What Gravity?

I'm not sure if you're going to believe me, but I assure you it's true. I saw this helicopter fly upside down at Sun-N-Fun. Well, maybe fly is not the right word. I saw him flip upside down without falling out of the air. I'd always thought that a helicopter couldn't do that, it would push itself right out of the sky if it got those rotors too far past level flight. I've seen choppers do some pretty extreme turns where they got up on edge, but never one that went all the way over. Well, this one did.

I can't post enough pictures to convince you of what I saw, but here are a few. Clearly, I'm looking up at the rotors here!

He's pointed straight down! How does this work? I don't know, they said something about titanium this and reinforced that, but it's all geek speak to me.

I guess maybe Red Bull really does give you wings. Or at least it gives Chuck Aaron wings. It just gives me an accelerated heartbeat and cold sweats.

Marine One

As I mentioned a second ago, I spotted President Obama as he passed through Sarasota today. He flew back into our little airport aboard Marine One, the designation for the helicopter in which the President flies. I was having a hard time figuring out which chopper was actually Marine One because all of a sudden there were five Marine helicopters landing. I knew the President was on one of them because they had closed the road in front of me to traffic seconds before they came into range. The first two helicopters landed and disgorged 10-15 people each, but none of them looked important enough to be guarded. Then another chopper landed over near me next to a back-up bird that had been there since I arrived. A fourth and slightly smaller helicopter then flew in, landing between the first two. Only a few people got out of that one, and it wasn't met by many people. The fifth and final whirlybird took a slightly different path than the others, so I figured that was the one. All of these pictures show that helicopter as it came in and landed in front of Air Force One.



Look close at this picture and you can see a Marine standing at attention and saluting as President Obama prepares to exit the helicopter.