1931 Pitcairn PCA-2 Autogyro
In 1992, I was a pilot stationed at McGuire AFB in New Jersey. My wife and I attended a great airshow at Willow Grove Naval Air Station in June of 1992. There were a lot of great displays, both static and aerial, but one of the most striking was a flying display of a 1931 Pitcairn PCA-2 Autogyro painted in the colors of Miss Champion. I believe this is the PCA-2 that was acquired by the Experimental Aircraft Association and is now in the EAA Museum.
Aerial displays at airshows were a problem for my photographic skills and equipment at the time. I had a manual telephoto lens that required me to set the focus, aperture, and shutter speed by hand. Doing this during a fast-moving flying display would have been easy if I had three hands, but alas, I had only two. I am in the process of digitizing several decades of photos, so I keep coming across photos from airshows and museums that are pretty cool. I will continue to post photos that you might find interesting as they turn up.
Never have seen one fly...must have been quite a sight! 🙂
Nice! Here it is in 1998 at Willow Grove, Did my last Navy Reserve gig there with VR-52.
1 attached image. Click to enlarge.
Thanks for posting the more recent photo. I retired from the Air Force in 1993 and left McGuire, so this was the last airshow at Willow Grove I was able to attend. It was a huge airshow and had more flying displays than you usually see at an airshow. Info on the EAA website says that Miss Champion became a part of their museum in 2005.
This is wonderful! I'd love to see one actually fly! Thanks for sharing your great memories and photos, George - and Robert, too.