Tag: Shirley Jennings

French gyroplanes, Gyroplanes of yesteryear, My books

This Way Up pictorial

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Despite managing to squeeze a few photos into the new book, I would’ve liked to include a lot more had publishing constraints been able to accommodate them. However, thanks the wonders of the World Wide Web, I can stick ’em all on here!

Déjà vu. Not once but twice – with huge thanks to my parents and my ever-generous boss, Paul Mitchell – they gave me the most beautiful aircraft ever designed! How lucky can anyone get. What a monumental shame that the French attempted to cover up the chain of errors on their part, and used the Paris tragedy as an excuse to put an end to her. The greater tragedy is that it should never have happened at all. Concorde will always be iconic.

May 1985: a considerably more modest first flight

My favourite light aircraft: some of the Grumman Cheetahs at Blackbushe during the mid-eighties. My log book entries record G-MELD, FANG, PAWS, HASL, PURR, BGFG, JULY, BHSF, IFLI, BGVW, and OPPL. No one warned me that flying is addictive…

Somewhere there’s an old photo album containing evidence of my defection to Piper aircraft at White Waltham – the operative word being ‘somewhere.’ I’ll catch up dreckly. Meanwhile, my Cherokees were G-AVWA, AXTH, AWBS, AVSI, AXIO, BBIX, ATVL, and my favourite PA28-140, G-AVLF. Of the 161’s, I logged time in G-BOYH, BOYI, BNNS, BRDG, BRDF, BRDM, but the heavy Warriors didn’t really wag my tail.

This is all I can find on the Gat-1 sim. The cockpit looks the same but I don’t remember Gatty having the wings and tail. It was a brilliant little gadget, I hope it still survives somewhere.

In that same missing photo album is G-BNKX, the rattling little Robinson R22, and Chevvron motor-glider G-MVIP, both of which opened my eyes to new possibilities. And then, this happened…

Ken and Little Nellie: it was all their fault!

And so on to the wonderful utopia that was St. Merryn…

My mum with Jon Erskine at St. Merryn. This same machine was my first experience of minimalist flying.
Cheers Jon!

I used to have some super photos of Chris flying the Wombat. Bob Bond was only with us for about six weeks. A talented craftsman and natural pilot, he wanted to surprise Chris by carving him a model of the Wombat, and asked if he could borrow my photos to work from. Two weeks later, Bob was killed alongside Chris on the Kemble glider.

Magni Days 1997. First new type, courtesy of Lisa’s M18

My mate Keith, practising using the wind.

St. Merryn moments…

Don’t try this at home. The photographer thought that by laying on his back amid the trampling crowds, it would make it look like we were airborne – that’s why I was laughing. We were still tied to the trailer!

Not sure about that headline…

Bois de la Pierre 2005: we could not believe our eyes! Never did I dream that one day, Delta-J and me would be a part of it too.

2009. 600 Miles on the wrong side of the road, towing my precious cargo: it scared the hell out of me but it was so worth it.

Le Coupe Icare: what a marvellously bonkers experience!

Followed by the stunning panorama of Lac d’Annecy

My good friend and occasional travel companion: John, with the paraplane

2014. The transition begins.

She’ll always be Delta-J to me

Our minimally restrained prototype tailplane. Looking back at the inflight videos with the winglets clearly fluttering – how the heck did they persuade me to fly her like this! But what a difference it made in handling.

3 Months later: slightly reshaped, beefed up, bonded and double bracketed. Damn, she pretty.

Never surrender. Our little feline fighter – she would not give in!

Pyrenean pique-niques

Good friends, wonderful memories

And all because of a chance encounter with Ken Wallis. Thanks to dilligence of the St. Merryn Gyronauts – I truly stand on the shoulders of giants.

Gyro-glider & rotor handling

Grinning on the wind!

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An excerpt from the original Short Hops, now resurrected in This Way Up. A most exceptional day at St. Merryn, playing with a pair of gyro-gliders in a wind so powerful that we were pulling the tow cars instead of the other way around. I’ve never known anything like it.

It was a cracking autumnal day of October 1995; an ice-white sun glaring in the pale sky and a howling wind from the south west that snatched the breath from our lungs. Perfect kiting weather! Normally the glider needs to be towed forward to gain lift, but with a wind speed like that it could be tethered and flown from a stationary point. No one would dream of flying in such conditions in the fixed-wing world, and as a newly qualified convert in the art of autorotation, I have to admit that I would’ve thought twice had our veterans, Chris Julian and Tony Philpotts not been with us.

With five of us eager to play, we dusted off Tony’s old gyro-glider and Chris Shilling settled into the seat as we hitched up to the car. With Old Faithful tied onto my car and Derek installed at the wheel, I hopped onboard clutching my video camera and strapped in alongside Chris Julian, as Derek began to drag us out into the teeth of the gale. Away from the shelter of the hangar it was difficult to move upwind, and even more difficult to stop going downwind – I was almost taken off my feet! Our ears were blasted by a seething tide of air, plucking the speech from our mouths and scattering words like paper in the wind.

Derek went to help Chris-S spin up, while I hung onto the stick ready for the difficult task of trying to coax the rotor blades into life as Chris began to push them round. It wasn’t easy. Chris and Derek were pushing like crazy, striving to give the blades enough rotation to cope with all that oncoming airspeed, while Chris-S and me grimly nursed the bucking control sticks, trying to stabilise the rotors long enough to form a disc in the relentless 35-40 mph wind. Perseverance eventually paid off, Chris-S being the first to lift with his lighter weight. Chris had joined me on the seat to help hold us down until the rotors had settled, and now I gingerly slid off and fought my way over to the centreline to do some filming, as Chris fastened himself into the middle of the seat. When he was ready he let the stick come back and freed the furiously spinning blades to the wind. The glider immediately sat back on the tailwheel, straining against the rope until Chris closed the disc a fraction to kill off the drag, and rose rapidly into the air. Synchronised kiting – you don’t see that every day!

The wind was shoving me in the back, threatening to bowl me over like a tumbleweed as I struggled to hold the camera steady and keep a pair of delighted Chrisses inside the viewfinder as they bobbed gleefully on the roaring torrent of air. Derek scrambled onboard with Chris-S when a brief lull settled the machines gently back to earth, but the extra weight proved too much and they couldn’t rise more than 5 feet, while Chris on Old Faithful waved mockingly from above, casually swinging his hands and feet. He yelled at me to come back, and planted the glider firmly on the deck for me to climb on. Our machine had longer rotors than Tony’s, so although our combined weight probably wasn’t far from that of Derek and Chris-S, the extra bit of rotor disc made all the difference and we rose easily.

Once into clean air, freed from the restraining influence of the ground, the glider went up like a lift as the wind blew even stronger – awesome! Chris let it climb to the full extent of the tow rope then handed over to me. The stick bucked in my hand and the airframe pulsed as the rotors fought against the constraint of the tow rope. Chris made a game of testing me, seeing how accurately I could position the glider where he wanted, being careful not to jerk the rope with visions of my car coming up to meet us, so powerful was the pull of the rotor disc above our heads. What terrific fun! Chris-S was happily floating alongside, so I gave control back to Chris and picked up my camcorder to do some air to air shots as Derek and Tony began to tow us very slowly down the runway, adding to the entertainment.

Chris-S crossed our path with some enthusiastic wide turns and steep banks as I tried to keep him in camera range from my own soaring perch that throbbed with the beat of the rotor blades. They were a rough fibreglass set of doubtful integrity that bounced enthusiatically at the best of times, and now they were spinning furiously. The cars crept down the runway in first gear, straining against the enormous drag of the rotor discs. When at last they reached the end of the line, instead of turning around to take us back to the start as with a normal gyro-glider run, Derek and Tony switched off their engines and surrendered to the forces of nature. It was brilliant! We opened the rotors to the wind and flew the gliders backwards through the air, pulling our cars along with us, how good was that! We played our new game for hours: kiting, then creeping forwards, kiting again before reversing back up the runway to kite once more, I remember it like yesterday – such brilliant fun!

I swapped over after a while to fly with Chris-S and take some film of Chris from Tony’s machine. That one had a shorter tow boom and tended to fly tipped back on its tail, so we had to hold the stick forward all the time. It also wore a rough set of home-made plastic blades, which unfortunately didn’t improve the precious recording of a memorable day – but at least it captured the spirit. The autumn chill began to make its presence known after several hours of riotous autorotation, creeping inside collars and cuffs through gaps in flight suits, numbing cold feet and fingers until we reluctantly called a halt and returned to the hangar, tired and stiff and absolutely elated. That was without doubt, the best gyro-gliding day ever!

Random ramblings

Enjoying the moment

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Another one from the archives…

Sitting here on a deserted Cornish airfield, I feel totally at peace; deeply connected to those who have gone before, their echoes never leave. The sky above is deep blue, gently fading to paler shades towards the horizon, decorated by a few feathery wisps and blobs of cloud. The faded windsock barely stirs in the warm breath of air and hangs limply from its pole like a wilted flower. Directly overhead, the sun is briefly filtered by a passing cloud, a fierce white orb burning through the depths of downy fleece. All is quiet except for the drone of insects going about their business, the cheerful twitterings of skylarks feeding on the wing and crickets chirping in the grass. Hay bales dot the fields between the runways, silent sentinels waiting patiently for collection. Rabbits creep into vision from burrows deep inside the bramble thickets, cropping the sun-browned grass ever shorter. The brambles that shield their homes are heavy with ripening blackberries, almost covering the blockwork of the old air raid shelter in front of me.

Delta-J is parked beside me, her bright red pod a splash of colour amid the late summers day. Her tank is full and she’s all checked out ready to go, but I’m in no rush to fly, happy just to be here in the place I love beyond all other, enjoying the solitude. The old tower building which houses our hangar stands tall behind me, empty sightless windows gazing out into the infinite blue. The wind turbines on the hill overlooking the airfield turn half heartedly like unwound clocks, each one pointing in a random direction as if uncertain of which way to go. The huge blades move lazily as if the effort of turning is all too much. St Eval church squats on the horizon to the right, the spider web of aerials marking St Merryn’s wartime twin. Fields of russet and green patchwork the land in between, rising up to meet the perfect blue of the sky. It’s too nice to spoil the moment with engine noise, I feel no need to break the spell. Let it be.

St. Merryn sky

Autorotational musings

Salute to the past.

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I wrote this in 2015, after an idyllic afternoon with my gyroplane on a special day. It was only meant as a private musing but it’s from the heart, so I’ll put it here in tribute to those who have been part of our autorotational journey.

G-BVDJ is 21 years old today. It was exactly 21 years ago on a Sunday afternoon at St. Merryn, when Chris Julian took her into the air for the very first time. The pile of metal we had carefully cut, shaped and bolted together now transformed, the process of creation hadn’t been in vain. I still remember how elated I was, how pretty she looked in the sky – how impossibly tiny. There were teething troubles naturally, little niggles to be ironed out over the following months, but now I owned a real flying machine. How cool was that!

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that 21 years later (29th May 2015 to be exact) we would be in the south of France, stirring the air together under the imperious gaze of the Pyrenees. Back then I had rarely left British shores and certainly had never ventured abroad by myself. To actually drive alone, some 800 miles on the wrong side of the road in a language I can barely speak, not to mention towing the most important part of my life behind on a trailer – nah, don’t be daft! Yet here we are, and it’s all because of gyroplanes.

21 years. That little red machine changed my life completely. With the encouragement of the late, great Ken Wallis, I left my home and moved 200 miles to be near our beloved airfield at St. Merryn, where a small group of veteran gyronauts patiently kept me the right way up as they shared their wisdom with the neophyte. ‘She won’t fly’ said the critics, ‘girls don‘t fly gyros.’ ‘She flies’ said my mentors, ‘like a bit of silk.’ And thanks to them and the gyro-glider, I did. They’re all gone now, the gurus whose autorotational roots traced back to the 1960’s, but the memories we made together and the skill they gave me to survive lives on, encapsulated in Delta-J. The little red machine they helped me to create and to master exists because of Chris Julian and Tony Philpotts. Along with Bob Partridge and Les Cload, their knowledge and friendship remains a vital part of the fabric that made me a gyronaut. They fly with us always.

As does the man who has done (and continues to do) more for the ordinary British gyronaut than any other – the unassuming and unsung hero that is Tony Melody. He took this gyro-glider fledgling who some said would never fly, and defied expectations by moulding a bundle of nerves into a qualified gyro pilot. A female one at that. Whatever next! And not forgetting Mark Hayward, who with his yellow Bensen lead us on many adventures, helping to build this new gyronaut’s confidence in straying from the local patch. Tony and Mark, to share your experience and great sense of fun has been an honour and a pleasure. You too will always be part of us.

That little red machine changed my life. Cursed with shyness, it’s almost impossible for me to make friends. People don’t notice you when you’re shy, normally I’m invisible. Delta-J defines me: with her, I become someone. People see who I really am and want to talk – ‘What is it? How does it work? Do you fly it?’ Since I took my first step on the autorotational path in 1990, all the friends I have are the direct result of becoming a gyronaut. People all over the world – many of whom I have never met – but brought together by the love of my little red flying machine. There are people who have travelled many miles to trust me with their lives, learning vital skills while enchanted with the magic of the gyro-glider; even now they keep in touch. I’m truly privileged.

The pioneering spirit that infused St. Merryn no longer survives in Britain these days. Any sign of enthusiasm for the homebuilt gyro is immediately crushed by the ignorant, and with it dies the innovation and curiosity to evolve. My veterans would be saddened by what we’ve become. Individuality is frowned upon and commercial clones have no soul. Even the basic skills are gone, the essential now re-labelled ‘old fashioned’ by those with no clue. But cross the English Channel and a whole new world of possibility opens up, and it’s here that Delta-J and me have rediscovered what we thought irretrievably lost.

21 years of memories, the strong roots that hold us firm as we begin our new incarnation with the friends who have become as important to me now as those of old. On this beautiful grass airstrip of Bois de la Pierre, the Gyro Club Toulouse has embraced our lost soul and given us new purpose. A positive attitude does wonders, innovation and ingenuity are alive and flourishing. The spirit of adventure and shared passion for gyro flight binds us in a strong community that’s joyful to be part of. The few commercially built machines co-exist in harmony with the homebuilts, just as it should be. If only the Brits could be so open minded.

So it’s nicely fitting that Delta-J should commemorate her 21st birthday with a flight from Bois de la Pierre today. A very different landscape from that where we began: huge open countryside with no sparkle of ocean on the horizon, just a colossal barrier of snow capped mountains to the south. It was an emotive flight through an overcast sky as we celebrated her coming of age and remembered all those who had made it possible. She’s more than just a machine, you see, every part of her holds a memory.

Sometimes I just can’t believe how lucky I am – and it all stems from Delta-J. I can’t imagine where life would’ve led me if I hadn’t discovered gyroplanes, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be a patch on this!