Pictures of me…

 

For those of you interested in seeing the loop flying “in action” – video clips are messy and will be an absolute mission for me to post given the speed and stability of this internet – here are a few pics taken of me flying by another helicopter also coming in to land at the same time as me…

But first… some camels	Over some fairly flat ground
The relative size of loop is clear	Not quite as flat as would be perfect

This is at the Ma’aden mine to the west of Bisha and where I will spend most if not all of this tour. We then head further north into new areas which thankfully will not be as mountainous as here! The mountains start growing in the background of the pictures – and are even bigger than shown here.

This is quite a nice pic	Slowed right down coming in to land
Creeping forward to the LZ	Touching the back of the loop down first

This is pretty much what a landing and take off looks like. The loop is designed to fly horizontally behind the chopper in forward flight, so when we slow down to land the loop starts to hang tail-down. We land the tail first and then slowly lower the rest of the loop down, being careful not to move our position overhead, which would stress the loop and cause it to buckle.

Generator on the ground, followed by front of loop	And finally after the receiver ball (yellow) is landed, we can back away and put the chopper down
The dust when the wind blows greatly reduces visibility	A few mornings its been too thick to fly