both those factors spelled danger for a pilot. in utah, it s about 5,000 feet elevation and it was a warm day that day. this creates a condition called high density altitude, which actually means hotter, thinner air, giving the pilot less lift and less power. i had to take certain steps, make certain changes to my routine. dennis calculates the changes he ll make and at first, everything goes smoothly. the standard display routine commences with a pirouette on the left front skids, rotating the helicopter. i got my camera out to take footage of his performance. i was excited about capturing it on camera. i turned to 300 feet, then a backflip away from the crowd to get distance from the crowd to commence the run-in for the opening maneuver which is a loop. so far, the impressive routine seems flawless. everything looked normal. it s very rare to see a helicopter pilot be able to do maneuvers like that. i never thought it was going wrong.
out of the chopper, shaken but only slightly hurt. he actually wasn t even hurt that bad. a few cuts on the face and couple of teeth knocked out, i understand. the chopper has not fared as well. the helicopter was totaled, completely totaled. unusable. within an hour, a rueful dennis is not just walking and talking, he s giving the news conference he had always hoped to avoid. dennis, the safety evaluator, has to assess his own performance and realizes where he d gone wrong. he d forgotten one adjustment to his program and had fallen victim to the high density altitude at the airfield that day. as soon as i started the maneuver, i thought this helicopter is performing fairly normally so i ran in at the normal height, at the normal speed. he was too low and too slow for this place and time. there wasn t sufficient air space to recover. at that density. on a cold day in england, it
one of the cups up there behind me is for the first place. dennis skills are on display at an air show in utah in june of 2008, and one person eager to see it, and videotape it, is tina tyler, an american gyrocopter pilot. i packed up my gyro and headed out to utah with my camera in hand. for dennis, there s a setback at the beginning of the event. the helicopter, a schweitzer, is unfamiliar and it s heavier than he s used to. i normally fly with ten gallons on board, which weighs 80 pounds, 72, in fact, and i had 30 on board, three times the weight. as dennis takes off, he s aware of another element that will have a major impact on his performance. the air park had two things going for it. it was high and it was hot, 96 degrees that day. both those factors spelled danger for a pilot. in utah, it s about 5,000 feet elevation and it was a warm day that day. this creates a condition called high density altitude,
this creates a condition called high density altitude, which actually means hotter, thinner air, giving the pilot less lift and less power. i had to take certain steps, make certain changes to my routine. dennis calculates the changes he ll make and at first, everything goes smoothly. the standard display routine commences with a pirouette on the left front skids, rotating the helicopter. i got my camera out to take footage of his performance. i was excited about capturing it on camera. i turned to 300 feet, then a backflip away from the crowd to get distance from the crowd to commence the run-in for the opening maneuver which is a loop. so far, the impressive routine seems flawless. everything looked normal. it s very rare to see a helicopter pilot be able to do maneuvers like that. i never thought it was going wrong. but then, coming out of the
he actually wasn t even hurt that bad. a few cuts on the face and couple of teeth knocked out, i understand. the chopper has not fared as well. the helicopter was totaled, completely totaled. unusable. within an hour, a rueful dennis is not just walking and talking, he s giving the news conference he had always hoped to avoid. dennis, the safety evaluator, has to assess his own performance and realizes where he d gone wrong. he d forgotten one adjustment to his program and had fallen victim to the high density altitude at the airfield that day. as soon as i started the maneuver, i thought this helicopter is performing fairly normally so i ran in at the normal height, at the normal speed. he was too low and too slow for this place and time. there wasn t sufficient air space to recover. at that density. on a cold day in england, it would be more than adequate. in the 50 years prior to his