www.PSFmagazine.com | November-December 2019 | 31 30 | November-December 2019 | Powered Sport Flying by Ira McComic Army pilot, Barry Jones, set out to become the first person to attempt an around-the-world flight in a gyroplane. Jones reached as far as Kolkata, north of India, before monsoons delayed his flight, stretching it beyond the narrow window of time when weather permitted a crossing of the northernmost part of the planned route, the Bering Strait between Eurasian Russia and North America. Because of his military obligations, the delay ultimately ended the attempt for Jones. Norman had been a windsurfing enthusiast participating in world championship contests, but as he followed Jones’ flight, Norman’s interest turned to gyroplanes. He wanted to learn to fly them, and when he sought out training, he discovered there was only one full-time gyroplane flying school in Britain and it wouldn’t risk letting students fly solo in its gyroplanes because these aircraft were so rare at that time. Consequently, to get a pilot certificate Norman purchased his own gyroplane, a yellow German-produced AutoGyro MT-03, approved in the UK in a modified form identified as the Rotorsport UK MT-03. To register his new aircraft with the Civil Aeronautics Authority, he chose from among the combinations of letters available one that suggested a gyroplane: “G-yrox,” where “G” is the preface letter for UK aircraft, and the “X” suggested the aircraft’s pet name, “Roxy.” After earning his pilot certificate, Norman continued gaining experience, including taking Roxy across the English Channel to fly-ins in France. Those excursions increasingly convinced him that gyroplanes like Roxy were capable of flying longer distances than most persons flew them, and with increasing confidence in his ability, so was he. Recalling Jones’ aborted attempt to fly a gyroplane around the world, and since no one else had taken up the challenge, Norman entertained a fledgling fantasy of undertaking it. As the notion grew stronger, he researched its possibility. Studying Jones’ route, he came to understand how critical would be the Bering Strait crossing, which would require approval from Russia to fly in its airspace. With that realization, Norman went as far as sending an email to the British Embassy in Moscow inquiring about the possibility of getting that permission from Russia. After six weeks and with no reply, he assumed the inquiry had been ignored, but then he received a direct phone call from the embassy reporting that in response to his ‘request,’ Russian authorities hadn’t said no, adding that Russia insisted that such a flight would be restricted to daylight hours and that he would be required to have a Russian navigator with him as well has have a satellite phone. With that bit of encouragement, Norman began in September of 2009 to make concrete plans for an around-theworld flight. Six months later, on March 22, 2010, he began the trek, becoming not the first, but the second person to make the attempt. Having equipped Roxy with a bladder in the back seat for extra fuel, they departed Northern Ireland, flying eastward across Europe and beyond, pushing on from the Middle East to the Far East, meeting challenges, some expected, some that weren’t. It was in Thailand that he met disaster. On a hot and humid day in May, he landed at a small airport in that country, intending to take on just enough fuel to get him to his next planned stop; but the fuelers, thinking they were doing him a favor, filled the tanks. On takeoff, the heavily loaded gyroplane mushed into the shallows of a lake near the runway. The aircraft struck the muddied bottom and rolled onto its side. Strapped in the seat, Norman’s head plunged under the water. Perhaps due to his windsurfing days, he didn’t struggle in that situation; instead, he methodically reached out to slap the water to locate the surface, unstrapped the seat constraints, and extricated himself from the aircraft. After the accident, Norman assessed the damage. The gyroplane was obviously in no condition to fly, and in a country where there were few aviation resources, with his probably the only gyroplane in the entire nation, he thought it was likely the end of his would-be around-the-world flight. He had come so far, but he was now thousands of miles from home and he felt very alone. From this nadir, though, things started happening, unexpected and fortuitous things, people and confluences coming to his aid. Norman’s mechanic, John Hereward, dropped what he was doing and flew to Thailand to personally oversee the gyroplane’s repair and restoration, which would have to meet caa requirements. It turned out to be a lucky break that the gyroplane had fallen into the lake on its right side, a position that kept the engine’s air filter above the waterline, and with a photo attesting to that, the caa agreed with Hereward’s assessment that the engine hadn’t ingested water and therefore wouldn’t require a lengthy and expensive teardown to examine the interior. Gyroplane Record Attempt Nicknamed ‘Little Nellie,’ the yellow gyroplane that appears in the James Bond spy thriller “You Only Live Twice,” has stirred the interest in these unique aircraft among countless persons around the world, including Norman Surplus, who recently became the first person to fly a gyroplane around the world. Perhaps not so coincidentally, he did it in a yellow gyroplane with a pet name, and consistent with the movie’s title, Norman’s accomplishment illustrates the achievements possible with second chances. Norman, once given a less than fifty-fifty chance of living for hardly more than a year longer, overcame those odds, and with that second chance, he set out to become the first person to circumnavigate the earth in a gyroplane, but he wasn’t the first one to make the attempt; he was the second. You Only Live Twice? And he accomplished that objective not on his first attempt but with a second. In 2003, at the age of 40, Norman was a family man living in the small coastal town of Larne, North Ireland, where he was a crewman with a life boat station. During a training exercise, he was struck with severe abdominal cramps that had him doubled over in pain. Hospitalized, he was diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer and the prognosis was grim: he had only a forty percent chance of living beyond another eighteen months. After surgery removed part of his intestines, he underwent a series of aggressive chemotherapy treatments, one after the other of powerful chemical bombardments that hit him hard; and with no guarantee of success, he endured them. After months of suspense, he learned the treatments were working, and when the treatments eventually completed, knocking out the cancer, Norman felt he had a second chance at life. During those treatments, Norman happened upon a TV program about the restoration of a gyroplane, which roused his memory of Little Nellie that he had seen in the movie, and together, the program and that remembered image sparked a curiosity toward these aircraft. A year later, his interest was piqued further when a British Little Nellie, the aircraft that launched a thousand gyros. (OK, maybe more...)
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