Outside of this forum his name is Roger Brown. He is the inventor of his "rolling wonder" dredge and posted videos of his "popswizzle" panning technique. He was brilliantly creative but difficult to understand because his mouth could not keep up with is brain. I had the pleasure of dredging with him on the Klamath river in 2005 and seeing his rolling winder in action, possibly the finest craftsmanship I have ever seen in a scratch built dredge. Pop was a restless man and was constantly busy. In the last few years he designed several working hydrogen fuel generators, started farming, operated a fishing guide service in the gulf of mexico and bought a sail boat and took up sailing.
Most recently he closed his neon sign company in Texas and retired at 67. He concentrated on the pursuit of happiness and focused on finding an ultralight airplane. After several decision changes he settled with airplane #4 and started learning. I had many emails with him about modifications to the plane and discussion about the many practice runs he was taking. On Tuesday 10/8/13, he took off for the first time with his wife and neighbor watching. He flew around for about 10 minutes ... then there was a problem. The plane dove up and down a few times, went out of sight behind some trees and crashed.
Roger was killed instantly upon impact.
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?secti ... id=9279472
I learned about this today and it has been a long and difficult day for me. Pop was eccentric and difficult to follow but he was a very good and honest person. he was a good friend and I will miss him.
There is a memorial in Santa Fe on Wednesday
You can send messages of condolence to his wife Joan at is old email poprivit4 . <poprivit4@gmail.com>;
Or you can call her if you wish 409-927-1878
Godspeed Roger
