The Tethered Rotor

A grass field beside factory sheds in Connecticut on a grey autumn afternoon, an experimental helicopter hovering twenty centimetres above the grass, an open framework of thin welded silver-grey steel tubes, an open seat at the front with a small upright engine and drive belts behind it, on a tubular mast with rods and taut wires a three-bladed rotor eight and a half metres across, its long narrow pale blades blurred in motion, a thin lattice boom to a small tail rotor, two black wheels on struts, four ropes from the frame to iron stakes, the pilot in a felt hat seen from directly behind, workers in overalls holding the ropes.