This was
the year of all years for us,
even more
so than last year when we got to see our ship fly over Homer's for
the very first time.
Homer's Fly-In
July, 2002
This was
the year of all years for us,
even more
so than last year when we got to see our ship fly over Homer's for
the very first time.
This year I wasn't just restricted to hovering I could actually take her into the air. The bad thing was I'd just gotten back from my Phase III training at RotorWay where things didn't go well and to put it bluntly I was all but afraid to fly my ship. Thanks to a lot of uplifting from friends there, some special mentoring from Charmienne Pohlman, a bit of flying with John Pohlman and last but far from least Scott Newhart for sitting next to me in my ship while I did all the things I had trouble with at RotorWay. We did some serious flying this year and on Sunday the last day of the Fly In Scott and I did several autos. That was the thing I had major problems with at RotorWay. The first couple of times I let the airspeed run amuck and after that I did great. Just to be sure I had the hang of it we did them a few more times and that's actually when I got my confidence back. After RotorWay I went to Tulsa and did a rerun with a CFI fellow there named Frank Sweet in a Schweitzer. I didn't have any trouble doing autos in it after the 3rd time with the exception of wagging the hell out of the tail on take off. The pedals in the Schweitzer are way touchy and took some serious getting used to, of course my excitement of doing so well didn't help anything either lol.
The thing that I was hung up on was, I wasn't sure I could perform in my RotorWay the way I did in the Schweitzer. Until I saw me do it myself I was, putting it mildly, "freaked out".
The Fly In was wonderful, like usual, ships were flying all the time, there were people there from everywhere and it was more fun then anything anywhere we'd been to. Best of all we got to see all the great friends we had made in the past once again, not to mention make some new ones.
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There was a fleet of Enstroms, 3 Safaris, and a few other types of helis like Bradleys, Bells, Hughes, and Robbies.....59 helicopters in all.
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This is a ship belonging to Scott and Bret Newhart
It's the finest Bell Iv'e ever seen. Every thing on it from nose to tail is picture perfect and flying in it is like sitting in you favorite chair with a robo view of the world.
There we're games such as helicopter golf where you use the wind from the rotorblades to push or pull a ball into a large circle which Chris Stevens won.
Another game was collecting small hoops from poles of varying heights on your left front skid, I broke one of their poles lol. That evet was won by Homer Bell himself.
The one I remember best was the bomb run which I did the flying and John Pohlman dropped the bombs. I thought this would be a problem for me because I had to hold a specific altitude and air speed or we would be disqualified but low and behold I did just great. John and I didn't win but in my mind we sure did lol. The winner of that event was Ron Spiker.
I got to fly in the Poker Run in our ship with Scott Newhart and we had a blast. Scott and I also went to the Dairy Queen with the gang totalling 19 helicopters. Donna and Brandy rode there with Brett in the twins Bell.
The whole experience like everything else was a super time.
Trophy winners
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Reserve
Grand Champion
Doug Busch
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Flew the
Furthest Dist.
to Homer's
Floyd
Vancannon flew his R22 from Arkansas
I could go on and on about this event for days lol. Homer and Sharon put on one hell of an event and anyone at all interested in helicopters would be the same way.
Thanks Homer and Sharon for all you two do, and thanks to the folks that pitch in and help.
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