Your favourite moment in a Helicopter!
Join Date: May 2008
Location: St Johns, Newfoundland,Canada
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Mine has to be pulling my helmet jack and climbing out after a 6 week tour, knowing the next flight I do is as SLF with a beer in hand,......
After that, a day like today, CAVOK, moving drills, and the boyos come on the FM at the end of a 3hr move and say"good job thanks"......
After that, a day like today, CAVOK, moving drills, and the boyos come on the FM at the end of a 3hr move and say"good job thanks"......
Whirls my dear....you seem pretty good at whacking things with a hammer.
I hate to think what might be hid in your cellar!
I hate to think what might be hid in your cellar!
Hovering AND talking
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Propping up bars in the Lands of D H Lawrence and Bishop Bonner
Age: 59
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I hate to think what might be hid in your cellar!
Cheers
Whirls
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Australia
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mmm, bin a few. one of the most memorable was when my mad mate Mick who comes from a Irish family with a long lineage of bomb throwers, decided to take me on a celebratory trip in a 269B model after he had just now gained his license. Having had a f/w license for a fair while he only did not many hours to get there, like about 35 or so.
I had about 3K hours by this stage but all in slow moving 47's and was enjoying the flight down Huntington Beach watching the very shapely things below, the many kites above and the stringy bits connecting them to ground borne objects when Mick reckons, "I'll show yer an auto". got my attention full on real quick he did.
landing on the beach in one peace was a real joy, i can tell you. even coors tasted nice that night. I've never asked the bas**** to reflect on it, maybe I should now that he has retired with more than 20K hours.
I had about 3K hours by this stage but all in slow moving 47's and was enjoying the flight down Huntington Beach watching the very shapely things below, the many kites above and the stringy bits connecting them to ground borne objects when Mick reckons, "I'll show yer an auto". got my attention full on real quick he did.
landing on the beach in one peace was a real joy, i can tell you. even coors tasted nice that night. I've never asked the bas**** to reflect on it, maybe I should now that he has retired with more than 20K hours.
Laughing my arse off with 2 paramedics when we exit a 105 after a fast run on landing down slope scattering sheep everywhere after a double engine failure at 400 feet in **** weather en route to a RTA in Cornwall. (first eng shut down due chip, auto entered after 2nd suffered comp stall, WTF???)
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Where I'm pointing...
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Flight in South Western Zambia hundreds of miles away from civilization, landing in the middle of the Bushveld to answer a call of nature*, because I could.
Try doing that in a fixed wing
* And then getting back into the aircraft and taking off without a Lion deciding I was lunch
Try doing that in a fixed wing
* And then getting back into the aircraft and taking off without a Lion deciding I was lunch
birrddog,
Reminds me when I was crop spraying in Saudi in 83 in Bell 47...
Each morning I was flying low level to a farm about 50 kms into nowhere when enroute there was a solitary tree I used to land by, friction up and have a dump. All went well for 4 days with all my little turds in a row
Then day 5 I go to curl one down and guess what? All my previous fuel piles had vanished just like that !
I still to this day have no idea who the turd burglar was
True story by the way....
Reminds me when I was crop spraying in Saudi in 83 in Bell 47...
Each morning I was flying low level to a farm about 50 kms into nowhere when enroute there was a solitary tree I used to land by, friction up and have a dump. All went well for 4 days with all my little turds in a row
Then day 5 I go to curl one down and guess what? All my previous fuel piles had vanished just like that !
I still to this day have no idea who the turd burglar was
True story by the way....
Lots of them over the past three decades (almost) but I'll never forget that first real IFR/IMC morning on Canada's East coast (after ten years of EMS in Ontario where we never really did much solid IMC), taking off in the pre-dawn morning in an S61, rain driving sidewise in 50 knots of wind, RVRs just up to 1200 feet (we had to delay till it got there), vertical vis 100 feet, bouncing all over the place on the climbout, it just felt so dark and foreboding and the rain was making such a racket, then coming up to our cruising altitude of 5000 feet, breaking through the tops to the rising sun and calm air. What a sunrise that was!
Then diving back into the goo an hour and a half later......
Then diving back into the goo an hour and a half later......
Tying diown the blade on a Huey....at the end of my very last flight in a helicopter at Redhill....shared with "Flying Lawyer". What a way to end a flying career!
The Good Ole Days
About 3 years ago I was enjoying a very educational and entertaining luncheon with Mr. Harry Rogers and Pat Patterson of Heavy Lift Helicopters. The discussions centered on the old days, flying a Hiller 23 in the California Mountains. I was truly amazed by the perseverance of these two gentlemen having come up through the fledgling days of commercial helicopter aviation and having to make a due with limited equipment. It was an honor to meet them and hear there stories. At the end of the lunch, I asked Harry, if he believed that 25 years from now I would be having a similar discussion explaining to some young helicopter pilot that I cannot believe that we had to make due with only 13,000 horse power. We all had a good laugh.
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: In the saddle or in the air
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That Helicopter Special Moment
Sitting on the ground at on an empty pad at Silverstone rotors running on a sunny CAVOK day, waiting for the next lot of passengers to get in and looking back at a long aerial stack of machines in the air all making for the FATO........Pure Magic..it was worth the long haul!
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: engineer at large
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I was in the back of a Chinook, coming out of the desert..high winds so the pilot was skimming the ground. Came up over a ridge and the nose caught a rock outcropping. The chinook endo'd 3 times before coming to rest on its belly.
Busted up...but we all lived through it.
Busted up...but we all lived through it.
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Kings Caple, Ross-on-Wye.orPiccots End. Hertfordshire
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My best flight
Mine would have been the day a nice lady said she wanted to fly with me on my birthday just north of Shoreham Airport and I'd never forget it ... she was right and I haven't.
Name & address supplied.
Name & address supplied.
It's a tussle between first-solo on the Army Pilot's Course and realising that some mad fool had allowed me out in one of their machines, or the morning when, on an exercise in the woods near Detmold (there's that name again) I managed to persuade my pilot not to launch into the misty half-light after the rest of the squadron.
We had the place to ourselves for most of the day while the rest of the aircraft were scattered around the countryside perched on hilltops surrounded by fog.
We had the place to ourselves for most of the day while the rest of the aircraft were scattered around the countryside perched on hilltops surrounded by fog.