20 | February-March 2017 | Powered Sport Flying Gyroplane Adventure a Bavarian castle that was apparently one of mad King Ludwig’s unbuilt plans and which looks like the famous Neuschwanstein in Germany. (Apparently very popular for weddings!) The great beauty of the gyro was apparent immediately in that we could fly as low as we liked and yet easily divert to see things of interest and do it at a reasonable speed of a steady 90-95 mph. This wasn’t something I could do in the trike so it took me a while to get used to the fact that, at that speed and height, in a little over two hours of flying, the horizon I could see in the distance would come and go several times. We landed after two hours at San Angelo airport, a class Delta with a boneyard of old jets. At least, I assume they were old. There were dozens all parked there, apparently not being used. A “Follow Me” truck about twice our size shepherded us to the fbo where we were able to request fuel, borrow a loaner car to get to their recommended restaurant (excellent catfish!) and stock up on free cookies. All very friendly. Leg 2–178 mi to Pecos We set off after lunch, heading towards Pecos. Immediately it was apparent that the wind gods had decided we were having it too easy. Despite the fact that we were on the same westerly heading, the 20 mph tailwind had become a headwind of 15 mph–a huge net change. We flew (slower) across acres and acres of oil derricks slowly going up and down like nodding ducks. I had seen the curious layout of the land here before from 35,000’ in a commercial jet–each derrick had its own cleared area and concrete base–but I couldn’t make out what on earth they were. Now it all became clear. Not all were moving, presumably a comment on the oil price. At Pecos, we were looking for fuel again, and as the gyro prefers 91 octane regular car gas, the airport manager, who presumably made his living at least partially from selling aviation fuel, was nevertheless kind enough to help us get into the local town, lending us his truck and gas cans to go and get the gas we needed. Leg 3–106 mi to Dell City: We set off from Pecos, intending to head to the east of El Paso and stay the night there. However, the headwind had gotten stronger and we were now fighting 25-30 mph winds. It soon became clear that our fuel situation would be marginal to get beyond El Paso, so we decided to divert to Dell City, east of El Paso. We landed, but this was no ‘city.’ In fact, there were no structures at all on the airport, let alone any fuel. We walked along the road and found some locals at a house near the airport, but they said that the City didn’t even have a real gas station and we wouldn’t find anything other than diesel (and maybe some moonshine…). Leg 4–70 mi to El Paso: As neither of those seemed like a sensible option to put in the fuel tank, we got back in the gyro and set off for El Paso, now the closest source of fuel. Dayton suggested that he fly this leg, as it was getting dark, the terrain was very rugged and we were going to be tight on fuel. So I sat in the back (for the only leg in the whole trip) and watched while he showed me how it was really done. Working the radios at the same time as flying the most efficient route, he talked to the controllers of the class Charlie airport of El Paso (International!) and we were surprised to be cleared to land straight in on their gigantic runway 26L–while still about eight miles away from it. It seemed to take forever to get to the runway threshold, and when we landed and they gave us the taxiway they wanted us to take, Dayton realized it was about a mile further down the runway, so he took off again and hovertaxied to the right exit point. Ground told us to hold for passing traffic and we watched while a sizable bizjet went past. Then they told us to taxi down to the fbo. We obliged
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