I was a little under the weather for awhile so haven't posted in awhile . I think I was down from breathing all the smoke ( with ashes falling all over everything) during the raging forest fires in So. Ca. awhile back. The closest the fires were to us was about 40 miles but the smoke was so heavy here at times that we couldn't see more than a quarter of a mile.
Last weekend we had the Ken Brock Freedom fly-in on the El Mirage dry lake . The number of visitors was down from better times . Hopefully the economy will be better next year.
As far as gyro flying goes, it was a safe fly-in with no accidents. But we lost a fellow gyro pilot on Saturday due to a motorcycle accident. He was Mike Shallmann of Arizona. The photo above is Mike taxiing his gyro in from a flight earlier on the day of the bike accident which took his life.
Mike went riding just before dusk on a BMW motorcycle and ventured into an area where the lake bed is rough with small dirt mounds all over. Most of the lake is smooth as a table top but there are rough areas and that's where the accident happened. Apparently he hit a couple of dirt mounds at high speed and the bike started tumbling.
While traveling at high speed the dirt mounds would be impossible to see in time to avoid them.
My granddaughter Lynette went to the accident scene and was upset to see everyone standing around looking but not doing anything to help our friend Mike. Lynette is CPR certified so she moved in like a Marine drill sargent and took charge.
They worked on Mike until the emergency medical crews arrived. Despite their best efforts, Mike's time on earth was over and so he passed away shortly afterwards.
He was the first to arrive at the fly-in site at the beginning of the week and he did a lot of gyro flying over the week in his shiny original design gyro. Mike always did a buzz job at my home during the mornings of the fly-in. He called them ,
" wake up calls", and his ' wake up calls' were memorable. I shall miss them and I shall miss Mike. He believed in living life to the fullest. He said earlier on the day of his passing, " when my number is up , my number is up".
Till next time.
Marion Springer
No comments:
Post a Comment