Chuck Aaron with his helicopter. Photo by Red Bull. Born in San Antonio, he began flying helicopters at age 20, later becoming a stunt pilot for TV shows and movies. Meet Chuck Aaron, the only pilot in the U.S. Approved to to aerobatics in a helicopter! We talked with him at the Wings Over Houston Airshow to get the story on WHY in the heck would he do. Chuck Aaron is an FAA-certified aerobatic helicopter pilot. And he flies for Red Bull. The helicopter is a modified Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm BO-105. Aaron can be seen flying at Red Bull events. RAF EH-101 Helicopter. FSX RAF EH-101 Helicopter. Red Bull aerobatic helicopter pilot leaves 'airshow circus.' Chuck Aaron Announces Retirement. Red Bull aerobatic helicopter pilot leaves 'airshow circus.' Red Bull Hangar-7 GmbH. The Sukhoi is a unique aerobatic aircraft. This helicopter of the Flying Bulls is a little bit out of the ordinary.
- Fsx Red Bull Helicopter Chucky
- Red Bull Helicopter Crash
- Fsx Red Bull Helicopter Chuck Roast
- Chuck Aaron
- Red Bull Rc Helicopter
CAMARILLO, California — Red Bull aerobatic helicopter pilot Chuck Aaron is flying straight and level 2,000 feet above the citrus groves south of Santa Paula. We're moving along at 110 knots when Aaron gives the control stick — known as a cyclic in a helicopter — a gentle pull. Suddenly we see nothing but blue sky.Airspeed bleeds off quickly and we reach a critical point Aaron calls his 'chicken point.' He came up with the name several years ago, when he was just learning how to make helicopters do things they probably ought not do. Things like rolls and loops.'I'd fly at 2,000 feet above the ground, pull it up to do a loop and I'd get just about straight up and I'd chicken out and roll out and fly away from it,' Aaron says.Six years later the chicken point no longer exists. Aaron flies right through it. As our airspeed slows toward 60 knots, Aaron continues pulling back on the cyclic. Just as it feels we might suddenly stop, we flip over backward. Aaron strains his head back to see the ground and drops the collective stick that controls the pitch of the rotor blades — which are now below us.Quickly the helicopter begins to accelerate. It continues to round out the loop and the sky is once again above us, the ground below. There is some noise as the rotor blades hit their own wake as we pull out of the bottom of the loop. Seconds later we're flying straight and level again at 2,000 feet.'Now, for a roll, we start by pulling back on the cyclic again, but ..'The lesson continues.Above: Chuck Aaron looks back for the ground at the top of a loop.
Aaron is one of a kind. Literally. He is the only pilot in the United States licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration to fly aerobatics in a helicopter. He's been flying helicopters for 37 years, and doing crazy things in them for five.'First I had to convince myself I could do it,' he says of his start flying aerobatics.Flying aerobatics in a helicopter is not easy. Aaron makes it look easy, but helicopters are so complex they make airplanes look rather simple. After months of practice and at least 50 climbs to the chicken point, Aaron completed his first loop in 2005. His skills progressed quickly after that and he performed his first aerobatic helicopter routine at his home airshow in Camarillo, California in 2006.Today he performs many times a year across the country. He and fellow Red Bull helicopter pilot Rainer Wilke — who flies most of the shows in Europe — collaborate on new maneuvers and routines.Both men fly Bo105 helicopters made by Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm during the 1970s and 1980s. The Bo105 is unlike any other helicopter, and it has a few special items that allow it to withstand the stresses and loads of aerobatics without self-destructing. Aaron spent 12 months making modifications to the helicopter including strengthening the airframe, shifting its center of gravity to make it more maneuverable and modifying the fuel and oil system.But of all the parts that make up the helicopter, Aaron says the most important is the piece of forged titanium that is the rotor head.Above: The Red Bull Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm Bo105 in its hangar at the Camarillo, California airport.
The solid titanium rotor head on the Bo105 is the heart of the 'rigid rotor' system that allows Aaron to perform aerobatics. Most helicopters have either a semi-rigid rotor or a fully articulated rotor.The main rotor of a helicopter is the most complex part of the aircraft. Most helicopters allow the main rotor blades to either flap up and down or pivot forward and back as they spin. Some allow the blades to do both. The Bo105 doesn't allow either.'Between the rigid head and the composite rotor blades is the key to how this thing can do what it does,' Aaron says.As a rotor blade spins, it creates lift and keeps the helicopter in the air. But if the helicopter is moving forward, the blade going forward is moving through the air faster than the blade going backward, or retreating. Because it is moving faster, the blade going forward creates more lift and wants to rise accordingly. Meanwhile, the retreating blade is going slower, creating less lift.Above: The rigid titanium rotor head and swash plate.
Edit patch pes 2014. To compensate for this asymmetric lift, most helicopters allow the advancing blade to pivot upward, reducing the amount of lift created so the helicopter doesn't tilt. Unfortunately this upward pivot has consequences in the world of physics.With the advancing blade angled upward, it is effectively shorter and so, like a ice skater pulling in her arms, it accelerates. To allow this to happen without breaking the blade, most helicopters have a 'lead-lag' system that allows the blade to pivot forward and backward in addition to up and down.Instead of pivoting, the composite blades on the Bo105 simply flex, and only slightly. The only blade movement this helicopter shares with others is the rotation of the blades to change the pitch, allowing it to climb or descend — actions controlled by the collective in the left hand.The rigid rotor head not only helps keep everything from coming apart during aerobatics, it also means the 'rotor disc' created by the spinning blades is always in the same position relative to the airframe. That's key because, as Aaron says, an aerobatic helicopter pilot always flies the rotor disc, not the airframe.Above: The composite blades have aluminum edges for durability.
Fsx Red Bull Helicopter Chucky
Aaron started his flying career as a crop duster flying helicopters over the cotton fields of South Carolina. The son of an Air Force pilot, he's been around aircraft his whole life.After selling his helicopter flying business, Aaron got into the business of rebuilding helicopters. After several years spent overhauling various civilian machines, he 'tripped over a Cobra helicopter for sale.'It was a former U.S. Army Bell Cobra attack helicopter that had been damaged on the ground and sold for scrap. Aaron managed to repair the fuselage, round up the missing parts and build himself a refurbished Cobra.This prompted him to rebuild a few more Cobras, the last of which Red Bull CEO Dietrich Mateschitz bought because he had a pilot who thought it would be cool to have a Cobra. Mateschitz befriended Aaron and eventually approached him about doing an aerobatic routine in a helicopter.Above: Chuck Aaron inspects the tail rotor during a preflight inspection.
Aaron spent a year preparing the Bo105 to fly frequent aerobatic routines. Test pilots and military pilots had done limited aerobatics maneuvers in the helicopter in the past, but a sustained routine required several modifications, including adapting the fuel and oil system for inverted maneuvers.In the spring of 2006, after many hours of work both on the helicopter and learning how to fly it in ways it was never meant to fly, Aaron became the first person to ever receive FAA approval to perform aerobatics in a helicopter.Five years later, I'm with him in that same helicopter. Aaron has a second Bo105 on the east coast to minimize the wear and tear that flying cross-country to airshows would cause.A pair of 425-horsepower turbine engines provide the power for aerobatics, but cruise speeds are too slow to make flying cross country worth the effort.Above: One of the helicopter's two 425 horsepower Allison turbine engines.
Aaron isn't the first pilot to ever fly aerobatics in a helicopter. But he is the first to convince the FAA that it could be done safely in front of airshow crowds week after week. He's also invented a few maneuvers including the 'Chuckcevak,' a play on a famous airplane aerobatic maneuver known as a 'Lomcevak.'In a Chuckcevak, Aaron pulls up from level flight at 120 knots and climbs vertically until reaching zero airspeed. Of course in a helicopter, only the airframe stops moving, the rotor blades keeping spinning at 434 revolutions per minute throughout his routine.At zero airspeed, Aaron pushes the nose over to a hover, spins the helicopter around horizontally once or twice using the tail rotor before applying max power and flipping over backward from the hover. When the back flip is done and the helicopter is heading straight down, he rolls it 180 degrees before exiting the Chuckcevak back to level flight.But he says the roll is still one of the most challenging.Performing a roll in an airplane is relatively simple, and it's even been done in a Boeing 707 (367-80 for those of you racing to submit a comment). But in a helicopter the problem is that disc spinning above you.'In a helicopter, you're flying the rotor disc,' Aaron says. 'When I'm flying, I'm thinking, 'Where is the angle of the disc relative to the ground or relative to the air.' The fuselage is just along for the ride.'Above: Chuck Aaron stands in front of a whiteboard showing his airshow routine with Aresti diagrams.
'In a hover, the disc is flat,' Aaron explains, 'In order to go forward you have to tilt the disc forward and it pulls the fuselage.'So as we're flying along at 110 knots, the rotor disc is tilted forward a fair amount. If we were to simply roll with the disc tilted forward, it would soon be upside down and tilted backward. That would have your propulsion system -- the rotor disc -- pointing the wrong way and pulling you to the ground.'So you pull up the disc and roll it over,' Aaron explains on how to begin a roll.In many airplanes it helps to pull up the nose before performing a roll, and the consequence of not doing so is, similarly, finishing in a descent. But in an airplane, that descent is less problematic and you don't have to worry about retreating blade stall as you accelerate.But once you're halfway through the roll it is very important to push the stick instead of pulling it as you did when you started the roll.'If you pull the stick back [when inverted], then it will lawn dart' Aaron explains in blunt terms. 'You'll accelerate so quickly you'll rip it apart.'So similar to an airplane again, Aaron nudges the cyclic forward as we roll past inverted to push the nose up a bit and help keep the roll level. Here's the view from the cockpit:<script src='http://admin.brightcove.com/js/BrightcoveExperiences.js' type='text/javascript'></script><object class='BrightcoveExperience' id='myExperience949227700001'> <param name='bgcolor' value='#FFFFFF'></param> <param name='width' value='660'></param> <param name='height' value='423'></param> <param name='playerID' value='3698508001'></param> <param name='publisherID' value='1564549380'></param>
<param name='isVid' value='true'></param> <param name='dynamicStreaming' value='true'></param> <param name='@videoPlayer' value='949227700001'></param></object><script type='text/javascript'> runMobileCompatibilityScript('myExperience949227700001', 'anId'); </script><script type='text/javascript'>brightcove.createExperiences();</script>Above: Approaching inverted mid way through a roll. The throttles are the red levers in the center of the photo. Cracked diagun x431 software.
<param name='isVid' value='true'></param> <param name='dynamicStreaming' value='true'></param> <param name='@videoPlayer' value='949227700001'></param></object><script type='text/javascript'> runMobileCompatibilityScript('myExperience949227700001', 'anId'); </script><script type='text/javascript'>brightcove.createExperiences();</script>Above: Approaching inverted mid way through a roll. The throttles are the red levers in the center of the photo. Cracked diagun x431 software.
Flying over the top of a loop in any aircraft is disconcerting. Most of your training focuses on how to avoid having the ground fill your view, so when it does, it's good to have a plan to recover.Aaron says that's true of any aerobatic maneuver. He spent months practicing, slowly expanding his routine until he was not only comfortable making them but also having plan in case they didn't go as planned.'It's just as important to figure out how you're going to get out of [a maneuver] as how you're going to get into it,' he says. 'If you don't have a plan already, that you're confident will get you out of it, don't go there.'But not all maneuvers have an exit. Some you just have to make sure you get them right on the entry. As he explained before, the roll in a helicopter is one of those maneuvers.'There's no way out of it [if the roll goes wrong]' Aaron says. 'You're exit maneuver is to know what you're doing before starting the maneuver, and then doing it.'In addition to the loop, roll and Chuckcevak, Aaron performs other maneuvers in his show including a split-s, a half Cuban 8 and the back flip.Above: Citrus trees fill the windscreen on the down line during a loop. Not sure if they're lemon or lime at this point during the flight.
Red Bull Helicopter Crash
The cockpit of Aaron's Red Bull Bo105 is fairly stock. The cyclic is the large control stick in front of each seat. It typically tilts the rotor disc left or right and forward or back. The collective is the small stick to the left of the seat and it controls the pitch of the rotor blades allowing the helicopter to climb or descend.Pedals control the pitch to the tail rotor and are used largely at slower speeds to maneuver or counter the torque of the main rotor during a climb or descent. Aaron also uses them to perform a spiraling, climbing 'pedal turn' during his routine and also for the horizontal turns in the Chuckcevak.Of course, there are a few cans of Red Bull in the seat back pockets for in-flight service.Above: Aaron's office.
A few of the nonstock items in the cockpit include standards from the air show world: No airshow pilot would ever take to the air without smoke generators.Above: Smoke with the flick of a switch.
Download one piece season 20 sub indo. With more than 19,000 hours of flying experience, Aaron wants to make sure other helicopter pilots out there know there is a lot that goes into flying aerobatics with a rotary wing. He loves to entertain the crowds and hear even the most experienced pilots say they can't believe what they've seen.At age 60, he has no plans of slowing down, but he does rely on his son to fly the helicopter from airshow to airshow.'I fly commercial,' he says.Above: Aaron with his custom helicopter.
Fsx Red Bull Helicopter Chuck Roast
Tag along with Aaron as he completes five barrel rolls in his Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm Bo105 helicopter.Video: Red Bull
Enjoy a little onboard footage of Aaron's escapades, filmed from from the cockpit and the tail rotor. There's no audio, but it's still amazing stuff.Video: Red Bull
Chuck Aaron
All photos: Jason Paur/Wired.com
Red Bull Rc Helicopter
See Also: