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Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 34
K
Member
I rode lots of times working offshore.
All size from small to double blade.
The were all over the oil fields.
Really cool.

Joined: May 2003
Posts: 2,876
E
e57 Offline
Member
"We were pretty close (just above) to the rooftops of the tall buildings downtown. That was cool."

It might be OK there, but here, the FAA mandates >500' over obsticals unless otherwise allowed. (i.e. emergency, police, landing, etc.) I had near war with a local radio station that continualy few window level past my home on a hill to report on traffic, took short cuts <30' from power lines in the fog, and general distraction / hot dogging too close to SF Bay Area bridges. Didn't stop until he had a warning on his license. Simularly, I had the CHP give a warning to a tourist company that got too close to the GG bridge. A friend of mine who works for GGB Authortiy also wrote them a nasty letter. Especially after a local news chopper barely missed the Bay Bridge before crashing in the bay when it ran out fuel...

I like helo's, just not too low... They are very fickle machines IMO and highly prone to crashing. In emergencies, they need a bit of hieght to accomplish a safe landing. Otherwise they are a looming hazard for anyone on the ground.


Mark Heller
"Well - I oughta....." -Jackie Gleason
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 276
T
Member
>>Just thought I would bump this thread up, seems that Trollog and a few others were so interested in helicopter flight.<<

good gut instinct. it's been a very interesting thread

Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 141
S
Member
My Dad was an F-4 fighter pilot. He flew two tours in Viet Nam, 100 combat missions.

I always thought it would be insane to take a ride in an F-4 (or any fighter), but never got the chance. Something tells me I would be well advised to refrain from allowing a fighter pilot to control my destiny, even for a short time.

Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 806
Member
Spark:

I had no such reservations taking my flight. The crazy comment is meant in jest-sort of. [Linked Image] To be able to do what they do and stay alive takes a lot of skill and dicipline, more so than the average Joe. As much as I wanted to become a fighter pilot myself, I knew deep down that I wasn't good enough. But it felt great, even for a short time, to take control of that beast which I worked on for so many long hours. (I was a bomb loader.) Ironically, I had loaded the same ordinance we expended on that flight.

What really scared me, though, was the ejection seat. As a maintenance troop, we're constantly reminded how lethal it can be. Yet there I was, strapped in a fully armed seat with only a 8" pull between my legs (no wisecracks here, if you please) or an 18" pull of the loops above my head to get the cheap show. It didn't really impact until right before takeoff, when I was told to "drop the lower guard" (it's a sheet metal plate on a single pivot bolt which in theory keeps you from getting your boot caught in the lower handle while climbing in or out. It does NOT in any way prevent the handle from being pulled) that I felt a pang of panic. The pilot got a good laugh as he heard my breathing speed up when he said it.

Fast factoid:

Pilots and backseaters NEVER say "eject" once they're in the cockpit. I was warned repeatedly to not say it unless I meant it at any time or I could find myself getting the cheap ride and explaining to a lot of brass why I caused so much expensive damage to a perfectly good aircraft. Other than the lower guard, one other step in the preflight was for me to set the "Ejection Command Option Handle" {in the plane referred to only as The "Command Handle"} to "Single". Meaning, that if I pulled my handle the pilot would stay with the jet. If the pilot pulled, I would go first, then he would follow. In "Dual" mode (the normal mode with rated aircrew in both seats) if either seat pulls, both crew eject, back seat first by a few hundred milliseconds.

My safety briefing on egress proceedures (how to get out of a dying jet) was rather lively. The pilot who accompanied me (not the same one I flew with) kept snorting as optional bail-outs were discussed. I.E., if both eject handles fail, you do this and this and this and this and this and if all that fails, you take the survival knife pinned to the canopy rail, bust a hole thru, unhook your flight harness from the seat [oh, and don't unhook your parachute in the process], wiggle your butt out through the hole, and jump away from the jet and hope you don't get hit by its tail, etc....the Tech Sgt. got royally ticked and wanted to know what was so funny. The pilot responded that we were doing bomb runs at low level and that if I weren't out by the time the pilot has said "Ej.." I was goin down with the plane! I said no way, you'd see how fast I could learn to bulldog a jet. [Linked Image]

If I had the chance I'd do it again in a heartbeat!!


Stupid should be painful.
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 1,803
Member
Tony, "crazy" was an understatement. Sometime in the mid eighties I got invited to an RAF passing-out parade, as a little thankyou from the CO for services rendered. Over dinner the night before, he told me that there was always a flypast at these events, and that he'd ordered a very low pass to mark the event, as it was being attended by Top Brass. Last time out there had been complaints from 'on high' about the 'plane being off-line and too high. Everything went smoothly, military fashion, until suddenly a Tornado roared over, directly over the platform and veerrrry looow indeeeeed! It blew everyone off the dais, including the Air Chief Marshal of The Royal Air Force, The Lord **** of ****, and de-hatted the entire parade, (except me 'cos I wasn't wearing one!)

Alan


Wood work but can't!
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 141
S
Member
Yeah, they're crazy.

They drink hard. How hard? So hard that my Dad used to barf for distance with other fighter pilots. That's hard drinking right there.

I made the mistake of telling my Dad what time of day my 5th grade class walked down the street to the library and back. If a kid tells their Dad a little detail like that, I would guess that it would be inconsequential with 99.999% of kids.

Well, there we were the next day, 30 kids and a teacher, walking down the sidewalk from the library to the building where the classroom was located. Both were located on the main drag. Birds were chirping. It was a nice, beautiful, peaceful day.

Suddenly the air was almost frying with an intimidating and excruciatingly loud explosion sound that filled our very bones, making it impossible to function or think straight, and the entire group of 31 people hit the concrete on their hands and knees, or fell flat on their faces. It was impossible to stand on two feet when hit by this incredible sonic blast.

It was an F-4C Phantom in full afterburner, flying barely above the lightpoles of the street, supersonic. He came up behind us, so we never knew he was coming. Even when he was 5 feet behind us, we never heard it coming. All we could hear is birds chirping.

A sonic boom is SO LOUD when you're only 100 feet from the source. It's loud enough when the plane is 15,000 feet overhead - that sounds like a bomb went off.

That evening, my Dad asked, "Did you see me?"

He was a hell-raiser. He got in trouble more than once for doing things like that. I think they made the movie "Top Gun" after him.

He'd also do things like going head-on with a passenger airliner or other "low performance" plane at full speed, then pull up and zoom right over their heads. They wouldn't even see him coming. He might buzz a passenger car on a lonely Nevada two-lane road in the same way that he buzzed my class.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Crazy? Yeah. Fighter pilots are crazy.

Joined: Dec 2004
Posts: 161
G
Member
Been in military Puma helicopters far more times than I can remember. Far more acrobatic than the wee Robinson 22 I once went in at an airshow.

Anyone had to wear the rubber suit in case you have to ditch in a cold sea?

Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 40
R
Member
While in the Navy.Got involved in taking pictures
for the ship. we were called the snoopy team.
every time we saw a new russin ship we would be called to take pictures of thier radar and the officers medals on thier chests.We also flew on Sh3
sub hunter killers, we would don a harness and stand in the side door with the lanyard tight.
the pilot would fly over the ships and bank hard to starbord and your upper body would drop outside the bird.feet planted on the edge of the door
so you were mostly outside. then you would snap off as many pics as you could.what a rush.

also got the chance to take a cat shot off Nmitz
in a thing called a cod. mail plane....
no roller coaster has ever matched that ride

Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 28
M
Member
R/C helicopter pilot-in-training here!

I’ve learned to crash remarkably well.

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