Then, in 1968, I was transferred up here, as a part of the Pacific Supply management team. My job was a field man at NorPac. We used to fly our member's filbert orchards with a helicopter to blow the nuts down. Evergreen was just a fledgling company then, so we hired them a lot. One of the guys used to ask me to go fly with him, as he needed the extra weight. The more weight you have in a helicopter, the more downwash. So I spent hours and hours flying w/ him. He was an instructor, so he use
to let me fly a lot. I actually soloed, but then I ran out of money.
    The gyro has always been my interest. If I could afford a helicopter, I suppose that what I would do. I guess rotorcraft is…they're so versatile. Once you fly rotorcraft, it really kind of spoils you, compared to a fixed wing.
    The first gyro I got to fly in was Dave Stubblefield's. We flew from a grass strip out in Banks. I loved it! Having soloed in the helicopter, it's quite a lot the same, except you're out in the open. It's like being on a motorcycle, only you're in the air. It didn't bother me, (being out in the open in a gyro) 'cause I love to fly.
    We did some vertical descents, spinning around and around, and some really steep landings. Added up, maybe a couple of hours total time. The next time I got to fly was w/ Chad (Wille) in the J-2 (gyro). To me it was like a really noisy 172! He let me fly a little bit and follow through (on the controls) a little bit. That was for a half-hour or so.
    I did fly w/ Scott (Malone) a couple of times, for couple of hours. At Tillamook, once for about an hour, we flew way out in the country that time, flew around in the canyons. He let me fly almost all the

    My intentions are to either finish that or I'm waiting for Jim to get the two place so I can get checked out and get that done. I've been asked to come get checked out in the tow planes, for the glider guys, so I might do that, just to get flying again.
    That's kind of my background in flying and how I got interested.

Chapter #73 members met over on the east side of the Scappoose Airport at the NWAAC house.  Complete with a kitchen, makes a nice meeting place and encourages food preparers to make a nice banquet of food, especially when the amenities are right at our fingertips.  We had a good turnout, and a great bunch of enthusiastic members who, after the long break, were ready to get down to business.  There were 31 members in attendance and 2 guests, from Canby, Mr. Harry Lee Kwai and his son, Max.  Whom I might add has e-mailed us, since the meeting and said that he and his son had a wonderful time.  He thanked PRA 73 for an informative and exciting day.  He commented that the "boys" at the meeting were especially "a kick" and "very helpful".  He and his son both took a ride with Jim in the Vortex 2 and he added that we have  "set his dream in motion".  He will be back and anxious to take part in the club, but will be in Hawaii till March.  So we look forward to seeing Harry and Max again…soon.
    We started out with a glorified lunch, enough to feed an army.  Ray Bruce made his famous chicken wings and Wilma Foss made a huge vat of spaghetti and meatballs with large helpings of garlic bread, and Kelly brought her big pot of chili.  Other members brought in the accents. Most of us had "seconds" and there were still leftovers!  Thank you for all of those who donated their time for such a wonderful feast.MEETING:
President, Dick Moore, summons the meeting to order at 1:00.

RAFFLE:
We did the raffle as soon as the meeting began.  Member Paul Warren, who works for a radio station (KUUK) located at the Hillsboro Airport, donated a awesome 2002 calendar with a helicopter on the front.  We also had 3 t-shirts (leftover from the Tillamook Regional event) and 1 club patch.  The club took in $46.00!  (we should raffle more often).  We sold the tickets for 50 cents a piece and here are the winners:    T-Shirts were won by member Don Stevens and 2 ecstatic young girls….Katie Vanek and Kayla Jensen.  Wally……? …took home the club patch and Addie and Ray were the lucky winners of the 2002 calendar (poster)!
OLD BUSINESS:
    First order of business was a reminder to all members that "YOUR DUES ARE DUE". 
    Research continues, regarding the purchase and design of a new club T-Shirt.  We would like to have them available by Spring.  If anyone has a connection with a T-Shirt company and could be of help, please contact Dick or Kelly.  We had suggestions for design and color.  White was ruled out and the design was still not decided on.  We will have a discussion on this at the February meeting.
NEW BUSINESS:
    Updating the club website….   Gary Kaminski is diligently working, along with Brad Crenshaw, on updating our club site to make it more accessible and interesting.  This site contains information on club members, upcoming events and will

    I flew the gyro up to about 500' and then brought the throttle of the Rotax 503 to an idle. Upturned faces were looking skyward @ the idiot in the "flying lawn chair" came slowly down toward them.
    What they witnessed was a nice, vertical descent…almost all the way to the ground!
    I saw that the ground was getting closer than I was comfortable w/, and gave the throttle quadrant lever a healthy push to fly forward out of this descent.
    I found out this day that the Rotax engine doesn't like to be @ an idle for awhile w/out clearing it w/ some throttle before giving it full power!
    300', 250', 200'…and the engine just lugged!!! Knowing that there was the grass strip below also gave me a false sense of security. That was MISTAKE #2. Suddenly I realized that I wasn't close enough to glide over to the airstrip, and that a strawberry field directly under me was my only choice that made sense, in light of some trees next to it.
    I lowered the nose (rotors), abandoning any hope of getting the engine to roar back to life. The rows were aligned the wrong way for my wheels to roll between them, so I turned 90 degrees to land parallel to them, so I wouldn't hit the ridges hard enough to possibly overturn by having the wheels dig into the rows.
    The glide was good, and so was the flare. After setting down, the engine responded to the throttle w/ gradual increases, and after this was still was the tiger I had depended on up until this incident.
    The fellows came over to me as I taxied out of the strawberries, asking if that was a regular landing. I affirmed that it was not.
    The other emergency landing was @ the Woodland, Washington airstrip.
    It is a nice short flight of about 15 minutes there from Scappoose. One can enjoy the sights along the Columbia River and the various sloughs, farms, and bottomlands.

    So far, you've heard of two emergency landings that were more eventful than these next two. This next one was another stupid mistake, involving spectators, and a desire to show them what a gyro can do, as they had never seen one before.
    This was @ the grass airstrip where the owner and his son were amazed that a gyro could land w/ such a short roll out, compared to longer ones that fixed-wing aircraft need.
    I explained to them about how a gyro can do a vertical descent, but that it was too fast for a touchdown. But, I covered w/ them how a gyro needed to do a short forward flare w/ adequate airspeed in order to set down safely.
    I lifted off to demonstrate. (MISTAKE #1. Don't fly for an audience, be it spectators or for a camera). Unless you are an experienced pilot such as the manufacturers or CFI's in this industry, you are risking your life & machine just for a little ego feeding.

    There are some bald eagles that nest in the trees along the river. Their white feathers on their heads really stand out against the darker brown feathers of their bodies, enabling one to see them from some distance away. It is breathtaking for me to see them.
    Not liking the idea of flying over the experimental tree farms (poplars, I believe) not far from Scappoose (and near the Columbia River), I fly around them.
    I had been told me that the safe way to fly over a river or lake was to have enough height as to be able to glide to either side in case of engine trouble. So, an altitude of about 1000' was needed to fly safely over the Columbia River.
    This is one of the minor drawbacks to rotorcraft. The glide ratio is much less than that of fixed wing aircraft, but a bit more than a streamlined rock. Helicopters and gyros can set down in much less space and airspeed than fixed wings, hopefully making an emergency landing more survivable for both machine and occupants.
    In an emergency situation, the rotor blades of a gyro can't stall; the vertical descent is great for choosing a small area to land in. A helicopter has to have it's blades de-pitched rather rapidly by the pilot to autorotate safely. A fixed wing aircraft has to maintain quite a bit of airspeed to avoid stalling the wings and dropping straight down, usually nose first.
    When I had first read that in an emergency landing in rotorcraft, you can look just about between your feet to determine where you'll set down, I could hardly believe that they couldn't glide that far. I can now say that it's true! Practice, practice, practice!
    Back to this story: I also on this particular day went sightseeing around the Felida area northwest of Hazel Dell, and over to I-5 where the golf course and truck scales are north of Vancouver.
    Continuing northward, I landed @ Woodland, stretched my legs for a few minutes, and then decided to head back to Scappoose. I taxied to get the rotor blades up to speed, and then headed back to the hangar area to turn around to take off. I accelerated to full throttle and the little gyro took off as normal.
    At about 70' of elevation, the engine dropped to an idle…"What the heck was causing this?" I wondered, as I moved the throttle lever back and forth w/out any change in the sound an idling Rotax produces.
    I was once again glad I had practiced engine-idle landings repeatedly, as all I had to do was to move the stick forward to lower the nose (rather, tilted the

rotor disc down) to descend w/ enough speed to flare for a set down.
    While doing so, I was thinking how nice this was to have happened before flying over the water (Lewis River) nearby and that it didn't happen while sightseeing earlier, as the landing spots were of unknown quality, IE: rough pastures or maybe power and telephone wires.
    Down on the runway, the engine was idling fine, but any movement w/ the throttle lever produced the same result: NO increase in engine rpms.
    The idle speed was enough to move me along on the pavement, so I shut off the engine to have a "look-see". Nothing seemed wrong w/ the cable, it's attachment to the lever, or the connection to the carbs.
Hmmmmmmmm…..
    I set the nose wheel brake, pulled on the rope starter, and taxied back toward the hangar area where some guys were in one of the hangars. I shut off and got out. One asked why I had just taken off and then landed immediately on the mid-section of the runway.
    I told him of the problem, and after looking the cables over, he suggested looking @ the area where the twin throttle cables joined into one cable that headed to the throttle lever.
    We just had the second carb added to the Rotax 503 engine to enjoy increased power of about six extra horses, and that entailed a "splitter" junction that made two cables join together into one for the throttle lever.
    The swage inside of the splitter had loosened up enough to let the cable slip through, w/out gripping hard enough.

    The only solution seemed to be to replace it w/ something else.
    Starting up the engine, the cables from each carb worked fine when pulling on them, but that was standing there by the connection, not from sitting in the cockpit.
    I sat down on the seat and could reach back and wrap the cables around my left hand. I found I could make the engine respond appropriately, but it was cutting into my hand.
    MISTAKE #1 didn't happen as I thought it would have been foolhardy to try to fly back that way over the Columbia River and the isolated areas before reaching Scappoose.
    Another emergency landing didn't appeal to me since I was @ a safe place at the moment. It was looking like I would have to trailer it back to the roost.
    The guy there that had a biplane in his hangar offered me a clamping tool that might work to get the cables held enough to use the throttle effectively. This involved wrapping the cables around the splitter end-wise. There was enough extra cable to do so.
    We did so and I tested it down the runway for a bit, revving the engine up and down. It worked just fine!
    I then gave the rotor blades a spin by hand, got into the seat and wound them up further w/ the nifty hand prerotator until they reached the limit of how fast you can turn them w/ the hand crank, about 70 rpms.
    Then I taxied until the rpms showed 200. Then, it is "Firewall it" and wait for the nose wheel to come up, lower the nose (rotor blades), and balance on the

mains until it flies off the ground.
    I took off for some more testing, but over the runway. I flew down the length of it @ 10' high until just before it becomes gravel, and then landed and took off the other way, back to the hangars.
    Several guys were watching this. I wished they weren't. There was enough embarrassment already. If this failed…
    I landed, turned around, and took off again, this time climbing out and headed back "home" to Scappoose.
    This episode gave me new meaning to the phrase in experimental aviation of "not flying over anything you don't want to land on"!
    Another note: the guys there @ the Woodland airstrip told me that a doctor had flown his airplane from there one day several years ago, not paying attention to the fact that he took off downwind. He tried to climb out, but he met the bluff there by the Lewis River before gaining sufficient altitude…
    Episodes like these I hope others can learn from. Learn from other's mistakes before it may cost you more than you'd want!
    In spite of mistakes, personal aviation is one of the greatest thrills in this life!
    Here's to rotary winged flight…may it always be among the best there is in aviation!