I’ve flown in an SH-60 sitting in the door with my legs hanging out, taking pictures of merchant ships. Hella fun.
Many times as a kid. They used to run regular helicopter service from the Orange Show grounds in San Bernardino to LAX. My parents and I must have made that jaunt a dozen times when I was growing up. Beats traffic any day. Not sure what kind of machine it was - a Sikorsky of some kind, I’m sure, but no idea the model number.
So when did the local helicopter services end? I remember traveling through Burbank Airport in the late 1970s and there were ticket counters for L.A. Helicopter, but I couldn’t tell if they were still being used or not.
sure, both UH-1 Hueys and Chinooks. Riding in a Huey, doors open, as the pilot executed a banking turn was both pretty goddamn scary and cool at the same time. Yes, the seatbelts are there for a reason.
The last time I remember travelling that way had to have been in the late 60’s. We moved in 1968, so how long after that it was in service I couldn’t tell you.
I got my license in Southern California, a place made for doors-off flying. I was itching to solo. (My instructor wasn’t satisfied with my landings. I finally figured out on my own that I was trying to land the Robbo like a Cessna. Once I made the connection I was dandy. Confused the hell out of my instructor why I suddenly got good, until I told him.) Anyway, I was on the base leg when he chopped the throttle. With a low-inertia rotor system you have to react immediately and correctly. This time (the only time in my training) I was late on the pedals. We yawed briskly, and had he not been wearing the seat belt my instructor would have gone out the hatch. He gave me one of those looks instructors save for particularly inept students. All I could do was smile and say, ‘Well, Jack, I told you I wanted to solo today!’ 
Oh, forgot to mention my ride in the Huey. Rather embarrassing, as I was being transported back to the airport without the airplane I had left with, but fortunately it wasn’t quite the sort of ride danceswithcats and runner pat had. I remember the ride quite vividly, and also my relief to know I hadn’t broken the Cessna after all and no one was going to sue me. The county didn’t charge me for the chopper ride, either.
And Asimovian - congrats on beating the fear of flying and learning to enjoy aviation!
My first time was in a Bell Jet Ranger flying from San Pedro to Catalina Island, which I remembered years later when getting my husband a gift certificate for a demo flight lesson. He was interested in fixed wing, but I thought he’d like the helicopter. he did, coming home afterwards and informing me that he now knew what he wanted to do with his life.
All of my rides since then have been with him. Unfortunately, I get dreadfully airsick after about half an hour, so they haven’t been long rides, which is a pity because I think it’s a blast, especially max-power take-offs. He won’t do an autorotation with me on board, dammit.
I rode in one up and down much of Myrtle Beach, SC, beach in the mid 70s for a tourist fee of about $10 and I rode around Walt Disney World in one in 1986 for about $25.
I still am somewhat uncomfortable in them. I used to have all expense paid flights in helicopters in Southeast Asia paid by the United States Government and those flights did not always end as well as I would have liked.
At times the local residents attempted to assist us in reaching the ground more quickly and this could be kind of disorienting for us.
So yes, I have ridden in a helicopter. More times than I would perfer to remember.
Oh man, I have several times, and I love it. The first time I went up was when I was about 10 or so. It was summer time and my brother and I were out on our bicycles, hanging around a construction site of three new model homes. The gimmick was that the homes weren’t intended to stay where they were in the valley, but were to be moved up to the real site of the development on a nearby hillside. So there was a helicopter there to take prospective home buyers up to survey the actual home sites.
The pilot was bored, I guess - hell, nobody was around the site at all, let alone anyone interested in buying a house on the side of a southern California hill - and he asked my brother and me if we wanted a ride in the 'copter. Did we ever!!
So we loaded up and took off and it was absolutely awesome. I still remember vividly 45 or so years later how cool everything looked from a couple hundred feet up. The hills pretty much disappeared and everything looked flat, for one thing. The view through the glass surrounding the cockpit was breathtaking; it felt much more like a dream of flying than in a fixed wing aircraft. It was a really exciting 20 minutes or so.
The only bad part was we couldn’t tell anyone for fear of it getting back to Mom and Dad (we lived in a really small town and everyone minded everyone else’s children and business). We figured that since we were forbidden from accepting car rides from strangers that Mom would really have a fit if she heard we’d accepted a helicopter ride from a strange man.
“But Mom, he was a pilot!”
On preview, TV time, my post is so trivial and frivolous following yours. Thank you for your service and I’m very glad you made it back home.
I have, three times.
I win bragging rights for the first story. A few years ago Australian multi-billionnaire Dick Smith gave myself and two friends a ride in his own private helicopter. Wheeled it out of his own personal hangar, there next to his home, filled it with some fuel, and then took us up. We went on a fairly standard touristy ride around the harbour and Bondi, and saw a few other sights as well. Then he flew us home. I was in the front passenger seat and there were dual controls. For a very brief period while in the air, Mr Smith gave me ‘control’ of the helicopter and was able to steer it!
My second trip was a standard touristy ride around Manhattan, and to be honest I thought it was fairly poor value and not all that good.
My third trip was in Hawaii, on Big Island. We flew right over a live volcano and along the trail of the glowing, molten lava. This would have been thrilling enough, but it was a ‘doors off’ flight, so there was nothing between me and a 500 foot drop into a live volcano except my seat harness (and the skill of the pilot). Worth every penny and more.
I’ve been in a military helicopter, back when I went to Air Cadet summer camp at CFB Trenton (Ontario). You couldn’t see anything out the windows, because we were all seated along the walls. But hey, it was a helicopter ride! I’m sorry, I can’t tell you what kind it was. I don’t know about any of that stuff.
Well I have. But it was a lifeflight and I was pretty much out of it.
Taken sightseeing flights in 'em.
Jumped out of 'em.
The former is funner.
Mater? Is that you?
I have ridden in a helicopter once, in July of 2006, and IT FUCKING SUCKED! But mostly because of the circumstances: we were being evacuated from Beirut (where we had been living, deliriously happy, for six years) to the USS Whidbey Island, on around the 10th day of the Israel-Hizbollah war. It was very relaxing for our then-2-1/2 year old daughter; she fell asleep within a few minutes of takeoff. Haven’t been back to Lebanon since.
I have, a couple of times. Once when I visited Grand Canyon and I took a scenic helicopter ride. Similarly in NZ when we flew up onto the Franz Josef glacier.
Rode in a Chinook for search and rescue training. Civil Air Patrol.
Got lowered down the hole in the belly on the ‘Jungle Penetrator’ quite an odd set up.
It was very windy.
Before the practice, the pilot buzzed us poor ground pounders at about 50’ AGL. That was one holy shit moment.
Used to work in the oilfield, been in Bells, Sikorskys and those little tiny bastards made by Messerschmitt. After the first couple of rides, it’s just another vehicle. Except they’re usually crowded, often cold, and mostly uncomfortable (except the S-76’s). Beats the hell out of taking the crew boats, though.