Working in the wild world of photojournalism brings with it many adventures, and it’s not for the faint of heart. Being a career adventurer, few things have managed to phase me over the years… but Friday’s outing had me sweating a bit. Let’s back up…
In a nutshell: Guy tried to rob some place. Shot at cops, hijacked a car, crashed the car in the middle of the Yolo Causeway, jumped off the causeway, escaped into swamp. Several more vehicles were hijacked throughout the day, and at one point he managed to hotwire a tractor and cruise around in that. Interstate 80 closed for 6 hours, creating anarchy and madness.
Somebody’s gotta take to the sky… Get to the choppah!
Like many stations in these tight times, ours does not own a helicopter, so we rent one as needed. Today they rented this little guy, and I mean little. I’ve flown plenty of times in the past, including with the National Guard, Air Force, and an air show stunt plane, but this tiny fella got me a little nervous once we were airborne.
It wasn’t just the fact that it was small and blew around with every wind gust… It wasn’t just the fact that the area was heavily traveled with other helicopters… It wasn’t even the fact that we were 1200 feet above the ground. It was the lack of doors that really got to me, and with no handles or restraints other than the seat belt keeping me bound to the cockpit, I came very close to panicking, but held it together.
Every time the helicopter turned, it would lean to the side, and I could feel the seat belt straining to keep me in place. If you want to get a good feel for this, try this fun experiment at home: Climb into your car, put on the seat belt, and lean out the door until it catches. Now imagine being 1200 feet above the ground with a pricey camera resting on your shoulder and the wind whipping at your face so hard that you’re about to lose your knock-off Oakleys. It was quite a rush.
After 20 minutes or so, we finally made it back to land. I’m usually the first one to jump at the opportunity for an adventure, but this one managed to freak me out a bit. Still, what’s an adventure without a little danger?
From now on, I will be sure to insist that any airborne vehicle I fly in has doors on it. Seems obvious, but I guess some lessons you have to learn the hard way.
