MSGyro

My Wildest Ride

2006-12-08T19:54:00.000-08:00

I have been a gyrocopter pilot for many years and always thought that gyro flying was the most exciting thing I've ever done, and it was, until I had a ride in a New York taxi. All else pales in comparison. Talk about exciting...the taxi ride was heart in the mouth, white knuckles,and prayer time all rolled into one.

I had been invited to attend a gyroplane conference at Hofstra University in New York. Because I had been flying gyros since the early days of the Bensen gyrocopter era, I was considered a gyro pioneer and as such I was asked,along with about 18 or so other old timer-gyro pilots,to attend the conference where we would be honored as pioneer gyro pilots. I was to attend the banquet Friday night where the awards were to be presented and the next morning I was scheduled to give a speech on my years of gyro flying.

I was accompanied on the trip by my daughter Donna and granddaughter Lynette. Our flight landed at JFK exactly one hour before the banquet was to begin...panic city! Here we were, our first time in New York, almost already late for the banquet and still 20 miles or so to our hotel near the University.

We scrambled about for a taxi...there were lots of them about, but there were more would-be customers than there were taxis . We found one, asked the driver if he knew where the town of Hempstead was. "Yes, yes", he said ,as he loaded our luggage and the three of us in the cab then after a discussion with another driver, he admitted to us that he did not know where our destination town was so, luggage and weary traverlers were put back onto the sidewalk and the search was on again for another taxi...the clock kept ticking away during all this and our time was running out.

Then another driver stepped up and vigorously answered ,"yes, yes", when we asked if he knew where Hempstead was. He loaded the three of us and our luggage into his taxi and we set off. OHMYGOSH!!!! He took off like the devil was after him. I live in Southern California where wild driving is the norm, but this was a whole new experience to me. Crazy driving is taken to a new level in New York. I knew it was going to be the longest 20 mile ride of my life and I began to wonder if we would survive it.

Mind you, it was rush hour and the traffic was bumper to bumper. When he approached a stop, the driver slam on the brakes and would stop maybe 1/4 inch from the car in front of him. Turns he took on two wheels, and the three of us in the back seat would slide as one to the other side of the car. There we would be packed together like sardines until he turned a corner in the opposite direction at which time we would slide across to the other side...meanwhile the clock was still ticking down.

We drove up one street and down another...he would get on the road again then take an off ramp, saying in his very limited English,"this the way". A few minutes later we would be back on the main road again and looking for another off-ramp. He called his dispatcher and got directions then we were off again on more side trips. Finally, my granddaughter Lynette, said to him, "You don't know where Hempstead is, do you". "No", he admitted. He was lost. Lynette had been questioning him along the way, asking if he knew where the heck he was going, etc. As he drove, the driver drove spent more time looking over his shoulder talking to us in the back seat than he did looking at the road.

Finally,Lynette said to him, " Give me your cell phone and the number of your dispatcher". He didn't quibble, but just handed them over. She called the number and told the dispatcher that we were wandering all over Long Island and she wanted correct directions to Hempstead and further more, she thought we should get a discount on the price quoted for the trip because we were being inconvenienced because of the driver not knowing where he was going. She got the right directions but no discount.

Thanks to my take-charge granddaughter getting the right directions, the driver finally found the town he was looking for and , would wonders never cease, he found our hotel. We untangled ourselves from the back seat, gathered up our luggage and then we rushed inside and got the key to the room , rushed upstairs and dropped off the luggage, rushed out to find a ride to the University , found a shuttle bus and finally ,all of us out of breath, we walked into the banquet room just as the guests were being seated.

That was definitely the most exciting ride of my life. As a memento of our wild ride, the girls gave me a refrigerator magnet with the image of a New York taxi.
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The gyroplane conference was organized by Dr. Bruce Charnov , who is a professor at Hofstra. The conference was in honor of the 78th. anniversary of the invention of the gyroplane. Bruce did a fine job of putting the event together and gathering so many early gyro pilots together.

Johnnie Miller, a gyro pilot of the Pitcairn and Kellet autogiro era was one of the attendees. At the time Johnnie was about 98 years of age. we met his daughter and she told us he had driven the two of them to the conference, a distance of 95 miles. That surprised me, but then his daughter said, " Hey, the man still flys" . I guess you just can't keep a good gyro pilot down.

I visisted with my gyro friend Teddy today and tomorrow evening I'm looking forward to having a BBQ dinner with him and new gyro pilots, Tina and Dave.

Till next time
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

The Best Things in Life are Free

2006-12-06T22:13:00.000-08:00

I have always heard that the best things in life are free and over the years I have seen or heard a number of things that fit that description. Here are a few things that touched me and left lasting memories.

A spider web in the outside corner of our house where one room met another. The spider web was perfect. It was large, measuring about 12 inches or more in diameter and it was well anchored to the wall of the house. It was an architectural marvel and when it was covered with early morning dew drops and the sun was shining on the sparkling drops, it's beauty was was breathtaking.

And more sparkling drops of water and sun...Early one morning I sat in my car warming the engine up and in front of me all the sagebrush in my yard was full of morning dew drops. The morning sun shining on the dew drops turned them to tiny sparkling , shimmering colors of the rainbow...a real light show of my own in my own front yard. Then one afternoon after a rain shower all the native Creosote bushes to the west and on up the hill were covered with rain drops. The sun shining on the water droplets made them look like tiny sparkling lights...awesome, and it was free for my viewing pleasure.

A sound...I loved to hear a Commanche airplane with it's gear down in the traffic pattern for landing. It made a most beautiful melodic whistling sound...pure music.

Outside in the yard of our office I would hold out my hand and Ultralight, a Starling bird we had rescued when it fell out of it's nest as a baby, would fly to me and land in my hand. To see it hover in the wind then touch down so gently in my waiting hand was a special thing.

A look...my Doberman Vokie had eyes only for me. He would spend much time just watching me. Docko would say that he could see pure love for me in Vokie's eyes. I could see it too.

Nature's beauty...In early spring, looking down from altitude when flying and seeing carpets of yellow mustard weed and then a little further on seeing carpets of purple Lupine flowers. So beautiful.

Wonderful scents...flying over the apple canneries in Sebastopol, Ca. and smelling the wonderful scent of apples being made into applesauce or apple jucie.

A feeling...of peace,contentment and pure joy when flying my gyrocopter.

Welcome sights...After being handed each one of my babies soon after it was born I would check it's fingers and toes and all parts of the tiny baby to see if everything was all right and feeling so happy when each baby was perfect. They are all grown up now and all are still perfect.

Till next time.
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

My Little Red Wagon

2006-12-05T21:21:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid back in the stone age, every family with children had a little red wagon. A little red wagon that said , ' Radio Flyer', on the side. Some of our toys, most in fact, we made ourselves, like a pair of stilts that worried our mom to death when we walked on them, or stick horses, or bean flippers...any kid worth a his salt could make a good bean flipper by cutting a sturdy Y shaped branch and tieing two rubber bands cut from an old inner tube and a small piece of leather onto the Y branch. Every boy carried a pocket knife and I did too, I still do, as a matter of fact.

Marbles, we all had a bag of marbles...they were store bought and a staple in the life of country kids, as was the little red wagon. There was even an old song titled,'Won't you ride in my little red wagon?'. The little red wagon had many uses beyond coasting down the hill in it. It was used to carry chopped wood and kindling from out back to the house. It was used to carry vegetables from the garden to the house, and to carry corn to from the field to the barn . It was a toy and then some .

When I was a young mother, my own children had a little red wagon. Many times I would walk to the grocery store nearby with baby Donna riding in the little red wagon and then walk back home with baby Donna and groceries in the little red wagon.

Now in my 'golden years', as they're called, I still have a little red wagon and use it almost daily for one thing or another. It is handy to carry the bags of trash out to the dumpster, or to carry the big bags of dog food or bird seed from the car to the house or to carry my sewing kit ( kit must weigh 15 lbs.) and drapery material from my home to Linda's home about 200 feet away. When the guys were digging the trench on Linda's place this summer the little red wangon was the water wagon. It was kept busy hauling ice , soda, water , gatorade and all that stuff to keep the guys going.

I find it much eaiser to use the little red wagon than a wheel barrow for carrying things, especially if what is being carried is heavy. Where the wheel barrow is akward to handle, the little red wagon just tools along on four wheels nice and level and with no hassle.

The saddist thing I've ever used the little red wagon for was to carry my beloved Doberman Vokie, when he was too weak to stand and slipped down to the ground, alive, but just barely. I couldn't carry him for he was heavy. I put a blanket in my little red wagon and somehow I managed to get Vokie into the wagon. I was able to take him into the house by taking the little red wagon up the wheel-chair ramp to the front porch. I knew that my old friends' time was growing short , and so I took him into the living room so the other animals could say good-bye to him which they all did. I covered him with his blanket and there he died a short while later still in the little red wagon. The next day the little red wagon was the vehicle that carried him to his final resting place in the back yard.

Yesterday in the daily newspaper I saw an advertisement for Advanced Hearing Systems in Victorville. The good folks at Advanced Hearing Systems have a friendly French poodle named Charlie. Charlie meets and greets customers in the office. He is a good will ambassador. The picture in the ad was of Charlie sitting in a little red wagon that said ' Radio Flyer' on the side. Yeah, the little red wagon has stood the test of time and is here to stay and I couldn't be without mine.

Till next time.
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

Smart animals continued

2006-12-01T20:37:00.000-08:00

Animals are smart enough to seek help when they are injured or lost. Take the parakeet who flew several circles over head as I was sitting on the porch swing late one afternoon. He would cry out as he went past. After a few passes he landed in a bush near the porch. He sat there for an hour or so until I was ready to go into the house. I thought if I could catch him then I could keep him safe from hawks and owls. A colorful bird like the little green parakeet is a beacon to predators in the desert.

He sat there and let me try to reach him but my fingers barley brushed him, then he flew away. " Well", I thought , "thats the end of him . I'll never see him again". But I was wrong. Next morning he was in another bush in the yard. I asked my son to help me catch the bird and so with Dave on one side of the bush and me on the other the little green parakeet simply dropped to the ground at my feet and let me pick him up. We called him Johnnie and he lived with us for nearly three years then passed away.
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There were two foxes that lived in a burrow just on the other side of our fence. One of them turned up severely injured. Every day I would take them food and water. they would bravely sit beside their underground home until I was no more than 15 feet from them then they would dissapear down the chute until I went away.

We could see the injured one was having more and more difficulty getting around. Then one day he made his way into our yard and simply let Dave pick him up. It was late in the day so we put him in a cage intending to take him to a vet the next morning but he didn't last make it through the night. I think he wanted help but waited too long.
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And then there was our German Shepherd Gyro. For exercise I would walk and run around the runways on the airport at Tracy. Gyro needed exercise too but he really didn't want to run. If I didn't put him on a leash he would run with me for about 50 feet then he would just sit down and wait patiently for me to make the entire trip around the airport then as I made it back he would run out to greet me and act like he had run the distance himself. If I put a leash on him to make him go with me he would hang back putting drag on the leash . I would just tug on the leash and make him keep up and finally when he saw his little ruse wasn't working he would get with the program and run along side me .

One day we were loading the van for a weekend trip. I was carrying something out to the van when I looked back and there was Gyro carring an exercise mat that was rolled up like a sleeping bag and had a carry handle. He would carry the empty waste basket back to the office after it had been emptied and he would carry the mail from the mail box for me.

After we moved to the desert a white rabbit started showing up and I started putting food out for it. Soon it was waiting every morning for it's breakfast. I had no intention of taking it in but then it turned up needing medical attention. We took it to the doctor. He gave me some pills and said, " give him a tablet every three hours". I couldn't see trying to find him every three hours to give him his meds so we took him in. We called him Mikey. He would run loose in the house. Old Gyro just loved that rabbit. He would cradle the bunny rabbit between his paws and wash his face with his tongue. Docko made a cage for Mikey outside . One day I saw that Gyro had made a hole in the chicken wire of the cage and he was lying down inside the cage cuddling Mikey and giving him his daily tongue licking.

We had taken in a starving Doberman nmed Butch. He and Gyro were great friends . About three years later the doctor told us that it was time to let Butch go to his rest for there was nothing more the doctor could do for him.

I left Butch's collar and leash and his blanket in the van after his passing. Every time when Gyro was in the van he would pull Butch's things to him and tuck them in close to him. It was clear that he missed his friend and was grieving for him. He did that for a solid year. Feelings run deep in animals. They make great companions.

till next time
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

Birds and Animals are smarter than you might think

2006-11-28T12:46:00.000-08:00

I've never understood why they are called, ' dumb animals'. I think they're pretty darn smart. Take the female cat that was dumped at our office in Tracy years ago. She was a wild thing, wouldn't let me touch her, would spit and hiss at me every time I tried to reach out to her. She did accept the food I put out for her though. She stayed around the office through the winter then one day she brought out a litter of kittens. They appeared to be several weeks old.

Mama cat was a loving mother to her babies. She played with them,taught them to stalk, and to hunt and to climb trees. She seemed to enjoy them immensely. When they were a few months old she started to be mean to them. When a youngster would try to nuzzle her she would strike it. She made them all keep their distance from her. That went on for awhile until the young cats just gave up and ignored their mother. Apparently that was her goal for it turned out that she was pregnant again. She had taught her young to hunt and to survive on their own so when it came time for her to leave them they could make it on their own.

Sometime later I knew she had had another litter of kittens but didn't know where she had them hidden until one day I saw her with a baby in her mouth and bringing it toward the office. I went out to see what was going on-I could see the baby looked like it was injured. It was clear that something had gotten to her babies and had injured at least one of them.

Mama cat walked right up to me and laid her injured baby in my outstretched hand then she went back to the hangar and brought out another baby. One by one, she brought four kittens from the hangar and placed them in my waiting hands. The last one she brought out of the hangar was obviously not alive so she just walked on past me with the dead baby. I never knew where she took it or what she did with it, only that she knew it was beyond help. I looked after her four babies for a few days then mama cat took over motherly duties again and no, she still wouldn't let me touch her, but that didn't matter. I felt honored that she trusted me to help her with her babies when she needed help. Smart mama cat.
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One day at Tracy we heard a great calmmoring of sparrows on the roof of the office. I went out to see what the ruckus was about. There were what seemed like hundreds of sparrows on the roof and all were shrieking loudly. One sparrow was perched on the rain gutter over the door. Another sparrow which I took to be the mother bird was frantically flying between the bird on the rain gutter and her nest in the ivy alongside the door. Then I saw the reason for all the clammoring...there was a snake in the vines and he had found the bird nest.

The mother bird continued to fly to her mate on the rain gutter and implore him to do something. She would flutter in front of him crying all the while then she would fly back to the vines and scream some more at the snake. Her mate just sat there like he was cemented to the spot. The rest of the birds on the roof just gave moral support from a safe distance.

Docko took a garden rake and took the snake from the nest but from the lumps in his body it was obvious that he had had his dinner and the nest was empty.
Life can be tough for the wild creatures.
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I saw a program on PBS station that piqued my curosity. It was about a scientest who saw a lizard on a rock near the path he took every day on his way home from the lab. One day he put some food on the rock and the lizard ate it. Soon the lizard was waiting for him every day and before long it was accepting food from the man's fingers. That went on every day until winter came along and the lizard disappeared . Spring came and guess what-the lizard was back on the rock ready to begin another season of handouts.

There happened to be a gecko lizard ( I looked that name up in an animal book )that I would see often in our yard. He would walk with me but with a fence between us as I went from the house to the hangar in back. He seemed to be there all the time and seemed fearless so I decided to try to duplicate what the scientest did and feed the lizard. Sure enough, he would eat the small bits of weiners that I would put on the ground for him. It wasn't long before he was waiting for me and taking food from my fingers .

One day he was eating from my fingers and he suddenly ran through the fence and stopped just beyond the fence but close enough that I could still hand him the food through the fence. He had run because Vokie, my Doberman had walked up to stand beside me. The lizard was smart enough to know that he was safe on the other side of the fence so he just stood there with the fence between him and Vokie and waited patiently for each bite of weiner.

Winter came...the lizard disappeared but returned when spring time came around and we took up where we left off and I began feeding him again. It was neat to see that small wild creature waiting there patiently for his dinner and then taking it from my fingers.
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When the children were growing up we had a German Shepherd named Duke. Duke chased every bird that flew through our yard, no matter if it was 30 feet above the ground, he chased it. One day I saw a baby bird that had fallen from it's nest. It lay there fluttering on the ground. I ran toward the helpless baby hoping to beat Duke to it for he was running toward it too. Duke got there first. He picked the baby bird up in his mouth as I watched helplessly from 20 feet away expecting him to crunch it. But no, he held that tiny baby bird so tenderly in his mouth and brought it to me and gently placed it in my hand. Unbelievable!
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Later on we had Vokie, my very special Doberman. One day I was in the office and Vokie was just outside near the steps. I was on the phone with one of my adult children who at the time was taking a walk on the wild side of life and it was worrying the heck out of me. Unable to talk sense to my wayward one and being very frustrated I hung up the phone on my child. I couldn't hold back the tears and Vokie heard me crying. He came inside, put his forelegs up on my lap and nuzzled my face. He was comforting me. He stayed by my side until I was able to control the tears. Oh yeah, the wild child came back into the fold shortly afterwards.

I think animals are so great. They add much to my life in so many ways. There will be more animal stories in another blog/journal. Stay tuned.

Till later
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

2006-11-15T14:26:00.001-08:00

2006-11-15T14:26:00.000-08:00

2006-11-15T14:17:00.000-08:00

Painting, Pigeons , Gyro friends and uncoorperating computers

2006-11-07T22:00:00.000-08:00

Linda and I finally reached the end of painting the inside of her doublewide mobile home...well, almost finished that is. There is still some misc. painting of small itmes to be done, but the big stuff, walls and ceilings are done, thank goodness...now we start on hanging drapes . Bit by bit she is making the mobile home, HER home. A good feeling, for sure.

Out back there are six setting pigeon hens with two eggs per nest and a pair of baby pigeons about 5 days old in one nest. There have been times when for one reason or another I have been the caretaker of baby pigeons and it is astonishing how much more quickly they develop when the parent birds take care of them. Nature does it right!

Several weeks ago I set the young pigeon with the damaged beak free. I was concerned that he might not be accepted by the other birds because his beak and forehead have an unusual shape but so far he is doing very well. his beak healed well and he can forage with the rest of the birds. He seeks me out whenever I'm outside. He doesn't allow me to pick him up but I know he remembers me. That's a good feeling.

Hop Along, the one winged pigeon is hale and hardy. He is a miracle of survival spirit. It looks strange to see him flap his wings with a full size wing on the right side and a stub wing of about one inch on the left side. In the evening I cover one side of his cage to keep the table lamp from shining in his eyes so he just moves to the other side of his cage where he can continue to keep an eye on family activities and not miss anything. He has adapted well to his new life style.

I've been hanging out with gyro pilots again, even took Linda along this time. Gyro buddies Bobby Bettis and Teddy Udala were up over the weekend...well, actually, Teddy is a resident of El Mirage now but he still spends four days a week working down the hill. Bobby came up for a few days and the two of them, as is their custom, barbequed their dinner and we were invited. Tina and Dave came up late Saturday. After dinner we all sat around a roaring campfire and talked gyros. It was all of 9:30 PM when Linda and I got back home! For and old desert gal that seldom ventures out from home in the evenings that was staying out late indeed. Good dinner, good company, what could be better?

I bought a lap top computer last week and yesterday decided to get it up and running...like I know anything about getting new computers up and running! All went well for awhile then we ran into problems...by now Linda had taken over as I had run out of ideas and patience. She was making no progress at all so she said , "let's turn on the desk top computer and maybe somehow that will help us". Wouldn't you know, the desk top computer refused to go online for the first time ever.

All day she tried...nothing happened with either computer, both refused to go online. Finally Linda suggested that it must be phone line problems. I pooh pooed the idea. It was us, had to be. Phone line problems? naw, Linda, you're reaching! The telephone was working just fine. Big computer had worked fine earlier in the day. Finally, in desperation, she called the telephone company to see if they knew why the dial-up phone number wasn't connectig. Linda was right after all, it was the phone line. It turned out to be old Murphy at work...the phone company said there was a fire down the hill and the phone line had been damaged and that was the reason the computers were not responding. At least it wasn't something we had done to mess up the works.

Till next time.
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

Memories of this and that

2006-10-30T18:15:00.000-08:00

Did you know that when you are flying it is sometimes easier to spot another airplane in the air by first spotting it's shadow on the ground? I guess it's because it really catches your eye to see a shadow moving across the terrain below. So, once the moving shadow is spotted , the vigilant pilot will look about until he locates the other aircraft. An airplane three or four miles away looks to be only about an inch long when you see it from the air and so are not really easy to spot.

The shadows of gyros with their spinning rotors look like spiders in a hurry when you see them moving across the ground. Another neat thing to see when flying a gyro is a circle or what looks like a halo around the shadow of the gyro as it moves across the countryside. I suppose it has to do with moisture in the air and the sun shining through it. I've never seen the circle or halo effect when flying airplanes but have seen it a number of times while flying my gyro.

Speaking of rainbows, once long ago my daughter Linda and I were flying our Champ after early morning rain showers. Linda spotted a beautiful rainbow and wanted to fly to the end of it which appeared to be fairly close. We flew toward it only to find it was not where it had appeared to be but was still some distance away. We never did catch up with it but chasing the rainbow made wonderful memories for us both.

Once when taking an old friend for a flight in our Champ, I glanced over and saw that he was holding onto the door handle. It was his first time in a small airplane and I thought he might be nervous and that was why he had hold of the door handle. I landed shortly afterwards and I asked him about him holding onto the door handle...his explanation was simplicity itself-he said that he was holding the door closed. The door had a tendency to come open in flight but the slip stream would only let it open to a few inches. I was used to it and had forgotten to mention it to Bert, so when the door popped open he just held it closed. He wasn't scared at all...so he said.

There was a man who started hanging out at the local airport where we based our airplane. He was there even in coldest weather, sitting out on a bench looking at the aircraft or walking among the parked aircraft, talking to the airplanes and blessing them. He kept to himself or maybe others just kept their distance from him because of his strange ways. I know I did. One day as Docko and I were preflighting our Champ the fellow came over and asked to be taken for a flight. We told him no. We were headed on a trip. I wouldn't have taken him aloft anyway because of his strange ways. But one pilot did.

Les was a flight instructor on the field and he was big as a house. You wouldn't think anything could scare him . Les consented to take the man for a ride in a Cessna 150. Off they went...when they got to altitude Les reported later the man started talking crazy. Said he wanted to kill everybody. Said he was going to, in fact. Spooked Les out for sure. He wasted no time in putting the strange passenger on the ground! Eventually the strange man quit coming to the airport and I think all the pilots felt a sense of relief that he was gone.

Ah, memories...aint they great?

Lately I've been helping daughter Linda paint the inside of her doublewide mobile home. She came home from town today and said, "Mom, I've got something for you!", as she held up two more gallons of paint and new brushes. OH THANK YOU LINDA ! I'm beginning to wish she had bought a tiny little trailer...just kidding. She has a most spacious and beautiful mobile home and I'm happy to be helping her.

Daughter Donna will be with us for Thanksgiving...I'm a happy mama about that. And son Dave, he is undoubtedly one of the safest drivers on the road , ever watchful as to the other drivers. Yesterday a young man made an illegal turn from the outside lane, cut across in front of Dave who was in the inside lane. The young man was headed for the left turn lane but it was blocked by a vehicle so he just stopped in the lane right in front of Dave. Unable to avoid him, Dave clipped his rear bumper. Dave has got his pickup going again but it turns out the other driver is avoiding calls from the insurance company...He was at fault and it looks like he is dodging facing the music. Fortunately he admitted to the CHP that it was his fault and also someone stepped forward and gave Dave his card, saying he had seen it all and would testify for Dave.

And me, You would think I have enough trouble trying to figure out the desk top computer that I have but I went and bought a lap top a few days ago...I have visions of sitting up in bed warm and cozy, in those wee hours when I can't sleep and writing the new gyro book on the lap top...wish me well trying to learn to handle it!

Till next time.
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

Airplane pilots, gyro pilots and reckless flying

2006-10-28T21:58:00.000-07:00

Today I got to thinking about flying airplanes and flying gyrocopters and the difference in the pilots of the two types of aircraft. Airplane pilots are usually more disciplined in their flying and I think one reason for that is because the fixed wing pilots have had formal flight instruction and the majority of them are licensed pilots, whereas most gyro pilots will get a very minimum of instruction and will fly or attempt to fly his gyro with very little knowledge of the machine other than how to get it off the ground and back on.

That type of pilot never bothers to learn aerodynamics or any of the subjects he would learn in a formal flight instruction program and in ground school. That pilot is one who is dangerous to himself and to others as well. It's amazing that the macho low time gyro pilot will hot-dog and show off in his gyro before he really learns to fly the machine.

One of the very important things I learned about in ground school way back when I took airplane flight instrucrion was wake turbulence. It's invisible and it can be deadly to the pilot in a small aircraft who unknowingly flys into it. Simply put, wake turblence is air that is moving in a horizontal whirlwind like manner from each wing tip of an airplane that is flying and generating lift. Wake turbulence hangs in the air behind the generating aircraft and then slowly begins to dissipate. Should a small aircraft fly into the wake turbulence it can literally be destroyed, torn apart ,by the turbulence.

On my first solo in an airplane , when I turned onto the downwind leg of the traffic pattern I saw a DC3 in the pattern in front of me. I left the pattern and flew a gigiantic 360 then after the DC3 landed I re-entered the pattern and went in for a safe landing. Leaving the pattern for a few minutes allowed the the DC3 time to land and then time for his wake turbulence to clear the runway . I survived that first trip around the pattern alone because in ground school I had learned about wake turbulence.

Some time later Docko and I were on a cross country trip in our airplane. The air was very calm, not a ripple. Suddenly we began to be bounced about severely. It was all I could do to keep the airplane right side up and I was wondering what the heck was going on then I spotted them...about five miles away were three Military C119 cargo planes flying three abreast. They were just small dots in the distance but their wake turbulence was still in the air and we had cut directly across it. When I saw the cargo planes then I understood instantly that our sudden rough ride was due to the turbulence they had created minutes before. Again, thanks to formal flight instruction and to ground school. The wake turbulence had had a few minutes to begin to dissipate before we flew into it ,still it was a rough and bouncy ride for a few minutes . When we had transited the area of the turbulence the air once again became smooth as could be.

How many low time gyro pilots who have had very little flight instruction and no ground school at all know about wake turbulence, or CAT, clear air turbulence ,or wind shear or lift vectors, or any of the myriad invisible things that go on in the realm of flight but cannot be seen by the pilot, but can ruin his day? How many take the time to learn all they can about flying and really understanding their gyros? Granted, some do , but there are others who prefer to do hotdog flying and endanger themselves and others. After more than 40 years of gyro flying and flight instructing, the closest I ever came to being killed while around gyros was by a low time hotdogging pilot who was showing off. His rotor blades missed us by no more than 4 feet!

Till next time
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

More on the blog/journal, A long time ago

2006-10-28T21:41:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I wrote about dip net fishing on the Colombia river in Oregon but I didn't mention the name of the place where the fishing took place . It was called Celilo Falls, The falls were a few miles from The Dalles, Oregon. The falls no longer exist because of The Dalles dam which was constructed a few years after Docko and I spent a summer at Celilo Falls.

To read about Celilo Falls and the dip net fishing do a google search using the words, Celilo Falls, Oregon. There are a number of sites that tell the history of that wonderous place. Also there are sites with historical photos of the men dip net fishing . Check it out.

Marion Springer

A long time ago

2006-10-22T23:13:00.000-07:00

A long time ago when we were young and it was just the two of us, Docko and I were traveling through Oregon. We found a beautiful spot along the Deschutes river where we spent a few days camping and swimming and just enjoying being young and carefree . Then one day a few miles down the way we came upon a place called The Dalles, on the Columbia river.

The salmon were running, that is, they were jumpimg over the falls and swimming upstream to their home waters to spawn. On the banks of the Columbia, many Indian men had built wooden scaffolds out over the water and were standing on those rickety looking scaffolds with a rope tied around their waists and anchored to something sturdy on the bank and they were fishing with dip nets. A most unusual sight to my young eyes!

The dip nets were large,the hoops something like 12 feet or more in diameter and fastened to 20 foot long poles. The salmon would leap over the huge boulders in the river on their way upstream and the fishermen would scoop them up in their nets. Big fish, some weighing 40 lbs.or more.

We wandered about fascinated with all the activity. we came across a man Docko had gone to college with. The two got to talking and his friend told us that during the spawning season salmon fishing is closed to everyone except American Indian people. The Indian people used the fish for food for the winter. They smoked some of the salmon and dried some of it.

They built small fires and cooked chunks of fish and eel over the open flame and sold it to the tourists who were always present to watch the activities. The tourists expected the Indian people to be like those in the cowboy and Indian movies, you know, not able to speak English and so on. I remember one elderly Indian man who spoke English very well...he taught me how to make the knots for the netting. But when the tourists asked him questions he pretended not to know the language.

As Docko was of Shoshone Indian descent he was eligible to fish with the others, so he decided to do just that. He had and old Indian man make him a net then he bought a big hoop and a long pole and made himself a dip net. Another trip to town and we came back with lumber to build a scaffold out over the rushing water. More lumber was purchased to make side walls and a floor for the tent we put up for the two of us to live in. For a tent, it was luxurious! wood floor and screen on the walls to keep the bugs out. Real uptown!

That man of mine was in puppy heaven fishing all day , lifting those heavy fish out of the water while I watched from the solid ground and hoped he wouldn't get pulled into the water and be dashed against those huge boulders .

Docko learned of another spot where the fishing was said to be good. The only thing was, it was about half way across the wide Columbia river and to get there you had to walk about a half mile or more across a railroad trestle that was 75 feet above the raging waters of the river.

I went where my guy went although I didn't really enjoy the trip across the trestle. You had to watch where you placed your feet so you could step on the railroad ties and that meant that you had to see the water crashing against the huge boulders way down below. Not a pretty sight to me! It seemed to take ages to get to the place where there was a rope ladder that led down to the boulders below.

The rope ladder was attached at the top and the rest of the ladder swung freely. It had metal rungs that were wet and slippery. Getting up and down that ladder wasn't easy. Making it across the trestle and down the ladder was challenge enough for me. After fishing there for a while Docko decided that fishing was just as good and much safer where he had first started so we gave up the trips across the railroad trestle and went back to the scaffold out over the river where he had first fished. I was happy about that. I was always worried that a train would come along while we were on the trestle. Happily, none did. We spent the entire summer there, fishing as our grandfathers had done for ages. That summer that gave us wonderful lifelong memories.

Looking at those trips across the river high up on the train trestle from this point in time I wonder if I would have the intestinal fortitude to do it today. Probably not. But the young think they're bulletproof .

I spent a little time visiting with gyro buddy Teddy this weekend and tomorrow Linda and John Delaney are coming to visit. Life is good.

Till next time.
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

Remembering Halloweens from the past

2006-10-20T22:14:00.000-07:00

My daughter Linda and I were talking tonight about Halloweens from the years when the children were growing up. Halloween was a big event in their lives. For weeks they would plan what they wanted to be on the big night when they would go out trick or treating.

In those days I made their costumes. One time I made ghost costumes for all four of them. They were virtually stair steps of four little ghosts with baby Donna the littlest one. She was only three years old. Of course I thought they were all darling and Donna was such a tiny little thing and she needed to be carried most of the time during trick or treating. I would take them around the neighborhood and they would collect candy then at home later I would take their night's bounty and dole it out to them a bit at a time lest they all end up with upset stomachs from all that sweet stuff.

Ah yes, a fun time for them and a busy time for me. My daughter Coby loved Halloween . She always made a big to-do for the neighborhood children even after her own daughter had grown up and was out on her own. Coby would stock up on candy and she delighted in having kids come to her home for trick or treat. She and Donna always carved pumpkins and really got into the spirit of the day. This will be the first Halloween for Donna without Coby for we lost her earlier this year. We all miss her and my heart will break for Donna when she has to get through this sad Halloween alone.

Linda was so far ahead of her time when years ago she wanted to write a book on how to carve a pumpkin. There were no such books on the market at the time and her idea would have found a ready market but sometimes good ideas, for one reason or another just never make it into production. And so it was with her good book idea. Today there are books galore on pumpkin carving !

Linda had another good idea way back even before the one on pumpkin carving books...She was still in elementary school when baseball cards were new and kids began trading them. She kept saying that baseball cards would be valuable in time and they should collect and keep the cards. Another good idea not acted on and look at the big business such cards are today. I tell you Docko and I did raise some smart children.

Later in life when our children were long gone from the nest Docko and I moved to a fairly remote place in the high desert. There were no families with children in the vicinity. But every year as Halloween drew near Docko would remind me to buy plenty of candy for trick or treaters. I would say, " but Docko, you know we never get kids at Halloween. There are just none around here". He knew that but it was a slick way of getting candy that he liked...he would say , " Be sure to buy the kind of candy we like, you know, the little chocolate bars ,just in case no one shows up". So I would stock up on his favorite candy and of course, the two of us would have bags and bags of little chocolate bars to eat because no one showed up for trick or treat.

Till next time.
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

Halloweens from the past

2006-10-20T22:11:00.000-07:00

Flying ...it's always on my mind

2006-10-13T19:06:00.000-07:00

Back when I was flying, both airplanes and gyros, my favorite time for flying was late in the day , evening time really ,but before dark. Most pilots prefer early morning for flying for many reasons. One of them being the air is usually still in the early hours. But for me, a flight after the day was done just made everything all right and recharged my batteries. No matter what kind of day I had had, all was refreshed and better after a flight, even a brief flight. Flying as therapy, I guess!

But there was one gyro flight that I made in late in the day that had me a little uptight when it came to the landing. It was during the filming of a movie that I was flying my gyro in. The scene called for me to fly over a drive-in movie theater . The director asked me to take off very late in the day and fly to the filming site which I did. I proceded to circle the theater while the crew filmed the gyro from the ground.

It seemed to take them a long time to finish filming and to finally signal me that I was free to fly back to our staging area which was several miles distant. Oh Boy! by then it was almost dark and that meant the landing would be a challenge because the runway was not lighted nor did the gyro have a landing light.

I had asked before I left that they endeavor to keep the runway clear for my return because there was no one else flying that day and I knew it would be near dark when I returned. " Sure, no problem , we will do that ", they said. But when I arrived back at the strip there were several pilots taxing their fixed wing ultralight aircraft around on the runway. The pilots seemed totally oblivious to the fact that they were occupying the space where I needed to land . By the time it got through to them that I urgently needed to land and they had cleared the strip it was nearly full dark.

OK gal, I said to myself, you have got yourself a problem here. You will be darn lucky to find the ground , it's so dark. But I couldn't stay up there all night, so I had to put the flight on the ground and soon!

On final approach I could see where the lighter color of the sky met the darker color of the ground. I knew that the grass alongside the runway was about three feet tall. So when I descended to the point where it was all dark I knew I had to be about 3 feet above the runway.

I leveled the gyro, and pulled the throttle back to idle and just let the gyro gently descend in a level attitude. It did feel good when the wheels touched down and I knew I was firmly and safely on the ground . By then it was really pitch dark . I could have kissed the ground I was so happy to have put the gyro on the ground when I couldn't even see the ground. But I was a super-duper gyro pilot and I was getting paid big money to fly for the movie so I restrained myself and didn't kiss the ground! You can be sure that I didn't let myself get in a bind like that again.

That little adrenalin rush from the night time landing didn't make me dislike flying during the late evening peaceful time of day but I never cut it that close again.

There is something so wonderful and serene late in the day during that time after dinner and before full dark when the sky is a dark blue and the world is quiet. It's a time to reflect and rejoice that all is well in my world and I am thankful for it all.

Till next time.
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

Smart juvenile pigeon . The great outdoors is not for him!

2006-10-10T21:21:00.000-07:00

One of the two young pigeons that I set free yesterday is back in a cage in the house today. I mentioned before that some of them have a problem adjusting to the outside and this one did. The other pigeon that was released at the same time took to his freedom immediately. but this one, the one with the damaged beak was very scared and timid. He did leave the outside cage today but it was obvious that he was not comfortable. He relaxed when I picked him up to bring him back into the house.

His timidness would make him vulnerable to predators so I brought him back into the house and tonight he is one happy juvenile pigeon in his newly cleaned cage. It's my guess that he remembers that he was almost pecked to death in an outside cage like the one he was in today, Old memories die hard. Maybe in a week or so we will see if he is ready to face the great outdoors again . Then again, maybe he's no dummy... he is back inside where it's warm and safe and food is plentiful. He might never want to leave!

And Hop-Along just amazes me. He is playing with a string of plastic balls ( a toy for parakeets ) that is hanging in his cage. Maybe he is just bored! That ungrateful bird, he pecks my hand every time I reach into his cage to replinish his food and water. I guess if he wasn't tough he wouldn't have survieved the vicious attack that left him with one wing. It's amazing that he survived...when he was brought in, besides his broken wing dragging the ground, he had a chunk missing from the back of his head and his crop was torn open .

We could see seeds that he had eaten through the gaping wound in his chest. I thought his food and water would just go in his mouth and right on out through his chest. Taking him to a doctor was financially out of the question so we just decided to do what we could for him and if he made it , great, if not, then it wasn't meant to be. The hole in his chest healed as did the one on the back of his head. He even looks fine now. I'm glad he survived. It says what a fighter he is!

Tomorrow is the day that Linda will be home. Smart kid, summer is over and the weather is much more user-friendly now. She missed those three digit summer days we had this summer. It does take awhile to get climatized to desert summers. I will be happy to have her home.

Till next time.
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

A new Week and Linda is coming home Wednesday!

2006-10-09T13:20:00.000-07:00

Today is a good day. I had a most enjoyable weekend with good gyro friends and today we start a new week. The high point of this week is that my daughter Linda,will be coming home on Wednesday. It will be good to have her home .

Early this morning I set two young pigeons free. They are called juveniles at their age which is about 2 1/2 to 3 months. The first one is a chick from a found egg that Coo hatched and raised to this age. The other one is a young bird I brought into the house when he was a baby . I found it bleeding from an attack from a setting hen. She had pecked holes in his head and in his beak.

He had all kinds of problems with his beak before it finalled healed. I wasn't sure it ever would and I was worried about him. He should be OK if the other birds don't pick on him because his beak looks different from the other birds.

It's probably as traumatic for me as it is for the young birds when I set them free. I start by placing them in one of the big cages in the yard. I leave the cage door open so they can go out or not as they choose. Usually they will stay in the cage all day for the first day. At nigh I close the cage door to keep night time predators out.

It doesn't take long before the newly freed birds are accepted by the other birds and are mixing in with them. There was one young bird awhile back that didn't adjust to his freedom at first. He would seek me out and sit near me when I was outside. He did that for several days so finally I brought him back inside for a week then re-released him. That time he adjusted well to being free and paid me no never mind when I was outside.

And there is Hop-Along. He is one strong bird. It's interesting to see him flap his good wing and the one inch or so stub of his missing wing. All his terrible looking injuries have healed and he seems content to be inside and cared for. He is a survivor!

Ok, time for me to get back to work on sculpting a White Buffalo Woman doll for Britta.

Til next time
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

One Happy Woman !

2006-10-08T14:41:00.000-07:00

If there ever was a happy woman, it was Tina Tyler yesterday morning, Saturday, Oct, 7, 2006 when she soloed her Vortex gyro. I had been coaching her for a couple weekends in crow hops and the basics of properly getting a gyro into the air.

On Saturday morning early she made several 'balancing on the mains' taxi runs then with Dave, Teddy and me pacing along side her in a SUV she added just a bit more power and the gyro lifted off very beautifully . The take off was picture perfect. She came off in a level attitude, flew very solid and stable for about 150 feet at about 3 feet off the deck.

She then reduced power to idle and made a perfect landing. Then she yelled loud in absolute joy! And Teddy...sitting there with camera at the ready to catch the first lift-off, completely forgot the camera and just sat there open mouthed and watched the solo. So we have no pictures of the first take-off. Guess we will just have to see if she will do it again, and get a photo next time.

Tina wasn't the only one who was happy that day. Teddy, Dave and I shared her joy. She had to leave early to get back home and to work but that didn't stop the three of us from celebrating her accomplishment with a good dinner, barbequed by Teddy. Then we re-lived the morning over and over in conversation. The solo will live in Tina's memory forever and it will be a wonderful memory for her three side-kicks as well.

I tell you, I hang out with some pretty good people. we all speak the same language and that is gyros, of course .

Till next time
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

Summer is over

2006-10-06T22:36:00.000-07:00

Last week it was summer and now it isn't. It seems like we have only two seasons here in the high desert, summer and winter. It's either hot or it's cold, no in between weather where the days are just shirt sleeve pleasant.

I was pretty well climatized to hot weather before moving here because Docko and I spent 20 years in Tracy, Ca. and summers there are very hot. The big difference between Tracy's hot summer days and hot desert days is that in the desert it does cool down at night where in Tracy, if it's 108 degrees in the daytime it's 108 degrees at night.

But there are many wonderful things about desert living and one gets used to summer heat.

The El Mirage dry lake bed is one of the wonderful attractions of the high desert. Located about midway between Palmdale on the west and Victorville on the east, it really sits out in the middle of nowhere. I heard a woman who was here on her first visit tell a joke...I can't remember anything about the joke except that whatever happened took place at the end of the earth...the woman interrupted her story at that point and said, " I don't know why they didn't just take it to El Mirage". So I guess to her El Mirage is the end of the earth.

One time a pick-up with two men in it who were lost stopped at my home. They had come from Nevada to visit someone who lived even father out than we do. they had driven many miles over rough dirt roads and didn't have any idea where they were. the driver asked me, " How do we get out of here ?". I asked him where he wanted to go. " To civilization !", he answered.

Tomorrow morning bright and early I will be out on the lake bed again coaching Tina as she learns all about her Vortex gyro. She is taxiing and ground handling her gyro very well. Now we want to get her to the point of balancing on the main wheels for long distances at a time. When she can do that she will be ready to lift her gyro off the ground . She has been able to balance very briefly for short distances . A little more practice and she will be ready to lift off. So, I'm hoping for a beautiful calm, no wind day tomorrow , at least in the morning.

Patience and self discipline are prime requirements in gyro learning and flying. Several years ago I had a call from a man who had a new Air Command gyro. He inquired about flight training and wanted to know generally what our flight training consisted of. I explained our training and that it starts with learning the various steps of the take-off. It's like building a house, you must start with a solid foundation or the house won't be well-built or safe. The man indicated that our method of instructing was just what he needed.

He said he had had two hours of instruction from one instructor and two hours from another instructor and both of them took him to altitude immediately and began the air work, you know, climbs, descents, turns, etc. He said he would call me in two weeks to make an appointment with us for the complete flight training program...I didn't hear from again. Then one day a few weeks later someone came in from the lake and said a gyro had crashed. we went out to see if we could help but the pilot was dead. It was the man who had said he wanted to come for training. I guess he had second thoughts about it and decided to try it on his own with only fours total of flight instruction . It took him about one minute to destroy a beautiful gyro and to eliminate himself. In the gyro impatience is a fast way to self-destruction.

Today I went down the road to visit with my gyro buddy Teddy. It was too cold and windy to sit on the porch and visit so we took shelter from the weather and visited in his motor home. He is getting closer and closer to being a full time resident and neighbor for today he put up his house number on his fence and tomorrow his mail box goes up. Looks like he is here to stay.

Till next time
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

Tina's working diligently on crow hops.

2006-10-02T13:01:00.000-07:00

We almost got rained on yesterday...did in fact get about two minutes of sprinkles. The sky was dark and cloudy all day and it looked like rain and smelled like rain and then just a sprinkle or two. It was enough water to settle the dust on the dry lake, however. The So. Ca. Timing Association had their time trials on the lake just a week or so before the gyro fly-in. The racers leave the lake surface covered with fine talcum-like dust and when the wind blows it's like grey fog everywhere. So the tiny bit of rain helped to pack the dust and the lake was absolutely beautiful this morning. It was shiny and smooth and would have made a perfect roller skating rink.

I was out on the lake again this morning coaching Tina in crow hops . She was in her Vortex gyro. We quit when the wind came up. Yesterday we put in several hours with her taxieng and getting the feel of balancing on the main wheels. All the while her guy Dave, drove the pick-up alongside as she made runs down the lake and I sat on the passenger side of the truck giving her hand signals and generally trying to help her... Oh my kingdom for a two place powered trainer!

I feel that if I could ride beside her for awhile and walk her through every step of the crow hop process it would be so much easier for her to do it on her own. But we will persevere and before long she will be flying .

Most new gyro pilots have a difficult time with self-restraint...they generally want to surge ahead and get up there in the air before they are ready. I'm happy to say that Tina is staying with the program and not rushing. We don't set goals, such as, " Today I will fly this machine ". Rather, we say , " today we will practice this particular step and when it becomes easy to do, then we will go on to the next step". It's the only practical way of getting there without bending something.

The stage of learning where Tina is is very difficult, but only for the first few hours. Everytime she goes out again on her gyro she relaxes a little more, learns a little more and begins to notice slight wind changes , even relaxes enough to look around a bit and gets a better feel of her gyro . And really , all those things are hard for the beginner to do when out on a powerful gyro all alone. So, we take baby steps and in time Tina will get to the point of lifting off the ground and flying her gyro. I look forward to clipping her shirt tail when she solos in the not too distant future!

One very good thing that Tina has is Dave Bacon another gyro pilot, who is right there to help her with her gyro and look out for her well being in gyros. Having someone who really cares is wonderful. They make a good team.

Till next time.
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

Oh to be young again!

2006-09-27T16:03:00.000-07:00

Oh, to be young again! I'm still trying to get rested from the gyro fly-in on the lake bed last weekend. It seems that all I did was talk, and visit . Matter of fact, I talked and visited so much that I'm surprised that my mouth isn't tired. It's not my mouth that's tired, but everyplace else on me is.

I used to bounce back fairly quickly when Docko and I would do weekend Airshow exhibits and gyro flight demonstrations at air shows. We would exhibit our wares and I would fly demonstrations all weekend then we would get back to the office on Sunday evening, unload, crash at home till morning then I'd do flight training every day for the next week. But lots of water has gone under the bridge since then. I'm not complaining ( Docko would say, " how can you tell?"), but it sure was easier to bounce back in the good ole days.

Last weekend was 'good ole days' too . It was a thrill to meet Britta Penca who flys an Air Command gyro. Next year I hope she is able to bring her gyro and fly here at the lake. Tina Tyler, another gal gyro pilot was there with her beautiful white Vortex gyro. Tina hasn't flown it yet but will soon. She did have the thrill of seeing her gyro flown by Scott Heger who does a pretty mean job of gyro flying.

Scott is the local hot gyro pilot. Oh man, I can't wait to move him aside into
# 2 place. I'll be up there again one of these days in my Born Free gyro...look out Scott! But then , like I said, lots of water has gone under the bridge so maybe my gyro flying will have mellowed in the time since I've flown... Nahh, not likely! We will see how it goes.

I will do things right when I get back into the air, starting with having my gyro gone completely through and anything that needs replacing, replaced. And I will also get a flight physical even though I am in good shape and feel great. One thing for sure is that I will lose some excess fat before I fly again. That probably will be the hardest thing of all to do! It's unbelievable how fast that ugly stuff builds up when one is retired!

My favorite activity since retiring is sitting and reading and now my bod is showing the results of non-exercise. I'm surprised that Docko hasn't thrown a thunderbolt down on me. I know what he would say if he was here. When I had an extra pound... just one lousy extra pound, he would say that I looked," healthy". Didn't fool me for I knew he really meant "fat". Then he would pinch the tiny (tiny in those days) fat roll around my waist and say, "healthy".

The thought of getting back into gyro flying has always been in my mind but it seemed so far away at times. But now two very good friends , both of whom are gyro pilots, have offered to bring my gyro up to speed and help me get back in the air. They volunteered to do this. It isn't every day you come across such good and selfless people who are willing to give their time as these two have. They are Teddy Udala and Bobby Bettis.

It will be months and months before my dream comes to be but it will happen and it makes my heart sing to know that I will fly Born Free again.

Till next time
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

The Gyro Fly-in on the lake bed

2006-09-26T09:41:00.000-07:00

Where do I start? The Ken Brock Gyro Freedom Fly-n was held last weekend on the El Mirage dry lake. There are two events of the year that are the highlights of my year. One is the Indian PowWow in Hesperia in May and the other is the gyro fly-in in Sept. Of course it goes without saying that any time my family visits is the crowning highlight of my year but the other two events are right up there too.

My granddaughter Lynette and her husband Amer were here for the fly-in. Early on Friday morning while we were having breakfast a gyro flew over and did a couple of circles around our place. My granddaughter says it is dangerous to be between me and the door when a gyro goes over for I simply must run outside and wave. Soon a second gyro came over and circled. I told the kids, "let's get a move on. they are telling me to come out and play".

As happens sometimes, the Santa Ana winds were howling...30 mph on Saturday and almost the same on Sunday. A number of gyro pilots did some outstanding flying in the wind, Scott Heger, in particular. Others flew when it was somewhat calmer.

New gyro pilot Dave Bacon did his share of flying . He too came up and circled my home. He is on the way to becoming a very good pilot. Mad Man Mike Schallmann from Arizona was here with his beautiful gyro. Mike has a metal semi-enclosure on his gyro and it is so shiny that if I didn't see him fly I would think he spent all his time polishing the gyro. His gyro sports a picture of nose art from world war 11 military aircraft. The picture is a beautiful woman in an exotic pose with the caption," slightly dangerous". Mike does fly the daylights out of the gyro and he too came over our place. Does that gyro shine in the early morning sunlight...dazzling!

Adam Goad from Oregon was here with his 90 hp. Mac powered gyro and he did his share of flying. I was lucky enough to get a wonderful ride with Dave Dunn in his RAF 2000 gyro. Dave turned the controls over to me but I couldn't reach the rudder pedals so I didn't get a chance to fly the RAF. Woulda stretched my legs to make them reach if I could. I was so happy to be going up in a gyro again that I forgot to take a camera and here I've been talking about needing a good picture from altitude of the lake bed for the new gyro book . Talk about having my head in the clouds ! But during the fly-in I can't seem to focus on anything but gyros !

Jake Jones from Wyoming was here . He was having engine prooblems so didn't get much time on the gyro.

There were others flying and visiting with old and new gyro friends. Fly-ins are so neat. There is always someone ready to help with whatever one might need...tools or gyro parts or whatever. Teddy Udala was right there to help us get our shade tent set up and the table and chairs in place and just to generally be there.

For me, one of the best parts of the fly-n was that there were two women gyro pilots there besides me. To have gal gyro pilots, Tina Tyler and Britta Penca there was a treat. Tina hasn't flown her Vortex gyro yet and Britta didn't bring her Air Cammand gyro but hopefully they will be flying at the fly-in next year....and I will be too! I retired when my husband passed away and I haven't flown since then. The reasons are myriad, but I have decided to get my gyro up and running and get back into the air and the very thought of flying Born Free again makes my heart sing.

For a full rundown on the fly-in check out the next issue of PRA's Rotorcraft magazine. New Ch. 1 president, Randy Wrisley will be sending an article to PRA. Randy had just gotten out of the hospital and went directly to the fly-in...is that dedication or what ?

So, suffice it to say the fly-in was great as was having my grandkids with me...Lynette is making noises that she wants to learn to fly gyros...is there to be another woman gyro pilot in the Springer family ?

Till next time.
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

Next Week Is Here

2006-09-20T19:32:00.000-07:00

You have heard of people who never put off doing something till tomorrow when they can put it off till next week ? Well, that's me. And now next week is here and I'm not ready for it. The Ken Brock Freedom gyro fly-in is this weekend, Sept. 22, 23, and 24. I have neglected cleaning out the other bed room in my home for ages, coming up with one excuse after...it's too hot today...I've got other things to do today...It's too late to start it now, I'll get at it early tomorrow....No, gotta go to town on a grocery run tomorrow. Well, OK, then I'll do it next week. Next week is here! and the bedroom is still not mucked out and I expect to have guests in there tomorrow night . How did I get in this mess????

For one thing , my mind is not focusing on house cleaning period. Jake Jones , a long time friend and gyro pilot pulled in a few days ago and I've spent some time visiting with him catching up on gyro doings. Yesterday another gyro friend, Tom Carlisle from New Mexico came in towing his Dominator gyro. It had been a year since I saw him so there was more catching up to do.

Today was a run into town for groceries and errands, so no house cleaning today. As we came in I noticed several other gyro pilots with their gyros in tow coming onto the dry lake. It's gonna take a lotta restraint to stay home and clean that bedroom tomorrow when I want to go visit. But the time has run out so I will clean house early then hope to get down on the lake bed and talk the talk for a while afterwards.

When I was a young mother of four small children, I was a slave to
cleanliness...clean children, clean house, clean and pretty me with hair all done up and wearing a dress ( Heavens,never jeans, but a crisp clean frilly dress). My husband worked hard in construction and I thought he deserved to come home to cleanliness, everywhere...children , home and me and a good dinner on the table.

I would get the children their breakfast, see that they were all scrubbed and clean and in clean clothes then send them outside to play. Then I would spend hours cleaning house. When the house was spic and span I would shower, take the curlers out of my hair and put on a ruffly dress. Within minutes after my stepping out of the shower the children were back in the house, dirty, grimy, hungry and the house looked a cyclone had hit it.

So keeping children and house clean was a full time job and I can't remember all being spotless at the same time ! I learned to live with it and adjusted to dust balls under the beds, dirty foot prints here and there and all the rest. I finally learned that there were better things to do than fight dust and dirt all day long! It's an endless cycle, it just keeps comes back. The problem is though, that sometimes you just have to do some cleaning. So, tomorrow bright and early the bedroom gets cleaned...that is unless one of my gyro buddies shows up and we start talking gyros.

The guests who will be using the bedroom are my granddaughter Lynette and her husband Amer. They have seen my messy home before and will still love me even if I don't get the room clean before they get here.

I had a call from my friend Linda Delaney saying that she and John couldn't make the fly-in this year. I will miss them . They couldn't make it last year either. The reason was that they had just finished building a hangar and were in the process of building a new home. This year they have a house on the market and must be there to meet with prospective clients. I will be happy when Linda and John get some time to come to the fly-in and just enjoy being with the gyro pilots, or just some time to come visit.

Till next time.
Marion Springer
ddalota@earthlink.net

If the lake could talk, what stories it could tell

2006-09-19T16:01:00.000-07:00

This is an article I wrote awhile back to be included in another gyro book I'm currently writing . I cut and pasted the article to this blog page. There is a very interesting photo of the crashed gyro in the original article. Unfortunately, the photo didn't come along when I cut and pasted the rest of the story here and I don't have the skill to put the picture on the blog. I find computers much more difficult to operate than gyrocopters! Maybe I can have my granddaughter move the photo to the blog when she comes to visit. Anyway here is the story.
.....................................................................................

If the lake could talk, what stories it could tell.

My entertainment for one summer on the El Mirage dry lake was a group of people who were determined to fly a two place Air Command gyro by remote control. The gyro was not a model but a full size gyro .

I first learned of them when Bill Davis , a gyro pilot , had seen them on the lake while he was flying . Bill had landed nearby and visited with them . He told Docko and me about their plan to fly the gyro without a pilot . It sounded interesting so Docko and I drove to the other end of the lake to take a look . I had been flying earlier and was still wearing my orange flight suit .

We parked the van , got out and approached the group who were gathered around the parked gyro . As we walked toward the gyro I could see that they had placed a platform across the wide seat of the machine and the platform seemed to be full of instruments .

One of the group came out to meet us . We told him we had heard of their project and would like to see their gyro if they didn’t mind .

Seeing my orange flight suit instantly put the man on the defensive. “ You must be the other gyro pilot flying this morning “, he said . I replied that I had been flying earlier and would be in the air again before long . Things went downhill between us from there .

When he learned that I planned to fly again he began giving me my marching orders . “ We don’t want you flying anywhere in this vicinity……We do not want you to come closer than …..You are to stay away from…..

Who would want to fly near where they were attempting to fly a gyro without a pilot ? Not me . Common sense would dictate that one keep some distance from their activities .

I was a professional flight instructor . I knew the FAR’s ( Federal Aviation Regulations ) , I had common sense , and besides I didn’t appreciate being talked down to .

So, before he had finished his tirade we left without bothering to look at their
machine . Later in the day word reached us that their first attempt to fly the gyro by remote control had failed and the machine had been badly damaged . They had packed up the bent gyro and gone away . I couldn’t muster up any sympathy for them . “ Serves them right “, I thought .

The next week they were back . The Air Command had been repaired and it also had been modified . Week two was a replay of the first week . They wrecked the gyro again , packed it up and went away .

That same scene was played out over and over during the summer . They were never able to fly the gyro but they kept trying and each week they would bend the gyro , take it away , repair it , modify it , and try again the following week .

We would see the modified gyro as we drove across the lake bed or I would see it from the air as I flew my gyro . Before long it had been modified so much it no longer resembled an Air Command , or any other gyro for that matter . Still , they hadn’t been able to successfully fly the machine .

Then one day the leader of the group drove up to our home on the edge of the dry lake . “ We need help “, he said , “ we’re having trouble trying to fly the gyro . This morning we tore the nose wheel off while trying to make a take off ".

I replied that it sounded to me like whoever was trying to fly the gyro didn’t know what he was doing . I had offended the man . He informed me that he was the one who was handling the controls . He added that he was president of some such remote control organization and that he had vast amounts of knowledge and flying of radio control model aircraft .

Diplomacy is not one of my strong points , so I blurted out , “ yeah , but what do you know about flying gyros ? “.

“ I have had gyro flight training “ , he replied . “I had two hours of instruction from a guy in Florida “. Well , I knew the ‘guy in Florida ‘ . He instructed in gyros but was not a certified flight instructor . ‘ The guy in Florida ‘ had told me himself that his students received 20 minutes of actual flight time per hour of instruction .

So this man with the remote control , full sized Air Command had traveled 3000 miles from California to Florida for 40 minutes of gyro flight instruction and now that he found he didn’t know how to fly the gyro he wanted some free handy tips from me . Fat chance ! That went over like a lead balloon with me !

“We have been hoping you would make some landings and take offs near us so we could see how you do it “, he said . “My , my “, I thought . “ It hasn’t been so very long ago that you didn’t want me flying within a country mile of you . Now you’re singing a different tune . Oh, how sweet it is !”.

He said he was having trouble with the take off and wanted me to brief him on proper take off procedure . I asked how ‘ the guy in Florida’ had taught him to make a take off . “ Oh, he never let me touch the controls on take off “, he replied . So how did this man think he could make a gyro take off the ground if he didn’t know the first thing about it ???? Amazing , simply amazing .

I gave him my standard line that I couldn’t teach him to fly just by talking about it and suggested he take a full flight training program . He insisted he didn’t need that much training and grudgingly said he would take one hour of instruction . That didn’t happen because it wasn’t our policy to offer flight training by the hour .

So he went back to his group and they continued with their crash , rebuild and modify program for a couple of more weeks but they threw in the towel after a final spectacular crash of their gyro .

Bill Davis had happened by just after the crash and saw the wreckage of the remote controlled Air Command scattered about on the lake bed . He landed and talked with the group . They were looking at a video of the last crash and were trying to figure out what happened . They invited Bill to view the video of the gyros’ last hurrah with them .

According to Davis , they had finally gotten the gyro into the air . It flew a short distance then they tried to land it . The landing was extremely hard , and caused the gyro to bounce 15 to 20 feet up into the air . At the top of the bounce the operator did the absolutely worst possible thing he could do . He had shut the engine down !

The gyro did the only thing it could possibly do….it dropped in . The mast folded , the blades dug in , and the gyro was totally destroyed . That permanently ended their crash , rebuild and modify program .

Two things killed the gyro – one man’s huge ego and his cheapness . What a shame.

Marion Springer, CFI-Gyro, Ret.
ddakota@earthlink.net

.

.

Another good day

2006-09-17T17:30:00.000-07:00

I hope your day was a fine as mine was. I went down to the dry lake to visit with a long time gyro friend Jake Jones, from Wyoming. He is set up down on the lake bed with his gyro, A Bensen with Skywheels blades, and is ready for the fly-in next weekend. It was good to see him again.

Tina and Dave bought a motorhome this morning and brought it out to Kienzles. Talk about having it all...they will both have gyros at the fly-in plus their own motorhome right on the flight line. Couldn't be better!

Something interesting...Dave had a call from the movie star Angilina Jolie, asking about using his gyro for a photo in Vogue magazine. They wanted a gyro for the star to sit in for pictures for the magazine. Being a totally unselfish guy , Dave thought Tina's gyro would be more photogenic so he suggested her beautiful white Vortex gyro instead of his KB2 to be used as a prop. A price was agreed upon. Tina and Dave were excited, as anyone would be. Later on Dave recieved another call from the star saying that the powers that be at Vogue thought the gyro looked too dangerous so the deal was off.

There may be other opportunities for Dave and Tina to use their gyros in the entertainment field because quite often film studios make movies and commercials on the dry lake and they have used local gyro pilots and their gyros in the past.

Billie Willis was hired to fly his gyro in a film. His flying consisted mostly of flying around beautiful girls who were wearing smiles and not much more. He was compensated for flying and I'm sure he earned his money for I remember it was a very hot day and they didn't get finished with the filming until dark. But, I sure didn't hear him complain about his work that day!

Pigeons, pigeons...yesterday I brought a tiny new baby pigeon into the house. I would guess he had hatched out about an hour or so before I found him. For some reason he was out of the nest . Not being able to get about on his own, he obviously had been put out of the nest by an adult pigeon, possibly his mother. The other newly hatched chick was in the nest and was being cared for.

I put the new baby in the nest with Coo and she took him in. Her own egg hatched early this morning . I was hoping she would feed the baby I brought in yesterday, but she says ,"nope, nothing doing ". She lends the baby chick her body warmth but I feed him...Oh well, we comprimise. So far today, he is doing well as is Coo's own new baby.

So, all in all, it was a good day for me and will get even better as the fly-in draws near and more gyro pilots will be coming in. Even better than the fly-in is the fact that I will be seeing my granddaughter Lynette, and her husband Amer in a few days . They are coming down for the fly-in and to visit . It's always the best of anything to be with family.

Till next time.
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

Murphy's Law - times two

2006-09-15T11:10:00.000-07:00

You've probably heard of Murphy's Law . It the law that says " if it can go wrong, it will". Here are two perfect examples.

Several years ago they put up a VASI system on the airport at Tracy. VASI is a Visual Approach Slope Indicator. The system emits colored lights to aircraft on final approach to indicate that the A/C is or is not on the correct glide slope to land in the first third of the runway.

The VASI system was set up about 20 or 30 feet to the side of the runway. When the man who was working on the system was just finishing up, a Cessna landed and the pilot lost directional control of the airplane. The plane veered off toward the VASI light-bank and sure enough, hit it square, taking it out. When the poor workman saw the Cessna headed toward him he ran for his life. No one was injured except the VASI lighting system. Murphy at work.

Another time I was to do an air show routine in my gyro at an air show. The FAA has called all the performers in for a pilot briefing.

One of the air-show performers was a lady who did a comedy routine in a Piper Cub. Her act was a woman who supposedly didn't know how to fly but got into an airplane and took off and flew very erratically while two men in an automobile chased the aircraft down the runway while trying to flag her down. The act was called, ' Grace the Ace'.

The pilot briefing ended and we all prepared to leave the room. The lady, Grace, stopped at the door, turned back ,and said to the room at large," Oh by the way, I forgot my glasses today and I can't see a thing without them". I thought she was just being funny and still don't know if she was serious or not but later events says maybe she was serious!

When her turn came to fly, the MC announced that her driver had not been able to attend and asked for a volunteer to drive the chase car...again I don't know if that was for real or part of the intrigue. Someone spoke up said he would drive, so he and a camera-man got into a car and followed Grace as she taxied in a weaving manner down the runway.

Grace in the Piper, took off and did a 180 degree turn at the end of the runway and headed back down the runway at a very low altitude heading direclty toward the approaching car.

She was too low, as it turned out. One wheel of the aiplane struck the top of the car and broke the A/C wheel off. The wheel went sailing through the air.

The pilot did a fine job of landing on one wheel in the grass along side the runway. The car driver and the cameraman were not injured but were probably scared out of their wits.

I've always wondered just what did go wrong that day. Murphy again, I guess.

And finally, about the birds here at home. Yesterday I set the young rust colored pigeon free and he is adapting very well out with the other pigeons that hang out here. Then this morning I transfered Hop Along in his cage into my house. No big deal to the dogs or cats that live with me. Just another bird to them I guess. And surprisingly, Hop Along seems very relaxed to be inside with us, much more so than when I would put his cage out on the porch. Out there he always seemed ill at ease and nervous. Could it be that he knows his vulnerablity and worried being in close proximity to the wild pigeons ?

And then I looked out and saw 15 wild desert grouse at the water pan in the yard. That was something new! I saw them once a few months ago outside our gate. That day when they saw me they walked away very stately , looking so tall and aloof. I was glad to see them inside the yard today...probably the outside pigeons were not so happy about it though, for they were all standing back watching the ( to them) intruders. After awhile the grouse wandered away, walking single file and aloof. Neat birds.

May all go well with your day. Mine got off to a good start this morning with a call from Ed Alderfer, a friend and long time gyro pilot. We chat on the phone frequently and try to get some of the world's problems solved...just kidding...we talk gyros, what else?

Till next time.
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

It's A Small World

2006-09-12T18:20:00.000-07:00

Sitting out on the front porch again today I was looking out over the El Mirage dry lake. It is a most wonderful playground. Folks come in motorhomes and camp out for awhile, sometimes for days . Most of them bring dirt bikes, land sailers, dune buggys, gyros, ultralight aircraft, or some type of recreational vehicle. Some don't bring anything at all and I always think they might just be enjoying the peace and quiet away from cities, freeways, and telephones.

Then there are some who skate around on a pair of roller skates with huge wheels holding a sail out in front of them and sail around the lake bed . The sail looks like a regular sail from a boat except much smaller. They use the wind to propel them about and the more adventurous ones will leave the smooth surface of the lake bed and go scooting around the sage brush and sand dunes. That can be challenging !

I was always curious about those things but had never seen one up close until one day I came upon a man who had his sail on the ground and was making some adjustments on the equipment. I stopped to chat with him.

He told me about it and said it was fun and I should try it...I told him that gyrocopters were my passion. "Gyrocopters", he said..." have you ever had a magazine article written about you flying your gyro ? ". I told him that I had many times . When I mentioned among other publications, the National Inquirer, he said " That's it! That is where I saw an article about you and gyros".

We talked a bit about the article and I mentioned the name of the photo-journalist who did the story for the National Inquirer, a fellow by the name of Jamie Budge. Well small world. It seems that the very same Jamie Budge designed the sails and wheels system that that the man was working on . Jamie happened to be on the lake that day so we had a very pleasant reunion.

I remember when back in Tracy, the call came in requesting some time with me to do a photo shoot for the article. Our training schedule was booked for months ahead so I put them off. My granddaughter, Lynette, was visiting with us at the time. She went ballistic. 'YOU DO NOT PUT THE NATIONAL INQUIRER ON HOLD, GRANDMA!", she said. She was mortified that I would do such a thing, but our customers had to come first.

Eventually we made time for the photo shoot and we arranged for my granddaughter and her mother Linda, to be present. It was a big day for all three of us. The photographer took pictures of my daughter and granddaughter flying with me. It was probably the first time ever that a grandmother flew her daughter and her granddaughter in a gyroplane.

The girls flew with me, one at a time, in the side by side Air Command gyro. I always use a twist grip throttle on the control stick on my personal gyro but on the Air Command, the throttle and the control stick were seperate. And I only had two hands. So to take pictures with the camera that had been mounted on the front of the gyro I would get us set up with the right airspeed and have whoever was sitting beside me hold the throttle while I used the remote control to operate the camera. It worked out well and we had a fun time , all three of us.
a good day and good memories for us all.

Till next time
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

Flying Under Cluster Baloons

2006-09-12T18:03:00.000-07:00

Flying Under Cluster- Balloons
I stopped one day to talk with a young man who was filling some large balloons with helium then tying them to something in the back of his pick – up truck . The balloons were sizeable; he said they were weather balloons . He said he wanted to find out how many helium filled balloons would be required to lift a man. As I’ve said before, you never know what interesting thing you might come upon on the El Mirage dry lake. I stayed awhile, visiting with him and lending a hand by holding the balloons while he tied them off to keep them inflated.

I went home , he went away and I forgot about the incident until a couple of months later when one very still morning I looked toward the lake and saw what looked like a man dangling beneath a cluster of balloons about 200 to 300 feet above the lake bed . I counted 7 balloons. A strange sight indeed. I watched mesmerized, as the man and balloons slowly gained altitude and drifted toward the southwest . I estimated his altitude eventually to be at least 4000 feet above the ground. “What a scary height to be at supported only by a bunch of balloons,
“ I thought to myself “. “And they say gyro pilots are strange “!

I heard nothing about the man and balloons until several years later when our local newspaper had a feature article on him . He is John Ninomiya and he is one of less than a dozen cluster-balloon pilots in the world .

The time I saw him hanging above the lake bed under the silvery mylar balloons was his first flight under cluster-balloons and he did indeed reach 4000 feet altitude that day. Since his first flight and the article several years later, John had become proficient as a cluster-balloon pilot .

According to the newspaper article, after his crew inflates the balloons they tie them to John’s harness, and also to his arms, legs and feet. To ascend he releases ballast, ( bags of sand or water ) . To descend, he pops a few balloons. At the time the article was written, John stated that the highest he or anyone else had been under cluster-balloons is 2,400 feet altitude …now that’s getting up there !

My hat’s off to the cluster-balloon pilot, but I’ll stick to gyrocopters.

Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

Settin' on my front porch

2006-09-10T13:06:00.000-07:00

There is a porch swing on my front porch and when the weather is nice I enjoy sitting out there and looking out over the desert. I can see for miles and miles and it is all so peaceful.

My nearest neighbor is one mile away and the only noise out here is what we make. Peaceful, serene and just wonderful is how it is out here . Oh sure we have our hotter than hot days in mid summer, but they don't last forever ( it only seems so at the time ). Winter is tolerable. Usually each winter we will have one storm which will leave a little snow on the ground that usually doesn't last through the day ( thank goodness ).

We don't get much rain out here and when we do get a summer thunder storm we appreciate the rain so much we just go out and stand in it, arms out-stretched and face to the heavens! Yeah, the desert suits me. Docko maintained that mostly eccentric people live way out in the desert...people who generally can't get along well in society. I'm sure that's true and that's why we have a 6 foot chain link fence around our place...to keep eccentric people out, not to keep this one in.

Just because I've always been wrapped up in gyrocopters, just because one of my children gave me a set of screw drivers for Christmas and another one gave me
motorcycle hand grips as a gift, doesn't make me eccentric does it? Just a little different, maybe, always following a different drummer than the other mothers in our neighborhood.

I had a long and wonderful life in gyrocopters. I'd like to say that fame and fortune was mine but in reality there was a certain amount of fame but no fortune. But so what? I didn't fly to get rich any way. I flew becasue I think I was meant to. So at this point in my life I like to sit out on the porch and in my mind maybe relive some of those gyro flights, or maybe just look at the quiet beauty of the desert or, watch the wild pigeons and the road runner birds that come around .

There might have been a time in my life that I wouldn't have wanted to live out in the desert as I do now. People change as time and life goes by. Years age Docko and I visited a flight school in the Salton Sea area of Southern Ca. You didn't just stumble onto the place for it was set way out in the desert. it was very remote from civilization. The only person in the office at the time was a beautiful young woman about 20 years of age. The other staff members were out flying and she was there alone. She mentioned that she and her husband had been there for one year and said they had lived in San Bernardino before moving to Salton Sea.

I asked her how she liked living out in the desert away from towns, etc. She repied, " When I moved out here the world came to a stop". I would like to ask her the question again when she reaches her golden years. Bet her answer would be much different.

So I sit on the porch with the two dogs, and with Hop Along in his cage near by and just enjoy being there. That's not to say that we don't have moments of excitement out here. Take yesterday, for instance. Earlier in the morning I had put a young rust colored pigeon outside, set him free. I had taken him in several weeks ago when a setting hen pulled all the feathers out of his head. She was beating him up and he couldn't get away from her. So yesterday I felt he was ready to leave the safe house and I put him outside. I kept looking outside all day checking to see how he was doing...one time when I looked out I saw a big hawk with a full grown pigeon in his clutches.

I ran out, grabbed a shovel, waved the shovel about and made a lot of noise. The hawk tried to fly off with the pigeon but the weight was too much and he dropped the pigeon. The frightened pigeon was OK and he flew under the house where he hid out for the rest of the day.

I went looking for the young rust colored pigeon and found him cowering in a corner of the porch. Boy was he glad to let me pick him up and take him back inside the house. That was all the excitement he could stand for one day. "It's a bird eat bird world out there ", he says. I will re-release him in a week or so when his heartbeat returns to normal and we will see how it goes for him then.

today the Southern California Timing Assn. is having a meet on the lake. So for today, it is dusty and not quiet, but later today the racers will all be gone and peace and quiet will return to our little piece of desert.

There will be a bit of noise and excitement ( the good kind) on the lake bed on Sept. 22, 23, & 24.That's the time of the Ken Brock Freedom fly-in. Gyro pilots from all over will be here. I'm looking forward to it.

till later,
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

Engine outs and gyro tales

2006-09-06T23:01:00.000-07:00

Dave Bacon , a new gyro pilot was flying his McCulloch powered gyro over the El Mirage dry lake a few days ago and he experienced his first engine out landing. It happened at the worst possible time, as he was flying low , around 100 feet alt. and down-wind.

To Dave's credit, he did it right, got the nose down immediately to maintain airspeed and landed . He bounced a couple of times but kept the gyro up-right...not an easy thing to do, especially for a new pilot and his first engine out, not to mention the landing being a down-wind landing. You done good, Dave!

Several years ago I saw an experienced gyro pilot nearly lose his gyro when he made a down-wind landing to please someone who wanted a picture of him landing. He obliged the fellow with the camera and landed down-wind on a taxi strip. The wind was blowing about 15 mph...that meant he touched down rolling 15 mph faster than he would have had the landing been made into the wind. Rolling along fast after touchdown, he lost directional control and went off the pavement and into the rough. He barely was able to keep the gyro upright.

I wonder what went through his mind when he got the machine under control and taxied back past where the fellow with the camera had been and saw that the fellow and his camera were gone. Wannna bet the guy would have been right there to get a picture of the wreckage if the pilot had rolled it up?

Some time later the same pilot was returning from a short cross country flight in his McCulloch powered gyro. I saw him enter the pattern , then start his descent then he was out of my line of sight because of hangars between where I was and the runway he was landing on.

When he next came in sight he was walking his gyro in. When he finally made it to the office, he said, " Be careful what you wish for". He said that as he was preparing to begin his descent to land, he thought to himself. " I wish I had the intestional fortitude to shut the engine off and land dead stick". As if it heard him, the engine quit cold at that instant and he got his wish for a dead stick landing.

He had been pushing his luck by flying those cross country trips on a 6 gallon fuel tank and that day he barely made it back to the home base. The fuel out-let line was in the center of the bottom of the tank. When he lowered the nose of the gyro to begin his descent, what little fuel there was remaining in the tank went to the front of the tank and there was not enough fuel to cover the out-let so the engine, starved for fuel, quit. Naturally.

One day as he was returning from one of his out and about flights, he took a short cut back to the airport and flew very low , something like 60 to 70 feet above the ground and right across the parking lot of the local Military Logistics Depot. I'll never know what he was thinking...or maybe he wasn't!

Before he reached the airport. some three miles away, my phone started ringing , the local police, the depot officials, and the feds, all wanting to know ' who was that pilot?'. "How do I know ?" I asked them. "I didn't see him ". It was a silver gyro they said. " Well, that doesn't tell me anything". I replied, "most of the gyros are silver".

When he taxied in and shut the gyro down, I told him he was a wanted man and why. I never saw anyone load up a gyro and skedaddle as fast as that pilot did. The next time I saw his gyro it wasn't silver. It sported a fresh new green paint job.

Back to engine outs...I had my first one when I was learning to fly the gyro and was making touch and goes at the Old Naval Base. I planned to stop after the landing I had just made but Docko waved to me to make another pattern. I took off and the Mac quit...out of fuel. I hope the statute of limitations have have expired by now, for the feds frown on pilots running out of gas. It's a violation of the FAR's. Anyway, I landed it OK.

Another time the Mac quit on me was during an air-show routine. I had just recovered from a vertical descent and had started climbing back to altitude and the engine quit. I landed OK. The engine started up again and ran fine. Docko figured it was ignition. that's when he started working on a dual ignition for the McCulloch engine.

The third and last time the McCulloch quit on me was when a piece of silicone came loose in the Super Mac, dual carb, reed valve system and the center main bearing siezed from lack of lubrication.

I always favored the 90 hp. McCulloch engine. For power to weight ratio it couldn't be beat. I only had three engine outs in the Mac during all my years of gyro flying. Two of the engine outs were from carelessness, the fuel one was mine. the silicone one was someone else's who had worked on the Super Mac, and the ignition one was the third one . we think it was ignition, but it the cause was not determined definitely .

I made several precautionary landings when the engine was running rough though. Once we had traveled to Rockford, IL. to a gyro fly-in and and trailered the gyro. The engine started running rough on a cross country flight so I landed on a country road. Docko determined that the needle vlave in the carburetor had taken a beating during the long drive to Rockford. After that he took the carb off when we were going to trailer the gryo for a long distance. My second precautionary landing was when a piece of silicone came loose inside the seat fuel tank and plugged the fuel out-let. The engine started cutting out so I landed while I had a place to put it down.

A funny thing here...I landed that time on a paved street in a housing development where the houses were still under construction. I walked a long way to find a phone and called for Docko to bring a trailer then I went back to wait for him to show up.

As I was sitting on the curb beside my gyro in a street way to heck and gone from any town or other houses, a bicycle rider came by and passed about 6 feet from me. I guess I was invisible for he didn't even offer a greeting. I think he was afraid I might ask for his assistance if he acknowledged my presence.

Well,that's it for today. I hope all went well for you today.

Till next time
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

Another 12 day

2006-09-04T10:36:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was another 10 plus 2 day. Early in the morning my son Dave, called on his cell phone and said, " you have company". It was two bike riders and one of them was a gal. My son had just opened the gate for them. " send them in", I said to him. We keep the gate locked at our home because of my poor hearing...I don't like to suddenly be surprised by a stranger in our yard that I hadn't heard drive in, and that happened a time or two before we started locking the gate. I am home alone most of the time and we are way out it the boonies so there is no sense taking unnecessary chances. What about my watch dogs, you might ask...well they are usually in the house under my feet, of course.

Anyway, my two visitors were new gyro pilots, Tina Tyler and Dave Bacon. They had come out to Kienzel's to clean out Dave's hangar, make an adjustment on his prerotator and of course fly...Dave would fly, that is. Tina's new Vortex gyro will be read to fly in a few days.

They both wanted to know how Hop Along was doing. You might remember that three weeks ago Tina had clipped his useless broken wing off while I held him and Dave provided moral support for both of us although Dave had scrubbed up and was was ready to help with the surgery if needed. He also provided the name , 'Hop Along', for the one winged pigeon. A perfect name!

So Hop Along got to see his friends and get his picture taken by Tina.

It happened to be feeding time for the two baby birds that are in my home so my friends visited with me while I fed the babies.

After a while they left to go back to the hangar...was I surprised to see Tina riding a motorcycle? Not at all. There was a time she planned to be a lineman
( linegirl, linewoman, linelady,?), for Edison, the power company. In fact she had worked three years for them toward that goal...and I thought I was a tomboy!

When the critters were all fed and settled for the day I went on down to Kienzles. I stopped by to visit with my gyro buddy , Teddy Udala. I think he has finally got his priorities right...he was hard at work on his new KB3 gyro and not working on his moblile home . Atta boy, Teddy.

By then it must have been 103 degrees so Tina and Dave and I took refuge in their motorhome under the air conditioner and talked the talk. Our location is nearly 3000 feet above sea level and with the high ambient temp of 103 degrees it made for impossibly high density altitude...in other words , not good for gyro flying , but excellent for hangar flying, so that's what we did.

One of the subjects we discussed was harassment the gyro pilot often suffers at the hands of fixed wing pilots. It's an aviation caste system out there, a fact of life that was made clear to me during my many years of operating a gyro business and gyro flight training on Tracy Airport in Tracy Ca. Tina had a taste of the FW harassment during her gyro flight training when a fixed wing pilot kept deliberately cutting her and her instructor off in the pattern.

One day on Tacy airport, a student and I were in the gyro and were traveling down the 25 taxiway and had gone about 3/4's of the way down when a fixed wing aircraft tuned onto the taxiway and headed toward us. When he saw us the pilot slowed down abruptly and began a turn out into the median section...After a few seconds into the turn I'm sure it registered on him that it wasn't an airplane already on the taxiway but only a darned gyro! The pilot turned back onto the taxiway and continued on toward us. He clearly expected us to get off the sidewalk for a real aircraft. He hadn't met up with me before...I wasn't about to be pushed around when I was right so I continued on .

Just a few feet further on the airplane pilot gave up and moved out into the median, as he should have done, and would have, had we been in an airplane. Just so you know, I would not have pushed it to a dangerous point.

I've said before, if you fly what is considered to be an unorthodox type of aircraft ( doesn't have fixed wings ), you will be considered to be a member of the great unwashed by many airplane pilots. Once you get off the sidewalk when an airplane pilot demands it ,it will be expected of you forever after. In all fairness, I must say this is not true of all pilots of fixed wing A/C but it holds true for a great number of them. I always endeavored to keep myself and my gyro FAA legal in case I ever needed to prove that I had every right to be flying my gyro on an airport.

Common courtesy should be used by all pilots, no matter what they fly...an example here...one day while landing my gyro I inadvertantly cut off an airplane which was on long final. The pilot made a go-around and when he landed I walked over and apologized for cutting him off. He happened to be an instructor with a student. He was very gracious about the incident. He said it had worked out well because it gave him an opportunity to demonstrate a go-around to his student.

I was in the wrong and I admitted it and apologized. Result, there were no hard feelings toward me or toward gyros from the CFI. I never have had a fixed wing pilot apologize to me for his errors and deliberate meanness toward me when on the gyro!

But I digress...I thoroughly enjoyed my visit with the gyro pilots yesterday. We all speak the same language. It won't be long before Tina is taking her place in the air with the rest of the rotary winged pilots.

Two final notes before I sign off for today...a beautiful green VW powered gyro came over our place and waved hello, this AM. It was Steve Mcclennan out and about. And about Hop Along...he is doing very well. In the mornings I put his cage on the back porch where it's shady and he can enjoy fresh air and see other pigeons. This morning for the first time there were two wild pigeons nose to nose to his cage visiting with him. I hope they were visiting with him and not just coveting the food in his cage! Anyway, it was his first interaction with other birds since his injury. Poor guy doesn't realize they would kill him if he was free...nature's way is to get rid of the weak. He will be safe with me. That's not to say he won't have a few anxious moments when he is brought into the house and sees the menagerie that lives with me. But he will survive the excitement, I'm sure.

Till next time.
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

Attitude

2006-08-30T22:22:00.000-07:00

Igor Bensen, the designer of the Bensen Gyrocopter always said that it is easier to teach someone to fly the gyro who has never flown anything than it is to teach one who is already a pilot. I found that to be very true when I became a flight instructor in gyroplanes. And it was all about ATTITUDE. Well, some of it was about the differences between the flight envelope of the fixed wing aircraft and the flight envelope of the gyro, but 99 percent of it was plain and simple, attitude.

The fixed wing pilot would approach the gyro with the attitude that it was going to be very easy and simple to learn to fly it. He would figure that he had a head start on learning to fly the gyro because he was already a pilot.

I had a slight touch of attitude myself when my husband and I began teaching ourselves to fly our gyro. Teaching yourself to fly the gyro was done by neccessity back then for there were no two place gyro trainers or gyro flight instructors . I was a fixed wing pilot, so I thought to myself, "the gyro is going to be very easy to learn to fly". I knew how to do take offs, straight and level, climbs and descents, landings, stalls, and all the rest that had to do with flying. But that was in airplanes. I quickly learned that the gyro was a diffeent breed of cat and knowing how to fly an airplane didn't help me at all in learning to fly the gyro.

Lucky for me my husband Docko, didn't have the same attitude I did about learning to fly the gyro. "We will learn to fly the gyro by the Bensen pilot's manual", he said. "We will learn it step by step and learn it throughly". If I wanted to fly the gyro then I had to do what he said for it was his gyro and he wanted to be sure I didn't wreck either his machine or myself. It wasn't long before I discovered the man was right ...both men, Bensen and Docko,were right. Most of what I knew about flying airplanes didn't apply to flying the gyro. So, my attitude underwent an adjustment.

Years later I went for the check ride to become a gyroplane flight instructor. Part of the test included a thorough oral exam. The inspector said , " I am a fixed wing pilot and I come to you for instruction in the gyro; what can I bring from my backgrond in airplanes that might be a problem in learning to fly the gyro?".
" ATTITUDE", I replied. The inspector slapped his hand on my shoulder and said.
" you are so right".

As a gyroplane flight instructor I had plenty of airplane pilots come for gyro flight instruction who needed attitude adjustments.They would say, " How hard can it be to learn to fly that little machine, or,I fly Bonanzas and other high performance airplanes, or, I need only about one half hour of instruction to transition to the gyro, or,I really don't need any instruction at all, or, I'm a real fast learner". I heard it all. Some of those real fast learners got a shock when they found it was more difficult to learn to fly that simple looking little machine than they had anticipated. None of them even considered that it wasn't a matter of transitioning from one aircraft to another as from a Cessna 150 to a Cessna 210 for example. Rather it was a matter of learning a completely different category of aircraft.

Then one day a man flew his Cardinal into our place to inquire about gyro flight instruction. We had one of the gyro trainers sitting on the ramp . He looked it over and said that he wanted one half hour of instruction to transition to the gyro. I explained that I couldn't teach him everything he needed to know about the gyro in one half hour and described our full flight training program. Apparently I had insulted him...He drew himself up to his full height, thumped himself on the chest and said , " I'M A PILOT! What can you possibly teach ME about flying that thing!( pointing to the gyro) ?". I replied that I probably couldn't teach him anything. He stomped off, probably thinking that I had paid him a compliment. Now there was a guy who was in dire need of an attitude adjustment.

Till next time
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

Work ethics and doctors

2006-08-27T22:32:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking of the work ethics, or more properly the lack of work ethics of some of the young people of today. Take fast food places for example, how often is the order your get not what you ordered ? Too often, I'll bet. It seemed like every time Docko and I would pick up something at a fast food establishment what we got was not what we asked for. One time the top was left off the hamburger bun. Another time, the meat patty hadn't been cooked! Blood red it was. Then one day our order was just two cups of coffee for the road. Docko said, " They surely can't get this order wrong". He gave the girl the order, two cups of coffee, black. She repeated it back - "that will be 6 cups of coffee to go. Do you want cream and sugar with the coffee?".

I think to myself , these kids don't care about their work. It doesn't matter to them whether the customer leaves unhappy with the service. and to think they are the future leaders of the country, our doctors , lawyers and teachers. What if they don't learn about caring for their work by the time they get to be in responsible positions? We're in trouble if they don't mature and take more responsibility in their work before then.

So rcently I had a bout with pneumonia and I had occassion to be in the hands of a couple of doctors that I feel still had the fast food worker, work ethics. They hadn't learned to care about their work, and their work at the moment was ME.

I spent a night in the ER of the hospital. Pneumonia was all that was ailing me and I was feeling absolutely terrible. They had me hooked up to every machine in the hospital. The doctor said," you have a blood clot on the lung". That rattled me, as I have never had one moment of heart trouble of any kind. He started talking about treating the problem with blood thinners etc.

"Wait minute here doctor", I said. " You are going too fast for me. If there was a blood clot in the lung my regular doctor would have seen it in the X-Rays he took yesterday". " Well", he said , " WE need to take X-rays of the lungs". He came back in a bit and said that definitely the X-rays showed a blood clot. Then he says ,
" we need to do an MRI to be absolutely sure. The MRI results came back and the doctor, practically rubbing his hands with glee, said for sure there was a blood clot. By now I'm thinking , " it's all those cookies I eat; am I going to make it till morning?".

They took an EKG...it indicated there was no heart problem. They took my blood pressure every half hour and it was always low as it has been all my life. Still they are talking blood clot, blood clot. Finally when it was early morning and I was ready to go home, the doctor bounced in and said, " good news, there is no blood clot". "So why did you make me worry all night long ?", I asked . No answer from him.

A few days later I went to my regular doctor for a check up. He started looking over a chart which he said was the results of my tests made in the ER. The first thing he said was that my blood pressur was off the charts. Blew me away !
" Doctor ", I said, " they took my blood pressure every half hour and it was always low, even after abrupt movments". No comment from the doc. Then he said, "Your cholestrol is really high ". "Can't be,doctor, I have never had a cholestrol problem" . "It's always been on the low side". At that point my daughter Linda spoke up. She asked the doctor if he was looking at my chart or someone elses . Right...he was looking at someone elses chart. I think that is pretty careless .

I was sounding off about this to a friend other day. He had recent surgery and during his follow up visit his doctor also was reading someone elses chart instead of his.

I shouldn't be surprised at all this for I recently read an article in the paper that there are many patients who are harmed by the careless mistakes of their doctors . I guess a lot of doctors never do develop good work ethics. I shall do my best to stay healthy and keep out of the clutches of carless doctors. It's much safer that way.

Pigeons and memories of the starling, called Ultralight

2006-08-24T23:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I did it again...I brought in a baby pigeon that needed help. This one had the misfortune of being in a nest that was too close to a setting hen. She pecked holes in his poor little head and in his beak. He looked so helpless and pathetic with blood all over his tiny head.

The baby looks to be a little over a week old , maybe 10 days or so. Frequently pigeon parents leave the little ones alone much of the time at that age . The babies are totally at the mercy of whatever decides to work them over. This baby's parents weren't around and he hadn't been fed for awhile.

I brought him in and cleaned off the blood as best I could, fed him baby bird formula with a syringe type feeder and put him in with Coo's two week old baby. The new baby is well fed and comfortable now and I feel better knowing he is safe. Maybe I'm just a mama at heart. I like to know the baby birds are safe ,warm and well fed, same as I did ( and still do) with my own babies, no matter what their age. And Hop Along is doing well . He isn't the greatest looking bird I've ever seen but who cares. He is alive and getting stronger every day.

Maybe I like birds more than I thought for thinking back over the years, I've been bringing in the fallen ones for most of my life. In Tracy we found a tiny starling that had fallen out of the nest. We had no way to put him back in the nest which was up near the top of a hangar so we took care of him. He didn't even have feathers, just downy fuzz.

Starlings are not favorites of farmers for they descend by the hundreds on the farmers crops. Since many of the local pilots were farmers we didn't spread the word that we were harboring a starling. We called him 'Ultralight'. That little guy was a delight and also a nuisance. He learned to fly and took over the office. He would be into everything on the desk while I was busy with paperwork so I would put him outside and be careful not to catch him in the door as he would fly right back inside. One of the wonders of my life was to hold up my hand and have him fly to me and land on my hand. There always was wind at Tracy so his landings were so slow. It was something to see him almost hover then touch down ever so lightly on my hand. He went home with us each day and back to the office next morning. The first time we carried him in a box but afterwards he just sat on my arm or whatever I happened to be carrying. He was smart too. If we went out for dinner he would be hiding when we returned and he wouldn't make a sound until we called him by name. Then he would answer and come out of hiding.

We enjoyed his company for about four months then one afternoon a flock of starlings came by and he joined up with them and flew away as he was meant to do.

Till later
Marion springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

Hop Along, gyro pilots and thoughts on Crow Hops

2006-08-22T23:38:00.000-07:00

Hop Along, the one winged pigeon has been with us for 10 days today and he is getting stronger every day. We don't need any more pigeons, Heaven knows, for there are too many around here anyway, but it is a good feeling to be able to help an injured one like Hop Along. His injuries are healing but it will take some time for him to grow feathers back. Right now he only has two tail feathers left and none at all on the back of his head!

On Sunday morning I went to visit with gyro pilots ,Teddy and Bobby. Bobby was working on his new gyro with the tall tail and wild paint job. He had been flying earlier and says it flys great. Teddy was working on his new KB3 gyro. Barry Evans, a former student of mine was flying his KB2 with tall tail. He is a good,
calm and steady gyro pilot. Barry is from the UK. Several years ago he brought his mom over to the US to live with him. His mother is a real delight to visit with. She will be 92 years of age next week and I'll bet she could beat me in a foot race. She always comes out to the desert with Barry when he comes up to fly. She waits patiently in their small trailer while he commits aviation , as they say. All in all, it was a good morning. Linda says I'm getting to be a real social butterfly...seems like every weekend I find a reason to go where the gyro action is.

Later in the day I put together some photos which show a gyro doing crow hops. The pictures will complete the Crow Hop article, so now it's ready to send to the editor of PRA. Two very knowledgable gyro pilots have read advance copies of the article and both were enthusiastic about it. The readers are gyro pilot, Shirley Jennings of England who wrote the book, ' Short Hops', and long time gyro pilot,
Ed Alderfer. They both promised me moral support when the negative comments come my way when the article is printed in Rotorcraft magazine. A lot of modern day flight instructors consider crow hops to be outdated but I disagree, as do my gyro friends.

A crow hop is simply the individual steps of a take off and a landing. The take off, for example, consists of balancing the gyro on the main wheels , putting the nose wheel down to about three inches above the ground and then adding power to make the gyro lift off. The gyro only lifts off to about one foot above the ground in the early crow hops. Then the pilot brings the throttle back to idle and gently brings the control stick back. That allows the gyro to land in the proper attitude of, tail wheel first, then main wheels and finally the nose wheel will touch down.

As he begins to learn and feel what the gyro is doing ( as his skill increases )the student will go through all the steps but eventually will lift off a little higher and fly a little farther before starting the landing process. He will progress in that manner until he is able to take off, fly a distance and land.

When he has diligently practiced crow hops, the student pilot will have learned the correct take off attitude, the proper airspeed for gyro flight, minimum gyro airspeed, and how to land correctly. All valuable lessons. It is so much better for the student to learn all these things while he is low to the ground. Crow hops are done after the student has had flight instruction and is transiting to his own gyro, and before he goes around the pattern. By doing the recommended crow hops he will have a good understanding and control of his gyro.

I feel so strongly about good flight instruction that at times I wish I was instructing again...but that will never happen. At this point in my life I am content not to have the stress of instructing! New gyro students are sometimes like little kids....they will behave as long as the instructor is right there to watch them but no telling what they will attempt when the instructor or mom isn't there! So, my instructing days in the gyro are over but I will continue to offer my thoughts and suggestions in the written word.

Till later.
Marion Springer, gyro CFI, retired.
ddakota@earthlink.net

On a scale of 10 today was a 12

2006-08-19T21:23:00.000-07:00

On a scale of 10 this day was a 12 or more! I went down to Moe's ( formerly Kienzle's) and met with Tina and Dave. They were there to take delivery of Tina's new gyro, a beautiful white Vortex . It was the first time I've had an opportunity to really get a hands-on-up-close look at a Vortex . I was impressed with the quality of the machine. I think Tina is going to love it. I won't spoil her surprise, but Tina has picked the perfect name for her new gyro.

While I was there I had an opportunity to watch Steve McClennan ( not sure of spelling ) fly his VW powered KB2 . He does a nice job of it. Then a fairly new pilot from the area flew his McCulloch powered gyro from the lake bed. All that gyro activity gets the old blood pumping! Teddy was busy working on his mobile home while the gyros were flying around. I don't know how he kept his mind on what he was doing . I'm sure I would have hit my thumb with the hammer if I was working and trying to watch the gyros flying too. Naw...I would have dropped the hammer and just watched the gyros fly. I could work on the mobile home any time. But then, I've never had a problem getting my priorities right when there is a conflict between gyros and work.

While visiting with the new gyro pilots, Dave Bacon told me of his choice for a name for the one winged pigeon..." Hop Along", he said. I think the name fits perfectly for that is exactly what the pigeon does to get around. And he is still getting around, I'm happy to say. He has been with me for 7 days today. He eats like there is no tomorrow and seems to be holding his own very well. I have not brought him into the house yet for I think he needs to mend a bit more before being subjected to the menagerie that lives with me.

For now he is comfortable and alone in a safe room without the noise and chaos of my housemates. What a traumatic change for the poor pigeon. One minute he is a wild and free creature, flying wherever he wants and the next moment is nearly dead from whatever it was that got hold of him. Now if he survives, he will have to be cage-bound and cared for from now on. But if he could talk , I'll bet he would say,
"it's better than the alternative".

After visiting with the gyro types for a little while I had to scoot on home for nephew, Jimmy and his wife Glenda was coming over.Jim was going to do some trench work with his tractor on my daughter Linda's property next door to us.

So all in all I had a good day talking the talk with some gyro pilots and then visiting with Jim and Glenda. Wow, that's a lot of visiting in one day for someone who lives way to heck and gone out in the boonies !

I hope you day was as fine as mine was.
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthllink.net

Kids 'n animals...necessary in my life

2006-08-16T22:33:00.000-07:00

My daughters , Linda and Donna and Linda's daughter Lynette, make the most beautiful glass beads. The process they use is called , Lampwork . They use a torch , glass rods and a metal rod on which to shape the molten glass and then they add a little magic and create beads with wonderful colors ,flowers and all sorts of mystical things inside them. I love the beads they make.

Making lampwork beads is something I'd best not try. Heck, I doze off the minute I sit down to read or watch T V . I can see me nodding off with a lighted torch in my hand. Burn the house down for sure. Bad enough that I worry about dozing off and spilling my coffee in my lap.

Funny how I zonk out five minutes after I sit down to watch something I've waited for on TV and then wake up when the commercials come on and the program is history . Then I'll be wide awake in the wee hours. I have found that the wee hours is a good time for writing , though. I wrote most of my book in the midnight hours. At that time of night the house is quiet , the menagerie is asleep and for a while I don't have to bring a dog inside or put him outside or feed him or go see why he is barking.

Speaking of barking, Brutus is a barker...he will stay just out of reach of my hand and my impatience and yap yap yap. Thinks he is going to miss something if he is put outside when company comes so he stands on the porch and yaps toward the window wanting in.

But when I'm outside and the phone rings, Brutus lets me know. If I'm inside and a car comes up our road ( living in the boonies as we do, we seldom get cars on our road)good old Brutus will sound the alarm. If he is outside and sees one of the gyro guys flying our way he will run up on the porch and bark to let me know. Sometimes I think that dog knows my hearing is totally shot! The little dog, Lucky, is very quiet. She only barks when she sees a rattlesnake. So she is our rattlesnake alarm. We hop to when she sounds off.

One member of my menagerie is Georgie, a long haired cat. Georgie is going to be forever young. Four years old now and very playful. She likes to play fetch. I throw a small ball for her and she chases it, brings it back and puts it before me to toss again and again and again. Or she will drag a long braided string around and cry her pitiful little cry until I stop what I'm doing and play with her.

Georgie and I lost our beloved doberman Vokie, to old age recently and it's clear that Georgie also is grieving for him. She just loved him , my number 1, as I called him. Vokie was mine ,always just mine. He never really took to anyone else. He took sick last year when I was preparing to go to New York. The doctor couldn't find any reason for him to be sick, even after a battery of tests. Doctor said it was 'seperation stress syndrome'. Vokie had sensed that I was leaving. His health miraculously improved when I came home.

I took Vokie in the car whenever I could for he loved to go and I liked having him with me. But if the weather was cold I would leave him in the house. He would get even-every time. That rascal would drag my pillow around the house and chew little holes in it. Leave me home, will you? Take that mama , and that . It left a big hurt in my life when he left us.

The newest member of the menagerie is the pigeon with one wing. As of today he is
still hanging in there. This is day five that he has been with us. I hope he makes it.

It's great being retired and having time to get to know the animals and their ways. They're a lot of work and sometimes expensive with Vet's bills and so on, but they are good company. My life is richer for having animal companions. It's richer too for having my children in my life.
Till later
Marion Springer

Pigeon names - gyro names and wishful thinking

2006-08-14T21:30:00.000-07:00

I'm amazed to be able to say it, but the one winged pigeon is still alive and alert. It has been three days since Tina and Dave and I doctored him . Tina clipped the slender thread of skin that was holding his broken wing on. There was nothing we could do about his other injuries and I for one really didn't think he would make it, but so far he has. He is eating and drinking water .

He doesn't make a fuss or scramble out of reach when I change the paper in his cage and give him fresh food and water. I am sure he knows we are trying to help him. We have had other injured pigeons come close and allow us to pick them up when they were in dire need of help. One time an injured red fox that lived in a burrow outside our fence came into our yard and let my son pick it up. Unfortunately, the fox didn't seek help soon enough and he didn't make it.

If the one winged pigeon survives , we will have to find a good name for him. We have named some of the wild pigeons that hang out here...One male is called ,
'Boy Junior', a take-off on his father's name of, ' Lover Boy'. A female pigeon is called, 'Fancy Foot ' because she has feathers on her feet and legs. And then there is 'Majestic', a big white pigeon with a couple of black spots. He came on the scene fairly recently and kind of took over. He began building a nest and chasing all the girls. He would stand proudly with his chest puffed out looking like he owned the place. "He looks majestic",said my daughter Linda, so Majestic it is. Linda has a house pigeon called, 'Lacy'. Lacy was another injured pigeon that begged to be taken in. We cared for her until her leg healed then set her free. She came back again and again. She would sit outside and stare at Linda's window. It was clear she wanted to be taken in. She let us walk right up and pick her up. Lacy's flying isn't the greatest so she needs to be taken care of and and we are happy to do that.

Speaking of names, many gyro pilots name their gyros. My own machine is called,
" Born Free" for the sense of freedom I always had when flying it. One gyro pilot said, " I have always had a boss, first my parents, then my wife , then my employer. I always had someone telling me what to do . I am retired and from now on I will do things MY WAY. So , My Way, was the name painted on the tail of his gyro. Then there was Gordon whose wife hated his gyro with a passion. She said to him, " If you are looking for a name for your gyro you can call it,' wife's irritation', and so he did. 'Ego Buster' was the name one young guy callled his gyro when he wasn't able to fly it after just an hour or so of instruction as he thought he would.

Name or no name, the gyro flys the same. I have been giving some thought to getting back into the air again in my gyro. Not sure if I will but the desire to fly is still strong. I'll probably have a battle on my hands with my children if I do decide to bring my gyro up to speed and fly again. They are all happy that I am retired and have my feet on the ground. The ground may be where my feet are but it's not where my heart is!

About emailing me with your thoughts or whatever, you will need to click off this page and click back onto www.msgyro.com ( you got to this page from there ) so just click the BACK arrow or the red X, and there you are. Use my email ddakota@earthlink.net . You will find the email address on the gyro website. I'd be happy to hear your comments.

Till later,
Marion Springer

Another Great Day Here in Paradise

2006-08-12T21:10:00.001-07:00

I had been looking forward to today, Saturday, for my gyro friends Tina Tyler and Dave Bacon were going to be flying Tina's Cessna up to the desert to spend the day with me. They arrived around 10 AM and landed down on the dry lake. I picked them up and brought them up to my home, about two miles away.

Boy, did we talk gyros or what? Tina is excited about the Vortex gyro which she has just purchased. I'm happy to see another woman getting into gyros and I'm also happy that Tina has someone like Dave who has the same love for gyros that she does. Dave flies a KB2, he has two of them, as a matter of fact. I always say you can't have too many gyros ! Right now Tina and Dave are just getting started flying gyros. I look for them to become really good gyro pilots in time. Oh what a wonderful and exciting time lies before them in the gyro world! My more than 40 years of gyro flying went by all too fast. I truly envy these two new gyro pilots with the whole gyro experience ahead of them . I hope they are blessed with many years of good flying.

While they were with me I asked them to help me with an injured pigeon that my son brought in this morning. It had a severely damaged wing that had been broken. The wing was torn almost completely off the body and was hanging on by a thin piece of skin. The thread of skin holding the wing on needed to be cut so the usless wing could be disposed of ...Tina was brave enough to do the job. The pigeon was alert and seemed to know that we were trying to help him. He didn't struggle at all, although he could have. There is also some damage to the crop of the pigeon...I have no idea what got hold of him and damaged him so . Yesterday late in the evening he was outside our fence and this morning he had managed to make his way inside the fence. Such determination to survive in spite of having so much damage is incredible.

The pigeon ate some seed and drank water after the surgery. I hope he survives. If he does , I will take care of him from now on. If he doesn't, then at least we tried to save him. I appreciate the help and moral support of Tina and Dave during the doctoring.

Later in the afternoon, the three of us went down to Kienzles' to check on Tina's Cessna. The A/C was fine. We decided to set a spell with some other good gyro friends. So, we pulled up some chairs in front of Teddy's and Bobby's gyro hangar and solved some of the world's problems and talked the talk - gyro talk that is.

In time all good things must end, and so it was with our little gyro group. The time passed all too soon and Tina and Dave flew home to Hemet and I came back to my little piece of the desert and so ended a most wonderful day .

Good friends, good gyro talk and helping an injurd pigeon, a full and fine day.

Till later,
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

2006-08-12T21:10:00.000-07:00

This n That

2006-08-10T11:03:00.000-07:00

Hello again after a couple of days off the blog/journal. If you've been reading my thoughts then you will remember that my last post was all about being frustrated in getting the sculpture I was working on to work out right...I had to walk away from it and go at it again another day. I'm pleased to say that the time off helped.

My little Indian Warrior turned out well. His head, hands, and feet have been cured and the various parts have been assembled onto the body. I am now working on hand sewing his clothing which is all made of real buckskin leather. After that will come the beadwork and accessories. If you are ever curious about these creations of mine, you can see some of my work on my other website....www.authameriindiandolls.com . The name is short for' Authentic American Indian Dolls

On a totally different subject,you know by now that flying is dear to my heart, flying gyros especially. Well, I like birds too. I'm not a fanatic bird lover but those creatures simply amaze me. Being a pilot and retired flight instructor, I know something about aerodynamics. To me it's almost unbelievable that a bird can have its feathers so ruffled and dirty after a dirt bath or in such dissaray after a water bath that one would believe it impossible that it could ever fly. But when it is ready to fly, those rumpled feathers are slicked down so tight to the bird's body that they appear to be painted on. And that can happen immediately after either a dirt or water bath. The immediate transformation from ragamuffin to sleek, aerodynamic and ready to fly is astounding.

I have a pigeon named Coo that lives in a big cage in my home. She was brought to me when she was a baby by my daughter Donna, 9 1/2 years ago. It has been very apparent over the years that Coo wanted to be a mother. She would tear up newspapers in her cage and make a nest then she would begin setting on her nest. Of course nothing happened , no eggs , therefore no babies . A vital element was missing, namely fertilization...I had a male pigeon named Noel,temporarily living with me. I had brought him in when I found him injured in the yard. He recovered from his injuries and took an interest in Coo. Putting the two of them together didn't work. Coo would have killed Noel had I not removed him him from her reach. Coo apparently prefers Immaculate Conception. Well, OK.

I obtained two pigeon eggs and placed them in Coo's nest. She was in pigeon Heaven. When the first egg hatched it freaked poor Coo out. She tore the nest up , flung the new-born chick out to the side and kicked the unhatched egg out of the nest. When I saw the total chaos of it all I nearly freaked! I rerearranged the nest an put the new chick back in it. I put the unhatched egg in an incubator. I had no idea what Coo would do, so I watched her like a hawk.

Well, she calmed down, started taking care of her new baby with great love and tenderness . The other egg hatched in the incubator the next day and I placed the tiny chick with Coo, again holding my breath. She took the second baby in and was the perfect mother to both babies. That all happed a couple of years ago. Since then Coo has been a surrogate mother a half a dozen times or more. Whenever I find a pigeon egg on the ground in the yard, I give it to Coo. She sets on the egg , hatches the chick and loves it like any mother would. When the chick is old enough to be released, I transition it from in the house to a cage in the yard. After a time, it is released from that cage and it finds it's place with the other pigeons who hang out here. By then Coo is ready for me to bring her another egg.

Coo's latest baby is 3 days old today. Immaculate Conception works for her!.

I will close on two final notes . My gyro buddy Teddy, verifies that the dates for the Ken Brock Freedom fly-in on the El Mirage dry lake are, Sept. 22,23,24, the last weekend in Sept. More on this as I get more news. And finally, on this coming Saturday I will have Tina Tyler and Dave Bacon ,two brand new gyro pilots visit me in my home. It's always a pleasure to talk the talk with gyro pilots but not every day I get to talk gyros to another gal gyro pilot. I'm looking forward to it.

Till later,
Marion Springer
CFI-Gyro, Ret.
ddakota@earthlink.net

2006-08-10T11:01:00.000-07:00

Talking the talk

2006-08-06T23:34:00.000-07:00

It was another quiet peaceful day here in the desert, or as my son says, 'just another day in Paradise'. After feeding my four legged and winged companions, aka, dogs, cats and birds, I set about working on an original handmade Indian doll.

Next to flying gyrocopters, making hand sculpted original Indian dolls is something I have enjoyed doing for many years. My husband would say to me jokingly, (I think he was joking), "you have come full circle for you are playing with dolls". "Not so", I would retort- "I am creating!".

It's so neat to take a variety of items, from wire for the armature, polyfil for the body stuffing and polymer clay for sculpting the heads , hands and feet and legs and make a realistic doll...'doll' is used for want of a better word for what I make. The creations are not doll play toys, but are objects of what I think of as art. Art, my way, that is.

Sometimes the sculpting goes well and magically, a face will eventually appear in the clay. When it resembles what I had in mind , say an old Chief, or a warrior or whatever , I will place the sculpture in the oven and cure it at a particular temperature for a half hour or so. Curing in the oven sets the clay permanently.

Sometimes the sculpting goes well and other times it is simply frustrating...and try as I might , nothing comes close to what I am trying to achieve. that's when I have to walk away from it for awhile. And that was the case today-nothing was going right with the sculpting .

I put my sculpting materials away and went down the road a couple of miles and visited with my new neighbor, Teddy Udala. Teddy is a gyro pilot and member of the San Diego gyro club. He is moving up to the high desert and is busy getting his mobile home set up . Teddy is torn between working on his new home or working on building his new KB3 which he hopes to have flying by the fly-in here in September.

So we sat on his porch and in the cool shade of the afternoon and we talked the talk -gyro talk, that is ; how the KB3 is coming along , Did Bobby fly today , who is flying what, and 'we gotta get you flying again, Marion', and so on.

Short of actually flying gyros, nothing makes the day right again like talking to an old flying buddy about gyros .

Till later
Marion
ddakota@earthlink.net

On the El Mirage dry lake Bed - you never know what you might see

2006-08-04T22:42:00.000-07:00

One day my husband, Docko, and I were driving across the lake and we saw a Volkswagon bus with a platform mounted on top. On the platform was something that looked like every picture you've ever seen of a flying saucer, or unidentified flying object (UFO).

The object on the platform appeared to be about 8 to 10 feet across and perhaps 5 to 6 feet high at it's apex. It looked exactly like two saucers, one inverted on top of the other one. It looked very interesting so we stopped about 200 feet from where the Volkswagon bus was parked.

After a few minutes the saucer shaped object began to rise vertically from the platform. When it reached about 35 feet above the lake bed it began to move in our direction. It stopped and hovered in mid air about 50 feet from where we were. All well and good so far, and interesting too.

Then the object became unstable. It dipped down on one side, recovered, dipped on the opposite side then it began to wobble...now that was just too close to where we were sitting. Docko had kept the engine running so now he quickly put the van in gear and we moved away to a safer distance just as object began to descend toward the lake bed, obviously out of control.

The operators of the object were watching from their Volkswagon. When their project became unstable they deployed a ballistic parachute that was connected to the object. There was not enough altitude for the chute to open so it just trailed as the object contacted the ground. When it hit the lake bed, the thing deflated and just flattened out.

A few minutes later it seemed to come to life again and began to reinflate to it's original size and shape. The operators seemed to be in no hurry to try their experiment again. We couldn't stay longer so we went on about our business. We never learned who they were or what they were trying to do. It was just one of those interesting things you could come across most any time on the El Mirage Dry Lake.

Till later.
Marion Springer
ddakota@earthlink.net

Another day in the desert

2006-08-03T16:37:00.000-07:00

Finally those hot hot days of 'three digit' temperatures have ended and our weather here in the high desert near the El Mirage dry lake has settled down to the high 90's. Much more user friendly.

No gyros or any other aircraft flying on the dry lake today. Maybe there will be something interesting flying out there this weekend.

Living out here in the high desert in the wide open spaces is almost total freedom and I love it. Awhile back there was a helicopter hovering just outside our perimeter fence , about 100 feet from my front porch. He was all of 50 feet AGL(above ground level). I couldn't see inside the cockpit clearly enough to see who the pilot was but figured it was a former gyro student of mine whom I knew was now flying helicopters.

About a month later there was another helicopter, this time it was hovering in our yard, 60 feet from the front porch and all of 30 feet AGL. Again, I couldn't tell who was flying it.

I learned later that both pilots were former gyro students of mine from my gyro flight instructing days just coming by to say HI. I know, I know, the regs frown on that sort of thing, but way out here in the wilds sometimes pilots do things that just isn't done in congested areas ....and I must say,I enjoy it. Maybe there is a little of the renegade left in this old retired gyro gal pilot, you think ?

Frequently gyro pilots flying from the dry lake or from Kienzle's ( now Moe's, but still called Kienzles by everyone)will circle my home and wave. I always enjoy that. It's a good feeling to see someone whom you have taught to fly doing just that and doing it well.

With the Ken Brock Freedom gyro fly-in coming up in September on the dry lake, there should be plenty of gyro flying and gyro pilots to visit with. More on the fly-in at a later date.

Till later
Marion Springer
email ddakota@earthlink.net

Welcome to my website

2006-08-02T15:39:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to say that in a few days my gyro web site should be updated by my great web master, Matt Harding. Look for items for sale in the 'In the Hangar' page, as well as other interesting items on the site.

Recently I started writing an article to post on this site. The article is about using the 'crow hop' method of learning to lift off and to land the small gyro. I think the method is especially beneficial to the pilot who will be flying a small gyro but has received his flight training in a big heavy gyro. Being really chatty when it comes to talking about gyros, the article soon became way to long to post here so I will submit it to PRA (Popular Rotorcraft Assn.) to be printed in Rotorcraft magazine.

Speaking of PRA, I was very surprised recently to learn that I had been awarded the Ken Brock award which was awarded me (in absentia) at the recent PRA convention in Mentone, Indiana. The prestigious award is presented to the person who is considered to have best advanced rotorcraft worldwide. To say I am honored to receive this award is an understatement, indeed. My heartfelt thanks to those who considered me worthy of the award. The plaque graces the wall of my living room.

This blog/journal isn't set up for viewers to respond on it directly, but you may contact me by email. I'd love to hear what's going on with you and your gyro or maybe just your gyro-dreams for the future.

Till later,
Marion

Hello

2006-07-17T15:39:00.000-07:00

MSGyro is set to read only blog mode.