Mentone 2001

After Homer Bell's Fly In there's about a weeks time until the grand daddy of all air shows Oshkosh. Being as far north as Homers we really didn't want to go home and then turn around and go all the way back to Wisconsin so it was off to Mentone, Indiana, we went to the Yearly PRA "Popular Rotorcraft Association's Air Show". 

Donna had went home from Homer's and came back up again after work on Friday and somehow made record time again even after getting lost for an hour (we had never been to this event before and finding it at night was fun she said) she was there before she shoulda been lol. 

This is mainly an air show for gyrocopters. If any of you are even a little bit interested in Gyros this is a bunch of people and ships you need to go see. Every one was just super, even the FAA guy that reamed my arse lol. There were people there from all over the world not to mention all walks of life and the gyros were wonderful to get a look at. There was one called Mr. Gadget I think, that would have taken you well over an hour just to look at and that was if you didn't ask the owner any questions, it was really something to see.  There were several kit helicopters there, at least 4 RotorWays, 5 Baby Bells, and the Kenny HRH helicopter that was on its 2nd showing ever. I may be forgetting a few but I'm petty sure thats it.

Brandy, our daughter, thanks again to John Spurling got her first ride in our helicopter.

John took her up spun her around and around a few times and off they went lol. When she got back and the ship was wound down she exited the ship and I asked her what she thought,

my hair! my hair!

is all she would say holding her head lol.  She made a hasty trip straight to the bus to fix it lol.  Then she said she had a blast!   John Thanx!

While I was there, since I only had about a month left on my 90 day sign off from RotorWay, I got another 90 day signoff to hover from the main man himself Gary Goldsberry, President of the PRA (Popular Rotor Craft Association). Good thing I wasn't aware of who he was when I was showing him my hovering cause I would have been way nervous and probably blew it lol. Funny note here is Bill Orth, RotorWay's Chief Flight Instructor, wasn't to happy when he saw this sign-off in my log book when I was out there for my Phase II training. He asked who the hell that guy was?  My reply was Oh he's just some guy, just the president of the PRA, Bill grumbled something under his breath and walked off lol.  Personally, I thought it was kinda funny, wish I'd had my video camera. RotorWay's pretty funny about you going to anyone else other than them for training so be careful because they will get ya if they get a chance to just like they did me.

We didn't get many pictures while were here but we did get alot of video of our ship flying, my check ride and bunches of other folk's aircraft. Here's a few pictures of Brandy's first ride or bad hair day, which ever you'd like to call it lol.

Ken a friend was kind enough to loan us his truck
so we could go refuel our refueling unit and our stash of Pepsi.

Special Thanx! to everyone that was there and made it a wonderful time for us and to the folks of the PRA who helped put this show on making it possible for us to meet some super people and see some really kewl aircraft.