Guys im having one of those nights where im a long way from my gyro and havent flown in a while and im being obsessed. Say anything or post your coolest gyro pic or spin a yarn about when you almost crashed and died.

Cheers
pete

Helicopters

Welcome to the thread, to you and your 1.5 seconds of reaction time to lower the collective or you're toast in an engine failure

Nah kidding, helis are cool Lol Whats the story behind that pic?

Price Costco 1995 intake fire snuffed out the engine ay a 130 foot hover over roof.
1 st. load placed on the way back for the second

Two back fires and a chuga chuga chuga collective down & on the roof in 4 seconds

The S58 is a great machine, We flew a two man crew. If it was a Huey the higher disk loading would be a pain

Apart from a few engine out landings... but none that had me worried...

The worst scary moment was taking off from a wet, muddy strip and realizing I was going sidewards and mud slinging off the tires (and hitting the prop). It was very subtle... it was my piece of wool that saved me (and skill)

But rudder fixed that. Had I let it continue, it might have gotten a bit interesting

When will you be able to fly again? Hey... MadMax signed up... but he hasn't posted yet? Kick his butt please

Hate to see that big toe get stuck anywhere

Just waiting on the autoflight box to get freighted from hamilton NZ. Down on me arse broke atm after my ute blew up 110km north of tennant creek, ended up selling to a truck driver for $500 cash on the spot and hitch hiked down to alice. Time to save up for the inevitable 3+ day flight or however long it will take to fly the machine back down from the top end

Max is alive and well, i was at his place the other day when the ute bonnet cable snapped so we got the angle grinder and cut a big hole on the bonnet and bash the spring lock out with a crowbar, then just used an occy strap to hold the bonnet closed. maybe a good thing i got rid of that bloody ute LOL

Where is the gyro? Is it safe?

Yep its up at maxes in the topend, it couldn't be safer

I had typed out a fantastic story for you. Full of danger and reckless abandon.
Our internet on Guam got hacked (island wide )yesterday and it never posted.
Suffice to say I will relay it at a later time, but since bike wreck I havent flown either and it sucks...

Cant wait for it henry

My scariest time by far was the first solo when I lifted off. I was thinking , shit, im in trouble now

The second scariest would of been that gearbox failure last time i flew coz when i felt the bump and heard the sound i imagined it was falling apart but after a few seconds i realised, im still in the air, LOL

I've had quite a few interesting moments over the years. Only twice was I really scared the other times I either had too little time to feel any way or I was prepared - eg. if you plan where you are going to land when your engine fails when it fails you just land there - not that stressful. However I was flying out of a higher altitude strip (for Australia) but I was not worried as my SU carbie had a piston which the needle rode on which was pressure compensating.

Anyway it was jammed in a rich position, I had a air filter over it so I had no way of knowing. It was a direct drive VW so not great power to weight ratio so given the altitude I did not expect blistering performance. My mate took off first and I followed. I balanced on the mains and got airborne and waited to get on the hump (usually I'd get off around 22mph and then accelerate in ground effect to 35mph and it would climb out flat). It didn't want to climb for a second or two and was about to cut power and land - which I should of but it started to climb out ok. Too late I realized this was actually me hitting a thermal I got to about 100 odd feet and then flew out of the thermal and in spite of full power stopped climbing. unfortunately I was now too close to the end of the strip which was surrounded by 80ft high gum trees I couldn't turn back without loosing too much height so I was committed to a very wide and gentle turn to get back into a position where I could land again. Trees tops where only 20 odd feet below me and if I moved the stick 1mm forward or back it started to sink. I have full throttle on and I spend the next few minutes working my way around back to the airstrip picking the gaps in the trees I would land in if my engine failed. All I can say is I have never been so terrified knowing I had only one out - keep it at the perfect airspeed and attitude until I could get around and hope I didn't hit any sink.

I finally made it around and after landing and stopping there were two black streaks on each prop in line with the exhaust. I must have been trailing a nice black sooty cloud behind me the whole way. Rich as hell.

Still don't know how it got jammed up figure some gunk got in there but I kept an eye on the carb thereafter.