This has absolutely nothing to do with Electricity at all.
But, what started out as a very real DARE 10-12 years ago, between myself and a mate of mine, has become, to a certain extent, especially during the Summer months, a very real hobby, even a job!.(Especially as far as Search and Rescue and Fire-fighting goes)
We had a dare, as to who could complete either thier Fixed-Wing or Rotary Wing Pilot's licence the quickest and also who could earn the large amount of money required to sit all of the exams, etc.
I figured that a Rotary Licence should be easier, after all, how hard can it be flying something that hovers by itself, almost!.
Well, I was in for a shock and a half, i went to the Aerodrome at Garden City Helicopters in Christchurch here and I was required to do all of these complex equations and Wind factors and so forth and I thought WHY?.
All up, it took me 3 weeks of theory and exams before I even saw a Helicopter.
Then came the Practical side, remember how I said that a Chopper hovers by it self?, it's all rubbish!
Even after 10 years off and on of flying Choppers, I still have a LOT to learn, I've sat my Twin Gas Turbine and Instrument Ratings and I have been approached by the Westpac Helicopter Trust as to being a pilot for them, as a Full-time job.
But what I was willing to ask, was, have you ever been for a ride in a Chopper and what did you think of it (Good or Bad?)?.

[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 08-23-2003).]

My first ride was in Korea on a litter mounted on the side at the skid.
The second was over Niagara Falls. Honeymoon.
The third was over the Grand Canyon. Vacation.
The forth was over the Phoenix area in a news copter. A hot-rod that scared H___ out of me. He later had his license suspended for reckless flying.
Rowdy

My stomach probably isn't strong enough to ride in 'Copters on a regular basis but I think thye're cool. Woould love to ride in once under still conditions. A guy I used to work with, jumped out of 'copters all over Vietnam and even in Cambodia when the US wasn't in Cambodia . He and I went to a pump school in Maryland, the flight home in a puddle jumper was wicked rough, he was laughing his butt off as I turned green. Seems US Air was a piece of cake after a few hundred jumps in combat

Grew up on a farm and we had crop dusters in air planes spraying our farm all the time.

But the neighbor planted strawberries one year and they're reall fragile and can be damaged by overspray. Planes tend to overspray. I guess it's hard to get the valve off at just the right time when moving at a hundred miles per hour.

So one year, my dad hired a helicopter spraying outfit. They towed the copter on a flatbed and they spent two days spraying our farm.

We were there at 5:30 both mornings just hoping to get a ride. Well, the pilot did ask us. We strapped my sister, brother, and I in the one available seat and went for a ride around the farm.

This was one of those little glass globe cockpits with the rest of the craft that looked like a TV antenna on its side.

That ride was great. You could look straight down from the seat. I've never been up again but would love to fly one someday.

I have never been in a helicopter. But my wife has been in a corporate copter about 5 times. She says that it was totally cool. (Sorry for the California language).

As far as hovering. I read an article about the harrier and it's ability to hover. The pilots equated it to balancing on the top of a needle.

Scott

All Fixed-Wing and could put them down on the numbers with a 30' roll out. Thought I was pretty hot, until the day I tried the Rotary. Every part of your body is in motion and your looking at charts, talking to flight control, well Fixed-Wing was a country drive compared to Rotary.
WB2OMS

I flew in all kinds of choppers in 1961 and 62 as an Electronics Flight Officer(US Army) and was taught to fly them in the event of an emergency.Never did do an auto rotation but was in the left seat while the pilot did a lot of them.At that time auto pilots for choppers were in early development so like it was mentioned above all parts of your body were involved.The Huey was relatively new in those days and the most exciting to fly in, in terms of performance.
We tested HF single side band,FM VHF and AM UHF radios.Got in lots of flying hours around Ft Monmouth NJ,Block Island NY,Atlantic City NJ and Harrisburg Pa.
Chris

A couple times. One was at a county fair (short), and the other time was in Maui. The ride in Maui was one of the most breathtaking things I have ever done. The pilot told us that we were riding in a brand new million dollar helicopter. Totally safe.... er, just strap this inflatable life vest on just in case.


Everybody had stereo headphones on. The pilot introduced himself over the intercom, and gave us a few tips on what to do if we began feeling queezy. As we took off from the heliport, beautiful music began playing in time with the tour. We went right through a narrow opening in the sea cliffs along the shore of the island. Hidden from the view from the ocean, this narrow slit opened into a large cavern surrounded by cliffs. Waterfalls dropped over the edges and into a big pool below us. Lush green tropical plants and flowers hung over the edges of the cliffs. The pilot tipped us sideways over the waterfall so we could all see the rainbow there from the spray. When you thought he was close enough, he got even closer LOL. I believe our ride lasted about 1 hour. It was one hour of my life that I will never forget.

If you ever get to Hawaii, this is a must do!

Guys,
Thanks heaps for your comments!.
Matt M,
I was in Hawaii a few years ago, but not in a chopper and the sights there are amazing!.
The biggest fear I have about piloting a Helicopter is the fear of having a Tail Rotor blade strike something or have the drive linkage break.
I don't really Auto-Rotate that often, although I have used it for the odd landing and so forth.
One thing I do like about the Helicopter, is the fact that you don't have to do a big circle to have another look at something down on the ground.
When I announced to my friend, that I was going to try Rotary Wing flying (as opposed to the Fixed wing, that he wanted me to do), he showed me the movie "Blue Thunder", which I had never seen before, the scene where the nut comes off the tail rotor section scared the H__l out of me.
But that's a mean chase at the end of the movie!.
One thing I have learned though, the larger the Chopper, the smoother the ride, in any conditions.

I've never ridden in a helicopter. I've sat in a few on the ground, but I don't think that counts!

I did have a go at flying a small fixed-wing some years ago. It all started when I just happened to pick up a book in Florida on how to get a pilot's license. I ended up reading and re-reading that book many times, and decided to "have a go," so I went up with an instructor for a quick lesson in a Cessna 150. I did just some basic cruising, turns, climbing, descending etc., but really loved it.

No, I haven't. The wife works at our state fair and the State highway patrol keeps offering to take her up in theirs,they do all it for all of the dept supv., and she won't go. I keep telling her to tell them that if you give my husband 10 minutes he can be here and he will go in my place. It hasn't happened yet though.

I fly as a passenger about once a year for work often at altitudes with landing pads at over 8000 feet. To take off some days you hover about a foot off the ground and float towards a cliff or other major drop off which the pilot dives off of to create a cushion of air to lift the copter.

The worst experience I have had with one of these was living through a migraine headache during one of these trips. Otherwise, copter rides are about like riding an escalator but with a much better view.

Shane

I have travelled in a few as part of the job – which is a good thing as I could never afford to do it privately! I remember well one time flying low over high ground at speed and passing over the very high cliffs at the end of the plateau. Fantastic feeling as the earth just disappeared below you. The pilot of many years flying looked at me and said that sort of thing still gave him a thrill.

That said, climbing in and out of them with rotors running can be a bit scary. BTW Trumpy which way round is a Kiwi helicopter. Australian and US pilots sit on opposite sides and the disk rotates in an opposite direction likewise.

However, just in case you think you may want to travel in something with the inherent aerodynamics of a brick, check out this thread on PPRUNE

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?threadid=19766&referrerid=30158

Hutch,
Pilot sits on the left side, over here.
Behind the steering wheel, the clutch, brake and accelerator pedals!.
Ever wondered why taking a helicopter flight costs so much?, it's not because of silly things like Av-Gas and Machine Maintenance, it's because the Pilot is trying to pay back the 5 mortgages on his house, that he used to pay the Tuition fees to get him where he is today!.

You learn something new every day: I never realized that helicopters came in left- and right-hand drive versions!

Paul,
Yeah mate,
It's one of the few vehicles that I have been in, where the Drive train goes through the roof!.
But I have flown the odd BK-117 Turbine Helicopter, just trying it out for Rescue purposes and they are a lot easier to handle than a standard 4-blade chopper.
All up Guys, it cost me NZ$54,000 to sit my Rotary Wing Pilots licence to Commercial Pilots Rank + Instrument Rating and Night Rating.
I enjoy flying and I like each and every person that I have conveyed in the chopper that I fly most weekends.
BTW, Tips are not expected over here, either!.

[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 08-30-2003).]

We get to fly in the Maryland State Police helicopters once a year. They require a yearly recert that allows us to hoist down to victims or on a fire if we were needed. The pilots only go 2-300 feet up and then lower us from about 100 feet. The view sure is good when there is no door to get in the way.

I wish I could see how it feels to go 200 mph in the helicopter, but don't want to become a patient to find out. They use these for flying patients to the trauma centers.

Are they still around? Those are cool looking. They resemble a big bug with one eye.

What's the deal with the helicopters with the two big rotors (one at each end) -- they look like a big bus...with two egg beaters on the ends.

I remember as a child my grandmother once took me to a hill overlooking a small base where they kept and landed helicopters..but these were all the "standard" one big rotor type.

Who remembers "Airwolf"? That was an awesome TV show!!

My squad and I got shuttled around some in the Army in Hueys. The seats in the back were arranged four to a side facing the large side doors which were usually removed. When the chopper banked we were looking down at the ground, being held in our seats by centrifigal force. We wore seat belts also. Most of the flights were nap of the earth, and we would practically brush the tree tops. It was exciting, but sometimes I couldn't help but wonder and hope the pilots were good, experienced, and well rested. There was little room for error at low altitude.

AC,
I've flown a Huey, when I first got my ratings as a Fully Qualified Pilot.
Darned thing was ex-military and was stripped down to the bare minimum.
Taking off was OK, but, you want to try and land one of them bad-boys on a un-even bit of ground.
BTW, we still use the Iraqiuos(sp?)Military helicopter here, I have flown one of these too, never again, for a Gas Turbine Helicopter, the ride was a shocker, it was worse than the Huey! and that wasn't the
best.
My Helicopter of choice is the BK-117 (a Composite Chopper that is made by a German company and a Japanese company), hugely expensive, but a joy to fly!!.
I can fly one of these machines sideways, as in the rotor perpendicular to the ground!.
Us chopper pilots are an intrepid bunch.

Sven,
What is "Air-Wolf"?.
Sounds cool!.
Just as a note guys, I have to go the Doctor on Wednesday to have a full Medical to see if I am still fit to fly a chopper, CAA requires this, after all you can't have a pilot having a Coronary in the air!!!

Do not try this at home, boys and girls.

Talk about spilling your coffee...and whatever else you ate for lunch...

[This message has been edited by ThinkGood (edited 09-21-2003).]

Trumpy:

Airwolf was an adventure tv show in the mid 80's that ran for 3 or 4 seasons on US tv.
Living in Canada I can dimly remember watching it a few times on cable from the US when I was a kid.

If I remember properly it came out after the
Blue Thunder movie.

Here is a link that explains the show more fully
http://timstvshowcase.com/airwolf.html

Airwolf was shown on British TV as well. I think I saw a few episodes, but I don't remember it that well.

I grew up on re-runs of Whirlybirds , for anyone who remembers that one.


There's an interesting explanation here as to why fixed-wing pilots sit on the left (along with lots of other interesting left vs. right trivia).


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 09-22-2003).]

My son flys R/C helecoptors. They are as much fun to watch as the full size ones.

Can anyone tell me what sort of chopper that is, that was used in the AirWolf series?, it looks strange, as it has no skids on it (how do they land it?).
Aldav53, I once had a go at flying a R/C chopper, hate to admit it, but I crashed it not long after I got it off the ground!, it's a whole different ball-game flying something with two small levers.
A full-sized chopper has 4 controls, the cyclic stick (joystick thingy), the collective lever(which also has the throttle on it, much like a Motorcycle throttle) and two tail rotor pedals for adjusting the pitch on the T/Rotor.
It's a co-ordination nightmare!, especially when there is so much to lose, if you lose concentration, helicopter pilots don't tend to say much while they are flying, the co-pilot tends to do all the talking.

One thing that I DO like about flying helicopters is the fact that you get a REAL birds eye view of our mountainous terrain and the snow-capped peaks of the Southern Alps.
I've flown heaps of tourists from Japan, China,Germany, The Netherlands, the UK and even the USSR and every time I have seen something new and I really enjoy this part of being a pilot, I'm not there to make people throw up, I'm just there to let them have a good, decent look at the terrain of New Zealand, as it looks, from above and that's what I want them to leave NZ with remembering, not the Helicopter ride from Hell!.

My first cousin,a Vietnam vet, says when they were flown to an LZ that they put anything they could find in the seats to "armor" their backside. An Atlanta phone book sent by his Mom was a valued piece of "equipment".

He said the Hueys with all their faults were a welcome sight and sound when it was time to get out of there.

Russell

Trumpy:

The following information is from www.tvtome.com section on airwolf

Airwolf itself was a highly modified Bell 222b, with a number of fibreglass and aluminium sections fitted to give it its unique look. In the TV series Airwolf may have been capable of supersonic speeds, but in reality, the numerous additions resulted in only slowing the helicopter's speeds! Sadly, the aircraft used for Airwolf crashed in Germany in 1991 (however, most of the specially built modifications are still in existence in the depths of Universal Studios).

Just thought I would bump this thread up, seems that Trollog and a few others were so interested in helicopter flight.

There is absolutely no way at all that a chopper could attain speeds like that.
Helicopters can attain a high speed with Gas Turbine engines, however a super-sonic speed is just Hollywood.
Look at how a chopper achieves lift, it would have to have the rotors spinning at 300,000 rpm to achieve that, if it could be attained.
Nice eh?.

I have been a passenger in a CH-47 Chinook helicopter. We used it in the Army to sling load towed howitzers. Can be dangerous if you are the guy that has to grab the sling on the bottom of the bird, braided steel cable, lots of static charge from the rotors. Glad I was sitting inside .

Yep, got to ride one to Catalina to take care of an emergency call at the Avalon Theatre (See the Electrical Nostalgia threads) with the Xetron Console.

From Long Beach, short hop to San Pedro to pick up one more passenger, then on to Avalon. Total trip was about 22 minutes, cruising fairly low above the water! What a rush!

Too bad it cost 4 times what the boat costs. I'd rather fly over than get seasick.

'Course, it doesn't even come close to the backseat hop I got in an F-4 Phantom whilst in the CAL. ANG. Ever flown 300 feet above the ground at 600+ mph? Dare say better than sex....

I got one of those 5 minute sight seeing rides in a Jet Ranger in '89. I always wanted to get my rotarcraft rating but it was too pricy. While my fixed wing was costing $36/hr for a C152 wet and $18/hr for the instruction, an R-22 was $125/hr in 10 hour blocks and the instruction was $25/hr. I always wanted to jump out of one and a hot air balloon too but haven't gotten the chance. I guess you really feel like you're falling on exit since you don't have initial forward airspeed to work with. One time, I could've gotten a slot on a balloon lift if I had gotten my rig packed 5 minutes sooner.
Joe

While in the service I was around helicopters alot. (Often 20-30' off the runway as airfield lighting support*) But I have been in the CH-53D/E, and CH-46E.
I was told NEVER get on one that was not leaking, that means it is out of hydraulic fluid. And no, I have not been on this particular one...


I have seen these guys in two wrecks where I thought no one could have survived, yet no one was hurt. Knock on wood... Both turning with heavy unweildy loads suspended under them. One caught a fence with a shipping container with 20 guys on board. Hit the ground and rolled like a ball, everyone walked off with minor injurys.

* That said, I have seen 30 or so "Hard landings" while being so close to active airfields. My job for a major portion of my enlistment was airfield support. Runway and taxi lighting, fed by generators in a shed ~20' off the runways in Camp Pen, and Mogasishu. Pilots are often jokers by nature, and would often buzz my shack for fun and games. Cobras and Hueys have knocked over the crapper, one time almost with me in it, until I popped open the door and flipped them off. Ch-53's have torn up lighting, knocked over 60Kw gennies and other equipment. And once nearly killed me, by flying 15' off the deck next to a closed runway I was working on. To escape the rotor wash of loose gravel, I jumped in my van, and got the door ripped off. 2 years after I was out, an insurance agency came after me for the incident.

Anyway I have been on 53's and 46's for short hops, and one time got the oprotunity to spyrig from a 53 around a portion of Okinawa, and that was prohably the coolest thing I have ever done. 6-10 guys hanging from the bottom of the helo, probhably the closest thing to human flight.

[This message has been edited by e57 (edited 01-16-2006).]

Just curious; why can't you fly a helicopter supersonic?

Alan

In order to fly, a typical helicopter turning its blades has whichever blade is spinning 'forward' travelling through the air faster than the aircraft is flying since it needs to keep circling the main shaft. As you get faster and faster, the end of that blade will ALREADY be going supersonic at its end. The shock wave from that blade's tip breaking the sound barrier will damage the aircraft. The speed of sound is about 1100 feet per second, which was a problem with some of the WW2 bombers. If the tips of their propellers went supersonic, the resulting turbulance affected the wing and the rest of the plane. Using a rotor, the theoretical maximum speed for helicopters is just over 250 mph.
The way that Hollywood got around that little detail was explained in the pilot episode. The rotor disengaged and the aircraft was powered by the 'Turbos' in the engine exhaust pushing it. The lift was developed owing to the fuselage being shaped as a 'lifting body', much the same way that some of NASA's research ships were made to fly without anything resembling wings.
BTW, the world record for the fastest helicopter is 249.1 mph.

I flew in a tourist 'copter over Sydney in 2001. Enjoyable, but LOUD. They sure enjoy showing off the bridge and the opera house. We were pretty close (just above) to the rooftops of the tall buildings downtown. That was cool.

Airwolf was cool, but yes too much "hollywood". A favorite show of mine. I liked when they were entering and exiting the 'copter when it hovered a few feet from the ground. The woosh when they opened and closed the door was hokey.

Airwolf useless trivia:
Needed FAA permisson to fly with guns exposed.
Guns "fired" using bursts of propane ignited by sparkplugs. If you look close you can see the plugs when they show the stock footage of guns extending.

I've been in Bell Jet Rangers, a Huey kind of thing etc. and they all feel like wiggling, wobbling rattle-traps compared with what I think they should be. SCARY! The big one I flew in had some kind of fuel leaking all over the place, stinking like you wouldn't believe, and boy did I have a headache before I got fresh air!

I took my Australian Shepherd/Blue Heeler up in a helicopter once, we both enjoyed that, even though I knew we were flying around in a potato, which has all the flight characteristics of a potato if the engine sputters.

Helicopters are cool, I love them, they are so versatile and irreplaceable, but flying in them puts you on edge if you're not the pilot.

I've done stunts with helicopters involved.

A couple of my friends have crashed them hard. One of them shattered his lower legs. The chopper was on top of a cliff when he took off and flew out over the water to beat an approaching fog bank, then the engine sputtered, and he turned around and tried to get back to the top of the cliff. He hit a thick wire that was hanging from the lights on a boom truck and then crashed in a nose down attitude, then the helicopter fell on its side. The passenger went face down in the JP4 jet fuel, breathing in the fumes for some time before he was pulled out. Some first trip in a helicopter, huh? He won a coin toss to get to take that ride. He died a week later because of the jet fuel he inhaled. I believe it was liver failure.

My friend's legs required 57 pieces of titanium to reassemble. He's a tough man, I never heard him complain about the pain. He healed up and flew again, still does to this day.

Don't forget to friction down the collective!

Joe, my ride was a full training mission, dropping bombs and firing the 20mm at the range. (The bombs are 25lb. practice ordinance, they have a spotting charge that lets a big cloud of smoke. They have the "drop" characteristics of a 500lb Mk82 slick bomb.)

We did 6 bomb passes, two each of low-level {300!ft @600mph}; 20 degree pop and 30 degree pop plus three passes at the gun pit. Total flight time was 1.2 hours.

The accelerometer bugs were at +6.5 and -4.5 at the end of the mission. And I can tell you those weren't 'one-time' peaks!!

I discovered several things on that flight:

1: Pilots are all crazy;
2: It is possible to kiss one's own...knees. (I had my head down during a high-g turn.)
3: Your first high-g experience will reveal that you can sweat from areas you thought couldn't;
4: The cockpit air conditioning WILL cut off during combat flight, and will resume full-cold once you get to cruise altitude, turning you into a popsicle;
5: Jenny Craig has nothing on a good combat flight on weight loss, I lost 6(!)lbs, all in sweat;
6: It's true that you don't get into a fighter jet, you wear it!!; and
7: They're a lot of fun to fly and take a surprisingly light touch to control.

Best of all, since I was training for my pilot's license, and the pilot who flew me was a rated instructor in the Phantom, I got to log the 1.2 hours in my logbook as "multi-engine jet,.5 as pilot in command."

I rode lots of times working offshore.
All size from small to double blade.
The were all over the oil fields.
Really cool.

"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.

>>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

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.

Spark:

I had no such reservations taking my flight. The crazy comment is meant in jest-sort of. 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.

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

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

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.

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?

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

R/C helicopter pilot-in-training here!

I’ve learned to crash remarkably well.