Cruising the Sky

Another great video from Evert Cloetens:  Cruising the Sky on Vimeo

Eagle

This is one of the best shot, best produced helicopter videos I've seen. Fantastic panoramas in the clouds and a great 360 roll around the Eagle. And Adele is icing on the cake:

Eagle on Vimeo

Random Photo

Our 412 at 29 Palms Marine Corps Air Station.  As my friend reminds me, the Marine Corps may be a Department of the Navy, but it's the Men's Department.  


The photo is Jim Langley's, surreptitiously taken from Nibecker's Facebook page.     

Good Times

A friend just send this photo of me, next to an AStar I had just flown to the middle of nowhere in Baja California.  Drinking coffee and enjoying the mountaintop scenery, how much better could it get?  

(Photo is by Antonio Mercadoh, thanks for sending.  Ebmiggen the photo to see the famous Starbucks mug in my hand)

Hotel California

If you're going to fly helicopters, you might as well go big.  


I meant to post this on April's Fools Day, but forgot.  While the rotor blade concept is actually taken from a Soviet helicopter design, the rest of it is fictional.  But slick nonetheless.  

20,000 Rubber Balls, Part II

I'm sure golf ball dropping from a helicopter is somewhat common, but doing it from a brand spanking new 3 million dollar twin engine helicopter certainly ups the ante.   This is the same airframe, by the way, that I fly doing EMS.  The photo is worth embiggening, too.  

Dogs and Helicopters, Part 2

As a followup to a previous post, Wendi just sent me a picture of two Marine Corps dogs taking a ride in our 412 helicopter out at 29 Palms, to get them acclimated to the noise and activity.  'Cute' does not come to mind, but they are beautiful, smart, and about to have a lot of fun.  

Big Balls, Part 2

Followup from an earlier post.  For those who are curious, this is how the catenary balls are installed.  

Two Barks = A Little Lower, Please

Not to anthropomorphise the dog, but you have to wonder if there is any sense of trepidation running through his mind at that moment, a gnawing sense in the back of his head that perhaps this isn't such a great idea.  


Or maybe he realizes that the only thing more fantastic than getting to ride in a helicopter is to jump out of one.  


By inference the dog is Italian, and has been trained to retrieve persons in distress by offering them a buoy, raft, or handhold and then paddling them back to the shore (the full story is here.).

Maybe Not The Best Locale For Fuel

On many of the BAJA Races we preposition helicopter fuel at various locations along the course, in lieu of having a readily available airport or to avoid the soul-crushing lethargy and obnoxiousness of Mexican airport management.  And most of the time our fuelers do a great job at selecting fuel sites, except probably this one.   


Color commentary by Joe Koller.