The R22 has a range of about 250 miles and tops out at 10,000 feet, he said. About 10 years ago, he traded a Cessna 150 plane and a Brantly helicopter for the R22. Newsome learned to fly as a young man and has owned other helicopters and small planes, including a Globe Swift sport plane he used for aerial stunts. He held assorted jobs until becoming the maintenance supervisor at the Harrison Apartments on West Lane Avenue in the University District. "I come to Ohio without a dime in my pocket," he said. He left Kentucky around 1957, looking for work, and settled here. He still has the car 60 years later he had to restore it a second time after it burned in a garage fire. When he was 15 years old, he bought a 1934 Plymouth sedan for $150 and fixed it up. Newsome was always mechanically inclined and good with his hands. The nagging question - where were they going? - led him to the nearest airport, some 20 miles away in Pikeville. He was fascinated with planes as a boy, watching them cross the sliver of sky above the hollow where his family lived. Newsome was born in Robinson Creek, Kentucky, in 1941. "I (AM) LOOKING FOR SOMEONE TO FLY ME IN IT AND YOU GETTING SOME HRS IN IT ILL PAY FOR THE GAS IM 75 YEARS OLD AND LOST MY MEDICAL (CERTIFICATE) SO CALL ME."Īs of Friday, no one who fit the bill had called. "I HAVE A (ROBINSON) R22 HELICOPTER," it reads.
Newsome - who goes by "Chris" - to post an ad on Craigslist. His search for a pilot who can handle the R22 prompted his 50-year-old son, Lowell C. "That thing is quick on the trigger," he said. "They say if you can fly that helicopter, you can fly any helicopter." He compared it to keeping a rolling marble on a plate. The R22 might be small, but flying it is a big job, Newsome said. About 175 pounds is about as much as the prospective pilot could weigh. She requires a pilot with nimble hands and a small stature. "It's not every day you run across a helicopter pilot," he said.Ĭomplicating matters is that not all helicopter pilots can fly the compact R22. He's understandably itching to go airborne, even if that means someone else is at the controls. It's a long time for a pilot who in his younger days could loop and roll stunt planes just like in the air shows. Two years is a long time to be stuck on the ground for a 75-year-old pilot with 5,000 hours of flight time, 500 of them in the R22. "I was a good pilot until then," Newsome said. Time was, the Grove City man flew the Robinson R22 two-seater himself. But since a stroke two years ago, he's been grounded. Newsome has a perfectly good helicopter in his garage and nobody to fly it.
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