HELO FUN TIME!
 

Fun stuff you've done in your helo.

Going through SARTU @ Valley. I was asked by a mate if I would take a gobby jet nav stude flying in the griffin during one of my training sorties. I duly asked my instructor, he said yes so off we went to do spme cliff winching(sits). Reversed the helo into a smallish crevice(nice word), blades apparantly 10' away from all solid stuff(probably much further, but I was only a stude at the time and I want to talk myself up a bit). Poor jet boy nav who was used to seeing all hard stuff 250' away at the very least almost had a coronary. We curtailed the sortie because he was feeling a little sick.

To his credit he did buy the beers that night.

I plead the 5th amendment... I will not incriminate myself!
But I have had some fun...
:P

Does noone on this forum talk about anything other than P of F or tech.

This is quite frightening as I get enough of that at work, and I don't understand it there either.

220 kts (groundspeed) in a Chinook @ 50ft. Cant beat it.

[This message has been edited by Bertie Thruster (edited 22 March 2001).]

Flat out in a Gazelle with front of skids in the (tallish) wheat crop. Watch out for those wire fences however.

Been winched-out @ 10K'. The ultimate 'space-walk'... allegedly :)

10000' in a 206, no doors and light CAT.

Sorry I miss read the subject, the above was NOT fun!

Fun things in a helicopter?

One of many was operating the hoist on BOs and BKs during certification tests and demos.I will never forget standing on the skids at 16,000 MSL (about 6,000 AGL) over the Rockies in December. Cold, but what a view!

Least fun in a helicopter? One of many was trying to clog an inlet seperator by flying in 1/8 mile vis in wet snow. 30 feet AGL, 30 to 40 knots, back and forth along the edge of the company parking lot for hours. "Turn left at the Ford, look out for the light pole". We never did clog it, but we had one customer who did regulalry. I always wondered what THEY were flying in!

Everytime I fly is fun ..... :)

So far though, when coming back along the coast, 75-100 yards off the beach at 50Ft, 80 Kias, with my CFI to back me up (Solo rental contract is no lower than 500' except to takeoff land at airports)

Doug and I had a blast.

------------------
Marc

Winched out at the end of 250ft of cable, 10ft above the moor, trusty 12 bore in hand , shooting rabbits. Excellent coordination exercise for the whole crew.

Never had fun in a helicopter... Neither did a certain family member who was screaming at the time. How could she know whats scary until she takes her hands from in front of her eyes. I knew there was a wall there. Missed the tree by miiiles. No one else complained. Mind you no one else got in. Must have seen me drive. No, can't say I've had fun in a helicopter.
Keep your chopper up.

[This message has been edited by Dangrenade (edited 28 March 2001).]

Pleasure flying for the local kids' mental home. Ya Canna beat it.

Phil

50ft high club! (nookie on open ramp of Chinook while rest of crew give it wellie low level.)

Well worth the case of champagne.

Your favourite moment in a Helicopter!
 

Polar bear spotting - Churchill, Canada - 2000

My favourite moment in a helicopter....
 

Landing - upright, with my socks up and my watch still going.

4 hours undisturbed kip while on guard duty Detmold early hours one morning in 1981, six man seat back of Lynx Mk1 :zzz:
When asked by the guard commander where I had been, I said it was such a lovely night I thought I'd stay out and do the next guys stag for him. :ok:

Good job the Soviet Forces didn't decide to invade Europe that night :eek:

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

I'm sure he gave you plenty of opportunity to make up for it SS. How many extras?

I was at Deathmold too in 1981 and whilst on stag one evening and desperate for a pee I walked over to a Lynx and relieved myself out of view of anyone who might watching from the offices. Might have had a bit of flatulence too. Anyhow after zipping myself up and walking away the cabin door lid open and out stepped my Flight Commander and a young lady who he had been 'entertaining' therein.

Anyhow - I digress. My favourite moment is undoubtedly finally climbing out of the thing after 6 hours IMC in a goon suit.

Probably when I dropped off some people at a station in remote outback Australia, then flew back to where I was based. Doors off, sunset was beautiful, extremely peaceful as nobody next to me :}, temp was just right, flying (legally) low over the landscape.

Nothing unusually original but just one moment that sticks out in my mind.

Another great moment was my first solo in an R44, which so happened to be a SAR job

Accomplishing a training toe in, in an extreme confined area, at a rocky waterfall along a British Columbia mountian river. The whole area was scattered with boulders the size of Volkswagens, and it took a few minutes to find two positioned so that I could get a toe onto each, while not getting the rotor into the branches.

What a sense of satisfaction when I finally did it, and perched there for a minute or so!

Then my mentor held it, so I could take a photo...

http://i381.photobucket.com/albums/o...t/IMG_1366.jpg

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,......:D

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"......:ok:

Whirls my dear....you seem pretty good at whacking things with a hammer.

I hate to think what might be hid in your cellar!

First flight i was paid for, instead of paying.:D:D

The remains of the last cheeky helicopter pilot who crossed me. :E

Cheers

Whirls

First time flying on top of clouds in brilliant sunshine. Springs first to mind.

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.

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???)
:yuk::yuk::yuk:

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 :p

* And then getting back into the aircraft and taking off without a Lion deciding I was lunch

Seeing my own moon shadow on top of the clouds :ok:

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 :ok:
Then day 5 I go to curl one down and guess what? All my previous fuel piles had vanished just like that !:eek:
I still to this day have no idea who the turd burglar was :{
True story by the way....

Thanks for that Griff, you made me laugh out loud !:D

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......

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.

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!

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.

Finishing a very nice auto at the end of my flight test for my CPL!

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.

:E :ok: :D

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.