noisy visitor

[RichardM]

We have the police helicopter flying overhead every weekend - A6 Derbyshire
Had the air ambulance land on the rec at the end of the road for a heart attack.
Low flying C130 transport plane come down the dales. and over the town occasionally.
Been in a helicopter to the Grand Canyon but the most enjoyable so far is a seaplane from Vancouver to Victoria

 

[Tangledfeet]

I feel very fortunate in having fulfilled a childhood dream and not only being in but actually getting to pilot a helicopter, an RN Sea King ASW - somewhere over the Mediterranean. There was a brace of them on the Royal Fleet Auxiliary I was on and wangled a ride between watches. The pilots gave us a shot flying it for a while after I'd chucked several thousand pounds worth of sonobuoys in the sea as we went looking for a French nuclear sub and dropped the big domed microphone (technical description...) for a listen - heard it too! Watched as we refuelled from a frigate; we were too big for the helideck so the hose was passed up as we hovered over it as the frigate maintained a straight course...

 

[Maker]

Couldn't get a good picture but we had 8 Apaches fly in a big circle over our village twice yesterday.

 

[Robotstar5]

Couldn't get a good picture but we had 8 Apaches fly in a big circle over our village twice yesterday.

Did you circle the wagons in case they attacked?

 

[GrahamGKD]

Up until a few years ago I did a lot of sea kayaking and many years before that I was a club sea kayaking instructor. Our local area coaching group did an exercise with the Weymouth lifeboat and the Naval SAR helicopter when the Portland based helicopter was still operated by the RN. We all piled out of our kayaks somewhere in Weymouth bay and were picked up (one by one) into a Sea King with a strop on a wire. We flew around for a bit with the door open and then they lowered us all (one by one) onto the lifeboat for the ride home. Someone had picked up all the kayaks and stashed them on the lifeboat. The most memorable part was the noise (any attempt at voice communication was completely futile) and the draft of the helicopter when it was low overhead. I think the Naval method is to have the machine much lower over the casualty than the civilian equivalent. We were hanging onto our kayaks while in the water (as you are trained to do) but the draft kept pushing the kayaks along making it harder for us to be picked up. Quite an exciting little after work evening experience though.

These days I am more into endurance cycling - I just completed the Trans America ride on Monday just gone (but that's got nothing to do with helicopters).