AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2011 - 73

Island, and Texas to Wisconsin. Red Bull Aaron has more than 1,200 fixed-wing operates two identically painted and flight hours but never had any formal equipped Bo105 CBS helicopters. One aerobatic training before inventing his is kept on the East Coast during the air- helicopter maneuvers. He didn’t regard show season, and the other at Aaron’s his lack of fixed-wing aerobatic experience as a liability, however, because home airport in California. Other helicopter pilots, starting with helicopter maneuvers are so different Lockheed test pilot Sammy Mason in that a lack of ingrained habits worked the 1960s, have successfully rolled spe- for him by preventing negative transfer. cialized rotary-wing aircraft. But Aaron Aaron took the time to carefully conwas the first to gain approval to perform sider each maneuver and the stresses such maneuvers at low altitudes for air- they would place on the airframe. He rigged his helicopter with video camshow displays. Coincidentally, both Mason and eras on the instrument panel and Aaron made their pioneering upside- tail boom so that he could review the down flights in the same coastal valley speeds, altitudes, and G-loading and lined with orange and avocado orchards match that information to in-flight images that showed the ways the airnear Santa Paula, California. Unlike in fixed-wing aerobatics, frame and rotor blades responded to however, Aaron and his passengers the unusual forces. aren’t required to wear parachutes in He also removed all the helicopter’s the Red Bull helicopter. interior panels and inspected the air“What’s the point of a parachute?” frame at regular intervals. So far, he said the laconic Aaron asks rhetorically. he’s found no extraordinary wear. “Even if you got out, you’d go through “I’d think about each maneuver, the rotor system. I decided a long time dream about it, and write it all out ago that, whatever happens, I’m stay- long before I’d ever attempt it,” he ing with the helicopter all the way. Stick said. “Going upside down goes against with it, keep fighting, and 10/13/2010 9:22 AM Page 1 AOPA_Buyers ad_ HP:AOPA Half Page never, ever everything in a helicopter pilot’s traingive up.” ing and experience.

“I have an exit strategy for every maneuver I perform,” he said. “I know how I’m going to get out of each maneuver before I get into it. That’s the key.” Aaron’s son, Charles, also a helicopter pilot, often accompanies him at airshows and ferries helicopters between locations. Aaron said he’s considered passing on his hard-won aerobatic helicopter knowledge to his son or other aspiring performers, but he’s deeply conflicted about whether to do so. He’s acutely aware of how dangerous this type of flying is, and he doesn’t know if he could live with himself if a protégé were ever hurt or killed. “Red Bull has given me a magic carpet—and they’ve been 100-percent supportive,” Aaron said. “At some point I’ll hang it up. But I really haven’t decided whether to pass on what I’ve learned through this whole process or not. That’s going to be an extremely difficult decision, and one that I won’t make lightly.” Email the author at dave.hirschman@ aopa.org.

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AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2011

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