A postal worker from Florida was arrested after he flew his “gyrocopter” onto the lawn of the US Capitol yesterday to protest campaign finance legislation. The area around the Capitol is restricted airspace for security reasons. Being a postal worker, the 61-year-old’s idea was to hand deliver letters to all 535 members of Congress, after landing his “flying bicycle” at the Capitol. Obviously, he didn’t make it that far.
Doug Hughes was arrested and bomb detecting robots were deployed to inspect his sweet helicopter thing. Hughes made his plans—which had been in the works for over a year—known to authorities. Yesterday, The Tampa Bay Times posted a video of Hughes describing how he planned on delivering the mail: “I have got a plane, a gyro-plane, and I’m going to fly it. I’m going to violate the no-fly zone, non-violently … No sane person would do what I’m doing. I don’t believe that the authorities are going to shoot down a 61-year-old mailman in a flying bicycle” …
