The Ride
Our first ride with our daughter as the helicopter pilot
We went up to visit Erin and James over the weekend. While there, Erin planned on giving Patty and I our first ride in a helicopter with her as our pilot. We arrived on Friday looking at low clouds and rain coming. She had ships reserved often just to make sure if the weather cleared, we would get a chance. On Friday we waited at the airport to see if the conditions would be favorable. Alas, no such luck.
On Saturday she checked all day long for a chance and finally everything was clear for a 3:00 takeoff. We rushed over to the airport and she started her preflight check of the ship, which takes about a half an hour to do. She took me up first traveling about ten miles out just over flying the surrounding countryside. I took some pictures during the flight of anything, just to try and give an idea of what we were seeing. We were at about 700 feet altitude and going about 85 Knots.
Click on the pictures to get a full size view
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Patty took this shot of Erin and Paul before we took off |
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The gas guy came out to remove the left hand controls and foot pedals so Paul could not cause a problem |
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| Then he gassed up the ship |
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Erin went through her pre-flight check, including check the rotor blades |
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| We started out heading South flying over the farmland |
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A little ranch and pond |
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| This is a field where a farmer carved symbols in the dirt. |
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Same field while going by. |
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| A subdivision in the hills |
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A shot looking at the horizon |
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When we landed back at the airport, Erin called for an field assistant to escort Paul back and Patty to come on board. She decided to leave the rotors running to save time, as it was starting to get dark and she wanted to give Patty a good ride too before dark. She is able to fly at night but not with passengers at this point in her training.
| After getting out, I took this picture of the Assistant helping patty get in |
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Inside and ready to lift off |
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| Just starting the lift off |
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I took this picture when they got back. As you can see, it was dark when they touched down |
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