Delivering The Mail
With next to nothing going on right now the most interesting Florida story was about Doug Hughes, a Ruskin, Florida mailman, who wanted to deliver letters to the Congresscritters about campaign finance reform and decided to fly his gyrocopter to DC and land on the lawn near the Capitol building.
Lots of people took videos of the flight, which is low and slow, and the consensus is that the videos are funnier with the Inspector Gadget theme playing.
A gyrocopter flies so low and slow that it stays below radar, and shooting it down would probably cause more damage that following it to see what was going on. It can’t carry much weight beyond a pilot, so even if there were explosives on board, it would be less dangerous to move people out of the way, rather that bringing it down.
4 comments
Brian, there is nothing, made by man, that can’t be turned to evil use. This guy was carrying letters. Once letters carried anthrax to Washington DC. That toy copter could have carried enough viral material to cause the authorities to shut down the capital. Heck, even an RC model plane could do that.
I don’t know what the answer is but I do know what it isn’t. It isn’t more security. We’ve hit the point of diminishing returns with that.
BTW: I do believe there was no evil intended by the copter pilot but I can’t help but think, somewhere someone is stroking their chin and thinking evil.
When I was a kid, my parents were suckered by an Encyclopedia Britannica salesman… well, OK, Dad wanted me to have it ’cause he never had one in his childhood… and that encyclopedia showed a pic of an aircraft much like that one, propelled forward by a, um, propeller, lifted by a free-rotating, uh, rotor, and that one (from the 1930s?) was called an autogyro. I was fascinated by the notion, but until Doug Hughes’s flight this week was videoed, I never saw one in flight. Well, that’s not quite true: some company a couple years ago offered one commercially; I remember seeing a commercial for it online and thinking, jeez, I hope they don’t try taking off from any Texas highway…
I am sympathetic to Mr. Hughes, and I think I understand what motivated him. My enlightenment came from the first batch of outgoing bills I tried to mail from Our House; two of them never arrived…
At this point I think we can say “former mailman”. I don’t think he has the slightest understanding what he has done to his life with this stunt. The National Security State does not like to be shown up as a hollow bluff, and will do everything in their power to make his life a living hell for what little remains of it.
Shirt, drones are much more likely as a delivery system. They are easier to hide and much cheaper.
Yes, Steve, they are also called autogyros, and they can take off from any flat land in a very short distance. Roads are generally a bad idea because of utilities running across them. You are also going to have problems getting over mountains, and even some hills because of a very slow climb rate. OTOH hand, if the engine quits, the descent is usually not fatal or destructive.
He wanted a stunt to publicize his cause, Badtux, and accomplished that, but I doubt he really thought through the consequences. He has lost his pilot’s license and aircraft regardless of what else they decide to charge him with. Having the Postal Service logo on the tail fin of his aircraft pretty much guarantees his termination. He had better get used to taking the bus, because he will be added to watch lists. Oh, yes, his life just got ‘interesting’.