Popular Mechanics has always been one of my favorite magazines. My late father introduced me to this wonderful resource at an early age. Later on in Middle and High School, I would read them during my time in the library and build some of the projects in shop class. The magazine had a number of areas that were of keen interest to me and one in particular was my passion, the aviation section! There was seemingly a new design every month; designs like Jeanie's Teenie and the Volksplane and many others. The classified section of the magazine always had plans and information on how to build your own personal aircraft. One could always count on seeing an ad from The Bensen Aircraft Corporation for a beautiful little "whirly bird" as he referred to it as. Month after month I would read the ads and never get over that little "gyrocopter".
The Bensen ads continued to appear month after month in many trade journals that I would read and at the age of 24, I finally broke down and ordered my information package from Bensen. It was post marked October 6th 1982; I still have it. I have probably read it a thousand times. It was also at around this time that my first daughter Jessica Lynn started becoming a household name. The "gyrocopter" would just have to wait. I was finishing up an internship program in Huntington, West Virginia and life was happening all around me.
Have you ever heard that when one door closes, another one opens; it is true. Enter Rick Jones and Donny Chapman, aka Okie Skidmore. These two guys took me under their wings and made me part of their flying world. I was a broke post college grad in an internship program. They were both successful business men and loved airplanes as much as I did. These are guys that gave me my first entries in my log book. Rick was working on his Private Ticket and would go on to fly as a corporate pilot out of Huntington, WV. Donny had several airplanes, an airport and was a CFI. What a match made in heaven. It would be these two guys that would "baptize" me into the best part of General Aviation, being around the great people that make it up.
So where did my love of the gyrocopter go? It just had to set and simmer for just a little while longer. The information package would be pulled out time and time again. My love of the gyroplane would never, never go away. My point in writing you today is really to encourage you today. Today is over, tomorrow will be hear before you know it. Like its predecessor yesterday, it to will be gone before you know it. If it is your desire to one day own a "gyrocopter", then do one thing this week that gets you heading in that direction. Schedule a ride, take a picture, call a gyroplane pilot and what ever you do, don't ever get over your love of one day flying the best aircraft type in the world, the gyroplane!
Never give up!
Jim
Return to the GyroJournal
Have you ever heard that when one door closes, another one opens; it is true. Enter Rick Jones and Donny Chapman, aka Okie Skidmore. These two guys took me under their wings and made me part of their flying world. I was a broke post college grad in an internship program. They were both successful business men and loved airplanes as much as I did. These are guys that gave me my first entries in my log book. Rick was working on his Private Ticket and would go on to fly as a corporate pilot out of Huntington, WV. Donny had several airplanes, an airport and was a CFI. What a match made in heaven. It would be these two guys that would "baptize" me into the best part of General Aviation, being around the great people that make it up.
So where did my love of the gyrocopter go? It just had to set and simmer for just a little while longer. The information package would be pulled out time and time again. My love of the gyroplane would never, never go away. My point in writing you today is really to encourage you today. Today is over, tomorrow will be hear before you know it. Like its predecessor yesterday, it to will be gone before you know it. If it is your desire to one day own a "gyrocopter", then do one thing this week that gets you heading in that direction. Schedule a ride, take a picture, call a gyroplane pilot and what ever you do, don't ever get over your love of one day flying the best aircraft type in the world, the gyroplane!
Never give up!
Jim
Return to the GyroJournal
No comments:
Post a Comment