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MEMBER’S PROFILE
Tom Patterson
Born in Pipestone, MN in January of 1949
Moved to Richfield, MN (Minneapolis suburb) in 1956 and graduated from Richfield H.S. in 1967.
Enlisted in the Navy in 1967 but was rejected for high blood pressure and have been dealing with high blood pressure ever since.
I attended the University of Minnesota (generals) and Dunwoody Institute (auto mechanics) looking for my place in the world with no success at the time.
I worked as a fork lift mechanic for a short time then as a welder for several years. Welding seemed to be something that I was very good at.
I was married three times with the first two unsuccessful and the third one perfect with 3 kids – one mine, one hers, and one ours. Kids are all grown and out of the house now. We have three grandchildren so far, two boys and a girl.
In 1982 I was hired as a maintenance worker/welder for the City of Bloomington, MN Street Department – 10 years later I was Street Superintendent (long story - short).
Found a great job in a more rural setting in 1995 and was lucky enough to fool them into hiring me. Now I am the Street Commissioner in the City of New Ulm, Minnesota.
INTEREST IN GYROPLANES
In 1964 I saw an ad in Popular Mechanics for a gyroplane that I could build and fly. It would be a glider until I could learn to fly it so I needed someone and someplace to pull me while I learned to fly.
Well, my family strongly refused to help me kill myself and when I talked to our neighbor who taught “Airframes” at Vocational Technical Institute in Minneapolis, MN, he told me that gyroplanes were the most dangerous aircraft ever dreamed up and to never get one. I still wanted one.
I began building a KB-2 in about 1988 by ordering assemblies of the kit as I was ready for them but still had 3 kids at home and a lot of expenses so never could really afford to fulfill my dream at that time either and sold the frame to a retired FAA guy when we moved to New Ulm. I cannot remember his name and don’t know if he ever completed it.
DREAM FULFILLED?
In 2007, not knowing much of anything about gyroplanes, the rotary wing forum, or even anyone who has ever flown a gyroplane, I did a stupid thing and bought a gyroplane. It was advertised as ready to fly by someone who I thought I could trust. This person was a manufacturer of gyroplane kits and he led me to believe that it was one of his models.
Again to make a long story short, my gyro was originally built by an amateur builder who ended up putting an old, outdated, and underpowered Hirth engine on it and somehow selling it to the person I bought it from with little flight time on the airframe and no flight experience with the Hirth engine. It had been in cold storage and neglected with many parts removed for 8 years. The person that I bought it from had never even tried to fly it.
Needless to say, over a two year period, I have become much more knowledgeable about gyroplanes. I completely parted out the aircraft , sold the unusable parts, then redesigned the airframe to accept an EJ-22, 130 hp, Subaru engine, and new Rotordyne 29’ rotors and built a new gyroplane.
I took my initial flying lessons in Arizona with flight instructor Charlie Mara who has sadly died of a heart attack since then. We flew his older Air Command tandem that was not a center line thrust machine (mine isn’t either). By the end of the week with him all I had left was to do another 10,000 landings (Charlie’s words) to get proficient at them. We trained at an altitude of at least 1000’ AGL because the desert has few places for an emergency landing. Several times we were at about 3,000’ AGL – that’s pretty high for a beginner in a completely open machine but I toughed it out OK.
In the beginning of 2009 I was fortunate enough to find Chuck Freese and Dan Danielson through the PRA members list and, with Chuck’s connections and leadership, we were able to revive PRA Chapter 17 – Minnesota Rotorcraft Club. The club now has over 25 members, some of which are original members along with many new members.
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Dennis Berke, Club Secretary, must be given all of the credit for this great web site.
I’ll update this as I proceed further with my machine and flying.
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