Ken Wallis - RIP

[Garry Russell]

The Autogyro goes back well before the helicopter.

What Ken did was turn it into a practical machine that could be used in many forms by just about anyone.

He probably did more to develop and promote the method than anyone else and never lost faith in what he was trying to achieve.

[Hot_Charlie]

I visited his home twice, and his collection was something to hold in awe.

A true legend, we are lucky that his collection should survive (ever practical, this was arranged many moons ago IIRC) to tell his remarkable story.

[511Flyer]

I was at the Farnborough air show in 1970 when a Wallis autogyro crashed. It was fairly windy as I remember.The pilot, JW Judge, took off into wind, then as he turned downwind, it appeared to pitch nose down and bits started to fly off the aircraft. Realising that it was about to crash, I turned my back on the scene, but heard the crunch as it hit the ground.

Ken Wallis crashed a few times himself, and was very fortunate to live to such a ripe old age. Bully for him!

D.

[gordon-in-aberdeen]

The telegraph have posted an obituary of him folks. Its really worth a read, absolutely cracking stuff


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituar ... allis.html

RIP Ken, they must have broke the mould making you