Once…while in the military…in a stretcher on the landing skids…(un)fortunately I don’t remember it.
Something like 30 times. Mostly into remote areas for wildlife surveys - a couple of trips into remote valleys above treeline in the Southern Alps of New Zealand; several trips for surveys we were doing around test oil wells way the hell out in the lower Urubamba Valley in Amazonian Peru; and quite a few trips for various surveys of jungle sites in Panama. On one site, we had to get out on a tiny cleared area on the top of a peak in the cloud forest that we had had some of the locals clear earlier. That was fun. It took the pilot about a dozen tries each time to set down solidly, and we had to make about 5 trips to get all of the crew and our gear in. On our last trip into that site, we had bad weather for several days and the chopper couldn’t get in to pick us up, so we had to hoof it out. Before the US military left Panama, I did some surveys on some of the bases and once got ferried out to a site by Blackhawk.
On a family trip to Alaska we took a touristy helicopter trip up onto a glacier. I didn’t really think much of helicopters before, but sitting in one made me realize how amazing they are. I can grasp plane flight, as the natural analog is bird flight. But helicopters? They just pop up into the air and move around as if gravity is no issue, like magic. It doesn’t seem like this thing should be able to do what it does. If I somehow become a millionaire, I’m gonna take lessons.
I took a helicopter tour of New York City. They didn’t secure the door properly and it almost opened when we were out over the river. That was my last ever helicopter ride.
I’ve jumped out of several. I’ve never taken a scenic ride in one though(with windows anyway).
Four times, while in the Navy. CH-46 I can’t say that I liked it all that much. The way that it would fall and catch itself repeatedly did not make for a comfortable flight for me.
And, at the end of the last ride, I was kicked* out of the silly thing. While it was about 70 feet up! :eek:
Sure, I was attached to a winch, but that’s not much comfort if one is acrophobic.
*Well, okay, the winch operator pushed me out with his foot, but still…
ridden on a few tourist trips over the years.
My contribution is the dippsy dumpster. It is a training device at the Naval Survival school at Pensacola. Naval aircrews, even civilians, had to get through the school to fly P-3s (I was a civy researcher-oceanographer for the Navy). It’s trick is to simulate a crash-landing of a heliocopter into the water. Think of a very large oil drum with windows cut into the side suspended 20 ft over a very deep pool. You and a dozen other people climb in fasten seatbelts and wait. It freefalls to the water, pauses, rolls over 180, and sinks. only after it is completely underwater does everyone unstrap and swim out the exits (windows and a door opening). It was pretty OK. Then you had to do it with blackout goggles. That was trickier. Mostly in swimming in the right direction (up 
) after you were out.
As an aside, we were the second class of the morning. When we got to the gym where the pool was, all the instructors were standing around the ambulance watching as a student on a gurney was loaded in. Once the ambulance left, one of the instructors looked at all the very quiet guys standing outside in their swim trunks, waved his arm and said NEXT! It was a pretty quiet class. The guy in the ambulance turned out to be OK. swallowed too much water and it is SOP to send such off to the clinic for observation.
Dad called it the Dover Dunker.
Yep. Once. Montreal Grand Prix circa 1990.
I was a passenger many times in VN, mostly in Huey’s, but a few Chinooks, even an old CH-34. I flew w/ Army, Navy, Marines and even ARVN pilots. I’ll take Navy/Marine pilots anyday. Army chopper pilots were mostly HS graduates, 19-20 years old and like a teenager w/ their first car, crazy bastards w/ a desire to show off their skills (but not experience).
In late '75 I had to deliver my car to NY for shipment to Bermuda. My wife and I made the trip and only had a day in NYC, where she had never been before. I took her on a 20 minute helo tour of Manhattan and she was terrified to whole flight, I thought she’d destroyed the circulation in my right hand by the time we landed. In '79 I had a short lived job on a Gulf oil rig and made one flight to a rig, came back on a supply boat.
I rode in a helicopter over the Vegas strip. I felt like a bubble. It was nice.
Thank you, seriously. It’s pretty liberating.
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Yumblie – I think I’ve maybe been in three or four of the same threads you’ve been in over the years. One of these days, I beg you, please explain your Location to me! If you’ve already answered that before, I sincerely apologize! 
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I fly in one almost daily, although it’s over a really crappy country. I’m around 200 combat hours or something. I think I broke my finger in one tonight actually. Right after takeoff. So not only did I have to fix my machine gun one handed, I had to fly all night with my hand messed up. That sucked.
It has it’s moments. But it also has those nights when I fly for five hours in -10C weather with the wind on me. Man, that ubersucked.
Here are some random pictures: Photo Storage
I’ve ridden in a lot of them, both for a former job as an oil geologist, and as a tourist. In the oil biz, we took them out to offshore rigs. Mostly they were hueys, which weren’t a great deal of fun. You really can’t see out of them very well, so you just feel like you’re in a noisy, vibrating tin can. The oddest thing was flying in them at night. With no visibility at all, I always had the sense that we were descending, not a good feeling when flying over the Gulf.
Sometimes, though, we’d fly smaller helicopters out, which had glass all around. That was a lot of fun, especially flying over the Mississippi delta. Being able to look straight down at the ground was pretty cool. And the tourist flights I did in Hawaii, and as a kid in Niagara, were great.
Several takeoffs, no landings. Got out at the top, World Freefall Convention in Quincy IL.
Lots of fun, best one was a (IIRC) Bell Twin Jet Ranger, side doors open, gorgeous summer day, pilot did a high speed ground skimming takeoff run followed by a sudden steep climb to altitude. I was sitting in the door with my feet dangling in the air.
I’ve ridden them a few times in Iraq.
I’ve been in a few.
The most memorable was when I was used as a “survivor” for a Bristow rescue helicopter (a Puma perhaps?) to come and collect as part of their annual training. I was left on a beach with a smoke can and a couple of other guys. The chopper came in, we let off the smoke and he hovered over us while a guy winched down and picked us up one by one. We were then flown back to Darwin. Cool.
I’ve ridden in a couple.
Once was a ride around the mountains in Alaska I think, another was going to the airport in New York from downtown, and I suspect that there’s at least one other case, but perhaps not.
Twice, back in 1976, in Korea. I was stationed at Camp Humphries, and met a guy who was a pilot. He was required to have so many hours of practice flying. So once I flew during the day, and took a lot of cool pictures. The other time was at night, while he practiced touch and go landings.
Was an ARMY helio mechanic back in the old days. Lots of rides and stick time, no license.
Some I remember
H-23 Hiller
H-13 E-G or H Bell
H-19 Sk
H-34 Sk
H-37 Mojave
H-21 Pisaki (banana)
Hu-1 A - D Bell
Turbine H-34 Sk
Been places and done stuff. Don’t talk about it all.