Day 9 – St. Louis and the Arch

Greg, Bert, Doug, Paul, Tom, Al and all the others are an exceptionally great and nice bunch of guys that did everything to make our trip as easy, fun and smooth as possible. So Bert, who had dropped us off the day before at our hotel, picked us up again this morning and drove us to the airport.

When we arrived, there were already a couple of people there, and within the hour several others arrived to start a relaxed day out at the airfield, working at their various projects, doing a bit of flying or just hanging out and having fun. The day before, Greg had flown with us to endorse our logbooks so that we were ready to take the test for our Sport Pilot certificate. Paul was going to administer the exam today. It was fun flying with Paul, and the picture shows Paul and Chris finishing up some paper work after the test flight.

A couple of raindrops reminded us that it was now high time to make ourselves tarps to cover out gyros for the remainder of the trip. We had bought tarps earlier at a hardware store and now needed to fit them to the gyros. This wasn´t that easy with a bit of wind, but after a while we managed to turn out two custom made, hand finished and highly effective tarps. Of course we hope not to have to use them too often.

Robert needed to visit the Missouri Botanical Garden and collect a few parts off a particular plant to turn it into a new homeopathic remedy. So Greg and Steph drove us there. It turned out that this particular garden is indeed the oldest one of its kind in the world. It certainly is very beautiful and a true paradise for anyone interested in plants. Robert would have loved to spend more time there. Here are Robert and Greg in the garden, with Robert setting up his helmet camera on a tripod.

Even though Robert couldn´t find the partiular plant he wanted (Amboia trichopoda), he found another one and stole a few leaves (Azadirachta indica), which he then started to process on the way back in the car. This is to prevent the plant from spoiling and so that further processing steps can be made once he is back home in his pharmacy.

Around 4 pm we were back at the airport. All of us wanted to fly some more, and Paul and Greg had the idea to go for a trip to see the arch and downtown St. Louis. We were six people, distributed over five gyros: Greg and Steph in the lead, then Rob, myself, Debbie, and Paul in the rear.

This is the confluence of the Illinois river and the Mississippi.

A bit further on we passed the arch and downtown St. Louis. Steph took this and a couple of other pictures.

She also managed to get a beautiful shot showing Robert and me flying. Probably the only one with both of us in the same picture in the air on this trip.

Here is Robert in flight with his very unique look thanks to the helmet camera:

And another picture by Steph with Robert, Greg and myself. Greg was a bit concerned that this photo might discredit him with Vittorio Magni, since the MT03 is competition to the Magni, albeit not in the US so far.

As much as we liked it here in St. Louis, tomorrow we are leaving to head west as far as Kansas City, weather permitting. I just want to say thanks one last time to all the nice people, particularly Greg, and also Bob Heimberger (whom we didn´t meet because he was out of town). We have fond memories of all of them.

– Robert & Chris.