Your favourite moment in a Helicopter!
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Amazon Jungle
Age: 38
Posts: 304
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Nov 2003 with my shiny new PPL in my back pocket taking my first passenger, my mother, for her first helicopter flight.
When the starter didn't start at Beccles and receiving detailed telephone instructions from the Ch Eng on how to whack the relay with a hammer, she didn't turn a hair.
Cheers
Whirls
When the starter didn't start at Beccles and receiving detailed telephone instructions from the Ch Eng on how to whack the relay with a hammer, she didn't turn a hair.
Cheers
Whirls
Join Date: May 2008
Location: St Johns, Newfoundland,Canada
Posts: 330
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Griffo, Re post #14
Funny how we end up laughing like lunatics when the sh*t hits the fan. Quite a few years ago ended up, upside down in the Artic in a 500E, one blade half way through the door, the rest f*cked off like a frag grenade into the wild white yonder, and a winter storm brewing and this is in april -40c and its getting dark. Well after getting outta there in olympic sprinter pace, and sitting on the survival kit and winter parka that I managed to extract, lit a smoke and started laughing, like I never have before.....
But wait theres more......
....trying to get outta dodge, (remote drill camp) this Xmas, weather bad all week leading to holidays, drillers bailed, cook bailed ya di ya......me and maybe 4 guys left. Eventually released on 23 dec.....Mmmm thinks I, this gonna be interesting, home for xmas?. To cut a long story short, w/x marginal, but doable....until I get 44NM from destination....f#ck me a wall of freezing rain. What can ya do, only place to go.... a swamp, this is at 1300local. Spent the next 18hrs sleeping in 3xsleeping bags on back seat of a B2 (least you can lay out,good ole eurocopter). The funny thing if there was one, is I was parked on the Northern route for all the trans atlantic flights, also domestic, so spent the night listening to Joe Public at FL36 munching on peanuts and drinking beers going home for the hols.....how I laughed, all night, what else ya gonna do?....
Oh and it was me 50th birthday xmas day.....
Merry Xmas Mr F#ucking Lawrence thinks I and laugh even more.......
Funny how we end up laughing like lunatics when the sh*t hits the fan. Quite a few years ago ended up, upside down in the Artic in a 500E, one blade half way through the door, the rest f*cked off like a frag grenade into the wild white yonder, and a winter storm brewing and this is in april -40c and its getting dark. Well after getting outta there in olympic sprinter pace, and sitting on the survival kit and winter parka that I managed to extract, lit a smoke and started laughing, like I never have before.....
But wait theres more......
....trying to get outta dodge, (remote drill camp) this Xmas, weather bad all week leading to holidays, drillers bailed, cook bailed ya di ya......me and maybe 4 guys left. Eventually released on 23 dec.....Mmmm thinks I, this gonna be interesting, home for xmas?. To cut a long story short, w/x marginal, but doable....until I get 44NM from destination....f#ck me a wall of freezing rain. What can ya do, only place to go.... a swamp, this is at 1300local. Spent the next 18hrs sleeping in 3xsleeping bags on back seat of a B2 (least you can lay out,good ole eurocopter). The funny thing if there was one, is I was parked on the Northern route for all the trans atlantic flights, also domestic, so spent the night listening to Joe Public at FL36 munching on peanuts and drinking beers going home for the hols.....how I laughed, all night, what else ya gonna do?.... Oh and it was me 50th birthday xmas day.....Merry Xmas Mr F#ucking Lawrence thinks I and laugh even more.......
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Away out There
Posts: 54
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Climbing to the top of a morning glory roll cloud, sitting on top of it (about 3500) and doing pedal turns right down the face of it to the base about 100 ft agl and then turning and heading straight back under the dead flat base with the rotor brushing through the cloud mist at cruise speed.
The most beautiful sight I 've seen.
The most beautiful sight I 've seen.
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: 'oop North
Posts: 156
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Flying in an R22 three-ship as safety pilot with Japanese pilots from Long Beach to Oakland routing up the Pacific Coast Highway. And then convincing them that it was OK to fly under the Golden Gate Bridge as it was too foggy to get over it.
Got a great picture of Katsu framed against the underside of the bridge giggling like a schoolgirl. It was some while later that I learned that "inappropriate laughing" is a classic sign of stress...
Got a great picture of Katsu framed against the underside of the bridge giggling like a schoolgirl. It was some while later that I learned that "inappropriate laughing" is a classic sign of stress...
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Stuck on 50:30 North
Age: 68
Posts: 42
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
One of many!
AAAH Griff me old. I remember it well. Top marks to you M8 for getting her down. Strange how it takes you though! I remember bursting out laughing when I looked back at what was left of '04'!
ANYWAY! I digress............
Best moment, only because we could, and did, was having a competition to see who could do the longest run-on in a Scout AH1 on the ice field in King Edward bay Sth Georgia with thousands of penguins looking on thinking 'WTF are those two up to?'
If memory serves - we beat you Stefanovitch!
Strange how it takes you though! I remember bursting out laughing when I looked back at what was left of '04'! ANYWAY! I digress............
Best moment, only because we could, and did, was having a competition to see who could do the longest run-on in a Scout AH1 on the ice field in King Edward bay Sth Georgia with thousands of penguins looking on thinking 'WTF are those two up to?'
If memory serves - we beat you Stefanovitch!
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: On the flip side
Posts: 131
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Yaaaahooo!
Flyin' over London down the Thames in an R44-sitting in the co-pilot's seat-spectacular view of our Capital, beautiful cloudscape and smooth flight! Huge thanks to ebg heli. & pilot Matt
3 years ago, flying a missing persons search in a jetranger. The guy was found barely conscious, being "hungry" he ate a lot of sleeping pills. I was asked for a 3' transport to the hospital helipad as it was rush hour, there was no way ambulance would get there in time. Requested a body search on it, placed it on the back seat with my technician and off we went. After disembarking the "passenger" we both knew we did something good and prepared our behinds for some serious arse kicking by our superiors.
A big thanks came the next day when we learned actually saved the mans life in time-critical situation. The message was hung on the bulletin board for about 2 hours before it got "lost" but we knew we did the right thing.
A big thanks came the next day when we learned actually saved the mans life in time-critical situation. The message was hung on the bulletin board for about 2 hours before it got "lost" but we knew we did the right thing.
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: stuart, fl s windsor, ct, virgin gorda, BVI
Age: 71
Posts: 14
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Heli Trip
flying my dad and brother from connecticut to the virgin islands and back. 5,000 miles, 500 ft, 50 hrs, 5 countries, pictures can be seen on my gallery. photos on the second row. MobileMe Gallery
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: UK
Posts: 91
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Landing at Sharrow Bay hotel in the lake district after a short trip from London, looking across Windermere, a nice chap there with a Range Rover to take me to the front door and thinking "this is the life...."
Lafite
Lafite
Tooling across the Torres Strait in a Huey on the way from Australia to PNG with a broken deck of stratus not low enough to be a problem, but just there to scrape the mast through now and then; nice cool jazz coming through on the HF courtesy of Radio Australia, going pretty much in a straight line but sometimes lapsing into a kind of meandering waffle to scrape the underside of the clouds (trading a little bit of kinetic energy for potential and back again as the mood struck) - maybe 25 years ago now...
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Canada
Age: 72
Posts: 1
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Favorite moment
1982 brand new 412, still had the new car smell- just dropped off a load of tourists at a climbing hut at 7000 feet in the Selkirk mountain range (central British Columbia). Returning to the ski lodge for the night, dialed in to some tunes from a Calgary radio station and descending at VNE- smooth as silk and like so many say-WOW! and getting paid to boot.......
and getting paid to boot.......
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: UK
Posts: 93
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Whoateallthepies
ANO, on which all UK PAOC ops are based, says
"Aerobatic manoeuvres...
15 An aircraft shall not carry out any aerobatic manoeuvre:
(a) over the congested area of any city, town or settlement;..."
So does a torque turn at low level over a housing estate not count as an aerobatic manouevre?
ANO, on which all UK PAOC ops are based, says
"Aerobatic manoeuvres...
15 An aircraft shall not carry out any aerobatic manoeuvre:
(a) over the congested area of any city, town or settlement;..."
So does a torque turn at low level over a housing estate not count as an aerobatic manouevre?
Nemo Me Impune Lacessit
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Derbyshire, England.
Posts: 4,093
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Favourite moment
Realising that we had made a safe EOL, (for real), with no injuries and minimum damage after an engine failure at 700' over primary jungle, we found a small clearing!
Seeing really HUGE grins on the grimy faces of some infantrymen who were quite happy to be somewhere else than where they were a very few moments before! (Probably mirrored by my own as I was very...very..very glad to be anywhere but where we picked them up!)