The British Rotorcraft Association

Leicester DeBrief

The forecast for the day was certainly not encouraging and particularly in the east, a fair bit of clag was predicted. Reasonably strong winds from the North also sadly put a few of you off.

I have to report that sadly all this lead to the record not being challenged, however those of you that did get to Leicester made the day a very impressive and enjoyable fly in.

Some particular highlights for me were that one pilot made the trip all the way down from Perth, although with a couple of stopovers and an overnight at Barton. However great to Paul Kerry and welcome him to the event. We will read more about him later.

Another highlight for me was the arrival of Pat Gardner in his 912 powered cricket. Yep 912, the only one of its kind, “at the moment” and all built and properly processed through the LAA by Pat himself.

Having intentionally moved the event north, I thought it inevitable that some from “down South” wouldn’t make it and surprised given the wind that more from “up north” didn’t rock up. Great to meet the guys from Rufforth East as well and sad to hear how many pilots from all over were unable to attend due to unissued permits or maintenance issues.

If any of you would like to write in and tell us your story about those issues, we would always like to hear them. Get it off your chest as they say.

So 49 aircraft in all landed in the allotted window and we would thank you all for your valuable efforts and enjoyable banter.

Thank you also to all of you that helped in organizing the day as although we never set any records, I am pretty sure we all enjoyed the fly in.

A special thanks to John Truman who provided the PA system, organized two of the videographers (if that’s even a word) and guided me through the day to keep me focused. Ish.

Thank you also to the Volunteers, Hugh, Lorna, Vanessa, Sophie to name but a few who also put in the hours to make the day a success.

Popham 2019

Three old timers sheltering from the wind at Popham.

Gyro Record Breaker – Old Warden 2019

I am guessing that we will be hard pushed to beat the 60 number aircraft counted on the flightline at Old Warden last year. It has been a great couple of years and we hope this year really can top it.

The British Rotorcraft Association will provide lunch for all its members and we look forward to seeing you.

Safe flying. You will be able to PPR the day before and if you have any problems please let me know.

You can call me on my mobile 07841870568 or email membership@britishrotorcraftassociation.co.uk

Record Broken 2019

Amazingly the gyro community has done it again, for the third year running it has broken the record for the largest number of gyro’s flying into a single UK airfield in one day. The event has been held at Old Warden airfield in Bedfordshire. Home of the World Famous Shuttleworth Collection and James Bond’s famous autogyro “Little Nellie”. Gyro’s from Kent, Cumbria, Yorkshire, Merseyside, Shropshire, West Midlands, Oxfordshire, Norfolk, Essex,

Hampshire, Wiltshire and more turned out in force so that we could once again establish this record. According to a senior member of staff at Old Warden, the event attracted more visitors than some of their own evening airshows. A massive thank you to all of you that helped make this happen.

 

James and Norman’s global adventure

Here is an up date on these two gyronuts

Hard to believe how far our two adventurers have now gone. They both started off from a latitude similar to where they are now…within one degree…and also close enough to Greenwich (in the scale of things) to say they started at zero degrees longitude…but when they arrive at today’s destination, Taksimo, they will be on the 114th degree longitude! Even so, there are still over 2,300 nm of Russia to go before crossing into Alaska and each mile eastwards takes them further into the wilderness of Eastern Siberia.

Today’s flight see’s James Ketchell and Norman Surplus fly the gyros to Taksimo, a small airport in a very small town in the Stanovoy range of high mountains. They will stop half way at Kazachinskoye Airport at the northern end of Lake Baikal.

Of course, add mountains and weather and we may see the guys forego the full flight and land elsewhere…so keep an eye on the tracker.

Today’s photos are from the flight yesterday from Krasnoyarsk to Bratsk.

Make sure you bookmark the following sites to be able to follow this epic undertaking as it makes its way across this planet…

James tracker is at…

https://share.garmin.com/CaptainKetch

Norman’s tracker is at…

https://eur-share.inreach.garmin.com/GYROX

James website is at…

Home

James Facebook page is at…

https://www.facebook.com/jamesketchellpushinglimits/

Check out Norman’s FB page at

https://www.facebook.com/GyroxGoesGlobal-143540602375581/

and don’t forget to subscribe to James’s YouTube channel for regular videos from the flights at…

https://www.youtube.com/user/JKpushinglimits

How about giving a like to the flight support team’s pages…

Global Flight support team G.A.S.E…

www.facebook.com/aviationegypt

Russian Flight Support team…

https://www.facebook.com/MAKGAServices/

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Gyro Record Breaker 2019.

63 of these amazing aircraft, the greatest number yet, gathered at the world famous home of the Shuttleworth Collection. Unfortunately the video is of the 2017 fly in but still well worth a watch and if you did fly in chances are you are in it.