Life in the air

“IT’S ABOUT FLIGHT ITSELF”

Napa winery owner reaches new heights in an unconventional aircraft

It’s a bird, it’s a plane…

Wait, what is that flying overhead?

That’s exactly what St. Helena residents Amy Ellingson and Mark Blaustone wondered last spring when they stepped out of their front door on Adams Street. They heard a faint buzzing sound overhead and looked skyward.

As they searched the sky for a flying machine she began to feel like she was witnessing something magical. “It was like the ‘Wizard of Oz,’ when the Wicked Witch is on her broom or ‘ET,’ when the bike is flying,” said Ellingson. “It was a little bit of fun and intrigue.”

“We could hear it before we could see it,” she explained. There was a sense of wonder, “what is that? What is he doing?”

Although they couldn’t immediately identify the flying object, they recalled that a friend had recently flown in a

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Henry Boger Bart O’Brien in his flying machine. TOP OF PAGE: Half Dome from the air. Submitted photo .

gyrocopter. In fact, it was the very same gyrocopter, piloted by Napa winery owner Bart O’Brien.

“It was very thrilling to watch. We had just moved into the house and it was so cool—things happen here. It was a good omen.”

“I wanted him to land, but of course he couldn’t.”

O’Brien usually takes off and lands at Napa County Airport, about five miles south of Napa. But as his wife Barb recalls, he did make one unexpected landing about three years ago.

“The Napa Register ran a photo of Bart in his single-seater off of 29 north of Imola,” she said.

According to Bart, the gyrocopter’s reserve fuel tank wouldn’t open so he had to make an emergency landing, which drew the attention of local law enforcement officers and the press.

O’Brien started with a one-person gyrocopter and explored the Napa Valley.

He was eager to fly under the Golden Gate Bridge; once he accomplished that milestone he decided he wanted to share the experience with other brave souls and bought a two person gyrocopter.

With the help of a GoPro, he started documenting his trips.

In order to explore more diverse geological and geographical locations he recently purchased a trailer large enough to set up camp in other locations.

What does it take to pilot a gyrocopter? Gumption?

Fearlessness?

Colton Ludwig, a self-admitted thrill seeker, enjoys rollercoasters, has parasailed in Thailand and zip-lined in San Francisco and other spots. He joined O’Brien because it was such a unique opportunity.

“It was a chance to do something that most people don’t have the opportunity to do,” Ludwig explained.

“It was amazing being able to see the city from a different perspective.” said Ludwig, who grew up in Pacifica and has lived in San Francisco for many years. Highlights of their roughly one our excursion included flying over Salesforce Tower, the Golden Gate Bridge and getting to see the Bay, he said.

With two people in the gyrocopter, O’Brien isn’t going to beat any speed records, but he has reached a top speed of about 86.3 mph and a height of 14,500 feet (almost three miles) over Mammoth Mountain.

The world speed record in a gyrocopter is held by Ken Wallis, who at age 89 piloted his craft at 129.1 mph, which also made him the oldest pilot to set a world record according to the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale or World Air Sports Federation.

O’Brien first started flying the gyrocopter when he turned 60 but his first experience flying a small aircraft was when he was 28 and bought a used ultralight aircraft in Florida

Fresh out of graduate school, O’Brien had just three possessions when he moved west to be a sales person for a high-tech start-up — one of which was the ultralight.

A 2013 article in the Register tells the story of how O’Brien literally “sold it all” and left the tech world to pursue the dream of starting O’Brien Estate more than 20 years ago.

It was actually the dream that Barb O’brien shared on

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her third date with her future husband. “She said I dream of owning land in Napa someday, Bart recalls.

Initially, he chose a large 100-acre lot on east side of Napa. But Barb’s dream was more specific, she meant that she was hoping to own a winery not just a vineyard.

So, in 2000 they bought the land where they are today, in the Oak Knoll District.

“It took 10 years to get the business running at a profit,” O’Brien says.

Wine country residents and visitors are familiar with the poetic nature of wines, Robert Louis Stevenson, an accomplished novelist coined the phrase “wine is bottled poetry” over 100 years ago. Poetry is intertwined with the ever expanding portfolio of wines at O’Brien Estate.

His entrepreneurial spirit takes a backseat when he waxes poetic about the wines they create and market with a romantic niche. Many of their bottles contain a poem on the back label written by Bart and Barb to tell the story of a deepening relationship between two lovers. One of their wines, a Cabernet Sauvignon called “Passion of the Soul” describes a deep connection that is mirrored in the depth of the wine. “You are the one I want to become one with, to intermingle our footsteps on the sands of time Will you join with me?”

In addition to his role at the winery, O’Brien passionate about his role on the board of BioIncept, a biotech company pursuing an innovative approach to treating immunity disorders, transplant rejection and other inflammatory diseases.

“Life should be about exploration and trying to do all of the things that you could possibly do while you can do them,” he explains.

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Safety in an autogyro

Autogyros are similar to helicopters in some ways but different in others: Autogyros usually need a runway to take off. Autogyros are capable of landing with a very short or zero ground roll. Passengers do not need a parachute but are required to have a life vest when traveling over water. Each autogyro has a specific height-velocity diagram for safest operation, although the dangerous area is usually smaller than for helicopters, according to a 2013 study by Greg Gremminger. A certificated autogyro must meet mandated stability and control criteria; in the USA set forth in FAA regulations Part 27: Airworthiness Standards: Normal Category Rotorcraft. The U.S. FAA issues a Standard Airworthiness Certificate to qualified autogyros.

While some people dream of climbing Mt. Everest, O’Brien has had other goals.

“I have always thought that flying would be a wonderful dream to accomplish … to me it’s a universal dream that mankind has had for thousands of years; since man looked up at a bird and said I wonder what that is like,” he said.

He recalled reading a Popular Mechanics article when he was 11 years old and learned about gyrocopters that planted a seed in his mind. “They are a unique way to achieve a certain type of flying, it’s called low and slow flying.”

Flying slowly, close to the ground transforms the experience he says; “It isn’t about transportation it’s about flight itself.”

Of course there are challenges related to flying experimental aircraft. Bart realized early on that the obvious challenge is staying in the air; some aviation experts call helicopters “rocks with rotating wings.”

“If you’re going to do something dangerous, try to do it safely,” says O’Brien paraphrasing another aviation witticism, “There are no old bold pilots.”

O’Brien believes the problem with ultralights are

Register file photo

Napa County winery owner Bart O’Brien was forced to make an emergency landing in a field along northbound Highway 29 near The

Meadows on Aug. 27 2018. He said the secondary fuel tank on his gyrocopter failed to open. He was not injured.

Submitted photo

two-fold. “One you don’t have to have training to fly them and the second is the design rules are based on weight, not safety: they can only weigh 252 pounds (so they are fairly flimsy, in his opinion).”

“I thought safety should be the design goal not weight.”

O’Brien was mostly frustrated with his experience owning an ultralight. The ultralight had pontoons, which enabled him to fly it off of water. After one very minimal training session, he was towed behind a boat with no communication with the boat driver.

“Suddenly I am off the water and I realize I don’t know how to get back down,” he recalled.

He started experimenting with the controls and entered into a cycle called pilot induced oscillations; “this is how people get killed,” O’Brien said.

“I went through about three or four of those gyrations until I finally figured out how to land it on the water. This was all in four or five minutes,” he explained.

After landing, his friend asked why he landed with the wind.

“I was so happy to just be on the water alive that I thought landing in the wind was a minor issue, I wasn’t concerned with the wind,” O’Brien recalled.

He realized that he had to make a decision. “I had to decide if I was ever going to fly it again.”

So he forced himself to take off and fly again, even though his leg was shaking.

After moving with his ultralight to the Bay Area, O’Brien got associated with a group who all had strange flying machines. His took about an hour to put together and had nearly a 28-foot wingspan.

“It had so many little parts to it, I had a feeling that if any of these little parts failed, I would fall to the ground and die.

He realized people did die regularly doing the very same thing.

Eventually, his luck did change. But fortunately for O’Brien the aircraft was on the ground when it self-destructed in wind. He had left it tied down at the beach at San Pablo because he didn’t know about the powerful winds in the East Bay.

During late summer afternoons “30-40 mph winds get sucked up toward the Napa Valley through the Golden Gate Bridge” says O’Brien. “Which makes it a great sailing area.”

“When I got the call that may plane was wrecked, I wasn’t sad. I knew I was doing something stupid but I wasn’t smart enough to stop it,” he explained.

“After I wrecked my first one I said to myself I will fly again when I have the time and money to get trained and buy a safer aircraft; something you need a license to fly.”

Thirty years later O’Brien finally had the time to pursue his passion for flying.

He did 20 hours of training to receive his sport pilot license and logged 100 hours on his Monarch one-seater gyrocopter. Since buying the larger twoseater, he has logged 160 more hours.

After learning that O’Brien had a two-seater, Calistogan Scotti Stark was eager to go up in the gyrocopter. He’s seen a lot of the valley through the lens of his drone, but with his feet still firmly planted on the ground.

“We did a loop over the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge which was the highlight. It doesn’t seem legal,” exclaimed Stark.

“It was the coolest thing I’ve done in a year,” he said.

It seems that the opportunity to do something so unique offsets the theoretical risks. Ellingson says her gut reaction is that it looks fun and she’d happily go up in a gyrocopter.

To view some of O’Brien’s gyrocopter footage, shot with a go pro camera mounted on his helmet, follow Bart O’Brien on youtube.