In Memoriam - Benjamin Pierre "The Guano Man"

I have just found out that our dear friend Benji has passed away. I never saw somebody that enjoyed life more than him. He was happiest with a remote control radio in his hands. There wasn't a problem Benji couldn't solve. We even coined the word "Bengineering" for his inventions. He was like a mad scientist always working on his latest project. When one of his contraptions didn't perform as expected, he would always say "back to the lab". Like all of us, he had plenty of problems in life, but you wouldn't know it, because he was always smiling with a carefree easy going demeanor, always willing to help anybody, always the optimist.

I last saw him at the Fort Lauderdale Air Show a couple of weeks ago. He looked really happy with his new girlfriend. Everybody knew Benji, he was sort of a legend in the flying field. It was funny how every time he was going to test fly one of his homemade craft all the other pilots landed their airplanes to give him the full airspace and enjoy the show. Benji drowned in Amelia Earhart Park yesterday trying to recover his remote control boat in the lake. He died doing what he loved. He was only 31 and leaves behind two children. Rest in Peace my friend.

Benji' favorite phrases:

"It will fly!" Looking at his latest invention.
"But of course!" When you asked him if he knew how to fix/do something.
"They sold you/him a dream"
"Praaaaaaaaa!" As he described a vehicle crashing recounting flight operations for the day.
"What a bag!" When he saw somebody elses plane crash and turn into a bag of sticks.
"It's bat guano" Used to describe a piece of shit hardware or device.
"I'm a genius in box" Describing his mechanical abilities.

This is the article of the accident as reported in the Miami Herald.

A man drowned in Hialeah, trying to save a remote control boat

By ANDREA TORRES atorres@MiamiHerald.com

A 31-year-old man drowned Monday evening as he attempted to rescue a motorized, remote control boat in a lake at Hialeah's Amelia Earhart Park, 401 East 65th St. The man was using a raft to paddle into the middle of the lake to get the disabled boat, but the other boats didn't stop the race. One accidentally rammed the raft, puncturing it and causing it to deflate, said Jesse Casales, a spokesman for Miami-Dade Fire Rescue.

The man did not know how to swim, Casales said. A few friends jumped in to rescue him, to no avail, as his fiancée and the man's baby daughter looked on. Divers recovered the man's body Monday night. His identity has not been released.

R/C Jets...

The Birth of Big Gray Continued...

The Birth of Big Gray Continued...

The Birth of Big Gray

It all started with a vision and the crashed remains of my first R/C plane. A Thunder Tiger 40 trainer. Guano man was about to transform a bag of sticks into his first scratch built R/C creation. A fascimile of the renowned Cessna 337. The twin tail- twin inline engine light airplane made famous by the Hermanos al Rescate (Brothers to the Rescuse). In fact, Benji's inspiration came from watching one of these land at Opa Locka airport one day on his way home. Here is the first set of photos....

It will...

Awesome image to put on a t-shirt... Latest release and courtesy of Cygnus Press

Benji's rebuilt T-34..

If I remember correctly the canopy was a 2 liter soda bottle, because the original canopy was destroyed in the crash.

The two daring pilots. These dudes survived many crashes. The last one was killed on the Mirage crash in Tamiami Park. It's remains could not be identified. I think Benji named them Lt. Taco and Buzz...

Steve's Apaches...

These planes belonged to Steve....Frank's friend that left for the Air Force. He was an awesome flyer. I remember we used to look at him in awe when we were just getting our feet wet. The wrecked one belonged to his brother, who he was teaching to fly that day. I also recall he had a cool low wing T-34 that had a wing failure and crashed. He gave the remains to Guano man and he crudely rebuilt it. It barely flew because he reinforced it so much it was heavy a shit. It only flew once. Guano almost hit the Home Depot in the Miramar field after he lost control of the highly unstable rebuilt version. Guano man himself was learning about building and flying. I remember it was almost dark when he hit the Palm tree near Home Depot.

Remember the two little pilots that Benji would put in all his homebuilt planes? They came from that T-34. I think I have a photo of it somewhere. William I don't think you were a member of the club yet. This was very early on. Or maybe you were I can't recall.

The Gettho Flyer's Home Base...

This was the gathering place, the headquarters if you will of The Gettho Flyers, a chapter of the Flying Desperados, which itself was the local district office of the Lucky Bastards Flying Club. From this here locale, all flying operations were launched and directed. It also served as hangar, construction and parts facility, training facility with state of the art flight simulators, and last but not least, audiovisual and data facilities were mission videos were analyzed after the fact.

It was conveniently located near a Taco Bell and other major fast food outlets, where voracious post flight apetites could be replenished at minimal cost. The Flyers were also on a first name basis with the local Dominos pizza when after hours construction projects were underway. Conveniently located only minutes away from several illegal flying fields discovered and squatted on by our field survey team Benji "The Guano Man" and William aka "Launch Pad" or "El Infidelo". The last discovered field christened "Aurora Field" in Hialeah Gardens, now with multiple runways, is still an active field logging hundreds of hours of flight time each month. This is the only remaining field from which many flyers from beginner to advanced, proudly take their machines to the air without fear of being kicked out. In fact this field is coming up on it's 3rd year anniversary as a non-commissioned gettho field.

The first in the fleet...

The first Aurora Hobbies Superstar 40. I earned my wings on this baby. Powered by a 46FX, it flew circles around the 40 powered version. She was a good ship. Can't remember what finally happened to it. Somebody bagged it finally but I can't recall who it was. I know it was not me.

Last weekend's flying activities

Well, the week is almost over and I still have not talked about the ghetto flyers reunion which took place last weekend. Last Saturday we had the Air and Sea show in Fort Lauderdale beach, down here in South Florida. As some of the ghetto flyers had done in the past when we were an active group, we came up with the idea to get together to go watch the show. Only the core members were there, which include myself, Bagger Pete, and Guano Man(Who on this day and age still has no internet access so he won't be around here for now).

The air show was a lot of fun, especially the Blue Angels, and the Heritage flight. Something special about watching a p-51 fly side by side with newer generation F-16 and F-15. And to thin, that not in the too distant future, these planes will be the heritage ones, huh? Maybe in 10 years the F-14 will be the heritage plane as it is being retired. That would be astounding. We also had a lot of other Fly-By's that were quite interesting. You can see for yourself inthe link provided Below. These are bagger Pete's pictures of the airshow.

As usual we started the day pimped out with an awesome setup(two canopies, 3 coolers, barbequed food, sandwiches, all kinds of drinks, in summary, the works. However, as the day went by, and not to dissapoint ourselves with our usual problems, my twenty dollar canopy started trying to join the planesin the air, and fly away. I spent 1/2 of the show trying to tie it down, only to have the stakes pull out form under the sand every 10 minutes. Eventually, in true ghetto flyers style, I pulled about 10 twines fomr the canopy to a nearby fence. It looked like hell, and made it hard to walk in and out, but the canopy held.

Well, you can go see th epictures now. I will be posting later about more awesome things I did last weekend with Guano Man. Unfortunately bagger Pete was too busy taken care of his nephews(and later driving back to the other side of the world where he now lives) to join the fun. Will talk about that one later.

Check it out

BAGGER PETE IS IN DA HOUSE....

First Post

Well, the ghetto Flyers Blog is finally up and running. Hope we have as much fun here as we do when flying(bagging) the planes. Even though activity is basically at a stand still, except for one of our members, the madness that was conceived during the "Golden Years" of the Ghetto Flyers still continues, and shows no signs of slowing down.

Soon we will have other members joining the blog, who have lost of pictures that we can all tell stories about(hell, the pictures themselves are a story half the time).

For now, be safe, have fun, and no matter what the conditions are fly fly fly.

Remember, It'll Fly.