because lies become the truth in the pile on Vance camps' minds.
There are some you will not join PRA
thinking we lie to the FAA, we cover things up all thanks to a person who was 5K miles away receiving and BELIEVING information from a snitch. What it has taken me 4 years to create his lies have destroyed in a day.

All but his lies about PRA
I agree with too my friend. Including all of his post bashing Vance.
 
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Thanks for your kind words.
A correction though.
It's not about safety Martin. It's about Sun N Fun foundation covering themselves legally. If a crash happens there in an aircraft they allowed to fly and later it was found that it was not even airworthied by the FAA and thus was illegal to fly, the estate of the dead could easily sue them and would have an easy time getting rewarded. That is the exact reason why they check that plane is at least legal to fly. As a vendor when signing up at these shows, I have to send them registration information of the aircraft we will be bringing to fly in advance.
We all know having a piece of paper from a DAR or FAA does not make a machine safe or unsafe to fly and the accident may have absolutely nothing to do with having that piece of paper
Just my two cents, it's probably not a bad idea for PRA to insist that all aircraft at a PRA sanctioned event like Mentone, be 'legal' and even require the appropriate paperwork if they are planning to fly at the event, purely for legal CYA reasons. As we know families etc do sue whoever they can after accidents, so PRA should protect itself as an organization. It's not a stretch to think that PRA could be dragged into a law suit even if they were not at fault.
 
Understand, I'm not upset anymore that is written in my matter of fact voice. I forgave Phil once I usderstood PRA had diminshed Vances slices of humble pie and he wanted to kill the messenger too.

I've gotten over PRA reputation has taken a major hit no one can fix without starting the clock over proving it again.
That why I'm not sure it worth it anymore, as far as reputation.
It's like four years into the flight to Mar's and Phil, on the word of a snitch, shoots it down and we have to start over.

The good intentioned Phil's of the world will use only their conformation-bias that only they know the truth and all 30 ot 50 people there who all looked at it are lying and covering up.
 
Just my two cents, it's probably not a bad idea for PRA to insist that all aircraft at a PRA sanctioned event like Mentone, be 'legal' and even require the appropriate paperwork if they are planning to fly at the event, purely for legal CYA reasons. As we know families etc do sue whoever they can after accidents, so PRA should protect itself as an organization. It's not a stretch to think that PRA could be dragged into a law suit even if they were not at fault.
Yaw mon, read my post above about what I too learned from Abid, I did not know Sun and Fun did it. I figured out a way with no PRA labor so bringing it to the board. It can be a button on the existing convention registration page and they upload the pictures of the documents.
After they hit return it will look up the N# in the FAA web-page and send an email link back to volunteers to make auditing the docs to the FAA page a click of a link.
If the BOD approves it, writhing the program will be fun to automate the auditing too.
 
Yaw mon, read my post above about what I too learned from Abid, I did not know Sun and Fun did it. I figured out a way with no PRA labor so bringing it to the board. It can be a button on the existing convention registration page and they upload the pictures of the documents.
After they hit return it will look up the N# in the FAA web-page and send an email link back to volunteers to make auditing the docs to the FAA page a click of a link.
If the BOD approves it, writhing the program will be fun to automate the auditing too.
I think it is a good idea. Of course you still want to encourage people to bring their projects, but it's not too much to insist that every things is legal before flying during the event. Sad but, it's the litigenous world we live in.
 
I think it is a good idea. Of course you still want to encourage people to bring their projects, but it's not too much to insist that every things is legal before flying during the event. Sad but, it's the litigenous world we live in.
I agree, we will just be following Sun and Fun. But the selling feature is preregistration and User labor. Before the convention board members and I can audit them. Manually inspecting them = At the event, I don't have volunteers with the knowledge to actually check them. They are all on the flight line and other positions leaving only me again and there is no way I can be everywhere all at once.

The office staff call me the leprechaun, I can see the resemblance myself. Why because it's like I pop in, work my magic, and in less than a few minutes, Poof, I'm gone. Working magic somewhere else on the field.

The last time I really got to play was when Stan was coming to all of them with me.
The last convention highlight was Christine, the day after everyone left we went up and tore up the sky!!!!
 
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The silver lining...
If the board approves this, I think they will.
We will need all who are going to fly to register EARLY ONLINE, from now on.

It is not because PRA wants the money early.
It is to make your in-office registration automatic providing the board members to check your paperwork, which will give you a NEW 2nd dot that your ride's paperwork has been approved.
3rd dot for the officers and train volunteers after they inspect your ride.

We may have to exclude all aircraft from flying at our events from now on that have a polka-dot paint scheme?
OK, Dang I cannot lie. I do want the money early too. But it's not just an excuse this time.
 
John....You were and still are a bundle of hyper condensed uranium...near critical mass your energy level.

You and I sure had sore ribs all the stuff that happened at Mentone and Bensen Days.

Did you ever lose your phone again? ha
 
Thanks for your kind words.
A correction though.
It's not about safety Martin. It's about Sun N Fun foundation covering themselves legally. If a crash happens there in an aircraft they allowed to fly and later it was found that it was not even airworthied by the FAA and thus was illegal to fly, the estate of the dead could easily sue them and would have an easy time getting rewarded. That is the exact reason why they check that plane is at least legal to fly. As a vendor when signing up at these shows, I have to send them registration information of the aircraft we will be bringing to fly in advance.
We all know having a piece of paper from a DAR or FAA does not make a machine safe or unsafe to fly and the accident may have absolutely nothing to do with having that piece of paper
.

Thank you for that .... makes sense to me .... my education continues .....
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Just my two cents, it's probably not a bad idea for PRA to insist that all aircraft at a PRA sanctioned event like Mentone, be 'legal' and even require the appropriate paperwork if they are planning to fly at the event, purely for legal CYA reasons. As we know families etc do sue whoever they can after accidents, so PRA should protect itself as an organization. It's not a stretch to think that PRA could be dragged into a law suit even if they were not at fault.
.

Yes , yes , and yes ..... my biggest fear (worry) is that we stifle the innovative home builder who shows up with something unique that is a crowd pleaser.

I forget his name but an example was the builder who demonstrated a true jump takeoff gyro and at one time a helicopter also. I do not know if they had an AW certificate or not ,

To me it didn't matter because the only life he may have endangered was his own and in a machine he obviously trusted.

I think this was the original intent of Igor Bensen when he started the PRA ..... a fringe group of garage built flying machines .... things have matured greatly since then with gyros and the PRA (and of course lawsuits) ..... I just hope we find a balance ..... and I confess I do not have the answers either

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EDIT TO ADD:
Looked it up ..... it is Dick Degraw .... love this video.

 
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Yes , yes , and yes ..... my biggest fear (worry) is that we stifle the innovative home builder who shows up with something unique that is a crowd pleaser.

I forget his name but an example was the builder who demonstrated a true jump takeoff gyro and at one time a helicopter also. I do not know if they had an AW certificate or not ,

To me it didn't matter because the only life he may have endangered was his own and in a machine he obviously trusted.

I think this was the original intent of Igor Bensen when he started the PRA ..... a fringe group of garage built flying machines .... things have matured greatly since then with gyros and the PRA (and of course lawsuits) ..... I just hope we find a balance ..... and I confess I do not have the answers either

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EDIT TO ADD:
Looked it up ..... it is Dick Degraw .... love this video.

Even the innovative homebuilder knows that there are FAA rules that like it or not one has to stick to if one wants to fly something at least in public. One can still encourage them; bring them to show them, just don't fly them unless the paperwork is done. The US has wonderful freedom for experimental aviators, beyond anything enjoyed anywhere. Seems to me not complying with the basic paperwork rules is abusing our freedoms, which usually lands up screwing everyone else as a result.
 
John, take a deep breath. There's been no more damage done to PRA by Phil's comments. He asked reasonable questions which went unanswered at first because they were embarrassing.

PRA's long-standing "dot system" could reasonably lead casual onlookers to believe that the organization checks the machine before allowing it to fly at the event. In reality, it's always been about getting a CFI to vouch for inexperienced pilots, especially those flying claimed "ultralights."

Having been there to see the incident, I really don't think this was a "three C's" issue. Attendance was light due to COVID, and most attendees had left or were in the process due to the weather and late stage of the event.

The end result of all this is that a CFI who's already a stickler for detail had a humbling and valuable experience which will benefit his students going forward. A gyro kitmaker found a couple of things to think about from a design standpoint. We all learned more about the character of a bad actor in the sport.

Sounds like a win-win-win to me.
 
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