Marion Springer

Too bad being stupid isn't painful

2011-11-16T17:48:00.000-08:00

I've often thought that if stupid people had real pain from being stupid they would do something to make the stupidity go away, you know, like take an aspirin or something.

I am severely hearing impaired and wear two hearing aids. The hearing aids help of course but there are many things that interfere with my ability to hear and understand clearly. Loud talking, fast talking, accents, background sounds and other things impair my ability to hear well. Occasionally when I inform a salesgirl that I am hard of hearing and am using hearing aids she will begin talking to me at the top of her voice. Sometimes I think they can be heard out in the parking lot. When I tell the person that she doesn't have to shout and would she please slow her speech down a bit then often she will get all cutesy in a different way. She will give me the slow speech treatment.

Last week I had to go to a UPS store to mail a package. My daughter was with me and she said to the clerk , " my mom is hard of hearing". Well, that set the stage for the 50ish redheaded gal clerk who jumped at the opportunity to have a little fun at my expense. The first words she
addressed to me were spoken at the top of her lungs and spoken very fast.

I told her that she didn't need to yell but to please speak a little slower...then she said this,
" O.................K...................I...................will ". I just lost my cool and said to her in front of a roomful of customers ( she was playing to them ), " You are being stupid!!!". That got her attention and she treated me in a more respectful manner while she finished waiting on me.

She apparently thought she was being cute while in fact she was ridiculing a customer , but as I said, she was stupid. I guess she had a need to prove her stupidity to the other customers.

Needless to say, that UPS store has been crossed off my list.

Till next time.
Marion Springer

Old friend, gyro pioneer, Ed Nielesky has passed on

2011-11-09T04:34:00.000-08:00

He was a special person, soft spoken, gentle and an old gyro pilot from way back. His name was Ed Nielesky.
He loved gyros and in fact, he told me he taught the late Ken Brock to fly gyros. He said he had his gyro out and Ken's wife, Marie happened by. She stopped to talk with Ed and told him that she thought her husband would love that machine. Marie brought the two guys together and the rest is history.

Ed's love of flying wasn't limited to gyros. His son told me that when he was a kid one day he and Ed took off in an airplane before dawn. They flew all day arriving back at home base after dark. He said they refueled and his dad said to him, " let's go fly some more". That sounds like Ed, all right.

In the photo above Ed stands in front of a table displaying a tee shirt with a picture of two gyros in flight. Ed is flying the gyro in the foreground and Ken is in the background. The picture on the tee shirt was taken by Dr. Igor Bensen at a gyro fly-in on the El Mirage dry lake. I believe the photo was taken in the early 70's. Bensen had the photo put on tee shirts and they were sold in retail stores all over the country.

Ed loved the McCulloch engine and always flew the Mac on his gyro as I do and as Ken brock did. I always say the best gyro pilots fly the Mac!

The picture of Ed in front of the tee shirt was taken at the 2010 gyro fly-in. It was the last time he was able to attend the annual event that he enjoyed so much for he passed away just before the fly-in this year. I knew and loved him as a gyro buddy for many years and I will miss him.

Till next time,
Marion Springer

New blog on my Authentic Indian doll web site

2011-08-23T10:28:00.000-07:00

I mentioned before that I have another passion besides gyrocopters. That passion is creating original hand-made Indian dolls. The dolls ( called dolls for lack of a better word) are not toys but rather they are art dolls. The figures represent what an Indian of that time period might be doing on an average day. I make warriors, chiefs, mothers w/babies and cradleboards w/babies and others.

Recently Matt, my web master, put a blog on the doll website. I thought it would be neat to post items of interest about what I was working on in the art doll world or mention ideas I have for future art dolls and maybe even receive comments from readers about my work.

There is a link to the doll blog on the http://www.msgyro.com/ website or the blog can be accessed by going to the doll website. http://www.authenticamericandolls.com/ . The abreviation for the long name is http://www.authameriindiandolls.com/

If you look it up I'd be interested in hearing from you.

I still am involved in gyrocopters and always will be . The annual Ken Brock Freedom gyro fly-in is coming up next month on the El Mirage dry lake. The dates are Sept. 23-25. Plan to join us for a weekend of camaraderie and gyro flying or just watching gyros fly.
Till next time.
Marion Springer

Birds know

2011-07-18T21:19:00.000-07:00

It never ceases to surprise me that birds know when you will help them. A couple of weeks ago I noticed a pigeon with a string tightly wrapped around both his feet. He could hardly walk so picking him up was easy. The surprising thing is that he seemed to know that I would take the string off his feet.

He never struggled no matter how I turned him in an effort to cut the string. For a few minutes I had him flat on his back and still he was patient and didn't struggle to get loose. I finally freed his feet from the string and he flew away.

This evening just before dark I was shooing the pigeons into the pigeon house when a small sparrow landed about four feet from me. I said a few words to it, ( yeah, I talk to cats, dogs and birds), and it sat there and let me walk up to it. It looked up at me and even let me put my hand around it but before I could close my hand on it it flew about six feet away and landed. I went into the house and got the bird net and went out and simply dropped the net over the little bird.

I took it out of the net and carried it in my hand while I went looking for a small cage for the bird. During the fifteen minutes or so that it took to prepare the cage and put in food and water the little sparrow was sitting peacefully in my hand and not struggling. I think he knew that I was trying to help him. I put him in the cage and covered it with a towel. In a few days I will release him when a flock of his kind come by and hopefully he will join them .

I think it is a young bird that got separated from it's flock and with night coming on it was lost and terrified . Scared as he was, he still let me help me.

The photo above shows feeding time and some of the pigeons that live here.

Till next time,
Marion

................................................................................................................................................

Up-date on the little sparrow.

Next morning I checked on the sparrow. I guess daylight brought his courage back. He was flitting about the cage and rarin' to go. I reached in the cage to pick him up and the little devil bit me ! Guess he didn't remember how grateful he was the night before when I picked him up and brought him inside.

There was nothing wrong with him so no reason to keep him caged up. I took him outside and set him free. He joined a flock of his own kind and flew away with them.

M.S.

Empty Chairs in the Hangar

2011-07-11T22:58:00.000-07:00

How quiet it was in my hangar today when I went down to cover my gyro. Nothing but a half a dozen empty chairs and the gyro in there. Yesterday the hangar hosted several gyro friends , my two daughters and me. There was talking, laughing, sharing gyro stories and just a good feeling .

Yesterday my day had started at 6 AM, before I was out of bed even. I was awake and thinking of getting up but hadn't made the move yet when I heard a gyro coming our way. There was no doubt in my mind who was flying. It had to be my old gyro buddy, Dave. Dave, like me , loves the very loud un-muffled McCulloch engine on his gyro. Real gyro pilots are about the only ones who love the Mac. We like the light weight of the engine and the fact that it makes the gyro so nimble. Other folks just say it's too loud.

Sure enough, it was Dave. He he did his usual fly-by , some might call it a buzz job, but fly-by sounds more FAA approved. I went out on the porch bare footed and in my jammies and waved to him as he came by. After a couple of passes he signaled me to , " come on down", meaning come on down to the hangar where he planned to be.

I shirked my morning baby bird feeding duties and went on down to the hangar. To my surprise, Ben , a gyro friend from Arizona was there. After awhile, another gyro enthusiast came along. Ben had just had an unscheduled landing while flying Daves gyro. We stood around for awhile talking about Ben's exciting unplanned landing then we moved into the hangar to get out of the hot sun. After awhile my two daughters came down and joined us and we just talked the talk.

It wasn't anything special, just a few gyro friends and some of my family spending a couple of hours talking and laughing and sharing memories but it was nice .
After awhile, we pushed my gyro out to the run-up pad and started the engine. The gyro hadn't been flown or even started for several months but that Mac started right up and ran great. After awhile the guys had to leave and I had to get back home to take care of my responsibilities. The engine was too hot to put the rags in the ports and the carburator so I left that until today.

When I opened the hangar doors this morning to take care of the gyro I saw the empty chairs. It was a lonely feeling like the lake bed on Sunday after the fly-in when everyone has loaded up and headed home. It was a quiet and lonely place. The friends and family had gone home but the memories remain.
Till next time.
Marion Springer

Lookin' Out My Backdoor

2011-07-01T23:41:00.000-07:00

This morning around 7 AM I looked out my back door and saw hundreds of sheep walking down the road that crosses our property.

They have been grazing in the area for several days. It is amazing that so many sheep are controlled in the large open countryside by one Shepherd and two sheep dogs.

They have been grazing about a mile or so north of us for several days being moved here and there until they were just outside my fence a day or so ago. My Doberman, Connie went to the fence and barked at the sheep but they paid her no mind and just kept on eating. Connie isn't used to being ignored when she barks at other creatures so she got embarassed and came back into the yard. Today she didn't even bother looking at the sheep as they marched down the road. I guess if they were not going to act frightened when she barks at them then it's no fun.

We have very little traffic out here but now and then a car or delivery truck does venture out this way. If the sheep are in the roadway, the driver slows way down but usually keeps driving while the sheep just kind of flow around the vehicle. It's wierd when you are in a car on the road and finally come to a stop because you are surrounded by slow moving sheep. It's like being stopped near the railroad tracks when a train is passing and suddenly you feel like your car is moving and you step on the brake which you are already stepping on.

I wonder about coyotes getting the sheep especially at night when they have so little protection from predators . Other night Linda heard coyotes barking and immediately she heard the sound of two shots . I would imagine the shepherd fired into the air and scared the coyotes away for all was quiet afterwards.

The shepherd has a water truck which he fills every day. When the sheep stop to drink, they all stop at the same time and drink then they all lie down and rest. After a nap they are on the move enmasse looking for food.

Living way out in the open country as we do we get to see some interesting things that you just can't see in metropolitian areas.

Till next time.
Marion Springer

Bullies

2011-06-18T20:57:00.000-07:00

It seems that some people have a need to bully others for no reason other than it probably makes the bully feel like a big shot.

When my granddaughter was in junior high some girl started bullying her. She would tell my granddaughter that , " One of these days I'm going to work you over". The bully had a gang of friends that were always with her. It got so bad that my granddaughter dreaded passing her and her followers. My granddaughters mother told her that she would have to stand up to the bully or forevermore be afraid of her. So, next time the bully girl and her gang saw my granddaughter she gave the same threat that ' one of these days....my granddaughter stood face to face with her and said " What's wrong with right now ?". Wow! The bully girl didn't expect that. She and her gang turned away and never bothered my granddaughter again. Sometimes you just have to stand up and face the bully.

Back when we were kids my brother and I walked home from school. There were two brothers about our age who walked part way home the same direction that we did then at the junction they would go off in another direction to their home. Those two boys made every day miserable for my brother and me . They would bully us both, jab our arms, trip us, etc. The older brother was bigger than either my brother or me.

The harassing went on every single day and Billy and I dreaded the walk home from school. One day Billy had enough. I don't know how he did it but he got the boy who was about his size down and was keeping him down. Billy somehow managed to grab a small limb and he held it across the other kids neck. Big brother went to help his brother and while he was distracted I pushed him down.

Every time the bigger kid would try to get to his feet I would push him down again. I kept him off balance while Billy gave the other boy a good lesson. When finally the other boy gave up completely Billy let him get up off the ground. That was the last time those two ever bullied my brother and me . We had finally stood up to our tormentors.

Years later I had a student in the gyro. It was early morning and we were the only aircraft flying until finally a Piper Cub from out of the area landed and the pilot taxied into the median area between the runway and the taxiway. He got out and started working on his airplane engine. After awhile a beautiful red Pitts Special, also from out of the area landed . The pilot shut the engine down and left his Pitts parked squarely in the middle of the taxi way blocking it completely then he went out and started visiting with the Cub pilot.

My student and I flew the pattern, landed , and taxied back to do another pattern flight. The Pitts was blocking our way on the taxi way so I went off the pavement and out into the rough and then back onto the pavement to get around it. Naive me, I told my student that the Pitts owner probably would have moved his aricraft by the time we came back. Boy was I wrong ! His aircraft was still blocking our path so I went off the pavement and out in the rough again.

By now I realized that the aircraft owner was telling me what he thought of gyroplanes. So, when we came around the third time and the Pitts was still in the middle of the taxi way I knew I had to take action or forevermore get off the sidewalk so to speak , whenever the Pitts owner thought I should. So, I went off the pavement , passed the Pitts then came back onto the taxi way as close as I could to the Pitts. I lined up squarely in front of the airplane. I stopped and held the brakes of the gyro and although I hated to do it, I opened the throttle wide open and I sand blasted that beautiful red Pitts. But, it got the owners attention and the next time we came around the Pitts was in the median section where it properly should have been.

I don't usually mistreat aircraft . And sand blasting the Pitts was a mean thing to do but as I saw it , it was my only option for I was not going to beg the owner to move his aircraft and have him laugh at me. He knew it wasn't supposed to be parked on the taxi way . The Pitts owner never bullied me again. As I said , sometimes you just have to stand up and be counted.

Till next time.
Marion Springer

Hanging out and talking the talk

2011-05-01T23:45:00.000-07:00

Today was a good day. I didn't do much of anything but hang out with some gyro friends and talk gyros. Sometimes that's all thats needed to make a good day , just being with friends and sharing gyro stories.

Yesterday Jeff, a gyro owner and soon to be gyro pilot, called and said he and John would be up this way for the weekend. They were flying to Arizona in John's Cherokee to bring Ben, another gyro owner back with them . Dave from down the hill would be up with one of his gyros . " Let me know when you get here and I'll be down", I said. So, when I got the call I fast tracked on down to the hangar on Moe's place and there we had a good time just talking the talk.

Recently Dave and Ben were flying their gyros over the sand dunes and Dave had an engine out. There was nothing but sand dunes as far as you could see . It was a terrible place to have an engine quit, but quit it did. In a gyro if you have an engine failure in a place where you cannot afford to touch down with any forward speed, such as soft ground or plowed field , you must drop the gyro in and touch down without a forward roll and that is exactly what Dave did. He was flying low when the engine stopped so he just flared and dropped down and landed upright with no damage to his gyro. It was a good save . So, Dave's exciting dune landing was one of the things whe talked about.

I have been in gyros for many many years so I had a few gyro tales of my own to share. Like the day years ago when I saw a gyro taxiing accross the lake bed . When the fellow reached the edge of the lake he shut the gyro down and I pulled up to say hello. I didn't know the man but it was obvious that he was trying to teach himself to fly the gyro. He said that he had had a terrible time taxiing and that he could barely keep from rolling his gyro.

Speaking from years of gyro experience as a certified gyro flight instructor, I said, " Sounds like you had blade flap". " No way", he said adamantly, " I was taxiing at 10 miles and hour and those blades were turning 60 RPM's". Taxiing at that speed with the blades barely turning it was blade flap , no question about it and he was lucky he didn't roll his gyro into a ball. He was a know it all with a closed mind so I just went on my way . There's no use talking to a brick wall.

Jeff had put in an hour taxiing his gyro this morning with Pete flying overhead and Dave following along in a pickup, both keeping an eye on Jeff and ready to wave him in if the wind came up or if he seemed to be tiring. Just guys watching over a fledgling pilot in his early taxi sessions.

The wind came up and Pete did a beautiful demonstration of playing on the wind and with almost vertical take offs and landings. There is nothing like watching a light weight gyro and a guy who knows how to handle it fly in the wind. Just awsome !

So we just visited, and made plans to go to Britta's chapter 15 gyro fly-in in Arizona in a couple of weeks and so the time passed all to soon and it was time for the guys to take off in the Cherokee to take Ben back home and time for me to get back home to my duties which my daughter Donna, had so generously taken over so I could go out and play with my gyro buddies. Sometimes it's just good to hang out with the guys and talk the talk.

Till next time.
Marion Springer

Ever wish you could un-say something ?

2011-02-26T00:58:00.000-08:00

An older woman with snow white hair came into the office. With her was a young man in his 30's and a boy of about 10 and a little girl about 6 years old. The white haired woman stayed in the office while the young man and the children went out to the man's airplane.

The white haired woman whom I had never seen before, talked about helping the young man work on his airplane. I asked her if he was her son. I had insulted her big time. " He is my Boyfriend ", she roared. Oh boy, I wished I hadn't asked if he was her son. But I learned from that that sometimes it's best not to ask lest your words come back to bite you.

Another time an older man with a toddler came into the office . I figured the baby was his grandson, but this time I kept my thoughts to myself and good thing I did for it turned out that the baby was his son. The man who was about 65 was married to a woman nearly 40 years younger than he was.

I was part of a group of pilots who were scheduled fly at an airshow. All airshow performers had to attend a briefing by the FAA prior to the start of the airshow. One of the performers was a woman ( I will call her Susie, not her real name ) who flew a Piper Cub in a comedy act. In her performance she was supposed to be a woman who did not know how to fly but was going to fly anyway. She would take off and fly in a haphazard manner while a car chased after her down the runway trying to get her to land. In her flying act she would turn around and fly back over the runway toward to car that was chasing her.

A the end of the FAA briefing as she was leaving the room Susie stopped at the door and turned to the group and said, " Oh, by the way, I forgot my glasses today and I can't see a thing without them". Knowing her comedy flying act her words were funny but later on she had cause to wish she hadn't said those words.

It was time for Susie to perform. The announcer asked for a volunteer to drive the chase car because her usual driver couldn't be there that day. A man from the audience volunteered and got into the car along with a man with a camera . Susie the Ace, ran to her airplane, got in and started the engine.

She taxied out and took off flying kind of wobbly as was part of the act . The chase car tore down the runway , the driver waving frantically at the pilot to land. The pilot turned the ariplane and flew back toward the car at a very low altitude...too low, in fact because her right wheel hit the car. The wheel was torn off the airplane and went flying through the air.

Susie the Ace, was able to make a one wheel landing on the grass alongside the runway with little more damage to the plane than had already been done. She was not injured but was heard to say that she needed a drink. The two fellows in the chase car were not injured but were very shaken up. I often wondered if in retrospect the pilot ever wished she had not said that she couldn't see a thing without her glasses .

Till next time.
Marion Springer

A Pigeon named Hop-Along

2011-01-21T21:19:00.000-08:00

The pigeon called Hop-Along is a survivor. About six years ago something attacked her and left her barely alive with numerous injuries including a broken wing that was hanging on by a thread of skin.
She made her way into our yard and let my son pick her up then he brought her to me.

I couldn't afford to take her to a vet but wanted to help her if possible...so,we cleaned her up as best we could and then clipped the thread of skin which was holding her wing on. The wing was broken up near the shoulder with only about an inch of bone left in place. One of her injuries was a quarter sized hole in her crop where we could see the seeds she had eaten. When she drank drink water it would run out of the hole in the crop. That she survived is amazing but survive she did. I think her will to live was strong.

In time her injuries healed but with only one wing she would never fly again. That meant she would have to be cared for for the rest of her life . Since she was ground bound a friend suggested the name Hop-Along. It fit. She responds when someone calls her name.

I tried putting her in the outside pigeon house but with only one wing she was not accepted by the other birds so she lives in a cage in my home and she is a character !

Thinking she needed company in her cage I tried putting different pigeons in with her but she rejected every one and wouldn't accept a room mate. She does like the mirror in her cage and she enjoys looking at the pigeon in the mirror looking back at her. She enjoys toys and has several kinds of bird type toys hanging from her cage. What she enjoys most are bells and the bigger and noisier the bell the better.

Let a conversation be going on in the room and she starts ringing those bells and really gets them jangling. When Linda comes into the room Hop-Along always greets her by ringing the bells.

Her next favorite toy is five plastic rings about two inches in diameter joined together like a chain. She tugs on the rings and twists them around and finally one morning I saw her standing there with the rings suspended from her neck ( see the picture at top of page ). She had managed to pull the rings loose from the fastener that held them attached to the cage. The rings fell with one ring slipping over her head. She looked like she was posing with a necklace . I had to take a picture . I'm sure it wasn't her proudest moment but it was kind of cute anyway.
Till next time.
Marion Springer

My Helms Bakery truck , AKA,My Hippy Van

2010-11-19T16:08:00.001-08:00

My Doberman Buddy, is probably wondering what the heck is that thing?

I fell in love with the Helms bread truck when a gyro pilot friend showed me a picture of it many years ago. "How much will you take for it ?" , I asked. We came to an agreement and the bread truck was mine. I call it my Hippy Van because it is about the size and shape of a Volkswagen bus which was popular with the hippies in the 60's .

I rationalized needing it because we could use it when we traveled to fly-ins and air shows. It was an attention getter and it had room inside to carry all the items we took to display and it could also tow a gyro. Really, I just wanted the vehicle , plain and simple. My rationalizing didn't fool Docko...he knew I wanted the odd looking vehicle .

I intended to clean it up, paint it , etc. As happens sometimes, life got in the way and my hippy van ended up being stored outside for years in Northern California where it seems to rain all the time.

Finally it is home with me here in the desert . To say it looks sad is an understatement but I am up to the challenge of making it all pretty again. I don't plan to make it roadworthy because it's job from here on is to be a fancy gazebo sitting in the loop of our driveway. It's days on the road are done.

It is pretty rusty and some places the rust has eaten through the metal . I think with some rust inhibitor, bondo, or fierglass mat ( the mat chopped into fibers and mixed with resin to make a paste ) and a little paint I can get it looking OK again. I don't plan to replace any rusted out metal but fiberglass ,bondo and paint, I can handle.

It has a bellows for a horn...the horn is not working now but maybe eventually it will be. The engine instruments are very few. The ignition key is a toggle switch. It has a gas pedal, and a clutch/brake pedal. Push on the clutch/brake pedal a little and it acts as a clutch. Push a little more and it becomes a brake. The seat is shaped like an old fashioned bicycle seat and is mounted on a pedestal type arrangement. The seat can be pushed forward getting it out of the way allowing the driver to stand and drive.

It's roomy inside . Plenty of space to make a nice seating area and lots of big windows to view the scenery through. I think it will make a good get-a-way place to get away from cats, dogs, and birds for a little time out to myself when needed.

Till next time.

Marion Springer

My broken toe

2010-10-06T19:20:00.000-07:00

It was just a couple of days before the gyro fly-in, and I was looking forward to flying with other gyro pilots during the annual event . I was out with my two Dobermans and they were running about like the young dogs they are. I, of course was wearing what I call my desert sandals, also known as very worn out tennis shoes which are so comfortable . Comfortable they may be with holes all over them but they are absolutely no protection at all for little toes, as I learned the hard way. My Dobbie, Connie ,ran past me in an all out run and she clipped the little toe on my right foot as she sailed past me.

Oh, the pain, the pain ! I looked down and four of the toes on my right foot were still pointed in the right direction but the little toe was pointed 90 degrees to the other four. What a strange sight ! My first thought was, " OH NO! I won't be able to fly". I suspected the toe was broken and thought that the doctor would put a cast on my foot or at least put a splint on the damaged toe thereby making it impossible for me to operate the rudder pedals on the gyro. Linda said, " I will take you to the doctor", but visions of a cast on the foot was going through my mind so I refused to go see the doc.

I pulled the little toe back into place and used tape to hold it in place against my foot . Thus bandaged, I attended the fly-in limping badly but getting about and I did fly.

So, Monday after the fly-in we decided that it was time to see the doctor about the little toe. Yes, he said , X-Rays show it is broken. He didn't put a cast or even a splint on it. The toe is taped to it's neighbor and I'm wearing a shoe for broken toes.

When Linda was giving me the old , 'you need to see the doctor routine ', like I do to her at times when she has a hurt I reminded her that Chuck Yeager was flying with broken ribs when he broke the sound barrier. He hid the fact that his ribs were broken lest he be grounded. I felt like I was in good company when I flew with the little toe broken.

Till next time.
Marion Springer

Ed Nielesky, a gyro pioneer

2010-09-30T18:31:00.000-07:00

We had a gyro fly-in last weekend on the El Mirage dry lake bed. It's an annual affair and is always on the last weekend of September . Gyro pilots and enthusiasts come from near and far to fly, do a little hangar flying ( that means talking about flying ) and to visit with friends old and new.

One of my old friends, Ed Nielesky, in the photo above ,was there. Ed isn't flying anymore but over the years he has done his share of flying . His son Joe, says of his dad that when Joe was a kid one morning he and his dad left the airport before daylight in an airplane and flew all day. They arrived back at the home field after dark and Joe said his dad said," lets fly some more ". That sounds like Ed all right.

Ed started flying gyrocopters in the early days of the Bensen gyro, back when we had to teach ourselves to fly because there were no two place powered gyro trainers or flight instructors. Ed flew a Bensen gyrocopter with a McCulloch engine for many years.

Th Tee-shirt in the photo has a picture of two gyros flying. The pilot of the gyro in the foreground is Ed back when he was young. The gyro in the background is flown by the late Ken Brock , another gyro pioneer, . The photo was taken by Dr. Igor Bensen, designer of the Bensen Gyrocopter . The Tee-shirts were sold in department stores in the late sixties and early seventies.

The shirt shown here is one of mine that I wore when I was young and slender back in the early 70's. I displayed it at the fly-in as a tribute to my old gyro friend , Ed Nielesky.

I thought you might like to see a bit of history in the gyro world.

Till next time.

Marion Springer

Hong, a most unusual person

2010-08-16T16:38:00.000-07:00

Hong is Vietnamese. When I met him a few years back , he introduced himself to me then he said, " I am the enemy". The last sentence refered to his nationality. " You are not my enemy", I told him. "You haven't done anything to me and you are not my enemy ".

Hong has a helicopter that he is adapting to be flown by hand controls because he has no legs . Helicopters have rudder pedals which are operated by the pilots feet, but in Hongs case he is making the rudders controlable by hand. He is doing the work on the helicopter by himself which is just amazing considering that he is wheelchair bound.
The helicopter stands fairly tall. I saw some screws in a cowling up high on the side of the helicopter that were only half way in and waiting to be secured . "How in the world will you reach those screws ?", I asked him. He pointed to the sturdy table alongside the helicopter and said that he would get up on the table so he could reach the screws.

I understand that a person who requires hand controls to fly a helicopter not only has to modify the machine but he has to teach himself to fly it.
I had stopped by to visit with him and to ask him how the work was progressing and he said the progress was good for he had lifted the helicopter off the ground several times the previous morning.
Hong has taken on a tremendous job and is succeeding very well with his project. My hat is off to him .

Till next time.
Marion Springer

Another old friend heard from

2010-08-09T14:13:00.000-07:00

Recently I wrote about old friends with whom you have lost touch coming back into your life and how special it is...well, it happened again a few days ago. His name is Hill , first name, that is.
Hill and I did a lot of gyro flying together in the good old days. He was already flying gyros when I was just learning to fly them so he was considered the gyro guru in our group of early gyro pilots.
Somewhere I have a picture of him and my daughter Linda, playing their guitars together. When I locate that picture I will post it and write about the gyro adventures Hill and I and a bunch of other like minded people had back in the 60's and 70's.
I must have put that photo in a really good safe place for I haven't found it yet, but I will, so don't go far away.

Till I find the picture.
Marion

What a Gal !

2010-07-22T23:33:00.000-07:00

I read a lot, mostly court room dramas, who dunnits, etc. but other day I bought a book that was truly hard to put down once I started reading it. It was about a woman by the name of Stella Walthall Patterson who, at 80 years of age decided to get away from it all and go live in her primitive cabin on her gold mining claim in the Siskiyou mountians of Northern California.
She wanted to see if she could stick it out for one year. Her cabin was bare bones, set on the side of a mountain above the Kalamath river. She cooked on a wood burning stove like my grandmother did. Her water supply was the water running from a creek and funneled into a pipe that ended close to her cabin. Her bathroom was outback. She made kitchen curtains from flour sacks and dyed them with boiled onion skins which gave them a pale gold color. With no electricty, there was no refrigerator so meat was cooked immediately lest it spoil. Every meal was made from scratch, as there were no restaurants within miles of her cabin. This may sound like a hardship to many people but the eighty year old lady loved every minute of it.
She was called Dear Mad'm by the local people that she got to know. Her unusual name came about because she couldn't remember the name of a man she had hired to work her claim so when she spoke to him she called him, DearSir. He laughed, and responded by calling her DearMad'm. The names stuck and so to everyone she was , " DearMad'm and the man was "DearSir".
The one and only time she fired a rifle, a 30.ought 6, for goodness sake, which she could barely lift, she killed a cougar with one shot. It was a head shot, no less. When DearSir and UpandUp, a name she gave to a tall fellow, came to check on her she told them she had killed a cougar. They laughed. DearSir said something to the effect that her little pea shooter, a small Iver Johnson hand gun couldn't kill a cougar. She lost patience and told them to go find the dead cougar...they left and were back in less than 10 minutes dragging the carcass of the cougar between them.
She enjoyed her life in the midst of nature and when one year was up she decided to remain in her rustic cabin instead of returning to her comfortable home in San Francisco.
While living in the wilds, she wrote a book about her life in the rustic cabin and the people she met in the area. The manuscript was picked up by a publisher and it was eventually published under the title of , Dear Mad'm". The sad thing to me is, she passed away before the book hit the stands and so she never got to read it. She was one spunky lady.

Till next time.
Marion Springer

There's a snake in the house!

2010-07-11T17:13:00.000-07:00

The two Dobermans were excited and looking at the base of the display case in the living room. The case stands about 8 inches from the wall so I thought one of the cats was back there teasing the dogs as they sometimes do. But no, the dogs acted more serious than they do when they are playing with the cats, in fact, they were scared. They would approach the display case then jump back.

I keep a card table tucked out of sight behind the case so we took the table out of the space so we could get a good look at what was upsetting my two big brave puppies. Would you believe it was a snake ? First thought, Mojave Green rattler ? Please don't let it be a rattlesnake in the house. Please, Please.

Looking closer I could see it was not a dreaded rattle snake. A rattler has a head shaped like an arrowhead. The head tapers in at the neck whereas other kinds of snakes have a narrow head that just tapers on back without the indentation that gives the head the shape of an arrowhead.

And of course the rattle snake has rattles on the tail although if it is a baby snake it may not have had time to grow rattles so then you must depend on the head shape and the coloring to know if it is dangerous or not. Thankfully the snake behind the display case was a harmless garter snake and we see them frequently in the yard...this was a first , finding one in the house. Not a happy first, I must say!

So, now the big question is, how do we get him out of the house? I am not brave or foolish enough to pick one of those critters up. Our solution was to make the dogs stay out of the way and then Linda opened the screen door and the front door. Meanwhile I had a long probe that I used to bang around on the wall behind the case and that moved the snake toward the door. The snake saw the open door and freedom out he went, probably relieved to get away from two gals and two excited dogs. He exited onto the front porch and with us behind him urging him onward, he went off the edge of the porch and probably on to his hole-in-the ground home and probably as happy to be there as we were to have him gone.

This is desert, home of snakes, a wide variety of birds and coyotes , a few red foxes , desert turtles and who knows what else. We live and let live unless of course, it is a dangerous snake in close quarters and is a threat to one of us then we do what is necessary to be safe. But that said, it is a little disconcerting to find even a harmless snake in the house. How did he get in??? I wish I knew!

Till next time.
Marion Springer

Positive Thinking

2010-07-02T22:29:00.000-07:00

I believe in positive thinking. Here is a good example. When my son was in high school he was on the cross country running team. There was a boy in the group who just couldn't beat my son in running no matter how hard he tried. The boy was saving his money for a pair of red running shoes.
He talked of those red running shoes often and he would tell Dave, " when I get my red shoes I will beat you".
Finally the day came when the boy had his red running shoes and the race was on. For the first time the kid with the red shoes beat Dave. My son said, " he passed me up like I was standing still and as he went by he said, 'red shoes', red shoes, red shoes'.
The red shoes may have helped but I think the power of positive thinking is really what won the race for him.
Till next time.
Marion Springer

P.S. I welcome your comments but please, do make them in English .

Old Friends

2010-06-19T18:33:00.000-07:00

I'm a senior citizen, in what's called ' my golden years'. One thing sad about being in the golden years is that so many of my old friends have gone on to that big gyro fly-in in the sky. When I mention that another of my old flying friends has passed on my daughter tells me that I should have younger friends.
Hanging out with younger people might work for some older persons but as for me I like to be on the same page with my friends. We can talk of things long gone by, things we did back then, of trends, of world news and all sorts of things that the younger generation know nothing about. We talk the same language, in other words.
And when an old friend with whom you have lost contact over the years re-emerges it's wonderful.
That happened to me recently. I heard from an old friend that I had lost contact with. It was good catching up and talking of how our lives have changed from back then and what's going on in our lives at present .
I have a special memory of this friend from many years ago . It was a cold day in early spring . I had flown in to a gyro fly-in where he was in attendance . As I landed and shut the gyro down I was greeted by many people but this friend , when he came up to greet me was carrying a cup of hot coffee for this half frozen gyro gal. That thoughtful offering touched me deeply for as much as I was glad to see everyone, the hot coffee really was what I needed and appreciated right then, and simple as it was, it stands out in my memory.
So, I guess what I'm trying to say is , enjoy and treasure your friends for you never know when life might take them away.
Old friends are part of the memories we cherish in our 'golden years'.
Till next time.
Marion Springer

How fast time flies

2010-06-04T20:53:00.000-07:00

That darling little puppy that is trying so hard to climb onto the couch is Buddy, my male Doberman. He was two months old at the time. It was quite a challenge but he finally made it onto the couch as you can see in the lower picture. That was only three years ago and the "little" guy and his sister Connie, turned three years old on May 3rd. Buddy now weighs a whopping 80 pounds.

His little sister, Connie is smaller in size and weighs about 60 pounds.

It was a first for me, raising two puppies at the same time but when I bought Buddy his little sister was left all alone and it broke my heart to leave her behind so I went back and bought her too.

If you ever need a challenge in your life, try raising two puppies at the same time. My two pups chewed up several bedspreads , every magazine or newspaper they could get hold of and they were absolutely bottomless pits when it came to food. They never thought they had enough dinner.

Then there was the hassle of ear clipping and the weeks long healing process with both pups wearing huge protective collars . All this excitement took place in the high desert in the middle of triple digit summer heat. But, as things do, the bad times passed and the puppies grew into , well, maybe not really obedient pups, but fairly well mannered dogs and they are great companions.

I used to think that big dogs needed lots of room . I thought that a big dog living in an apartment for
instance would be terrible for the dog...I have had to rethink that idea for I have 10 fenced acres and my dogs prefer to be with me, under foot , in my easy chair, ( it used to be my easy chair), or just generally right where I am doing whatever. But, that said, they will leave me for the next pretty face to come along. When my son Dave, comes home they leave me like the devil is after them and go to spend time with him. Then let Linda start up the golf cart and they leave Dave to ride in the golf cart. Buddy will sit for an hour in the cart waiting for someone to give him a ride.

They howl sometimes and I enjoy hearing them. I don't know what sets them to howling and it usually doesn't last long except for the time last month when I went away for three days to Britta's gyro fly-in in Arizona. I'm told that my two pups howled almost constantly until I came home. And what a welcome I got from them when I returned home! After jumping on me and nearly knocking me down, Buddy just sat and stared and stared at me . The look he gave me was pure unconditional love. Connie was right there with the same, I love you, look in her eyes.

In spite of the ups and downs and sometimes extreme frustration with the two pups, the past three years flew by. My two dogs give me unconditional love and all they ask for is to be with me, well OK, they do like to take little side trips to see Dave and Linda.

I will always have a dog or two in my life.

Till next time.
Marion Springer

What is it about Doctors that I hate to visit one?

2010-06-04T08:06:00.000-07:00

I have been down with bronchitis for the whole solid month of May. Yesterday was the first time in a month that I felt that I could get back to doing the things I normally do.

My daughter Linda, from the first day of my illness said, " Let me make a doctors appoint for you". As usual and as she expected, I said no. Further , I told her that if I didn't feel any better tomorrow
then I would see the doctor. Next day . of course, I told her that I felt a little better so no, don't make a doctors appointment for me. That went on for the whole month.

All that was not new to my daughter for we go through that scenario every time I come down with an illness, which fornatualy isn't often. After what seems like ages, I recover from whatever the illness was and then I begin to question myself...now why didn't I go to the doctor?...I could have been over the bug and back to living again in no time at all if I hadn't been so stubborn...I like my doctor, have no problem with him... don't like waiting in the waiting room for ages though, still...So, every time it's the same old thing. I do recover but not nearly as quickly as I would have if I had gone to see my doctor.

I think a lot of my reluctance to seeing the doctor is that sometimes, he will do the examination, take X-Rays if needed then send me to another doctor or to the ER for them to read his findings and then to make their own recommendation as to the best way to make me well again. My doctor will send the X-Rays with me for the new people to refer to and they throw them in the corner without even looking at them and take their own X-Rays even tho the ones I brought from my doctor are less than one hour old.

After a complete examination and questions etc. that my own doctor had already done, the new people will send me home with a prescription for whatever...all the things my own doctor could have done with less time and bother to me . I think the HMO business was conjured up to make business for more doctors and hospitals. I miss the good old days when a visit to the doctor was just that, a visit to the doctor's office, and exam, meds or not as required and outta there in less than a half a day. Guess that's why I tell Linda, " no don't make an appointment for me for I'm better today".

My best doctor's visits were to the doctor I used to go to for my annual flight physical . I just loved him...his office attire was Levi's, a western style shirt and cowboy boots. I told him he reminded him of the song by Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, " Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys. Make them be doctors and lawyers such". He was a hang loose type of doctor that got the job done and his word was final, no sending me to here and there and all over the place for someone else to double check his findings.

Till next time.
Marion Springer

The new Great Grandbaby

2010-05-27T23:49:00.001-07:00

I wish I had a picture to show you of my new great granddaughter. She is a darling little baby with long black hair. I think her hair is long enough to braid and she is less than a month old ! But she is a little Indian baby and Indian babies have nice round heads, a beautiful complexion and long black hair. That is the way it was with my babies.

I had said in a post before the new grand baby's birth that I would probably be polishing my gyro when the baby decided to be born but no, I came down with bronchitis and I was sick as an old dawg at the time. I have wasted nearly a whole month trying to get over the truck that ran over me , well , figuratively speaking, it felt like a truck had run over me anyway. I am back to 100% good health now and hoping to see my new great grand baby soon. She and her mama and daddy live about 500 miles away and they promise to bring the little one to me for me to hold and cuddle for awhile.

Meanwhile, my other granddaughter, Lynette and her husband Amer, are foster parents to two little boys, brothers, whom they hope to adopt. So, for years no grand babies and suddenly three of them...well, technically, one and maybe two others. In September I will get to see my two future grandsons when they come down to visit. It's been a long time since I held a baby or a little child and I'm looking forward to it. There is just something priceless about cuddling a baby or a small child. It's one of the joys of life.
Till next time.
Marion Springer

Happy 81st. birthday to me!

2010-03-31T10:16:00.000-07:00

Today I turn 81 years of age. I never dreamed I would live so long . I have enjoyed almost every minute of the journey. There were a few rough patches along the way but I'd do it all over again and the same way, I'm sure. I'd marry the same man, have the same kids, you know, live it again if I could.

Last year I flew an 80th. birthday celebration flight in my gyro and in a few days, when the weather cooperates, I will fly an 81st. plus a few days, BD celebration flight. The photo is of me suited up and just back from a flight in my Bensen gyro on the dry lake of El Mirage, Ca. The photo was taken a few months ago at the annual gyro fly-in in September , 2009.

Gyro flying must be good for people! Commander Ken Wallis of the UK is well into his 90's and he is still flying gyros. Johny Miller, an old time gyro pilot of the 1930's who flew Pitcairn and Kellet autogiros continued to fly his Bonanza airplane until he passed away at the age of 102. It must be something in the air up there.

On the day he died, Johnny told his grandson, " It looks like my flying days are over". Like most gyro pilots, flying was ever on his mind. It is with mine for sure. Just ask my children. Sometime back when I asked my daughter Linda if I could bring my new Rotordyne blades into her living room to take them out of the crates, she answered,

" why not? I've lived with gyros my whole life". She is an understanding daughter! She gave me a fuel transfer pump for my gyro for Christmas awhile back . Other gifts from her have included motorcycle hand grips and a set of screw drivers. A recent gift from Linda and Donna was a gift certificate from my favorite store, Home Depot . As I said, a most understanding daughter who knows her mom pretty well.

I find it very peaceful and relaxing to do housekeeping chores on my gyro. I plan to polish that machine till it outshines the sun and I will enjoy every minute of working on it. And just think, my granddaughter Crystal will be making a Great Grand Mother out of me any day now! I will probably be off polishing my gyro instead of doing grandmotherly things like making baby clothes for the soon to be greatgrandbaby. Is that any way for a woman of my age to act? YOU BET IT IS !!

Till next time.

Marion Springer

CFI-Gyro, Ret.

Styles- fashions- trends- fads- whatever!

2010-03-13T22:14:00.000-08:00

My friend tells me that I have lived too long when I complain about the lack of courtesy and good manners and some of trends of young people of today. I think he really means that times are different today than when I was young and that is very true.

Back in my day if a kid misbehaved in school the teacher or school Principal could and did paddle the kid and when the kids dad found out about it he added his discipline to the kid. Nowadays, parents stand a good chance of doing jail time for child abuse if they discipline the child. And kids know it... " yeah dad, you spank me and I'll call the cops, so there "!

Some of the fads of the young people just mystify me...how in the world can anyone eat with a ball bearing fastened to the tongue? How can anyone blow his nose if he has a ring through it?

And the hair! for some young people of today fashion dictates that their hair stand straight up in peaks that look sharp as nails. Others go in for wild colors, with rainbow streaks of color throughout .

But the pants the guys wear with the crotch at about knee level just is unbelievable . I was walking through a parking lot recently and there was a young man with his family just ahead of me. At first I thought he was limping but no, he was having trouble walking because his pants were barely hanging on and the crotch was at knee level or maybe just a tad lower. Thank goodness he was wearing a long T-shirt so I was saved from getting mooned !

His manner of walking was wierd ...to take a step, he would first throw a knee out to the side , then step forward with that foot, then throw the opposite knee out to the side and follow up with a step from that foot. I realized that throwing the knee to the side was to allow a little more room in the pants so he could take a step. If he had had to move suddenly he would have been like a deer in the headlights or more likely, would have fallen flat on his face.

And the girls with the push-up bras ! I'm an old gal and not much surprises me anymore but one day I turned a corner at a fall festival and just stopped in my tracks when I saw two young girls with push-up bras and what was being pushed up was nearly out ! I see practically the same thing on women on television and even on the female news anchors . Besides the low cleaveage , the news anchors are all very cutesy when giving the news. Walter Cronkite, I miss you!

Tatoos seem to be in fashion . I saw a woman with tatoos on every inch of skin that wasn't covered with clothing and that was a lot of skin. I thought to myself, when she is old and her skin is all shriveled and wrinkled, her skin color will be all blue. Then I thought of things we used to say to someone when we were annoyed with them , back in the good old days. Drop dead was one, Cool it, was another, then there was , don't have a cow, and also, ' turn blue'. The tatooed lady will do just that when she gets old, she will literally ' turn blue'.

Till next time.
Marion Springer

We said good bye to Lucky

2010-02-20T21:22:00.000-08:00

She came to us as a stray pup about seven years ago. My son Dave,had recently lost his 13 year old Princess to cancer. He wasn't ready for another dog. I had two dogs so I didn't need another dog.

It was decided that Dave would take the pup to the animal shelter but on the way there he decided he couldn't do it. The little dog was obviously part pit bull. Dave was certain that she would be put down if she was handed over to the animal shelter so he brought her back home. He named the little dog Lucky and she became a part of our family.

She hated snakes with a passion. There are rattle snakes where we live and when she saw a snake she sounded the alarm. That was about the only time Lucky barked for she was a very quiet little dog. The only time she attacked a snake was when the snake happened to be very close to me. she picked it up and swung it around, dropped it and picked it up again. I made her leave it alone for it was a harmless snake, not a rattler.

Lucky was a gentle loving little dog. She was a little bit picky about eating and she played me like a fiddle. She would sometimes balk at eating her regular dinner and of course I would dress it up with little tid-bits that she loved and before long her bowl was empty and she had gotten the treats she wanted. I didn't mind pampering her that way for she gave so much love in return.

Lucky's immune system went awry and last week she got very sick. The Doctor couldn't do anything to help her and with heavy hearts, we said good bye to our little friend. She was placed to rest beside Princess. My two Doberman pups are just lost and there is an emptiness in our home without her. She brought us much love and joy in her short time with us and she is missed greatly.
The words from an old song, Old Shep, come to mind..."if dogs have a Heaven there's one thing I know, Old Shep ( Lucky ) has a wonderful home".

Till next time.
Marion Springer

My Other Passion

2010-02-02T19:17:00.000-08:00

I wanted to fly from the time I was about 5 years old but I also have another passion that dates from a very young age. From early on I wanted to create dolls.

And so, I made dolls. My husband , Docko would tease me, I think he was teasing, he would say , " You have come full circle. You are playing with dolls". My answer was always, " I am not playing. I am creating".

Through the years I made cloth dolls for my daughters. But what I really wanted to do was to create realistic dolls, not dolls to play with but to be displayed as one would collect and display art and items to be cherished.

I leaned toward making Indian dolls, because of my heritage and because I liked the Indian way of life.

I tried making dolls from various mediums and finally discovered polymer clay. Polymer clay is a plastic based clay. It is used to sculpt all or parts of dolls which are then cured in a regular kitchen oven or toaster oven. Curing sets the clay in a hard permenant position.

Occassionally I will make a doll all of clay from head to foot but generally I only sculpt the head, hands, feet and legs of polymer clay then attach the various parts to a wire armature . Next a fabric body covering is put on over the wire armature and filled with polyester fiber fill.

Synthetic fiber is used for hair. The part I enjoy most is making the clothing and accessories. The material used for clothing is deer skin ( buckskin) and is all hand stitched . Moccasin's and other accessories are decorated with hand beading.

The picture above is an 18 inch cradleboard with baby. Used leather coats are generally used as covering for the cradleboard. Used fur from old fur coats is often used to line the cradleboards.

The baby in the picture is about 15 inches long . The baby's head is polymer clay on a fabric body. Other cradleboards I make are from 8 inches in length to full size 36 inches. My next cradleboard baby is going to be a life size infant in a 36 inch cradleboard. I plan to fully bead the sides of the cradleboard. Beading is slow tediuos work and it could take me many moons to finish the beading but it will be a treasure when finally finished. I plan to keep the life size baby and cradleboard for myself, or try to keep it anyway. My family has a way of talking me out of most of the dolls I make.

Most of the Indian dolls ( I say ' dolls' for lack of a better word ) I make represent adults engaged in the daily tasks of life as it was back then. The dolls range from 18 inches to about 22 inches in height.

If you care to see some of the work which has resulted from my other passion, click on my website www.authameriindiandolls.com .

Till next time.
Marion Springer

In The Super Market

2010-01-26T17:42:00.000-08:00

I've had some bad and some weird and some very rude experiences while shopping in the super market . I was standing in line at the check out counter and there was a woman ahead of me . Her items were on the counter being rung up by the cashier. A man hurried up and crowed in between the woman customer and me. He set a six pack of beer on the counter . Naive me, I thought he was with the woman customer and had gone back to pick up an item they had forgotten.

Not so , she paid for her purchases and left the store and the man was still there at the counter . I stood there with my mouth open in surprise as the guy who had rushed up and crowded in line paid for his beer and left the store. I mentioned the incident to the checker and she replied, " Oh, yeah, he does that all the time". What a shame that the checker didn't protect the rights of other customers by making the man wait his turn in line as he properly should .

Checkers and bag girls talking and not getting on with the business of checking out the merchandise really gets to me. I am not smart enough to let it go even if it takes an extra 15 minutes or more to get waited on while they carry on their conversation. I usually have to say something to the effect of , " please stop your visiting with each other and finish ringing up and bagging my groceries. That almost always gets me cracked eggs in the carton or an item or two that I've paid for left on the counter . That's the baggers retaliation for my speaking up .

The very worst thing that happened was the time I was the only person in the whole isle and I got touched by a jerk. I stood contemplating the items on the shelf and I heard fast foot steps approaching but I didn't look around. As he passed behind me I felt a hand drag across my posterior. I quickly turned around to see who had touched me and the guilty man was about 10 feet past me taking very long steps.

When I reached the check out stand the man was at the counter with several customers between him and me. He turned and looked at me just smirked. Oh, how I wanted to knock that smirk off his face ! But what could I do ? If I had made a complaint there were no witnesses to back me up . It would have been he said, she said. So I said nothing but I sure had some dark thoughts.

Till next time
Marion Springer

Analysis of A Gyro Accident

2010-01-13T21:18:00.000-08:00

Recently Teddy Udala, an experienced gyro pilot of many years had an accident in his gyro. Teddy was badly bruised in the accident but had no broken bones. His gyro was destroyed.
There is a lesson to be learned in every accident and for that reason, Teddy asked me to write an account of his accident. he hopes his story will prevent someone else from making the same mistake.
The weather: Wind was from the west and variable from 10 to 20 mph.
The layout of the area where the accident occurred is this...the runway is an east-west dirt runway. Teddy's hangar is adjacent the runway and is about 400 feet from the east end of the runway. There is a power line that crosses the runway near the east end of the runway and a fence at the end of the runway. Beyond the fence to the east is the El Mirage dry lake.
The accident :
The PRA Chapter One meeting had just ended. There were several visitors who wanted to see a gyro fly. Teddy invited everyone to go to his hangar to see him fly. The group from the meeting went on to Teddy's hangar. I didn't go with the others instead, I pulled up a chair and sat in the shade of the meeting trailer.
After his take off Teddy flew past the place where I was sitting then he made a turn back toward the other end of the runway. I walked out a little ways to watch his descent and landing. When I saw him next, he had already made the turn toward final and was on the lake side of the fence and very low. He looked to me to be about 30 feet above the surface. The gyro was in a nose high attitude and was descending very fast. I could see that he was very near the fence and the power line and facing in that direction. Then there was a great pall of dust and I saw the flash of one rotor blade. I couldn't see the gyro contact the ground but from the rapid descent and the single blade flash, I knew he had crashed.
I quickly drove down to the area and to my great surprise saw Teddy helping pick up the scattered pieces of his crashed gyro. The photo at the top of page is Teddy and his crashed gyro just minutes after the accident. His gyro was destroyed. The redundant mast had broken in two. A shiny area of several inches of the mast showed that the metal had been stretched, indicating that one part of the mast had actually been pulled apart where the separation had occurred. One rotor blade had separated from the machine on contact with the ground and was found some distance from the main body of the wreckage.
Someone had videoed the flight and the crash. The video showed that shortly after take off, the gyro climbed to about 20 feet above the ground then suddenly it descended to what looked to be 3 feet above the ground. That indicated that the gyro didn't have enough airspeed to maintain level flight. He was behind the power curve, in other words. Then the gyro began climbing again. After climbing out he flew downwind and then he turned onto final .
The wind was slightly from the left of the runway, maybe about 15 degrees off. The video shows the gyro lined up into the wind and in a nose high attitude. The gyro dropped fast then Teddy made a slight turn to his left and then immediately he began a turn back toward the runway in an effort to line up with the wind, but he hit the ground at that point.
Teddy said he had turned slightly toward the lake looking for a clear area where he could land as he knew the power line and fence were immediately in front of him. Seeing no place to land, he then tried to turn back into the wind but it was all over by then. He came down approximately 100 feet from the fence and the power line. That he survived the crash is nothing short of a miracle.
My analysis of the accident:
I don't believe he ever reached adequate airspeed at any point during the brief flight. That was evident by the loss of altitude shortly after take off when the gyro descended from about 20 feet down to 3 feet from the ground.
Teddy says he was about 100 feet above the ground when he made the turn onto final , but no matter whether it was 100 or 30 feet, it was too low to make a turn so close to the fence and the power line.
Teddy says he wanted to hover, thus the nose-up attitude. Without enough airspeed to begin with, raising the nose of the gyro killed off what airspeed he had. At that point the gyro was in free fall as evidenced by the very rapid descent. The small turn out of the wind only hastened the descent to the ground.
Even if the fence and the power line had not been in close proximity , a hover so low to the ground with gusty wind is very dangerous because there is insufficient altitude between the the gyro and the ground to regain airspeed if the wind should let up as Teddy said it did in this case.
Several things indicate poor aviation decision making in the flight. First, I believe that spectators waiting in front of his hangar to see him fly put pressure on Teddy to the point he neglected to be mindful of airspeed, altitude, obstructions, etc. He says empathically that he only fly's for himself and no one else. But it is a fact that pressure from spectators can cause a pilot to become careless about all the things that go into a safe flight.
Turning onto final at such a low altitude and with low airspeed and with obstructions immediately ahead was poor judgment.
Teddy is generally a safe and cautious pilot and until this day had never had a gyro accident . It is my belief that he was distracted by the spectators wanting to see the gyro fly and he was lured into complacency as to safe piloting. The result was an accident due to failure to maintain airspeed, or pilot error, in other words.
Teddy is to be commended for wanting his story told in an effort to help other pilots.
Marion Springer , CFI Gyro, Ret.

Coming soon, a gyro accident report( non fatal)

2009-11-15T08:11:00.000-08:00

Gyro accidents happen for many reasons. They happen to novice pilots and also to high time pilots. Sometimes the accident is caused by someone wanting a picture of the gyro in flight. Inattention is another frequent cause of accidents. An example of inattention is the pilot who was fatally injured when he flew into power lines while being photographed from the ground. Well, I guess you could say that particular accident was caused by two reasons; a camera and inattention. But as mentioned, all manner of things can cause an accident.

Poor flight planning can be a reason for an accident. I am guilty not doing a thorough job of flight planning years ago when I went on a cross country flight in my gyro. I had neglected to check the runway condition of a field where I planned to land . I had landed there years before and at that time the small strip was well maintained and in good condition but in the intervening years the asphalt had suffered greatly and there were deep chuck holes all over the runway.

Fortunately for me , the wind was blowing about 30 mph. and that allowed me to make a no roll landing thus avoiding running into a chuckhole. The high wind allowed for an almost vertical takeoff when I departed, again avoiding the holes in the runway. If there had been no wind I could not have landed there safely as a landing roll or takeoff run was not possible because of the holes in the runway.

And if I had to fly to an alternate airport I would have had a major problem as I didn't have enough fuel to make it to the next airport. As I said, it was poor flight planning and is an example of what could cause a gyro accident. If there had been an accident I could have been cited by the FAA because it is an FAA rule that the condition of the runway to be used be checked prior to departing on a cross country trip.

Recently a gyro pilot friend with some years of gyro flying experience crashed his gyro. His accident was one of those that shouldn't have happened but it did. My friend was not injured but his gyro was totally destroyed . Knowing that the accident was his fault he has asked me to write about it for he believes as I do, that there is a lesson to be learned in every accident. He is to be commended for wanting to try to prevent someone else from similar grief. It will be a day or so before I can get to it but at his request I will describe his non fatal accident.

Till next time.
Marion Springer

First Flight With The New Starter

2009-11-12T18:37:00.000-08:00

I didn't realize it but I was spoiled. You see, the engine I have on my gyro was never meant to carry man or woman in flight . It was designed for the military during World War 2 to power small drone aircraft that towed target banners for pilots to practice shooting at. It was meant for one flight period. Along came a bunch of gyro pilots looking for a small lightweight affordable engine to use on their gyrocopters.

The pilots found the small powerful McCulloch engine in military surplus stores, in garages and just about everywhere. Of course, most of the engines had bit the dust when the aircraft they powered was shot down. But, the good thing about the engine, it was affordable. Most could be purchased for about $200 or less. As most of the pilots in our group were young folks with small children, the small price of the engine fit our small budgets. Gyro pilots bought the surplus engines, learned what to do to make it airworthy and flew it. It weighed 70 pounds and came in 72 and 90 horse power versions. The weight to power ratio was loved by gyro pilots, me included.

Down through the years modern engines came on the scene and many pilots adapted them to their gyros but some pilots still loved and flew the McCulloch. I was one of them.

To start the engine that didn't have a starter, one had to pull the propeller through. That means to turn the prop fast by hand. That isn't something for the faint of heart to do. It is a dangerous procedure and there are many gyro pilots missing a finger or two who can attest to that last statement. But with my husband always there to start or ' prop' the engine for me, I never gave a starter a thought. To fly, all I had to do was suit up and sit on the seat and Docko would prop the engine and start it for me. As I said, I was spoiled.

Fast forward...Docko passed away, I retired from flying then 12 1/2 years after his passing I started flying the gyro again. Now getting my engine started became a big problem for I only knew two gyro pilots who knew how to prop the engine and they were not always available to lend a hand when I wanted to fly. I needed a starter!

On the Rotary Wing Forum, a site on the internet which I visit often, someone offered a starter kit for the McCulloch engine for sale! Oh happy day! I ordered a kit and my friend , gyro pilot Dave Bacon installed the starter on my gyro. I wrote all about the installation in an earlier blog. Fast forward again to the last weekend of September , 2009. That's when we have the annual gyro fly-in on the El Mirage dry lake and that's when I made the first flight of my gyro with the new starter. The picture above was taken as I arrived at the fly-in site. I am still getting used to the feel of the machine with the added weight of 30 lbs. of starter and battery but I can say one thing for sure, to turn the switch on and push the button and have the mighty Mac come to life is a thrill! As Jackie Gleason would say, " How sweet it is".
The photo was taken by my friend, Edna Arlt, affectionatly known as Ed.
Till next time.
Marion Springer

My three buddies

2009-10-19T19:13:00.000-07:00

My buddies, Lucky on the left, Buddy, center and Connie on the right.

Lucky came to us as a young puppy about six years ago. My son Dave said," there is a small dog outside our fence". Later that day he said, "The small dog has made her way inside the fence. Do you want to keep her ?"

I had two dogs and didn't need or want another one. My son had recently lost his 13 year old Princess to cancer and he wasn't ready for another dog. So, it was decided that Dave would take the little dog to the animal shelter in a few days. On the appointed day he and the little black dog started out but he was back home within a few minutes..."I just couldn't do it", he said. " She is part pit bull and they will put her down". So, Lucky as he named her, got a stay of execution and a good home.

Over the next two years I had to put both of my elderly dogs down . Suddenly I was without a dog as Lucky belonged to my son. My heart yearned for another Doberman as one of my long time companions that I had to put down was a wonderful Dobbie named Vokie. I finally found two , a brother and sister, pure bred Doberman pups for sale and in no time had purchased the male puppy.

It bothered me to leave his little sister all alone in the big yard. For a week I couldn't get that little female Doberman out of my mind so I ended up going back and buying her.

Oh boy! did I have my hands full with two seven week old puppies. They chewed up everything in sight. The bedspread I used as a couch cover looked like swiss cheese when they got through chewing on it. I ended up putting my boots up on top of the book case about six feet above the floor to keep them out of the pups reach .

They played and wrestled all over the house and claimed every comfortable piece of furniture as their own. Pottie train them to go outside ??? It's a job training one but two is a real challenge. And then there was the ear trimming which was it's own nightmare. Imagine two young pups with their ears wrapped and both having to wear large plastic collars to prevent damage to the healing ears. Picture taking those two pups both wearing their large collars in the family car 40 miles each way to the vets office to have the ears tended to. They wrestled in the car and it took my daughter driving and me trying to keep the pups from destroying the interior of the car and to make it worse, it was summer time in the desert with every day well over 100 degrees. My daughter thought I had lost my mind to buy TWO pups. At times, I admitted to myself that they were really almost too much for me, but give them up , never !

They are now 3 1/2 years of age . The 90 pound male is named Buddy, a name that fits him perfectly. Connie , the little female is about 60 pounds . She is a sweetheart.

At night it is a comfort to have them, along with Lucky who lives with me, zonked out in the living room...Buddy, on the couch of course and Connie, naturally , in my favorite easy chair. Lucky usually can usually be found in the bedroom in the middle of my bed. Home sweet home!

But it's a trade off...they love me unconditionally. They are always happy to see me. They would follow me anywhere and I hope they would protect me if the need should arise and all they ask in return is my love and dinner, not necessarily in that order!

Till next time.

Marion Springer

Meet Britta Penca

2009-10-06T19:56:00.000-07:00

Britta is quite a gal, a real go-getter as a matter of fact. She is rated in fixed wing, in helicopters, and in gyroplanes. She is currently working on her commercial helicopter rating and in time plans to become a Gyro CFI. Good for her !

In the picture Britta is standing beside her single place Air Command gyro. The photo was taken at the 2008 fly-in on El Mirage dry lake. From that ear to ear grin I'd say she just landed from a good gyro flight!

Britta is also part owner of a two place tandem Air Command which she will use for flight training when she gets that all important Gyro CFI certificate. She is just what the gyro community needs.

This year for the first time ever, PRA ( Popular Rotorcraft Association ) recognized women gyro pilots...they asked Britta to head up a forum at the PRA convention at Mentone on Women in Gyroplanes. There were only four women gyro pilots at the time but it's a start. Connie O'Connor was one of the ladies working on the ' women in gyros' forum and she put together a very nice video of the women gyro pilots. I think that with Britta's enthusiasm that other women will be attracted to the gyro when she starts instructing.

Britta and her husband Mark and their two Border Collies live in Ariizona. She and Mark are regulars to the annual Ken Brock Fly-in that is held on the El Mirage dry lake the last weekend of September. Last year they brought Britta's Air Command to the fly-in and she put some good flying on the machine. Their gyro trailer only holds one gyro so this year Mark's gyro made the trip and Britta's Air Command stayed home. Earlier this year , Mark flew his gyro , which is his own design based on the Dominator, from their other home in Iowa to the gyro fly-in at Mentone. That was quite a trip.

Britta and Mark... gyro pilots both and they are both good for gyros!

Till next time.

Marion Springer

The gyro hang test

2009-10-05T16:42:00.000-07:00

It is vitally important that the gyro be balanced properly, or in other words, the CG ( center of gravity) must be right.

To have the machine out of CG and fly in a nose up condition is very dangerous and the same is true for an extreme nose down attitude. So to be sure the CG is correct, the the gyro is is given a hang test.

When the gyro is constructed, it is given a hang test before the first flight. If later on changes are made to the gyro, such as adding or removing weight or modifying the gyro then it must have another hang test before flight.

In the photo above my friend, Teddy Udala, is preparing for Dave Bacon, another gyro pilot friend to do a hang test on Teddy's gyro. Teddy built the gyro awhile back then decided to make some changes such as shortening the mast , lowering the seat, and several other modifications, thus the need for a hang test to see if the center of gravity had changed.

So, early one morning before the wind came up we took Teddy's gyro the the gate-way and winched the machine up off the ground. Teddy then got into the seat.

Teddy's gyro is based on the Bensen design and as such it is supposed to hang between 0 and 3 degrees nose down for the CG to be correct.

To do the hang test, the pilot sits in the seat of the gyro with all wheels off the ground and holds the control stick centered...that puts the torque tube ( which is up under the rotor head) in a level attitude. The nose down angle is measured at the back of the mast by someone, in this case, Dave Bacon , holding an angle finder against the mast and reading where the needle points. Teddy's CG came out at 3 degrees nose down. So it was within CG limits. Had it not been in CG he would have had to make new head plates to get the CG right. Teddy was saved a lot of work because nothing had to be changed on his gyro...it was ready to fly.

My Bensen gyro had recently had a starter and a battery added to the gyro...that came to a total of 30 pounds that was added to the machine. I feared the worst. I thought it would be so out of CG that new head plates would have to be made and I had nearly worked myself into a tizzy thiking of all the work that would need to be done because of the added weight.

But to my great delight, the nose down angle of my gyro when we gave it the hang test came in at 2 degrees nose down. YIPPEE!! The CG was perfect and no new head plates were required.

The 30 pounds we had added had been pretty evenly distributed with half the 30 pounds

added to the engine and the other half more up toward the front...that may be why the CG was still OK. All I know for sure that it IS Ok and ready to fly!

And I did make a brief flight with the new starter during the fly-in. I flew from my hangar out to the fly-in site on the lake bed. Not more than a mile altogether but after getting there and making a couple of passes , it was quite enough flying for the conditions . The day was 103 degrees and that put the density altitude somewhere over 6000 feet...not ideal conditions for flight.

I am looking forward to doing some flying and getting the feel of the gyro with the added weight

on it. Oh the thrill of just turning on the ignition switch and then pushing the start button to get the Mac going !

After I get some time on my gyro with the starter I think we are going to add those wonderful tuned exhaust expansion chambers to the gyro this winter. Then I can stand that gyro on it's tail and go straight up on take off...well, I used to do that but I will tame it down some this time.

Till next time.

Marion Springer

Hello everyone, I'm back

2009-10-03T17:53:00.000-07:00

I was a little under the weather for awhile so haven't posted in awhile . I think I was down from breathing all the smoke ( with ashes falling all over everything) during the raging forest fires in So. Ca. awhile back. The closest the fires were to us was about 40 miles but the smoke was so heavy here at times that we couldn't see more than a quarter of a mile.

Last weekend we had the Ken Brock Freedom fly-in on the El Mirage dry lake . The number of visitors was down from better times . Hopefully the economy will be better next year.

As far as gyro flying goes, it was a safe fly-in with no accidents. But we lost a fellow gyro pilot on Saturday due to a motorcycle accident. He was Mike Shallmann of Arizona. The photo above is Mike taxiing his gyro in from a flight earlier on the day of the bike accident which took his life.

Mike went riding just before dusk on a BMW motorcycle and ventured into an area where the lake bed is rough with small dirt mounds all over. Most of the lake is smooth as a table top but there are rough areas and that's where the accident happened. Apparently he hit a couple of dirt mounds at high speed and the bike started tumbling.

While traveling at high speed the dirt mounds would be impossible to see in time to avoid them.

My granddaughter Lynette went to the accident scene and was upset to see everyone standing around looking but not doing anything to help our friend Mike. Lynette is CPR certified so she moved in like a Marine drill sargent and took charge.

They worked on Mike until the emergency medical crews arrived. Despite their best efforts, Mike's time on earth was over and so he passed away shortly afterwards.

He was the first to arrive at the fly-in site at the beginning of the week and he did a lot of gyro flying over the week in his shiny original design gyro. Mike always did a buzz job at my home during the mornings of the fly-in. He called them ,

" wake up calls", and his ' wake up calls' were memorable. I shall miss them and I shall miss Mike. He believed in living life to the fullest. He said earlier on the day of his passing, " when my number is up , my number is up".

Till next time.

Marion Springer

One happy gyro pilot !

2009-08-14T23:02:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday Dave Bacon came up to the desert and we started my gyro's McCulloch engine with the new starter. I was like a kid with a new toy, I'd turn the switch on, push the starter button and the engine would come to life.
I'd let the engine run a minute or so , shut it down and then do it all over again and again.
That's a photo of me on my gyro with the engine running.
After giving the new starter a work out we put the gyro on Dave's trailer and went over to a gate way to do the hang test to determine the CG ( center of gravity). A hang test is necessary when big changes are made to a gyro, in my case we had added a starter and a battery for a total of about 30 lbs. of weight.
The hang test involves attaching a hoist to the teeter bolt and with the pilot in the seat, lifting the gyro clear of the ground.
Someone then takes an angle finder and holds it against the back of the mast then reads the degree of angle that the gyro hangs from level. For the the center of gravity of the machine to be correct, the gyro should hang from 0 to 3 degrees nose down. My gyro came in right on target with a nose down angle of 2 degrees.
Teddy had made some modifications to his gyro recently making a hang test necessary for his machine also. So, after my hang test was done, we repeated the whole thing with Teddy in the seat of his gyro.
We started about 8 AM hoping to beat the heat but this is summer time in the desert and it was well over 100 degrees by the time we finished.
So, although I haven't flown the gyro since the addition of the starter, just having the starter and a successful hang test made my day! There will be cooler days to fly. Just knowing that I can start my gyro myself whenever I want to fly is a giant step of independence to me.
I am very appreciative of the work that Dave has done in getting my gyro to that point. He is a man in demand for he has taken on the job of going completely through someone else's gyro and bringing it up to flying condition. When he isn't working on gyros, Dave tries to decide which of his three gyros he is going to fly!
Till next time.
Marion Springer

Update on adding a starter to the McCulloch engine

2009-08-02T07:52:00.000-07:00

We are now on the third starter for the McCulloch engine. The first one was defective and the second one was too long. The front of the second starter touched the prop! So, when Dave came up last week to work on the adaption he brought a new light weight starter . The new one was made for race cars, weighs 8 lbs. and is beautiful. It's small and compact.

But, it didn't fit in the mounting bracket. Dave cut off a little bit of the bracket and still the starter wouldn't go in. He said that he could cut a piece off the edge of the starter itself and it would fit, " but", he said, " if it doesn't fit, we can't return it to the store. You will have a pricey shelf ornament. What do I do ?".

Since I figured we were about out of options regarding starters, I said, " make it fit". And he did . Back to the hack saw he went and took off a bit of the starter and then it went right into place in the mounting bracket like it was made for it.

After buttoning up everything and securing the new battery in it's holder on the keel tube, we pushed the gyro out to the run up pad and started it up. The engine started easily. I was amazed at the power with which the starter spun the propeller.

So, like a kid with a new toy, I would start the engine ( push button start, imagine that ! ), let the engine run a minute, shut it down and start it again and again. It looks like we have a winner in the new starter!

The day was hot, 103 degrees hot, and it was getting late in the day so we decided to put off the all important hang test until Saturday, August 8, when Dave will make the trip up to the desert again. I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas as I wait for Saturday,August the 8th. to get here !

Dave has gone to a lot of effort to help me achieve the freedom to fly whenever I want . He lives a couple of hours away in a much cooler area and yet he comes up to the high desert and works on my gyro in 100 degree plus weather . That's a real friend.

Till next time.
Marion Springer

Telephones and Cell Phones

2009-07-19T06:52:00.000-07:00

One of my pet peeves is to be standing line at the check out counter with money in hand to pay for my purchases and have the cashier pick up the telephone and carry on a conversation while ignoring those of us waiting to pay for our items.

If I happen to be on a tight schedule I will leave the items on the counter and go on my way . In an auto parts store the clerk kept answering the phone while no less than eight customers waited for service. He answered call after call . Finally one of the waiting customers announced that he was going to go home and call the clerk on the phone as it seemed to be the only way to get his attention .

The man who delivers our water is addicted to his cell phone. You never see him not talking on it. Recently I was standing there with a hundred dollar bill waiting to pay for the load of water and he had the cell phone between his head and shoulder and was carrying on a conversation while writing out the receipt. He hadn't even bothered to say 'Good morning' to me.

In the supermarket one day I saw a male shopper talking on his cell phone while shopping. He seemed to get the other person's opinion on every item he put in his shopping cart. He happened to finish at the check stand just about the time I did and he still had his cell phone cradled against his shoulder and talking away.

I watched as he left the store just as I did...he had a bag of groceries in each hand and was still yakking away on the phone. I wondered if he would let go of the phone to stow his purchases in the car...no way! He set one bag on the ground and unlocked the car, put both bags inside , got in and drove away still talking. Now that is addiction!

About land line phones, I will be getting a new one in a couple of weeks. Because of my hearing ( or lack of hearing ) I use a TTY relay system with the telephone . It works great for me but callers are reluctant to deal with the operators who type their words, as the operators at times , have to interrupt the caller to check spelling or tell them to speak slower , etc. And also , many people don't know how to use the TTY system. When I called the animal hospital to check on my dog the girl who answered, said " We don't want any ", and hung up the phone , probably thinking the operator's explanation of TTY was a sales pitch.

The new phone I am getting is voice activated so the the callers words will be automatically typed for me to read and I will also be able to hear the caller's voice which my present system doesn't allow. I'm told the new phone, called, Cap-Tel , is more user friendly as it will be like making a regular phone call. Let's hope so . I'm looking forward to it. I promise not to become addicted .

Till next time.
Marion Springer

Politicaly Correct ( P C )

2009-07-09T17:24:00.000-07:00

It seems to be getting more and more difficult to just say a few words to someone in passing without the risk of saying something considered politically incorrect ( P C). I find myself being politically incorrect from time to time. That's probably because I come from an earlier time when life was different, and possibly because I'm short on diplomacy.

Today you have to examine every word six ways from Sunday to see if it will offend the other person before you say it. Example, I was in the supermarket and there was a lady in a wheel chair ahead of me in the isle. Her path was blocked by an empty shopping cart that was sitting cross ways in the isle. There was no room for her to go around it and it looked like she was having trouble trying to reach it to push it out of the way.

Naive me, I said, " I'll move it out of your way". Well, she darn near jumped down my throat! Looking ready to fight, she said , " It's in EVERYBODY'S way !". It would have been in everyone's way , if there had been others there but at the moment it was just the lady in the wheel chair and me .

It was in her way more than mine for I could easily move it whereas she could not. I figured that I must have said something politically incorrect by offering to move the cart out of her way but I was at a loss to know what I said that had offended her . So, I just moved the shopping cart without responding to her outburst and went on my way, thinking to myself, "she can move the next one herself ".

I talked with a man who worked for the Post Office. All postal employees had to attend a sensitivity training program where they would learn what was safe to say and what could get them a sexual harrassment lawsuit. He said he had learned that it wasn't safe to tell a coworker that she looked nice, or that her dress was very becoming, or any thing that a reasonable person would take as a compliment. In today's workplace he said, the big thing he learned was to just do his work and keep his mouth shut for that was the only safe way. Best not to talk to any female coworker, he said.

A man I talked with recalled having his grandchildren in a fast food place and one of the young ones was acting up and ignoring granddad when he repeatedly told him to settle down. He said, " I spanked him once on his bottom and it suddenly became very quiet in the resturant and everyone in the place was looking at me". The granddad then said in a loud voice to everyone in general , " Don't anyone say a word", and they didn't. Spanking an unruly child is not PC in todays world.

The granddad was lucky he didn't get hauled off to the pokey for child abuse by today's standards . Having raised four children, I can attest to the fact that sometimes it takes a smack on the bottom to make the kid behave.

Well, enough about being politically correct with every word ... Saturday , July 11 is the meeting of PRA Chapter 1 and we will talk about gyros and the upcoming gyro fly-in and we won't worry about being PC.

If you're near to the El Mirage dry lake in So. Ca. (30 mi. East of Palmdale), and have an interest in gyros, come to the meeting. You can email me at ddakota@earthlink.net for directions .

Till next time.
Marion Springer

Rattle snake season here in the desert !

2009-07-09T09:59:00.000-07:00

The photo is of my daughter Linda holding a Mojave Green rattle snake which she killed in her yard a couple of days ago.

Linda's cat was looking out the window of her home and was acting very disturbed. Linda looked out to see what had her cat's attention and there it was...a very large rattle snake just off the edge of her front porch and about three feet from the side of her house, all coiled up and waiting for something!

She grabbed a shovel, her weapon of choice, ( not mine though), and went outside to dispatch the snake to rattle snake Heaven which she quickly did . It was a good size snake with 6 rattles and a button.

This is desert country and rattlers are a part of the wild life out here. My son and daughter and I have all killed rattlers that were in our yards and close enough to be a threat to us. Lest anyone think we enjoy eleminating the snakes, I assure you we do not. I hate it when I have to put a rattler down and I know my children feel the same way.

BUT, we are a long way from medical help and it takes a medical helicopter an average of one hour to reach us, a fact that was observed once again last week when a neighbor with an injured leg waited for the emergency helicopter.

The venom of the Mojave Green is particularly dangerous and is life threatening if help isn't immediate. So, it's us or them!

With the activity of three dogs running here and there on my place I am seeing fewer and fewer snakes but Linda's place is much more serene than mine .

Lucky is the smallest of my three dogs and she is the rattle snake watcher. She is always on the lookout for rattlers. When she spots a Mojave Green she doesn't attack , she just sounds the alarm and we hop to.

Till next time.
Marion Springer

Three steps forward and two back

2009-07-02T22:44:00.002-07:00

Things had been going nicely with the starter adaption to the McCulloch engine on my gyro. There were a couple of set backs that had to be dealt with but Dave Bacon is a resourceful man and he took the challenges in stride .

When he found that there was simply not enough room to accommodate both the starter and the Wunderlich prerotator that is on my gyro , he switched out a part of the prerotator for a different one that would leave room so that I wouldn't have to give up the prerotator.

Finally last Saturday, a 102 degree day in El Mirage, after working all day in the hot hangar it looked like we were on the home stretch. We rolled the gyro out to the cement run-up pad and started the engine. It fired right up and I was pleasantly surprised at how powerful the starter was.

Still not having everything buttoned up, Dave shut the engine down after a very few seconds of running. I looked at him expecting to see a big smile on his face but instead his face showed great disappointment and I knew that something was wrong. He pointed to the propeller.

We found that a brass bushing had come out of the front end of the starter and had contacted the propeller leaving two gouges in the hub area. The starter that had come with the kit was a reconditioned one. Dave checked out repairing the starter but considering the importance of the starter and it's it's closeness to the prop he opted to pick up new starter.

So, no work on the starter this weekend, the 4th. of July but next weekend is a whole new ball game. What's left to do is install the starter, that should go fast now, and hook up solenoid and battery wires for good and then run that baby up !

After the engine run up will come the hang test. To do that we will use a comealong and lift the gyro off the ground with me sitting in the seat and holding the gyro level with the control stick . Then with an angle measuring device , ( sorry, I can't think of the name of it), we will check to see that the center of gravity is correct. In this case, the gyro should hang 0 to 3 degrees nose down. If all is Ok then it will be time to go fly.

So, we're gettin' there.
Till next time.
Marion Springer

No heavy lifting !

2009-06-28T08:09:00.000-07:00

Sometime back I posted about a fuel transfer pump that my daughter Linda, gave me for Christmas. Well, my daughter knows how to make her mom happy.

I didn't have an opportunity to use the fuel pump for a variety of reasons until day before yesterday. I have been busy trying to make a dump of a hangar into a decent place to keep my gyro and with the help of Linda, it has become a decent and clean place to house my gyro and also a good place to go hang out if I need to get away from the sometimes hectic life at home.

On my gyro there is a 1/4 inch diameter plastic tubing that runs on the outside of the fuel tank from the bottom to the top of the tank. It is easy to see the level of fuel in the tank through the clear plastic. That tubing is the " instrument" by which I know how much gas is in the tank . Imagine my surprise when one day I saw the plastic tubing had shrunk and pulled off the top fitting and was short of reaching it by a good inch or more. Good thing I noticed it on the ground !

The tubing had to be replaced but the tank had to be drained first and wouldn't you know , the tank was full ! So the tank was drained and a new and better kind of tubing was installed, then finally, I had the first opportunity to use the fuel transfer pump .

The advertisment says it will transfer the fuel in one minute...it took me more than one minute because I would turn the pump handle and watch with joy and fascination as the av gas rushed from the container up through the clear tubing of the pump and into the fuel tank then I would turn the crank a few more turns and stop and watch again. No heavy lifting ! Thank you Linda for your wonderful gift.

Till next time
Marion Springer

Progress Report on the McCulloch starter

2009-06-20T22:29:00.000-07:00

Dave Bacon has been working on adapting a starter to the McCulloch engine on my gyro ( see post of June 16).

It has turned out to be a real challenge. First of all , try as he might, there was no way that he could make the starter work with my Wunderlich Prerotator. There just wasn't room. That meant swapping the drive wheel and it's support bracket of my prerotator for a different one which allowed a smidgen more room between the wheel's cable and the fly wheel of the starter. It was cut and fit, cut and fit and finally it was all done except for finding the right length bolts to secure it. That probably means another trip to Aircraft Spruce and Specialty for the bolts .

We did turn the prop over with the starter today just because we needed to see if it was going to work and also just to hear it run if only briefly. There are folks who will say the Mac is noisy but those of us in the hangar today thought it was beautiful music when the prop turned over! It's a toss up who had the biggest smile, Dave or me or maybe even, Eber, Dave's dad .

Next weekend, Dave will do the final buttoning up of it all, then do the all important hang test to see if the center of gravity has changed because of the weight of the starter and when he gets that all done, I will have the pleasure of sitting in the seat of the gyro, pushing the starter button and having the engine come to life. Then I'll just have to go fly it ! I can't wait! Wish me a cool day with a nice breeze.

The photo above is Dave . Looks like he is about to attack the prop bolts with a torque wrench. After he quit for the day on the starter Dave just couldn't let the nice wind go to waste so he rolled his KB2 out and flew for an hour and a half or so and had a great time up there hanging on the wind. You should have seen the pride on his dad's face as he watched his son taming the breeze.

Till next time.

Marion Springer

I set them free but it didn't take

2009-06-17T17:46:00.000-07:00

Whenever I find an injured baby pigeon I take it in and take care of it until it is well enough to be set free. At any time I have a number of young birds in cages getting over injuries. Last week I set free two young birds that I had taken in some months ago when they were tiny little things. Both had been picked on and bloodied by older birds.

In time their injuries healed and they were eating on their own and ready to be set free so one morning I put them out in the pigeon house in the back yard. One of them flew out immediately so I thought he would adjust quickly to his new freedom. The white one just stayed where I put her in the pigeon house.

In the evening after the birds have all gone into the pigeon house and into the large cages I close the doors to keep them safe from predators of the night. So that evening I went out to close up the pigeon house. The white pigeon was still in the same spot where I had left her that morning . She never took her eyes off me. The other young bird was hanging on the door of the pigeon house. I picked him off the door and set him inside on the floor. He immediately went to cling on the door again. Once more I took him off the door and this time I put him on the floor next to the white one. He hopped onto my arm. Meanwhile the white bird is watching me and her eyes are saying, " Take me home. How could you leave me here ?"

Softie that I am, I picked the two young birds up and took them back into the house and put them back into their recently vacated cage. They immediately settled down and looked oh, so contented . I'll try again in a couple of weeks to set them free...hopefully freedom will take next time. My cats, dogs, and birds have no trouble training me !
Till next time.
Marion Springer

Adapting a starter to the McCulloch engine

2009-06-16T15:29:00.000-07:00

The McCulloch engine was never meant to carry man or woman in flight. It was designed during world war 2 for the military. It was used to power small drone airplanes which towed a long banner for the military pilots to practice shooting at. The engine was meant to make one flight, period.

Along came gyro pilots looking for a small

light-weight powerful engine to use on their gyrocopters. I was one of them.

After first trying heavy Volkswagen engines and various motorcycle engines on their gyros, the pilots generally discarded them and began to use the surplus McCulloch engine. The Mac, as it was called , was readily available, lightweight, inexpensive and unbelieably unreliable .

The gyro pilots didn't give up easily , so they set about learning ways to make the Mac reliable. There were a number of modifications necessary , such as cam grinding the skirts of the pistons, using new and different bearings, proper oil and av gas mixture, and a host of other mods. Finally the Mac was fairly reliable. The weight to power ratio of the engine couldn't be beat for it weighed only 72 lbs. and came in a 72 or 90 hp. version. The weight was the same for each version.

Down through the years more modern engines became available for gyros but some of the gyro pilots stayed loyal to the McCulloch engine. I am one of them. To use a different engine would mean changing many things on my Bensen gyro and I didn't want to change the configuration of the gyro for I love it the way it is. I don't mess with perfection!

The Mac doesn't come with a starter...that wasn't a problem as long as I had my husband who was always right there whenever I flew the gyro. Docko would pull the prop through to start the engine for me. Propping the engine is not something you ask just anyone to do. The person handlling the prop has to know exactly what he is doing for it is a dangerous procedure . Carelessness in proping could result in losing a hand, fingers or an arm.

So, that gave me a problem when I returned to gyro flying some years after the passing of Docko. My gyro pilot friends who were knowledgable about starting the engine would prop the Mac for me but they were not always available when I wanted to fly.

Then one day, someone on the rotary wing forum on the internet posted something about making a starter for the McCulloch engine...that got my attention big time. I ordered one, it arrived soon afterwards , then the frustration began. Some modifications were going to be necessary if the starter was going to work on the Mac engine.

My gyro has a prerotator which is a device that spins the rotors and shortens the take off run. I am convinced I can't live without the prerotator!!! The problem is that the prerotator drive drum and drive wheel are located right where the starter has to go.

I contacted Dave Bacon, a friend who is a gyro pilot and who also flies a McCulloch engine. He is in the process of adapting the starter to my engine. He is having to make several modifications to the prerotator and I don't know what else but I am confident he will get the starter up and running soon.

In the photo above, Dave is the one in the white shirt kneeling . The gyro pilot on the left in the colorful shirt is Teddy Udala . Dave's dad, Eber Bacon, an old time gyro pilot from the 60's , is in back of Dave and farther back is Ron Klock, who flies a powered parachute.

We expect to be able to fire the engine up with the starter ( I'll just push a button for that !!!) in a couple of weeks. I'll keep you posted.

Till next time.
Marion Springer

The Golf Cart

2009-06-03T08:22:00.000-07:00

I had often thought how handy a golf cart would be, even priced them some time back...well, I thought after pricing them, four thousand dollars is way too much for me to spend on a golf cart, a used one at that.

Then one day, I saw it, a cute little golf cart for sale in someone's yard. When I say cute, I mean cute the way the Flintstones vehicle was cute in the old TV program my children liked to watch.

The little golf cart in the yard was what people mean when they say of someone , "he has a face only a mother could love". But I wanted that golf cart...I began thinking of it as mine when I first saw it. So it needed painting, so it needed new seat covers, so it needed new batteries ( 6 of them at roughly $ 100 per battery), for it is battery powered.

I'm handy, I thought, I can paint it and I can make new seat covers, maybe even raid the piggy bank and come up with the ransom for 6 new batteries. I gotta have that golf cart! So after some negotiation with the owner, the ragged little cart was mine. Mine and my dog Buddy's, that is. He took to it instantly when we got it home.

Where I really expect the golf cart to be useful is at the annual gyro fly-in we have on the El Mirage dry lake the last weekend of September. I like to walk the line, gyro line that is, and check out what's new and who is flying what , etc. Sometimes the gyro line-up is long and being that my legs are old , being able to ride the line and have a seat to rest the back is very appealing.

The fly-in is the reason for the bright " look at me, don't run over me ", new paint job on the cart. The colors are highly visible.

And you can see from the photo that Buddy doesn't mind the ' stop your heart' paint job. He spends hours sitting in the cart so he will be ready to go when the cart moves.

While waiting for the fly-in to put the cart to work, it has proved to be very useful around home. I carry the trash bags down to the dumpster in it, and yesterday Linda and I used it to haul some plywood and a work table to the bead shop she is building on her place next door. Of course Buddy rode along on top of the building materials every trip. We also made a trip to the mail box and back in it and the mail box is a mile away from home. So far so good. and besides, the golf cart is cute!

It has already proven itself, so come on fly-in time , hurry up and get here. Me, my gyro, and the golf cart are ready and waiting...Buddy will have to miss the
fly-in for that's not a safe place for a dog to be.

One last note for today, I'm having a starter put on my McCulloch engine, Oh Happy Day ! More about that as it progresses.

Actually, two last notes,
To the person who commented on my post re the 80th. birthday celebration flight, Thank you for your comments and if I can be of help to you in getting your Bensen in the air, steer you to parts sources, CFI's , etc. I would be happy to do so. I can be reached by email at ddakota@earthlink.net. I'm happy that you are going to be a Bensen gyro pilot!

Till next time.
Marion Springer

The Beautiful El Mirage Dry Lake in the Mojave Desert

2009-05-22T22:25:00.000-07:00

To many people I suppose it is just a wide expanse of desert without vegetation , hotter than blazes in the summer and very windy much of the time and not much going for it. But to me, the El Mirage dry lake is a thing of beauty.

Located in the Mojave desert in Southern Ca. about mid way between Palmdale on the west and Victorville on the east, the dry lake is flat as a table top for five miles the long way and about one and a half miles across.

The lake bed is host to a variety of activites including, off road vehicles like dirt bikes, ATV's, and dune buggies. The racers of SCTA , Southern Ca. Timing Association, have meets on the lake bed. There are many types of aircraft that use the lake bed . The photo above is me in my gyro taking off from the dry lake bed.

The ground is so hard and shiny. You can even roller skate on the lake bed and some people do just that with oversize roller skates on their feet and sails held out to catch the wind. There are land sailors that use the lake and also film companies make movies and commercials there.

We were driving across the lake bed one morning and saw a film crew busy building a huge fake oak tree on the lake. Only the trunk was in place but later in the day the tree was complete with many limbs and leaves. A while later a whole village had sprung up out in the middle of nowhere.

A yearly event that takes place on the lake is the Ken Brock Freedom fly-in during the last week in September. The gyro fly-in is hosted by PRA Chapter 1 . Many gyro pilots come early and enjoy flying around the area before it gets busy with other aircraft. The fly-in is a fun

get-together with many kinds of gyroplanes and a few helicopters. On Friday evening there is a corn roast and a " Bring your own meat" barbecue on Saturday. There is always much to see and gyro pilots and enthusiasts to visit with.

There are no motels or other accommodations so what you bring with you is what you have while visiting the lake.

If you plan to join us at the fly-in, and I hope you do, you need to know that the BLM ( Bureau of Land Management) who oversees the lake , is now charging a fee to everyone who comes onto the lake. The rates are $ 15 per day, $ 30 per week, and $ 90 for a yearly pass . You can learn more about fees and lake usage by Googling the El Mirage dry lake, El Mirage , Ca.

Come fly with us in September.

Till next time.

Marion Springer

Two Tiny Baby

2009-05-04T18:42:00.001-07:00

Two Tiny Baby

2009-05-04T18:42:00.000-07:00

The Work Ethic and good Manners... where are they ?

2009-04-28T21:46:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, a long time ago, we were taught to call adults mam or sir. For a child to be disrespectful to a grown up meant a trip to the wood shed. Grown ups were respectful to each other too. People were nicer to each other that they are today.

Store clerks were pleasant too. Back then a customer in a store received good service and a thank you for shopping there. But that's all gone with the wind. It's a cold hard nosed world out there today.

I think a lot of attention to the customer left with the demise of the family owned , or, mom and pop stores. Success to them meant keeping the customer happy but with the chain stores, there is no closeness between customers and store owners.

The work ethic of the past is just that, a thing of the past. It seems like the clerk, or the technican or whoever the person is who is supposed to be offering service just doesn't care about the job .

Here is an example. I am severly hearing impaired and to use the telephone, I rely on the TTY, relay system. The relay system is for hard of hearing or deaf persons. It would seem to follow that an operator who works for the TTY company would understand that it is for people who have severe hearing prblems. That seems clear to me. But, recently when my daughter called me on the TTY system she asked the operator to speak slowly to me when I answered the phone. The operator asked, " Why, is she hard of hearing, or something ?". Unbelieable!

Till next time.
Marion Springer

If Icould live my life over again what would I do differently ?

2009-04-24T14:19:00.000-07:00

If I could live my life over, what would I change ? What would I do differently the second time around ?
Well, Let's see, on the plus side, I have lived a good life, not deleriously happy every moment, but that's life, right ? I was happy more than I was unhappy.
Docko and I raised four healthy and good children to adulthood. That's another plus.
I was able to live my dream of flying while caring for my home and family, another plus.
My marriage lasted for over 48 years, chalk up another plus mark.
I believe my husband Docko, was happy with me ( most of the time ) ,and with our children ( most of the time) and he enjoyed our life together ( most of the time), that's three more plus marks. From the vantage point of 80 years of age I think it says a lot to have more pluses than negatives in my long life.

To be sure, there were times when my patience was sorely tried, especially when the four children were small. It seemed that my four kids and several of their friends were constantly in the house wanting something to eat, or wanting me to taxi them somewhere, or I had to go pick up a kid from somewhere. And all the sibiling squabbles I had to settle!

The house cleanig , laundry, cooking, and taxi service and peacemaker for the family was a round robin...it had no beginning and no end. It was just constant!

There was sweet little Coby with the face of an angel , forever standing in a corner because she had mischieviously stuck her foot out and tripped one of the other children as they walked by. And Dave, one day he leaped from the roof of the garage onto a tree limb like Tarzan. The limb broke and so did his arm when he hit the ground. The same summer my youngest Donna, fell off the porch railing and broke her wrist . Tough little trooper that she was, she finished eating her peanut butter and jam sandwich on the way to the hospital...no tears for the wrist. And Linda, always , always, a free spirit. Yeah, those children ran me ragged and at times I wondered if they would ever grow up. Then suddenly they did and then they left home to follow their own drummer through life.

I remember having tears in my eyes as I watched my baby Donna, walk down the driveway to meet the school bus on her first day of school. It was long ago but it seems like yesterday. Today Donna is a grown up lady and getting ready to retire from the post office.

So, if I could do it again ???? Well, what I really would like if I could live my life over again, would be to raise my children again. I realize now from the point of time how precious those early days were and how swiftly they are gone. Yes, I would love to raise my children again.

Till next time.
Marion springer

A good Tired

2009-04-14T16:42:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I spent the day puttering about in my decrepit old hangar. I did a little work in there but mostly just did house keeping chores. I put up a rack of shelves for storage of oil, funnel, tools, and such and I put some screws in the worn boards of the door to firm the door up some.

On the wall I hung a framed picture of myself flying my gyro . The photo is from an article in Aviation History magazine and is about my gyro flying career. I feel a little self conscious about the title of the photo...it says, 'Gyrocopter Queen'. But hey, Teddy presented the framed picture to me and wanted it to be placed on the hangar wall. Self consciousness be darned, I don't want to hurt his feelings by not hanging the picture. So, it graces the wall to be joined in time with many photos of my gyro flying friends.

Awhile back I made curtains and installed them on the hangar windows. Some of the guys laughed at the thought of curtains on the windows of an aircraft hangar...they thought it was too cutesy or girley or something, I guess. But the curtains give me light inside when they are open and they keep prying eyes from seeing inside when they are closed and no one is around.
Besides, they look classy.

All in all the hangar is looking good all except the ratty old roof which needs to be repaired. But that job doesn't have my name on it. I think my children would have a canniption if I got up on top of the roof but they don't have to worry about me climbing up there. Oh Man, I would hate it if I got up there and the roof gave way under me and I fell on the gyro and damaged it !

So after a day of this and that in the hangar I came home tired , but it was a good tired. I define a good tired as being tired from doing something I really don't mind doing, like working to make things better for my gyro , as in fixing up the hangar . Another kind of tired to me is when I've done some thing that I dislike doing but it has to be done. Housecleaning, grocery shopping, yard work , for example , are just plain old tired and nothing good about it.

So, about 5 PM I came home tired ( good tired) got a cup of coffee , sat down in the easy chair and turned the TV on to see how Tiger Woods did at the Masters. Well, Tiger didn't get the green jacket this time so if he went home tired, it probably wasn't it wasn't a good tired.

Till next time.
Marion Springer

That's how it is today

2009-04-08T18:04:00.000-07:00

I was talking to a friend a few days ago about how rude sales people are today. I mentioned that I had stood in line at the checkout counter at the supermarket for almost 30 minutes while the checker and the girl doing the bagging waited on only two customers ahead of me .

The two women were doing more talking with each other than they were checking and bagging groceries. They were just visiting while customers cooled their heels in line waiting to be waited on. By the time I got to the head of the line my legs were tired and my back was aching from the long period of standing . My patience level had dropped to zero.

Finally, when the checking and bagging of my groceries had completely stopped so they could continue their discussion, I said to the bagger, the one doing the most talking, " If you will stop talking the clerk can do her work and I can get out of this store before bedtime". It was about 11 AM at the time. All converstion between the two stopped and they finished up with my groceries very quickly but the bagger put the bag containing the eggs in the cart hard enough to break two eggs..." take that, old woman", she was probably thinking. So I got two broken eggs for my auduacity in speaking up.

My friend then told me of his recent experience with a salesgirl in a Radio Shack. The salesgirl was leaning on her elbows on the counter while a male co-worker was standing beside her patting her posterior. After waiting to pay for his items and being ignored , my friend said to the sales girl , " I want to join the party". She asked him what he meant...he said , " I want to come behind the counter and do like he is doing".

With all seriousness, the girl replied that he couldn't do that. My friend couldn't believe that she didn't get the message that he was being sarcastic and was in his own way telling her that she
should be waiting on customers.

So he and I talked about the work ethics, the rudness and generally how different is is today from the time I was young. He said me, " you just have to put up with it for that's how is is today ". In other words, the ethics and morals and courtesy and consideration of the past is gone and forgotten, outdated.

I don't believe that common courtesy , consideration for others and good work ethics is ever outdated. They are just not practiced today. The best book I ever read was ,
" Atlas Shrugged ," by Ayn Rand. It was all about personal responsibility in everything. The book was published in 1957 and has been in print ever since. I read recently that ' Atlas Shrugged', is used by most big businesses as part of their code of ethics by their management...I can't believe that managment took the book seriously considering that so many of those big companies are being bailed out by government today because of mismanagement and how so many of the CEO's took huge salaries and split when the company received the government's support money.

Yeah, things are sure different today but not better, sad to say.

Till next time.
Marion Springer

Where do other people keep their " stuff ? "

2009-04-07T17:08:00.000-07:00

Small items seem to collect at my home and I don't know where to put them. a book mark, a small stapler, Several mechanical pencils without any lead...a small tube of lead for the mechanical pencils, several small spiral bound note pads, a couple of post it note pads, a bean flipper that came apart, old sun glasses that don't work for my eyes anymore, a dog collar , a bunch of emails that I was going to answer about two years or so ago but for some reason didn't, and a lot of other stuff that just doesn't seem to belong anyplace.

I live in a mobile home so storage is limited, thank goodness, for if it wasn't then I would likely have much more stuff to try to keep out of sight. So I do toss some of it but the good stuff or stuff I might need some day and other stuff gets put in the middle drawer of my computer desk.

It's risky putting anything in that drawer because the drawer is not attached securely. If I bump the drawer it comes tumbling down to the floor and when that happens, my six year old , forever young cat Georgie , has a great time going thrugh the stuff while I am trying to pick it up.

Yesterday the much overloaded drawer fell to the floor and this time I will have to repair it before I can put it back in the desk and refill it with the stuff that fell out of it. Meanwhile, I put everything that came out of the drawer into a plastic dish pan and set it on the table ( the loaded down table is a whole other story ). Georgie who has always considered the desk drawer her personal property anyway, is in kitty heaven now for she naps on top of all the stuff in the dish pan and when she wakes up she entertains herself by pawing through and scattering the stuff she digs up from the pan.

I wish I had the nerve to dump the contents that used to be in the drawer into the trash but there's probably stuff in there that I will need some day.

But I have been wondering, where do other people keep their stuff ? I have a friend whose house looks like no one lives there . Nothing out of place, no signs of life there at all, just antiseptically clean and neat.
Another person I know vaccums her living room so that the vaccum cleaner leaves a pattern that no one dares to step on and muss up the pattern. Her house has no stuff anywhere to be seen. It's just clean and neat and without life.

I know these people must have things like pencil erasers, extra key holders, pens, note pads, and the kind of stuff that overloaded my middle desk drawer but they keep it well put away and neat. Tha'ts something I never have gotten the hang of.

But at least Georie is happy with all my stuff sitting on the table in the plastic dish pan where she has unlimited access to it.

Till next time.
Marion Springer

80th Birthday gyro Celebration flight

2009-04-06T19:58:00.000-07:00

Last week I reached the grand old age of 80 years of age and to commemorate the day I made a birthday celebration flight in my gyro. The day was cold with the wind blowing about 25 mph. Just right for a gyro flight.
After conducting a preflight inspection of the gyro and pronouncing all OK, we refueled and I suited up in my orange flight suit and helmet and cool looking shades then strapped into the seat, ready to fly.

Since my engine doesn't have a starter someone has to pull the propeller through to get it started so my friend Peter Prentice, also a gyro pilot, propped the machine for me.

My daughter Linda and another gyro friend Teddy, were there with cameras at the ready.

I started the blades spinning with the prerotator and with the strong wind helping they were ready to fly in no time. After a short take-off run I lifted off and went straight up. What a thrill the take off is in wind!

The flight was around a half hour in length, not long at all but wonderful! I can't think of a better way to celebrate a big 80th birthday than to fly a gyro.

Teddy made a video of the birthday flight and put it on YouTube. If you want to check it out , look under Tadgyro , then Marion Springer 80 birthday flight.

The amazing thing is that the magic of gyro flying is as great today as it was back when I was young. May it always be so.

Till next time
marion Springer

Coo

2009-03-24T20:47:00.000-07:00

Today my little feathered friend, Coo, passed away. Coo was a pigeon . She had been with me for 11 & 1/2 years, ever since she was a month or so old.

A cat had mauled the baby pigeon so after having a doctor stitch up the lacerations my daughter brought her to live with me. Coo learned to fly in the bathroom. It was obvious that she was happy living in a very large cage in my living room so I never considered setting her free . Coo was much loved.

Recently she developed a large tumor and her health began to fail. The doctor talked of possible surgery but considering her age, surgery seemed too risky.
I decided to just take care of her until nature took her from me. Today nature did just that.

Tomorrow she will be laid to rest beside her longtime Doberman friend, Vokie .
I have lost animal and bird companions before so I know that in time it will be easier but right now that point in time seems far distant.
Fly away Coo. I will miss you.

Marion Springer

Tired but happy

2009-03-05T18:46:00.000-08:00

Desert Beauty

2009-02-24T14:19:00.000-08:00

Before I actually lived in the desert I

heard all kinds of negative things about the desert. It was hot. There was nothing there. It was windy. And who in his/her right mind would want to live in the desert? Well, I live in the desert and I love it!

13 years ago I bought 10 acres of sagebrush covered desert land andput a mobile home on the place and moved in .

Some of the things I had heard about the desert were right on . It is hot in summer. At times the wind does blow mightly. But there is life and beauty and peace and quiet in the desert.

Our closest neighbor is one mile away. The only noise on our place is what we make. The early morning sunrise is a thing of beauty as are sunsets when there are clouds about. And the rainbows out here after a rainshower seem close

enough to touch as do the stars at night . After a rainy winter the wild flowers are breathtaking in their beauty and variety. The cactus in the photo above is near my home and is just one variety of cactus to be found around here.

And wild-life, of that there is plenty. Awhile back there were two red foxes who lived in a burrow just outside our fence. I put out food and water for them. They were regular visitors in our yard. Several times we have seen large turtles making their way across the place. Road Runners, we have them as well as desert grouse and quail. There are burrowing owls who live underground. The baby burrowing owls come up from their underground home and learn to fly from the ground up. They first hop up on low sagebrush branches and gradually learn to fly up to higher elevations. Neat to see.

Probably best of all , at least for me, is that there are no buildings or houses or city clutter, no traffic clogged streets and city noise. There is just wide open desert. I can see for miles in every direction and every direction is like looking at a beautiful picture.

Desert living is not for everyone but it works for me.

Till next time.

Marion Springer

The perfect Christmas present

2009-02-22T18:54:00.000-08:00

That is a picture of me holding my wonderful Christmas present from my daughter, Linda.

Maybe to most moms it wouldn't look like anything to get excited about, probably they wouldn't even know what the heck it is , but this mom was very happy to receive the five gallon fuel transfer pump for Christmas.

What the fuel transfer pump means is that instead of having to lift a heavy ( about 30 lbs. ) 5 gallon can of aviation fuel up to about shoulder height and use a funnel to pour the fuel into the fuel tank on my gyrocopter, now I can just turn the crank handle on the transfer system about 20 turns and the fuel/oil mix is transferred in less than one minute from the fuel can into the fuel tank on the gyro.

My son made a small cart type carrier on wheels to move the fuel transfer system about. Now it's just a matter of wheeling the small carry-cart with the fuel transfer system on it out to the gyro, give the handle a few turns and wow, the tank is refilled ! I am so pampered !

Down through the years I have received the most unusual gifts from my children. Coby gave me a set of screw drivers one year. Linda gave me a set of motorcycle handle bar grips another time. I hasten to add thatI used and much appreciated all those gifts. Those children had my number!

I overheard my daughter Donna ,when she was about eight years of age and her friend discussing their mothers. My daughter had the last word when she proudly proclaimed , " well, my mother is a TOMBOY !" So I guess unusual gifts are just right for a tomboy mom.

Till next time.
Marion Springer

Pigeon eggs - baby pigeons, etc.

2009-02-01T12:01:00.000-08:00

As my grandma would say, I put the horse before the cart...I had intended to post first, a picture of a small egg incubator with a pigeon egg in it and second, a tiny baby pigeon just hatched and finally, the picture of a day old baby pigeon that did make it through my clumsy attemp to post photos.

Maybe another day I will manage to post a picture of the egg in the incubator.

Pigeon eggs are white in color and small, about 1 &1/2 inch in length and about 1 inch high. The babys when hatched are very tiny. When left in their parents care the baby will double it's weight in 24 hours. In the wild they develop incredibaly fast. Development is much slower when hand raised . The baby in the photo above is one day old. If he had been with his pigeon parents he would have been much larger than he is in the picture.

I found a baby pigeon that looked to be about a week old that had been attacked . It's scalp had been torn away and his skull was exposed. Remarkably, he susrvived the damage to his head. He will be forever bald with no feathers on his head but he is alive.

It has always amazed me that birds and animals seem to know who will help them when they are in distress ( see the recent post " The Hitching Pigeon" . ) I could cite numerous other instances where birds literally cried out for help. For example, several days ago I stepped outside and several pigeons flew toward me. One of them literally flew into my foot then he landed beside me so close that I nearly stepped on him. He had apparently been attacked and there was damage to his back. He let me pick him up and put him in a cage where I can care for him and eventually when he is healed , set him free. He surely did know how to get the help he needed.

Till next time.

Marion Springer

Oh , My Poor Puppy !

2009-01-26T21:10:00.001-08:00

Meet Connie, one of my two Dobermans. Connie and her brother Buddy are my 21 month old pups . They are a lively pair.

Friday had already been a long day. My daughter and I had just returned home from a day in town . It takes an hour to drive to town from our home in the desert and an hour to get back home .

Friday's trip to town had included a visit to the doctor which had taken up much of the day so both my daughter and I were happy to finally get home and I was looking forward to just taking it easy for what little was left of the day.

But as it turned out, relaxing was not an option. We were soon on the road to town again !

My two Doberman pups and our other little dog were happy to have us home and they were running around and being very frisky. Then I noticed a tuft of hair standing up on Connie's back . It was a fresh tear in her skin...a V shaped tear on her back . The legs of the V were about three inches long. It was nearly 4PM and every Vetinary office we called were closing at 5 PM.

There is an excellent Emergency Animal Clinic in town and they are open all night. Wouldn't you know, the Clinic had moved to a new location since we had last used their services so that entailed some driving about to locate them. Their new location is so new it doesn't even have the name on the building , so that really made it hard to find!

But we did find them and Dr. Edwards stitched up the tear in Connie's back. Connie and her brother Buddy, have a condition known as Von Willibrand's disease. What that means is that their blood does not coagulate as it should and should they sustain an injury and start bleeding it could be fatal to them. Fortunately, the tear in Connie's skin was not bleeding.

Connie spent the night in the hospital and she is home now and is wearing a hood to keep her from pulling the stitches out. She is very unhappy having to wear the hood . The white item you can see in the photo is one of the drain tubes which the doctor placed in the tear. I don't know what she caught her skin on to cause the damage but she is going to be Ok and I'm happy about that. My budget took a big hit with the emergency repair service but she is worth it!

Till next time .
Marion Springer

The Hitchhiking Pigeon

2009-01-18T18:18:00.000-08:00

I had been down working on my gyro hangar all day and finally packed up the tools and started for home about a mile and a half away. I hadn't gone very far when I saw the pigeon.

He was just standing there along the side of the road . I stopped the car about even with him and he didn't move at all. I approached him , talking to him all the while and still he just stood there. I had the feeling that he was waiting just for me.

He walked a few inches away and then stopped and waited for me to pick him up. He didn't struggle, or try to get free. It was eerie , but nice too.

I held him during the ride home he was very relaxed and comfortable, not struggling at all. A large flock of pigeons live on my place. When the new bird is well settled I will put him outside with the other birds .

My daughter Linda had a pigeon that called out to her for help. Linda was sitting on the porch when a beautiful black and white pigeon circled her several times just screaming. The pigeon landed nearby and we could tell that it was injured.

Later that evening it went into an open cage and we closed the cage door and cared for the bird for several weeks until her leg healed .

When her leg was well we opened the cage door and set her free. She spent quite a bit of time sitting and staring at Linda's window.

It was obvious that the bird wanted to be taken in so Linda took her into her home and the pigeon became Linda's beautiful Lacy . The black and white speckled bird was in pigeon heaven living with Linda.

Birds are smart. I don't know if the hitchhiking pigeon I brought home had followed me when I left home that morning or if he was a total stranger to me and just needed help. He doesn't appear to be injured . I think he was just lost and probably scared for it was getting late in the day with night not too far away .

He knew when I stopped that I would help him . He was very happy to get some food when I got him home and settled in . He has a home for as long as it pleases him to stay here.

Till next time.
Marion Springer

My Bensen Gyrocopter, Born Free

2008-12-29T16:42:00.000-08:00

There is a caste system in aviation that says , bigger and more expensive aircraft are better and more deserving . I have to admit to belonging to that system way back in the early 60's when my husband Docko, saw an ad in Popular Mechanics or Popular Science, or some such magazine, about something called a " Bensen Gyrocopter".

The picture was of a small machine that looked like a tiny helicopter where the pilot sat out in the open , very exposed to everything and was held onto the fragile looking machine by a simple seat belt ! My guy was in love with that machine ! It was all he talked about . I tried to tune him out for I was a real pilot ! I flew AIRPLANES...real aircraft, in other words. And that pile of square aluminum tubing didn't fit my picture of a real flying machine. The old caste system was alive and well !

He tried various methods to get me to warm up to the gyro. He touted the fact that it came in kit form and he would build it himself, therefore it would not cost a fortune to build.

Further, he could teach himself to fly it and fly it out of our back yard...that was what the advertisement said anyway. He persevered and finally started buying gyrocopter kits and building his dream machine.

Skip ahead to where it was finally finished and we flew it. My first lift-off in his gyro and I lost my heart forever to that funny looking machine.

All that was way back when my children were very young ( the oldest one is 58 now ) and I have flown gyros all down through those years and loved every minute of it. Ok, I gave my hearing to the loud unmuffled McCulloch engine, but who can say that I wouldn't have lost my hearing if I never saw a gyro ? The gyro gave me more than it ever took from me. The gyro and I are getting along in years but we're still flying and enjoying it.

The photo at the left is of me flying my Bensen Gyrocopter at the Ken Brock Freedom Fly-in a couple of months ago in September.

I still see the old aviation caste system at times , usually by high time corporate pilots , you know , the guys who fly the boss to some airport and stand around and wait all day for him to be driven back to the airport so the corporate pilot can fly him back home . The biz jets they fly can't possibly give one the pleasure that my simple little Bensen gyro does and has for so many many years . The small Bensen is living proof that less is more !

Till next time

Marion Springer , CFI - Gyro-ret.

Today I lost a Friend

2008-12-26T20:19:00.000-08:00

His name was Bobby Bettis. He was a gyro pilot and belonged to the group of gyro pilots that I hang out with. He always had a smile on his face and a willing hand to help whoever needed his assistance.

I had been retired from gyro flying for several years after the passing of my husband but still I needed to be around gyros and gyro pilots. Bobby always met me with a hug and then he would hold his flight helmet out to me and tell me to go fly his gyro. I never did fly his gyro but his generousity in offering it to me spoke volumes about him.

When I decided to fly again, Bobby generously gave his time and expertise to work on my engine and bring it up to flying condition. In earlier days he had flown with the same make of engine so he had the necessary knowledge to make my engine airworthy. The engine runs just fine.

Bobby was a member of Chapter 1 and was a safety officer in that group. His pilot briefings at each fly-in were very professionally done. He also wrote a piece on safety for Chapter 1's monthly newsletter.

It was always pleasant to just sit and talk with Bobby. His was always a voice of reason and insight. He died today . I will miss him.

Till next time.

Marion Springer

The Snow of Winter of OH-8!

2008-12-26T19:47:00.000-08:00

The photo to the left is of my daughter Linda's bead shop which is still under construction and in the picture the bead shop is also under a lot of snow!

That's the snow I was complaining about in the last post...the snow that doesn't seem to belong in sunny Southern California.

As you can see in the picture , it's all desert where we live...miles and miles of desert.

When the snow covered the area it was a very beautiful picture but now the snow is gone and we're back to just beautiful desert. The way I like it best.
Till next time.
Marion Springer

The Winter of OH-8 !

2008-12-26T16:32:00.000-08:00

Snow, beautiful soft white snow. It's georgous as is drifts down and settles on everything below. When the sun shines on it , it sparkles like diamonds .

I love snow...I love it on the distant mountains, on Christmas cards, in Currier and Ives prints, I love it anywhere as long as it is not close to me.

Last week the snow was close to me. Nearly a foot deep close to me. For 7 days close to me. And I live in Sunny southern California where it is almost against the law for it to snow.

A winter storm came roaring down from somewhere and dumped the snow on us and for the first time in the nearly 20 years that I've been living in the high desert of Ca. we were snowed in, roads impassable, water pipes bursting, the whole nine yards of winter weather.

Usually each winter we will get one storm that drops a dusting of snow that is gone in a few hours, but not this time. I know , I know, I'm whining. My children say about me , " mom thinks a cold day is anytime the temperature is less than 80 degrees ".

We have it easy compared to those who live in areas where the winter snows bring many hardships but living down here in the beautiful desert of sunny California it is easy to get spoiled regarding the weather.

But now the snow is mostly gone from my place and the weather is sunny, ( cool 50 degrees sunny ) and lookin' good again.

As for me, I'm looking forward to those good old hot days of summer!
Till next time
Marion Springer

Born Free's new home

2008-11-24T09:57:00.000-08:00

Born Free is the name of my Bensen gyrocopter. Today it has a new home...it's still my gyro, I didn't sell it and I never will, but yesterday my good friend and fellow gyro pilot Teddy helped me move my beloved gyro from his hangar across the runway to a hangar of it's own .

For the last year Teddy has generously shared his hangar space with my gyro , from the time it was taken to his hangar to be gone through and brought up to flying condition , then started flying again and until yesterday it has been in his place. Teddy and other gyro friends did the overhaul of my machine and got me flying again and they did it all for only a ' thank you ' , for their services . Good friends like that are a treasure.

The new hangar, new to my gyro anyway, is a leaky old place that at the moment is full of items and junk left behind by the former tennant . It needs to be cleaned out, cleaned up and made worthy of my gyro. I'm looking forward to doing the hangar clean up and making the place my own where I can go and tinker and clean and polish my machine .

I might even put an easy chair in the hangar where I can sit and in my mind, fly again some of those wonderful flights that made my life so perfect and to plan future flights as well.

Thank you Teddy for all you have done for me and my gyro. You are a true frind.

Till next time.
Marion Springer

Find Your own ladybug

2008-11-08T20:37:00.000-08:00

One day my five year old granddaughter decided that she wanted a lady bug so she went went looking for one . After hours of searching she finally found one. She proudly brought her trophy in to show me . She put it in a coffee can and I punched holes in the lid so the bug could have air and that happy little girl carried the lady buy in the can around all the rest of the day.

Toward evening I began to tell her that she should set the lady bug free . My pleas fell on deaf ears. Finally I sat granddaughter down and listed every reason I could think of why she should let the bug go.

She listened without interrupting until I had finished speaking. Then she looked me in the eye and very seriously, said,
"Grandma, I looked all morning for that lady bug. Now if you want to turn a lady bug loose, why don't you go find your own lady bug?".

What could I say?

Eventually she did free the lady bug.

Till next time.
Marion Springer

Packrats...I'm one !

2008-11-07T19:11:00.000-08:00

I have a friend who says that both she and her husband are packrats and she firmly believes that two packrats should never be allowed to marry. She is probably right. One packrat at a time is more than enough! I should know because I am one.

I never throw anything away that I might need in the future and then I can't find it when I do need it for it's lost in everything else I have saved!

You would think that it would be simple to write an address or important piece of information on a piece of paper and put it in a safe place where you can lay your hands on it when it's needed, but somehow I've never mastered the trick of finding it again because by the time I need it , it's somewhere deep under under a mountain of other pieces of 'saved' paper.

Do you remember Lucile Ball in the old , " I love Lucy ", T V shows ? Remember what a disaster her record keeping was ? Well, her record keeping disasters look good compared to mine.

When my children were young they had a pretty ring that they all fought over. All claimed onership and it was a constant bone of contention between them . During one time of noisy sibbling squabbling over the ring I took it away from them and put it in a safe place where they wouldn't be able to find it to fight over again...it worked, for I forgot where I hid it and it never turned up to cause a ruckus between the children again. And so, all these years later I'm still putting things away never to be seen again.

I knew a man who had a unique method of keeping track of the morning chores he had to do before he left for work. Not trusting his memory , and not wanting to leave out anything, he stuck small post-it-notes , each one listing a chore to be done, on the front of his shirt. I was amused when I first saw it but now I'm having second thoughts about it. He was pretty darn smart !

I'm now thinking that everytime I put something away that I will write it's location on a post-it-note and stick it on the living room wall. I'll make columns of colorful little notes . Then when I need something I've put away , I should be able to find it easily . Nah......that's just wishful thinking because the little columns of notes would be three or four deep by the time I needed to find something and I'd still be a darn packrat and whatever I'd put away would still be lost in a good safe place.

Till next time.
Marion Springer

Baby Birds and Mama Springer

2008-10-27T23:32:00.000-07:00

I like birds. I'm not a bird watcher who joins bird watching clubs and goes looking for birds...I just enjoy watching them in my yard. And I like helping the ones who need help. Right now I have one inside who has a thorn in his leg and he will see the doctor tomorrow. Another one is in a cage recovering from injuries sustained from a hawk attack. He is healing nicely and will be released soon.

When I moved to my home on it's 10 acres of sage brush with no neighbors for a mile in either direction, I was all alone with only my two dogs . No birds around at all, then one day a lone pigeon showed up and I put some food out for him.

The next day he was back and he had brought some pigeon friends with him. Then more and more came and they stayed . I had a couple of large cages built and eventually the pigeons were roosting at night in the cages...it wasn't long before the cages were too small to hold the growing pigeon flock. They began nesting in the cages and producing baby pigeons at an alarming rate. They are prolific producers ! Next , I built a pigeon house for the now large flock.

I have to admit that pigeon parents are smarter than I am for you see, when they determine that a baby pigeon is defective they put it out of the nest and let it die. It breaks my heart to see a tiny baby bird out of it's nest and freezing to death while the parents continue to ignore it. So I bring the little baby inside the house and warm it up and feed it and try to keep it alive. If the parents have abandoned it then it's guaranteed the baby won't make it...somehow the parent birds knew it wouldn't but I had to learn it the hard way. Even if I do know an abandoned or badly injured bird won't survive I take it inside and at least provide a place where it can pass on in peace and dignity. I guess you could say that as well as an amature bird hospital I provide a bird hospice.

Often times babies will get picked on by other birds and will be injured. It seems the parents don't spend much time caring for the young ones so when I find an injured baby, I bring it inside and take care of it. When I take a baby bird away from it's parents my children say, " mom did a hostile take-over today". In the last couple of years I probably have hand fed and raised well over a hundred little pigeons. When they learn to feed themselves and are old enough to make it on their own, I set them free.

I love to watch the pigeons fly. Being a flyer myself, I find it interesting how they lose altitude when they want to come down and land . Some of them will kind of stair step down, losing a few feet at a time then kind of leveling off and then dropping down a few more feet until they are low enough to land. Some of them will simply bring their wings up together and loose altitude quickly then recover to level flight and then land.

And the landings ! They land just like I do in my gyro...I descend to about 2 to 3 feet above the ground and then I flare the rotor blades . Flaring the blades slows the forward speed and allows the gyro to touch down gently and the birds do the same thing to land . They flare their wings ( always landing into the wind as I do ) and then they touch down gently. Well, the older birds land gently. Sometimes the younger ones will drop in a little hard or bounce on landing. New pilots, you know. But not to worry , they get the hang of it quickly.

It is so neat to see them coming in to land when the wind is blowing because they sometimes hover in the air before landing. Sometimes a couple of birds will fly to me and land on my head or shoulders. The do that especially around feeding time!

Till next time.
Marion Springer

Isn't That The Way It Goes ?

2008-10-22T15:30:00.000-07:00

I've heard it said that the best laid plans often go astray, and so my daughter Linda's plans did
just that...they went astray.

The annual gyro fly-in was over, her daughter and son in law had returned home and life had settled down . The weather was good. The time was right she thought ,to get back to work on her bead shop.

Linda makes beads by what is called the , Lampwork , method. She uses a torch fueled by propane and oxygen and heats glass rods over a mandrel . When the glass is in a molten state it melts onto the mandrel which is being rolled by Linda's fingers . The glass builds up into whatever kind or shape of bead she has in mind. She can put flowers , leaves, swirls, and any kind of image or color of glass she chooses into the hot bead. Her beads are beautiful !
This is the barest thumbnail description of her craft as I am only an observer of her work, not a bead artist as she is . I don't mess with propane torches and the like. My passion is flying gyrocopters.

All that is by way of telling you about Linda's broken ankle ...broken in two places, no less.

She and her brother Dave, are building her a bead shop on her property where she will be able to do her bead work. She planned, saved money for the shop , agonized over the size of shop, bought doors and windows and building material for the shop and then thought some more about how she wanted everything built.

Finally, her plans were finalized and the building process began. Dave is an electrical contractor so he is quite busy with his own work but whenever he had free time he helped Linda with her bead shop project.

The foundation was made, the floor and framing done, the roof was almost finished.

Then on a glorious day, weatherwise , Linda was going to do some work on the roof of her shop, just a little finishing up before the final metal roofing was put on. She, with my help, I must admit , put up the very tall ladder, she planned to use .

I was planning to go work on my gyro, and so she would be alone should she fall.... A mother is a mother for life , I'm finding out, so I protested to her , " No, Linda, please don't go up on top of the roof". You could fall and you will be here alone with no one to help you". She said that she wouldn't go on top but would just go up to the edge of the roof.

I left after telling her , "at least put your cell phone in your pocket so you can call if you need help".

Twenty minutes later I received a call that she had fallen and needed help...I rushed over, breaking a speed record for an old mama running and found her lying on her kitchen floor. She had managed to crawl on her hands and knees , a distance of about 60 feet or so and make it up four steps and into her home, no mean feat with a broken ankle !

She said that she had decided not to use the tall ladder after all and had left it standing while she used a shorter, 6 foot ladder close to it. There had been no wind at all that day until she got up on the 6 foot ladder and then, wouldn't you know, a gust of wind came out of nowhere and toppled the tall ladder over onto Linda and the shorter ladder. In the fall , her foot got tangled in a rung of the ladder and sure, enough, the ankle was broken.

We went the ER route and after waiting half a day and not getting seen by a doctor, we went to a doctor in private practice and he put a cast on her leg after X-Rays showed that it was indeed, broken in two places , just above the ankle.

She is proving to be a good patient, and is getting a little cabin fever at this point but still taking it easy and following doctor's orders.

As for me, I'm glad she lives so close so that I can look in on her and help her in any way needed.

Meanwhile, the glorious weather is fast going away and soon it will be winter-just about the time the cast comes off the leg- and probably the finishing of the bead shop will be done in the new year. But for now, Linda sits in a chair by the door , with her leg in a cast and watches her brother as he finds time , doing the wiring for her bead shop.

Yes, her best laid plans did absolutely go astray.
Marion Springer , Linda's mom

I'm flying again !

2008-10-02T17:55:00.000-07:00

After my husband passed away my world was simply torn asunder. I retired from gyrocopter flying and gyro flight instructing and tried to put my life back together again.
I needed to make a home for myself and learn to live alone after 48 1/2 years of marriage.
It took time but it was done and finally I was ready to fly again.
A group of gyro friends that I hang out with were kind enough to go through my gyro and make it airworthy after it's long time of sitting in a hangar.
Finally the big day came on June 14, 2008. My gyro engine doesn't have a starter so one of my flying buddies, Peter Prentice, hand propped my engine to get it started and I taxiied out onto the El Mirage dry lake bed and took off for the first time in 12 1/2 years.
Teddy Udala, another gyro flying buddy followed me out to the lake in his van . As he drove he had one eye on the camera filming what he called , " A historical Moment", of my return to the air.
It had been nearly 13 years since I had last flown and the flat surface of the lake bed is all one color which sometimes makes it difficult to judge height above the ground. My eyes were nearly 13 years older than they were on my last flight so I knew I would need some time for the old eyes to adjust to the lake bed. I had recently had a vision check and bought new glasses. I had asked the doctor to check my depth perception carefully. She did and pronounced it to be ' perfect'. But depth perception on a machine in the doctor's office and the real thing on the lake bed are two different things !
I took off , then leveled off at what I figured to be about 15 to 20 feet above the surface.
My gyro doesn't have an alitmeter but that will be remedied soon ! Looking down, I wasn't really sure whether I was 15 or 20 or even 50 feet AGL ( above ground level ). " Well, old gal" , I said to myself, " maybe you should climb a bit lest you stick the nose of your pretty gyro into the ground!". So, I climbed and flew around for nearly an hour. It was simply wonderful to be back in the air in my Bensen gyro.
My gyro friends, Teddy, Peter and Bobby were out on the lake bed taking pictures of my fly-bys. I knew that they wanted me to land near-by for the camera...they didn't know that my eyes were taking their own sweet time getting adjusted to the sameness of the lake bed. In other words, my landing probably wasn't going to be 'camera ready' and not want wanting to embarass myself by a bad lading or worse, bend something, I decided to land down the lake aways from them.
A standard landing is done by descending to about 3 to 4 feet above the surface, reducing power and when the gyro settles then gently bringing the control stick back to flare the blades . That slows the gyro and allows a very gentle tail wheel first , touchdown with no roll out .
Still not 100 percent sure of my altitude , I descended to what I thought ( hoped ) to be about 5 to 6 feet above the surface of the lake bed. I had decided to make a no flare landing with main wheels touching first . I leveled the gyro, reduced the power slightly and let the gyro settle down toward the ground in a level, no flare attitude. I figured that when the wheels touched the ground, I would know I had arrived. It worked very well and I touched down gently. The camera caught the landing after all and you can see the flat descent to touch down.
I figured with a good one under my belt that I should do some landing practice and I did just that. I'm happy to say that the old eyes have adjusted and I'm not having any problems with depth perception , Oh happy day !
To be 79 1/2 years of age and to be flying my gyro again is wonderful. I am blessed.
Marion Springer