Heli ride for my 8 year old

[Ironwood]

Well, I have a customer who is a commercial Heli pilot and we have been trying to line up a ride when he is "down our way", he travels from his base in NH to just about anywhere there is work in the country. We figured anywhere within 3 hours drive was worth a trip. He was an hour away, so off we went, called off the afternoon school session for some "enrichment" learning (Gotta let the traditional educators feel like you play their game  :). We were up for an hour and had a blast. I used to fly ALOT in the Army so heli's are a blast. My son sat up front with the pilot, we did a few "ag turns" (like you are low altitude spraying) he was good for about three of those :D. Also checked out a Marcellus Shale well site (see pics). It was a blast. We try to get the guys exposed to just about anything possible, he is the only one old enough to appriciate this stuff.

Great stuff
   

[scsmith42]

Very cool Reid!  The last time I checked, and hour in a Jet Ranger was close to $500.00, and that was about 20 years ago!

Your son will undoubtedly remember this for the rest of his life.

[D Hagens]

Awesome for you and your kid, looks like a blast!

[Ironwood]

$1000-1200/ hour   :D   Great guy and his boss (owner) was OK with it. It is likely I will need to build something for the Boss (JBI Heli) because the other two sons will need to go up as well :D ;D

That is the idea, create impact/ memories / options and inspiration. ;) We like to get high on life around these parts. I have had him rock climbing also. He is alittle timid there but REALLY has a "science mind", he is our house wizz on 'puters, he hooked up surround sound on the DVD even though we're not sure it even has it. Found the speakers at an office demo site, he linked them from old TV, thru puter and into speakers :

Ironwood

[Magicman]

I wanta go next.  Take away 'bout 60 years, and I would be 8.   :

Congrats to your 8 year old.   

[sawguy21]

You could see a lot of country in an hour. It's funny, I really enjoy flying in a helicopter but hate being on a ladder. :D

[Ironwood]

I LOVE heli's, I just have to forget there is no glide pattern    Gear is designed to absorb some of the "crash energy". This buddy is a former crew chief and came up the hard way. He is good, very good. So that helps.  

I can be strung from just about any cliff, but DONT get me on open ocean I had some friends that were finishing their "around the world" leg of sailing and stated to me "while off the coast of South America we hit a storm 400 miles out (cant do this much more close to land) and they tried everything off including the wheel, and went below deck battening the hatches. the ship does "ONCE overs" riding out the storm    The "Hand" they hired nearly jumped ship and swam to  the next frieghter they encountered to get back to land. No wonder all the cabin stuff they had me build included mesh covers so their sons (3 and 8)would not get struck with things in their bunks :-\ :'(

Ironwood

[sandhills]

Great job, I got to fly out of Haines, Ak when I was 13 sitting in the "co-pilots" seat of a five seat cessna, I will never forget it either and you can bet your son will never forget that ride!  Never been in a helicopter, always wanted to try it though, keep makin those memories.

[fishpharmer]

You're a cool dad Ironwood.   8)

[CX3]

very cool.  My dad and me went up in a chopper once.  We won a horseshoe pitching tournament at a big fair and we spent our winnings on a chopper ride there at the fair.  It was awesome.  I will never forget it.  Im sure your son had a blast that is a cool thing to do with him. Thanks for sharing.

[metalspinner]

That sounds like a great day, Ironwood!  He's old enough to remember it, too.   He will have a good story to tell his school friends.

When I was about 5 we took a chopper ride when we went on vacation.  It was one of those kind of choppers that was on the MASH television show.  That's the only thing I remember about it. :D

[pineywoods]

Good deal MS. He will never forget that ride. We did the same with our kids, tried to expose them to a lot of different experiences. One slight downside, we got a phone call from our daughters 4th grade teach complaining about our daughter's over active imagination telling about all the places she'd been and things she'd done. Teacher was a bit flabbergasted to learn daughter was telling the truth.

[clww]

Helo rides are great, especially if it's their first time. Great excitement!!! They're still neat to do, even after several hundred trips, I still enjoy them a great bit.

[sawguy21]

That sounds like a great day, Ironwood!  He's old enough to remember it, too.   He will have a good story to tell his school friends.

When I was about 5 we took a chopper ride when we went on vacation.  It was one of those kind of choppers that was on the MASH television show.  That's the only thing I remember about it. :D

Bell 47.

[Ironwood]

We have already had to let folks at school know that he has been sleeping in my truck (Shinn's) since I brought it home in Sept., he slept in a tent all summer (missed maybe 9-10 days) in the back yard, even thru the local "bear sightings" I told him to not worry, bears are afaid of fire of fire, and put out tiki torches then slept on the couch w/ a pistol handy ;) He was in the truck until late December, down to 15 degees, I had to make sure the school knew he was in a mountaineering bag good to -20. Dont want the parenting police to show up :

Ironwood

[Slabs]

I LOVE heli's, I just have to forget there is no glide pattern    Gear is designed to absorb some of the "crash energy". This buddy is a former crew chief and came up the hard way. He is good, very good. So that helps.  

:-\ :'(

Ironwood

Whatcha mean by "No glide pattern"?  I hope you don't think that an engine failure means a crash.

[Ironwood]

My Army buddy flew HU1's and there was no real option from my understanding. The Bell Jet Ranger has a "proceedure" that you must intiate within seconds of a failure, my buddy says every two years Bell comes out and does simulations to ensure they can perform the manuver, at least that is my understanding.

Personally, I knew two folks who went down in choppers, one in Vietnam (MacSOG guy) it was a H53 (I think) and everyone but him died, he was primatively skin graphed over 85% of his body. I worked with a bunch of diced and sliced hard core guys from that era. Crazy stories. The other guy went down in Germany after hitting a gondola cable, he was pretty screwed up, he was on full GI bill and medical retirement and in college with me. Just not something I care to experience. ;)

Ironwood

[Ianab]

Helicopters do have "gliding" ability, as long as you have either airspeed or altitude...

If you are short of one or the other, you glide like a brick.

I believe the danger areas is between 50 and 500ft, and below 50 knots.

Below 50ft, you can just dump it back on the ground and probably walk away.
Above 500 ft you have the time to initiate the auto rotate procedure, pick a soft spot to hit, and again probably walk away.
Likewise you can trade forward speed for time and a "controlled arrival".

When I was riding choppers to the oil rigs they always took off with this in mind. Leaving from the beach they would lift off from the pad to about 10ft, fly over the road (with traffic lights), to a fenced off "airstrip". Basically "air taxi" to then end, turn around and make a take-off run, and start climbing once they were over 50knots.

Of course they couldn't do this off the rig platforms, so they just crossed their fingers and hoped for the best, but again they went for airspeed first, then climbed.

Strangest thing was when the local farmer had his cows grazing next to the take off strip. They were so used to the big Bells hovering 50ft away they just stood there looking over the fence and chewing their cuds  :D

Ian

[Wrangler55]

All helicopters have a card on the dash showing the Height-Velocity diagram or H/V curve, and there is a marked red zone called the "Kill Zone", "Dead-Man's Curve" or "Coffin Corner". At some point in almost every helicopter flight, you will fly in the "Kill Zone"... where there is no chance for autorotation in the event of a mechanical failure. There is also another factor.  The nut that holds the main rotor blade on is called the "Jesus Nut".  Because if it fails, the last words you'll hear over the radio is: "Oh Jesus!"  Modern helicopters and the way they are maintained keep accidents due to mechanical failure to a very low level. Here's a link to see a H/V chart and description.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height-velocity_diagram

My son started flying in sailplanes.  When his first powered instructor pulled power and told Kevin he'd just had an engine failure, he just said... "No problem, for my first 30 or 40 flights, the plane I was flying didn't have an engine."

Hal

[pineywoods]

I looked over a newly developed chopper a couple of years ago. It had 2 counter-rotating rotors and no tail rotor. Quite simple and much cheaper to build, but it was not capable of auto-rotate. The builders flew demo flights but never got out of ground effect. Never heard anything more of it.

[Ironwood]

Wrangler,
Yup, your son would have a foot up on the rest. :D

I like my buddy as a pilot, since he was a crew chief first he is VERY attentive to detail, and JBI is very particular to details even on the outside of their craft, as seen by the pics. We talked about all maintance aspects while on our visit, rotor replacement/ cost, air frame and such.

Ironwood   

[DanG]

There is no zone in which a helicopter cannot be successfully autorotated.  There are just zones in which it is more difficult.  There is a technique to cover any imaginable situation except disintegration of the aircraft or the breakage of certain control rods.  I even had an instructor who taught me how to autorotate backwards, which is useful if you don't have enough altitude to turn around to a landing area.

The Wickipedia article is pure BS.  Such as that is why I don't trust Wickipedia as a reliable source of information.  It is handy and useful as far as it goes, but should never be trusted as the gospel.

Ironwood, you did a really good thing for your Son.  As others said, that's one memory that will stick with him.  I vividly remember my first flight in both fixed and flingwing birds.

[SwampDonkey]

Out west we used choppers for taxi up and down the coast and in places there were no roads on the Islands and up in the Stewart area of BC. We used Jet Rangers, Long Rangers and Hughes 500 (the angry egg). Mostly we used Jet Rangers, they never had the lift power of the Hughes 500. Often only 2 at a time could lift off a swamp and down on the waters edge where we could take 4 because there was usually a good ocean breeze for lift. The Hughes had more over head blades and could seat 5 passengers. Even the Long Ranger was a bit gutless.



This is a Jet Ranger owned by Vancouver Island Helicopters (VIH) and we were just taxied to the top of the mountain on Sommerville Island in BC. The snow capped mountains in the distance are the Alaskan Panhandle, Porcher Canal is the water and is the International line between Canada and the US. I think that's the Mysty Fjords National Monument and Wilderness in Alaska. Behind us is the Kutzmatene Grizzly Bear Santuary in BC (mainland). We often saw killer whales hunting seals when we were on shore waiting for the chopper. The seals of course where after salmon (Stealhead at the time) at the mouth of the Kutzmatene River. It was a couple Km down to the shore for pickup. It was a lot easier walking down than up. :D Up top there you see snow, down the hill a ways it was all bare ground like summer and it was this way most of the winter. We were on the island cruising and marking out helicopter logging.

[Ironwood]

Swamp,

Beautiful shot.

Ironwood