Inside the Cockpit: A Gyroplane Adventure
Open air, a rotor you can hear breathing, and the North Shore unrolling below at eighty knots.
A gyroplane doesn't hide anything from you. There's no door, no window, no climate control. The rotor spins free above your head and the wind is the instrument panel. It is the closest most people will ever come to flying the way birds do.
We lifted off from Dillingham just after sunrise and followed the coastline east, over the wind farm, past the surf breaks, then up and over the saddle toward the windward side.
Everything you wear in an open cockpit gets tested. The gaiter stays up. The sleeves stay put. That's the whole brief.
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