in the spotlight
“That’s basically just learning to hover and also learning
how to tweak out the ship to get it flying,” he said. “At first,
you’re literally scooting it around on the ground, getting
it light and making sure all the controls work. You pick it
up off the ground a few inches, and if it works, you set it
back down, take a deep breath, and start over again.”
He recalled sailing through the first phase.
“Stretch said, ‘It will take you about 30 hours to get
all these maneuvers down,’” he recalled. “But I already
pretty much knew what it was supposed to do and when.
I attribute all of that to flying the radio-control models for
so long and just learning all the basics.”
After about six hours of going over the list of hovering
maneuvers, Jeff called Stretch back and said, “I can do
it.”
“Stretch said, ‘You can do what?’” Jeff recalled. “I said,
‘I can do all the maneuvers on this sheet.’ He said, ‘No you
can’t.’ I said, ‘Yeah I can!’”
When his instructor asked Jeff to send a videotape as
proof, he did.
“He said, ‘All right. Get a few more hours in, and we’ll
schedule you for phase two.’”
During that week of training, Jeff learned the techniques
of forward flight, climbing out, and going to altitude.
“I guess you could call going to altitude the first ‘real
flight.’ On your first forward flight, you’re supposed to
go out and enter an autorotation, just to make sure the
helicopter can do an autorotation. You take it to a thousand
feet and pretty much chop throttle. That was a little bit of a
pucker factor,” he laughed. “Coming down in unpowered
flight in autorotation on my first time-to-altitude solo got
my attention. I brought it down and did a nice little auto
to about 3 feet, which is what you’re supposed to do. Then
I hovered it back to the hangar, shut it off, got out, kissed
the ground, put it back in the hangar.”
Jeff said that one of the things about a helicopter that
appeals to him probably turns many other people off.
“That’s the fact that this spinning nightmare of
mechanics is trying to tear itself apart,” he said. “Flying
Jeff Dunham
A disassembled Sweet Daddy Dee shows the various
components that make up this intricate dummy.
your own aircraft that you built is one thing, but to turn
a rotorcraft into something you put together, and get it
flying right, that’s incredibly satisfying. It’s fascinating to
be able to get that thing in the air and to get it to run
smoothly.”
Jeff’s enthusiasm for building made him a perfect
candidate to join EAA, which he did late in the 1980s,
after RotorWay invited him to attend EAA’s annual
convention.
“After that, I started regularly attending various air
shows around the country,” he said. “The experimental
aircraft were always the most interesting to me.”
Traveling Companions
Life couldn’t get much sweeter for Jeff, who toured
comedy clubs for years before enjoying the success he has
today. He has a multi-platform deal with Comedy Central
encompassing all areas of entertainment, including a 60-
city live stand-up tour, television, DVDs, and a consumer
products partnership.
Wherever Jeff goes, he travels with a suitcase full of
interesting companions. Over the years, he’s introduced
fans to Walter, the grumpy retiree; Bubba J, the redneck; a
fuzzy, purple character named Peanut; Sweet Daddy Dee;
Jose Jalapeño; Melvin the Superhero; and Achmed, the
Dead Terrorist, a You Tube favorite.
Jeff said that his house is cluttered with leftover
helicopter and dummy parts and hardware used for
repairs. The dummies with the most technology are Sweet
Daddy Dee, who isn’t seen as much lately, and Achmed.
“Sweet Daddy Dee has all kinds of movements in
him,” Jeff said. “I go to the hobby store and buy linkages
and bell cranks and all those things for building model
helicopters and model airplanes. From building the little
ones and the big ones, I learned about attachment points
and fulcrums and the whole physics and mechanics of
putting everything together.”
He said the fact that Achmed has no body calls for some
interesting linkage.
“The body is usually what hides the controls. With
Achmed, I had to make it a lot more concealed. He has
more stuff up in his head. It’s interesting when we go
through the X-ray at the airport!” he laughed.
EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2009
Jeff Dunham will make an encore performance at EAA
AirVenture Oshkosh 2009. A record crowd estimated
at 10,000 people turned out to see Dunham perform at
AirVenture 2008, and he’ll return for another show on
Saturday evening, August 1, thanks to RotorWay.
Dunham’s performance and all EAA evening programs
at Theater in the Woods are included with regular
AirVenture admission, which is available in advance at
www.AirVenture.org.
For the last decade, writer Di Freeze has been getting the inside
story on what attracts people to aviation. Her interviewees
have included Cliff Robertson, Harrison Ford, John Travolta,
and Morgan Freeman, as well as pilots Bob Hoover, Patty
Wagstaff, and Sean Tucker.
