Yorke Brown Wins Keys To A New Airplane
Yorke Brown, a scientific and engineering consultant from Etna,
N.H., is the winner of the 2010 Fun to Fly Sweepstakes Remos GX
light sport aircraft. AOPA announced this year's sweepstakes
winner on Friday. Brown learned last week that was the
winner during an elaborate surprise.
Remos GX File Photo
Continuing a long tradition of surprising sweepstakes winners,
Brown was lured to the Lebanon Municipal Airport (KLEB) on Nov. 3
in a scenario that calls to mind the film "The Sting"-except that
there were no losers in this gambit. The bait: Brown received an
e-mail invitation from the president of Redbird Flight Simulations.
Jerry Gregoire coaxed Brown to the airport by telling him that he
would be participating in a research study on the impact of motion
simulation on ab initio flight training. He offered to show Brown
Redbird's newest innovation in flight simulation.
Redbird does actually have an
innovative new flight simulator called Parrot - an artificial
intelligence-driven radio communications training system that is
designed to work with its simulators. Brown, a certificated flight
instructor who has had a longtime interest in simulation
technology, couldn't resist the chance to see it for himself. "It
was the emergence of your company that finally convinced me to give
up the idea that I ought to figure out how to make real flight
simulation available to GA pilots," he wrote to Gregoire to accept
the invitation.
Brown arrived at Lebanon Airport on a clear, brisk afternoon to
find Gregoire waiting for him at Signal Aviation Services, a
fixed-base operator. Gregoire sat him down in front of an elaborate
setup and began demonstrating the simulator's capabilities.
Parrot's virtual ATC interacts via voice with a student using the
sim. The pilot can talk to the computer, and it understands and
replies as ATC would in actual flight situations.
Several minutes into the demonstration, the simulator announced,
"Congratulations Yorke Brown, you are the winner of the 2010 AOPA
Sweepstakes Remos! Enjoy your beautiful new airplane." Just to make
sure Brown had got the message, the sim repeated the good news-this
time in Fuller's voice. Moments later, Fuller stepped into the room
to congratulate him in person.
"I wondered what was going on" when Fuller entered the room,
Brown said. He admitted that he hasn't closely followed coverage of
the 2010 sweepstakes in AOPA publications, because he understands
the odds involved in being chosen as winner. The additional entries
he received because he signed up for automatic annual renewal of
his membership were what made the difference.
Remos GX File Photo
Seeing is believing, and so Fuller led the winner to a picture
window overlooking the ramp at Lebanon, where a Remos GX sat on
display. Here's where staff had to be a little creative yet again.
The actual Fun to Fly Remos was tucked away in a hangar at Santa
Paula Airport in California, waiting to be flown to Long Beach. But
they couldn't spring a surprise on the winner without an airplane
to show him. The "stand-in" Remos GX was flown to Lebanon by John
Rathmell, a demo pilot for Mid Island Air Service in New York. To
ensure that a Remos would be in place for the surprise, Rathmell
flew in from Lancaster, Pa., the night before and made sure that
the airplane was hangared and out of sight.
Rathmell took Brown for a quick flight around the LEB area to
allow him to get a feel for the Remos. Brown, a CFI who has one
primary flight student at the moment, emerged from the airplane and
said, "It flies like a dream. It's very light on the controls, not
only [in response] to what you do, but what the air does-which
makes it fun."
"He handled it great," Rathmell said.
A member since 1986, Brown said he loves to fly in New
Hampshire. "No matter where you go there are things to see and
things to do." Each time he takes off from the airport, he says, he
looks out the window and "I'm glad I'm a pilot and I live in this
airspace."