You simply don’t hear about the times when they don’t auger in. Why would you? It’s a non-event.
I did pretty much the same ride at our local air show. Mine was a two-seater WITH NO DOOR! I was surprised to see how many people in my hood have built-in pools. I think we were up about 15-20 minutes. I would have appreciated a door…seriously.
Last May, my wife and I took a helicopter into the Grand Canyon. We thoroughly enjoyed it. Here’s a pic of us at the landing area near the bottom of the canyon.
I have also done the Grand Canyon tour in a helicopter. We did this one.
3 times.
First: A bubble helicopter around New York City. Pretty cool seeing the Statue of Liberty that way. That same day I got a smile and a wave from JFK as his motorcade stopped on the highway. Quite an exciting day for a kid.
Second: I was 14, it was out of Ontario airport, and it was a connection to a flight home. It was some other kind of helicopter, not a bubble.
**Third:
**A ride (maybe a Hughes? There were 4 passengers) over the Hawaiian island of Kauai. We sat in front. It was literally breathtaking.
I was a little scared at first, it felt sort of weightless. But then I was okay.
We landed in a remote area and I swam under a waterful. We hovered over Waimea Canyon, Mt. Waialeale and other falls.
And then there were the Na Pali cliffs. Wow.
It was unforgettable.
Some helicopters to assist in identification:
Bell 206B Jet Ranger
Bell 206L Long Ranger
Bell 47 (like the ones used on MASH*)
Bell 47J Ranger
Bell UH-1N ‘Huey’
Bell 222
Robinson R22
Robinson R44
Hughes 269C
Schweizer 300CB
A-Star
MBB BK117
Agusta 109
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We were actually given the option of having a door or not. I decided on not having a door. I figured if I was going to do it, I was going to do it all the way. 
It definitely got a bit breezy, and I was warned not to lean too far forward to take pictures because the wind would tend to knock off my headset, but temps were in the mid-70s, so it was still fairly comfortable up there.
More times than I could possibly remember, but never once did it ever get tedious. The last trip on the last day was still just as pleasurable as was the first.
We primarily used Bell LongRangers for sampling in remote regions of Alaska. Much of our focus was across vast stretches of the North Slope, although we also frequented the Yukon - Charley wilderness near the Canadian border and did a fair bit of work down on the Kenai Peninsula. It was always miles from anything though and could be very rough terrain. Without question, helicopters were the only way to get in and out, especially considering the sample bulk we were extracting.
Most of these programs would last for 4 to 6 weeks and I’d usually bring in a couple of pilots early to do some recon. All these guys cut their teeth in Viet Nam and, while were responsible to a fault, they could also get a little crazy if the conditions were right. By “crazy” I mean if we’d no crew on board and work was done, they might engage in a little Follow The Leader over ridgelines, through valleys, just above treetops, etc. Rare, it was exhilarating beyond belief.
I’ve fond memories of setting on beautiful and otherwise inaccessable Sadlerochit Mountain ledges, on the ice pack of the Beaufort and hanging halfway out of one chopper snapping pictures of a grizzly mom and cubs as we attempted to swing her away from two of our party on the ground that she had wandered far too close to. Smile Good times.
In the Army back in the 1970s, I rode numerous times in choppers. Mostly I was doing aerial photo recon for pre-maneuver planning to minimize damage from our heavy tanks to local roads, bridges and structures. It meant making a 360-degree turn over a target at a 45-degree angle with no door on the helicopter. I was strapped in. It was the funnest thing I ever did in uniform.
I’ve been in helicopters a few times. The first highlight would be the first time I flew in one, when I was 5 years old. I broke my arm playing cowboy and using the family risenschnauser for a horse, which threw me off a cliff. Since we were living at the northern border between Finland and Russia at that time, they had to request a chopper to fly me to a hospital.
The second highlight must be from the times in the army, when we were flown tactically in to objectives. It always felt like a trip through a washing machine and a tumbler at the same time.
The third highlight happened when our research vessel lost engine power at Spitsbergen. The coast guard had to fly in and haul us one by one into the chopper with their winch thingy. I kind of felt like Buster the dummy, sprawling from that rope. Luckily I was not subjected to any free fall experiments.
I flew in one in 1994 on my honeymoon in Florida. Short 30 or so minute ride around Disney County. Very cool though. IIRC it was $60 or so, and the place made it a point of showing off a picture of Wesley Snipes standing by one of their copters.
Well, around here you get on the news if you make an emergency landing. I’m not talking about an airliner, but just a run-of-the-mill bug smasher. And I’m the first person to acknowledge the number of small airplanes involved in fatal crashes. I’ve just never seen a news report of a successful helicopter landing. Maybe the rotary guys are smart enough to land without an audience and I’m just missing the good news.
I did this, too. Absolutely fantastic. You’re flying along over the tree tops, and suddenly the entire world just drops out from underneath you.
Flying around all four of the northern Channel Islands off of Santa Barbara and Ventura. $270.00 for about two and 1/2 hours in 1989. Worth every penny. The most amazing thing I heard: hearing the cries of 10, 000 Pinnipedes on San Miguel island over the din of the helicopter blades & turbine as we flew over.
When the local flying sheriff guys around here autorotated to a successful landing a couple years ago they got into the local papers and it was noted they walked away with only a couple bumps. The bigger guys didn’t want to touch it because there were bloodier stories to lead the news.
Himself and I paid for a ride in a helicopter at the county fair. We could see our neighborhood from up there!
Many, many military helicopters. Never stops being fun, though. I really want to go in one built for speed, though.
I had a close encounter with a TOW Cobra in November of '75. We were in southern Germany, observing a bridging exercise. My officer and I were standing on a hillside looking down at at the crossing and a Cobra popped over brow of the hill behind us and buzzed us about 50 feet up. He went past us so fast I had the feeling that I saw him out ahead of us before I heard him overhead (which wasn’t true, of course, because he wasn’t supersonic – but he was flat moving!) He “strafed” us on one pass, circled back over the bridge crossing and puttered around there, then came back to us. The pilot saw I had a camera, so he turned the Cobra in profile to us and posed while I took his picture. I still have that photo. Rarely have I been awed so by a man/machine combination.