PLN 11

The article “The Skyhook” by Jason Bellows talks about the invention of a plane that doesn’t have to land to pick you up off of the ground, called the Skyhook. The way this plane works is the person that is being picked up has a pack with an empty balloon and a bottle of helium and a 500 foot long cord that they use to attach themselves to the plane and be pulled in with. They inflate the balloon, then float up and let the plane catch them. Then they slide along the cord to the end of the plane were they are pulled in with a hook. The reason they made these planes was because they didn’t have long range helicopters and they were in the artic so they couldn’t land very easily so they invented the no stop pickup. Soon after they created the long range helicopter so they could do long range stop and drop instead of parachuting out. The reason this matters is, we could have perfected the Skyhook but the long range helicopter is a lot safer because you’re not getting picked up in mid-air. The reason this plane was built was because we didn’t have powerful enough helicopters to get men in and out of these areas. Lastly, these planes stopped being produced because we had invented the long range helicopter which was more maneuverable then the Skyhook.