Gyro Flight To Lower 48 Has Touched 24 States

We've written before about filmmaker Rob Dubin's flight around the continental US. Starting from Arizona, Rob has now flown to half of the lower 48 in his AAI-modified RAF2000 gyroplane. He combines the trips with visiting friends and family, and visiting historic sites.

He'd have a lot harder time trying to do it without his wife Dee, who travels the roads below him in a motorhome. They meet at the end of a day's flying and do a lot of sightseeing together, on the ground, and sometimes from the gyro.

Rob sees a lot of America from ten to five hundred feet AGL. Some days he visits five states. Some states (Texas!) take five days. And along the way he meets a lot of interesting characters, like the controller who got so excited about the gyro that he kept asking gyro questions and neglected his landing traffic, or the amazing mechanic in New York who, a local assured Rob, "could build you an engine out of tinfoil."

Along the way Rob's had adventure after adventure: he's had an engine failure, leading to a hard emergency landing in a busy street; he's had the engine subsequently go completely bad, filling the oil filter with granular aluminum and necessitating a field engine change (enter the amazing mechanic).

He's taken his gyro over mountains and rivers and into the Washington, DC, ADIZ (just shortly after the "Cessna 150 Terror Plane" incident). Sometimes he gets lucky; sometimes, like on his attempts to fly the VFR Corridor around Manhattan, he gets skunked by weather or circumstances. But always he's having fun, and showcasing the safe thrills of general aviation flight. 

He recounts all his adventures on his website along with photographs of some of the sights that only aviators see. Check it out, but you might get hooked on following Rob's adventures. We did!

FMI: www.gyroamerica.com