A Florida man tells the harrowing tale of his campaign finance reform protest that prompted him to take flight in a gyrocopter and fly through restricted airspace.
The Florida man who landed a gyrocopter on the Capitol lawn as a protest said he never expected to make it all the way, thinking he would be stopped by the authorities.
Doug Hughes said he was freezing and his hands were going numb as he piloted his gyrocopter over the buildings of Washington, D.C. in the north headed toward the Capitol, surprised at how cold it was at just 300 feet in the air, according to a TampaBay.com report.
Cruising at about 45 miles per hour for about an hour after leaving an airport in Gettysburg, Pa., at around noon on Wednesday, he put all the piloting skills he had learned in the two and a half years to work.
He called it “Project Kitty Hawk,” and spent many days planning out scenarios, expecting he would arrive at the National Mall greeted by Black Hawk helicopters and police cars with lights flashing.
What he found was no response at all, at first. As he banked his helicopter around the Washington Monument and headed east, pedestrians were waving at him, and air traffic out of Reagan National Airport appeared to be proceeding as normal.
Hughes remembers wondering where everyone was, he told TampaBay.com, and of all the scenarios he had planned out, this wasn’t one of them.
Hughes, who is 61 and works as a postal employee in Florida, was arrested and released 25 hours later.
Hughes had certainly made no secret of his plans, telling both the authorities and the media in an email address what his plans were.
As he approached the Capitol, he pulled up, climbed a little, and then came down in front of the famous structure.
