A two-seat 500 pound forest green Dream Machine is the latest pride and joy of the Virginia Tech Police Department. Officer Kenny Smith is one of four pilots learning to fly the powered parachute. He describes it as “a dune buggy with a parachute attached to it.”
It’s one of only a handful in the country. The Department of Justice bought several powered parachutes and loaned one to a law enforcement agency in Florida, another in Alabama, and yet another in California. Virginia Tech’s powered parachute is the only one on loan to a university.
Smith says the engine uses 93 octane gasoline with no ethanol. The drab gray chute is about 30 feet long and 9 feet wide and is made from the same material as parachutes used for jumping out of an airplane. Two people can fly in the aircraft, which weighs 500 pounds and can carry 500 pounds. It can go as high as 10,000 feet.
“Hopefully in the near future, if money is available, we’re going to get a nice sized parachute that has Virginia Tech on it, and colorful, probably maroon and orange.”
He steers with his feet, like a sled, so his hands are free to hold a camera or other equipment.
Smith says it’s already been put to good use.
“We had an incident that took place and the investigators needed the area photographed so they could put pictures from the ground and pictures from the air together and put their case together. And it worked out really wonderful. I think it worked out better than what everybody expected it to do.”
One of the great advantages, is the visibility.
“If you’re looking for an item or a person or anything like that, the visibility that you have around you is almost 280 degrees. You can see down, all around you, and directly straight down and you don’t have anything blocking you. That’s one of the advantages of having this.”
But not having sides, a floor, or ceiling, could also be a disadvantage. “If there’s any safety concerns; if there’s anyone out there with a weapon that’s on the run that we’re looking for, that’s going to be up to the pilot’s discretion, and more than likely, that will not be utilized depending on what the circumstances are.”
Changing weather conditions also pose a hazard to aircraft and pilot.
“When you take off it can be perfectly calm but then the winds, if they pick up by any means, you want to land it. It’s safe to fly this machine with winds from zero to six miles an hour and six to 12 miles an hour you can still fly it; it’s not very comfortable. You have a very uncomfortable feeling in your stomach the whole time you’re in it because the winds can pretty much blow it anywhere it wants to go.”
It took Smith some convincing to believe in the usefulness of the powered parachute.
“I remember when we first got it, I was like, ‘What in the world are we going to use that thing for?’ but there’s all kinds of things and it’s opening up a whole new level to our community in this area.”
He expects the drug task force will use the chopper to photograph possible meth labs and says the sky’s the limit on the uses for the vehicle. Other uses include surveys by the Department of Game and Inland Fishery and GPS mapping by Tech’s Engineering Department.
“I’m hoping other departments, fire departments, other police stations that may have somebody lost or anything like that, they’ll be able to utilize it and I’ll be able to fly it for ‘em.”
