The PiperJet prototype in all it's DC-10-like glory now graces the museum (where in years past it would have been at Piper's Sun n' Fun booth, drumming up orders...), a testament to the fact that the programme really is dead, or at least dormant for a long, long time.

As suggested by the title of a 2011 patent application (#20120048996 published on 1 March), "System and method for the retrieval of a smaller unmanned aerial vehicle by a larger unmanned aerial vehicle", Aurora has proposed a method for a larger UAV to capture and potentially deploy a smaller, slower UAV in flight, allowing a holistic mix of the two in remote areas. Big UAVs are good for long-term stationkeeping and persistent surveillance while small, or micro, UAVs (MAVs) are best for short-term up-close-and-personal contacts.

"A system or method that synergistically combines the advantages of both MAVs and larger UAVs will yield a truly revolutionary capability," says Aurora, adding that a larger UAV that would deploy and capture MAVs would "create the capability of rapidly deploying MAVs at much farther distances than ever before".

But how to dock and undock the two given a large difference in flying speeds of the two?

That's where Aurora took the cue from the missionaries. In Operation Auca in Ecaudor (an endeavour that did not go all that well, as you'll note from the Wiki site), a pilot would fly a Piper PA-14 in a tight spiral over the drop point while an assistant would lower a basket to the ground below. The rope and bucket follow a helical shape, and when the bank angle is right and the rope long enough, the bucket, in theory, lands at a stationary position on the ground, allowing the transfer of goods.

A cartoon in the Aurora patent shows the principle in action:

What Aurora noted was that different locations along the helical have lower speeds than the main aircraft, which in this case is the larger UAV, which could allow the lower-speed MAV to link up with the rope at essentially zero forward speed, completing the capture or deploy.

On Sunday at the 2012 Heli-Expo show in Dallas, Bertling gave up just a little bit more, including a couple of artist's conceptions.

Bertling says the total X4 will arrive in two waves, the first in 2017 when the helicopter will go to market with the advanced airframe, engines and dynamic chain portions, and in 2020 when the "game-changing" cockpit arrives that will be a "major breakthrough" in safety.

"The level of innovation is so huge that we need stepped approach," says Bertling, adding that Thales and Sagem are partners on the design. Along with FBW side-stick controllers, the company envisions a flight deck with small interactive central console, 3d audio information and helmet-mounted displays with large fields of view for the pilot.

"The passengers reported that the pilot, who was an employee of Guardian Flight, immediately departed the scene".

The reasons for that departure became clear after a little research, and the somewhat disturbing realization of how little an emergency services provider like Guardian, the largest air medevac provider in Alaska and nascent provider in Rock Springs, might really know about its employees.

Though the helicopter's landing gear skids and lower cabin structure were deformed, and the tail boom severed, in the hard landing, neither the pilot nor any of his four passengers were harmed, at least in the physical sense.

Mentally, they may have been harmed when they found out via the NTSB that the pilot, hired as a helicopter mechanic by Guardian Flight, was not authorized to fly the helicopter by his employer, quite possibly because he didn't have a pilot's license. The FAA said he was issued a student pilot certificate in 1988, but that was it. He was, however, a properly certified airframe and powerplant mechanic, however.

"An acquaintance of the accident pilot reported that he observed the pilot flying N8067Z on serveral previous occasions for personal reasons," the NTSB states. "Passengers were carried during these 'joy rides'".

More of Calvin Franklin Connor Jr's dark secrets began to emerge soon after he was apprehended in another state.

According to a complaint filed by the government in US District Court, Connor was in possession of firearms from outside the state despite having earlier in his life been convicted of a crime carrying jail time of more than a year, a federal offense. In 1992, he was sentenced in Georgia to 15 years in jail for two counts of forgery. A year later he received a three-year sentence, also in Georgia, for "theft by taking". The document doesn't mention actual time served.

Then there's the firearms...

Guns in Connor's possession and guns his co-workers had either seen him with or fired with him run the gamut, according to the complaint... Pictured below are examples of the guns listed (not the actual guns he owned or was seen with).

One co-worker interview by the ATF special agent worker on the case, said he had met Cannon several years ago when they both worked for EMS operator Hawaii Life Flight, where he had observed Cannon's "all decked out" AR-15 assault rifle. Another co-worker had said Cannon had carried a 0.40 or 0.45 caliber handgun on his side while he worked at Guardian Flight.