Reviews of Helicopter books
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Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 103
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From: the other America
Helicopter Books (drool, drool)Buitenzorg, yep the NZ deer recovery stories/books definitely fall in the " ya gotta be sh!tting me" category.
It (the deer hunting era) has been compared to the wild west with a gold rush thrown in for added adrenalin. And like the gold rush days, a lot of wild, unbelivable stuff went down.
At one stage the DOC had a JR flying about trying to catch some of the bandits (not much luck).
Two books were written covering some of the exploits of these mad badgers:
The Helicopter Hunters &
The Chopper Boys.
Both by a bloke Reg Forrester (corrections welcome).
Initially the deer were shot on the hoof, and the meat flown out. Then as the numbers started to wan, live recovery for deer farms came about.
Bull-dogging was one of the first methods of live recovery. Stand on the skid, the pilot would follow the deer at .....ft, leap off skid onto deer at ....kts, wrestle deer to ground, hog tie..................do it all again.
Later tranq darts, then the net gun came onto the scene.
Quite an awesome part of NZ helo history, and the number of machines written off (and pilots, shooters killed) is indicative of some of the mad flying/risks taken by these "Cowboys" enlightening to say the least.
