Random Photo

The San Diego Gas & Electric S-64 Aircrane.  Enormous, you could almost fit a full-on weber grill into the exhaust.  

The circular apparatus to the right of the exhaust is the rotor brake. 

Click photo to embiggen.

BAJA 500 Evening Dress Shoot

I just landed at the Ensenada hospital, and as usual the helicopter was immediately accosted with curious families and kids from the neighborhood. As impoverished as most of them are they all have phones with cameras, and they queue up to take family portraits.

I had never seen a couple like this, though, a rare glimpse into Mexico's discreet middle class showing up with everyone else for a photo.

If I had been the least bit fluent in Spanish I would have told her she had fabulous heels.

Hijacked

This is a picture of a hijacked helicopter, the pilot being held at gunpoint to participate in a Russian jailbreak.  (Just happened this week, full story here. ).  It actually worked, or at least the helicopter part did.  


As someone who lives in San Diego and often flies into Mexico, I have thought about being hijacked often, and what I would do.  Pre-9/11 I would have done what this pilot did, which is to go along with the scheme and expect a generally happy ending (this pilot was eventually bound and gagged after dropping off the accomplices and fugitive several miles away, but otherwise unharmed).


But post 9/11, and given the distinctly darker tone of the drug war still playing out in Mexico, I doubt that any helicopter pilot could reasonably expect to survive a hijacking.  Either the helicopter would be flown into a building or open assembly of people if the hijacker were religiously inclined, or the pilot would be summarily executed upon landing for having been a witness, a standard protocol with drug cartels these days.  


As chilling as it sounds to me, possibly the only viable option would be to intentionally crash the helicopter and hope you emerge relatively unscathed and able to get away before the hijackers come to their senses.  Not a great prospect, but if it worked what a great story you'd have to tell the NTSB.  

Gigantic Paper Airplane

A helicopter launching a gigantic paper airplane, never would have thought of doing that.  Full story here.   

Recovery

The Coast Guard is recovering their helicopter that crashed several days ago off of Alabama's Mobile Bay.  No survivors, and no bodies were found in the fuselage.  No clue as to the cause, but it's the latest in a string of fatal accidents the Guard has suffered in the past year.  

Good Times

I bet the mechanic will be none to happy to discover the pilot dragging the helicopter around in the water like this.  

Random Photo

Helicopter traffic jam.  

Superstition

Thanks to the  superstitions of  the Chinese and Vietnamese who are convinced rhino horns are imbued with magical powers,  rhinos are being hunted to extinction.  This one, though, is getting a ride via helicopter to a safer location in South Africa.  The full story, with more pictures, is here.

Might want to turn down the treadmill.

Seen at my FAA Doctor's office.  'Crash' is a medical euphemism for 'the patient just collapsed and appears to be quite dead at the moment'.

Random Photo

Interesting concept, but as a soldier I'd feel a little naked zipping around in this over enemy territory.  

Tragic New Year

One of several paper cups dropped from a helicopter to unsuspecting campers, after a park ranger was shot and killed nearby and the gunman escaped into the woods.  The full story is here.

The pilot and crew had no other venue with with to communicate with the campers, other than coffee cups from Cruisin Coffee.  

Round and Round

I could be wrong, but I suspect this pilot is having a pretty good time.  Probably not getting paid a great deal doing agricultural spraying, and probably, occasionally, scaring the bejeezus out of himself flying next to powerlines all day, but fun nonetheless.  

Faith

For an atheist, this is the manifestation of faith:  a dog doing what every evolutionary bone in his body tells him not to do, save for his belief that his handler will keep him safe.

But then again, maybe the dog realizes how impossibly cool it is to jump out of a helicopter into the water, and could care less what the guy next to him is doing.  

Happy Holidays

Christmas morning at sunrise, over the San Diego mountains.  The kid in the back has croup, hope it's not contagious. 

Scottrade Flashback

My one and only foray into commercials.  

The A Model

There is an old saying that one should never fly the A model of any helicopter, the inference being that there are kinks to be worked out.  'Kinks' is a euphemism for 'unexpected component failure'.  The Bell 222 had a kink in the form of the engine self destructing and in the process of disassembling itself would sometimes manage to take out the second engine sitting next to it.  

The photo above is the A model of the Bell 429, which I flew last week.  But just for 15 minutes, so I felt statistically safe.  Very nice avionics suite, excellent engine power, roomy cabin.  

Mechanic Humor

The 12,000 pound Bell 412, with an emoticon.  

Random Photo

Elizabeth Cook Peebles, a female helicopter pilot somewhere over the deserts of Arabia.

The local religion would have her draped in a burka and stripped of most of her rights. But by the happenstance occurrence of her being born somewhere else she's given a wink and a nod from her male passengers as they climb on board.


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Location:Surrey Dr,Bonita,United States

Disingtegration

What many might find surprising is that most helicopter accidents happen for the most moronic of reasons.  Which is why perhaps so many helicopter pilots have a feeling of invulnerability:  they cannot imagine themselves making such ridiculously sophomoric mistakes.  


As the current story goes this pilot was unable to release the cable dangling underneath his helicopter (after using it to place the steel structure that was to be used for a christmas tree decoration), and so was descending towards a low hover so someone on the ground could manually unhook it from the belly. The other end of the cable, though, was still anchored to the top of the steel metal structure, so as he descended the cable was dangling precariously close next to him, as of course the other end was stuck on his cargo hook.  


You could almost see it coming, as the ground guy pulls on the cable to free it from the helicopter, which then eliminated whatever slack the pilot was counting on for clearance and snapped the cable right into the rotor arc.  And then two seconds later the helicopter ceased to exist.  

El Commandante

This is the Commandante of the Ensenada Airport. He officially reports to the aeronautical authorities in Mexico City, meaning he reports to no one.

And so he is the final arbiter of where you can fly and land, when you can do it, and how much it's going to cost you to do so. He controls the military staff dispensing flight plans, the customs and immigration officials granting or denying visas, and whether or not the ominous drug sniffing German Shepard will come visit your helicopter.

The approval stamp in his top right drawer represents the demarkation between misery and freedom, between being told you've entered the country illegally and being allowed to briskly walk out to your helicopter and take off before he changes his mind.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Ensenada, Mexico