Shown is an American Ranger 1 gyro Drake previously used to train another pilot. Photos provided by Brent Drake.

By Blair Baumgartner
InkFreeNews

MENTONE — The Popular Rotorcraft Association international convention will take place, Aug. 2-6, at Mentone Airport.

Brent Drake, vice-president of the Popular Rotorcraft Association, said the association was incorporated in 1995, but really started with the Igor Bensen, which used to be in all the Popular Mechanics magazines during the late-1960s and early-1970s.

The association owns the airport where they host the annual convention. The airport is open for other uses, including a drag racing club and tractor association. People come to the airport to camp.

Most of the Popular Rotorcraft Association members are in their 60s.

Drake was the president of the association for about 10 years and has been involved since the late 1990s. When he was in junior high, he loved seeing the Bensen gyros in the magazine.

“I started flying in 1974. I was flying a champ/cub. It’s a single engine one-person-behind-the-other airplane with cloth-covered wings. It was not a gyro. I always wanted a gyro, but you couldn’t find anyone around who had one. When I finally saw one, it was still in the box and had never been put together. I traded a furnace for it. This was 1992,” he said.

Drake assembled the gyro. Afraid he would hurt himself because they fly differently than airplanes, he went to Greencastle for training.

“I had about 15-20 hours of training before I could fly it by myself,” he recalled. “I went ahead and got my private pilot rating, commercial rating and instructor rating for gyros. It took me about four-to-five years to complete all the training.

“They don’t stall like an airplane. They chop up the turbulence so you don’t get a rough ride like you do in an airplane. We usually fly them between 500-to-1,000 feet above the ground. We get kits, put them together and get them licensed with the FAA.”

Drake said he still has his first gyro and it’s a blast to fly.

“They have different rotax engines in them. They are very dependable and the best well-built gasoline engine that they build for aviation today. They have dual-ignition systems, two distributors/magnetos and two sparkplugs per cylinder. It’s for redundancy in case one ignition system quits, the other will still work. They have heated seats and heated cabins. They have a modern ADS-B radar where you can download it on your phone and see it flying.”

Drake has been training people how to fly since the early 2000s and said the gyros are very safe.

Drake said they will have quite a few different instructors and gyros at the convention. People can go on an introductory flight to see if they enjoy the experience.

“There will probably be a couple hundred people there. I wanted to fly ever since I was 2 years old. When I was 14, my mom took me to the airport and gave me a flying lesson. She said, ‘I’ll give you one flying lesson a month if you do all your chores and don’t give me any hassle.’ That was 1974. In 2024, I will have been flying for 50 years.”

Drake, who has over 3,000 flying time in gyros, said he is the only instructor in Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin currently training people to fly.

“I just had a gentleman come in from Quebec and brought his gyro for training,” Drake said. “Everybody likes different instructors. I get people coming in from all over the U.S. and Canada. At the convention this year, we will have instructors coming in from Georgia, Tennessee, Florida and possibly other states.”

He has flown all different kinds of models of airplanes and gyros. People will build them and bring them to him to test fly.

“I’ve had quite a few wild stories. I’ve had three engine outs and had to make emergency landings. Everyone thinks if they lose an engine it’s over with, but you land it and try to get some help and go from there. The blade on the top is always on auto rotation, so you pick out a spot and land there. You only need about 30 feet to land, so it’s not so much of a big deal.”