When the Rotorway Factory was purchased out of bankruptcy in the early '90s a group of Sierra Rotorcraft Club members decided to fly from California to the factory. We all trailered our ships behind our motor homes to just west of Parker on the California side of the border. There we unloaded our ships and readied them for the flight. Mark Kozy was the designated driver for our motor home, Len Chrysler drove his motor home to give Nathan Fronsman and Elaine a place to sleep in AZ, Terry Kinsley had his ship behind his rig but was having a bit of trouble with his ship so he was behind us. Dan VanDuesen and Steve each had someone drive their campers as I recall.

We blasted off first thing in the morning and headed for Sand Springs, a small private airpark where a friend of Dan lived and they planned on serving us lunch. We refueled from gas cans that were carried on the support vehicles and had a nice lunch and a rest for the second leg of the trip. After lunch we took off again. There were three of us. Steve Lewis was flying his Exec 90, Dan was flying Taz, his beautiful Exec 152, and I was flying with Nathan Fronsman in his Exec 152. Nathan did not have his pilot certificate so I went with him to keep things legal.

The crew at the factory knew that we were coming and we gave them an ETA before we took off from the fuel stop. When we were on the west side of Phoenix we radioed ahead to announce our location. As we skirted around the south side of Phoenix. we were met by a group of about 5 Rotorway helicopters coming out to greet us. Then fell into formation behind us so we made our grand entrance as a flight of 8 Rotorways. The crowd at the factory was excited to see us arrive.

In the photo below we are at the refuel stop. In the foreground Nathan is checking over his ship before we depart. In the background Dan and his passenger are checking out Taz. I don't know were Steve was parked.