In the photo below the person on the Left is the legendary Stretch Wolter who provided me with my initial flight training and administered my private pilot check ride. Mark Kozy is in the blue tee shirt (who is was building then and is still is building an Exec 90), I am in the light colored shirt to Mark's left, To my left is Steve Lewis, we are standing in front of Steves Exec 90. Nathan is standing to the right of the photo next to his sip that he and I flew to the event.
In the photo below you can see Ventriloquist of the Year Jeff Dunham's Exec 90. Jeff, Peanut, Walter, and Mr. Jalapeno on a Stick gave us many laughs during the Grand opening following the buffet dinner served by the Rotorway Factory. Nathan was sitting up front so he got the brunt of Peanut's jokes. If you don't know who Jeff is, you can search for him on google and see one of his acts.

If memory serves me there were at least 27 flying customer owned Rotorway helicopters at the grand opening. We made a flight around the greater Phoenix area on Saturday, the day of the banquet. At around 10am we all had our pilot briefing and where it was decided that Homer Bell would ride with Jeff Dunham in the lead ship followed by 24 or so other Rotorway helicopters.

Below is a photo of me talking with Stretch in front of one of the factory training ships. At one time Stretch was the president of the company but he has long since retired. To the right Nathan is checking something out on his ship.

In the photo below Dan VanDuesen has parked Taz directly in front of the front door to the Rotorway Factory building. Hey Dan, any significance to the emblem on the asphalt under your ship? If you look closely you can see the ground handling wheels that Dan made and mounted on his rear skids. They stayed on his ship at all times and when he landed he just pushed a pin to unlock them and used the handle to swing them down into the ground contact position. You may be wondering about the name Taz, Dan had Taz the Tasmanian cartoon devil air brushed on the complete underside of his ship with the arms reaching up to grab the landing gear as he held on. When Dan flew over, Taz was always hanging on for the ride.

The following morning Dan nearly lost his ship. A group of us flew out to an area airport restaurant for breakfast. I was privileged to pilot Larry Walker's beautiful Rotorway Elete pictured second down. The factory crew asked Dan if he would take along the event photographer to get some photos of the ships all flying out to eat. After breakfast everyone loaded and fired up their helicopters. I was in Larry's Elete as Dan picked up, the nose dipped forward, and Taz careened toward the row of airplanes ahead. Dan was able to get his ship stopped without damage before he reached the airplanes. We shut the Elete down and asked Dan what happened. As Dan was lifting off and easing the cyclic forward to pull out of his parking spot, the camera man allowed his camera or lens to slide down behind the passenger cyclic stick jamming it from moving to the rear. Dan had no rear cyclic control and was just able to slide it back onto the surface before disaster struck.

Make sure that no loose objects are in the cockpit, they can spell DISASTER for you and your ship.
The photo below was taken at the factory. I am standing in front of one of only around 3 or 4 Eletes sold by Rotorway. This ship was a real winner when it came to speed. On our fly-out around the Phoenix area, Larry literally flew circles around out column of 25 Rotorway helicopters. One minute he was on the deck 500 feet below us herding wild horses across the desert, then all of a sudden he was right up next to Nathan and I waving, then he would dive off and see what else he could scare up on the ground. I don't remember how fast it was but I do remember that it was faster than any other Rotorway I had ever flown. I was privileged to pilot it to the breakfast fly-out and back. That is a flight that I will always remember. Thank you Larry for your generosity and the great experience.
In the photo Below I was being handed my helicopter private pilot certificate by Stretch Wolter following my check ride with him. The company photographer took this photo and it hung in the Rotorway factory office for some time. It turned out that I was the first person to successfully complete all three phases of the Rotorway International Factory flight training school. I did not have the heart to tell them that after my 6 hours of phase I hover training at the factory, I got further hover training at home. Then after my 7 hours of phase II training at the factory, I hired a Rotorway flight instructor to come to my home and fly with me for an entire week doing all phases of flight and at least 100 autorotations. Anyway, I was happy to pass my flight test with Stretch.