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pecuniumYesterday was one of those days when one gets to look at one's work and say... "They pay me for this... Oh yeah!"
To do the job we're doing, just a tad better (because we didn't need to add this) the Chief got us a pair of Blackhawks for four hours, so we could do some aerial photography out the doors.
Yep... I get to ride in a chopper for fun. Work has to be done, but this isn't a lift, from point A to B, with transportation as the object, nope we are flying for the sheer sake of flying.
Which meant, for the first time since I arrived, lots of people were up at an early hour, as we briefed the mission, grabbed some coffee and got ready to go.
The day was grey, which they have all been, pretty much. When the clouds thin, we get a soft golden light, but blue sky and hard shadows have been rare, and brief.
We drive to the airfield, and get the usual brief (enter when the crew-chief tells you {a PFC, reminder to anyone [which doesn't usually affect people in our line of work] that authority can trump rank} from 3, or 9, o'clock, if we have crash, the rally point is 12 o'clock, if smoke makes that no good, then it's 3, and then 9 o'clock. There are two fire extinguishers in the bird; for personnel, not equipment.. etc.) and head out to the flight line.
For the first time I'm sitting with a lot of room. A Blackhawk's default configuration seats twelve... and we are but six.
One forgets how small the inside of one of these seems. From the ground they seem huge, great hulking insects, lumbering deftly through the sky. From the inside, on the ground, they seem just short of cramped. The overhead is inches above one's head, feet are separated by only a few more inches than that.
When the starter whines, and the rotors make that loud, slow, grinding noise; overcoming the inertia of rest... the whole frame rocks on the wheels. And the flicker starts... a counter-rotational moire-pattern (from the reflections on either side of the plane) that covers every surface in the plane.
And we're aloft. I think, esp. from the inside, helicopters seem more at home in the air than planes. No struggle to leave the ground, and they can do anything they want. As we head out the cranes in the grass take off, and they remind me of the Blackhawk... a crouch, then a leap and just that easy they are no longer of the earth.
And they leave us behind, as we hover for a moment... the pilot getting some instruction from the tower.
From 200-500 ft. the land is close enough to not lose perspective, but one is not connected to it. A fear of heights doesn't matter. We go from place to place, getting our pictures, the nose comes up, and the pilot loses his forward motion by tilting the rotor; we hover, and twist... crab and drift, until the nose goes down, and we zoom to the next location, hard banks and the wonderfully bizarre sensation of displaced gravity... the ground is on my left... the sky above me, and I am still of the opinion is down... through my butt, and out the floor of the bird. When I'm looking through the camera (and I wish I'd had a 28-200 lens, rather than the 28-105, but I didn't bring that one with me and wider seemed better when we left (and was, though longer would have been useful at times... I'll just have to keep that in mind for the next time)
An hour and a half, and we head back to to a hot-fueling on the bird. We try to stand straight, as we walk beneath the rotors, but it's hard. One can't see the blades, but the sense of movement is omnipresent, and the downblast is palpable. We go over what we have, and head back for more.
Further North. Over the site of the Seoul Games, looking down on apartment buildings, seeing the ubiquitous drying of peppers on the roofs of smaller buildings, the currents in the rivers... the graveyards. Small clearings on the sides, and tops of hills, with round mounds, surrounded by walls; with a standing stone. The trails up the hills are narrow, and the older ones are completely overgrown, a tunnel in the woods... dark and intimate.
And hovering over a river... on the way we saw small firebases... Howitzers, with their long, stubby, snouts pointing north. The nose pulls up, the bird shudders and stops, floating above the water, nose to the east, and I am gazing at more hills, range after range of them..., running west to east, an endless set of hard slogs; for foot soldiers. I am looking across no man's land... into North Korea.... It isn't peace, just a cease fire.
Banking, dropping and the pilot takes us home, hugging the slopes, and banking along the ridgetops... I can see straight out the window to the ground, and then the clouds... Roller coasters have nothing on this, none of it is rough and it's all done full-speed, no waiting for the cars to crest the peak and make the drop.
On the ground again... once more back where we belong, and feeling diminished... that freedom, which we stole with machinery is heady stuff.
More please.
To do the job we're doing, just a tad better (because we didn't need to add this) the Chief got us a pair of Blackhawks for four hours, so we could do some aerial photography out the doors.
Yep... I get to ride in a chopper for fun. Work has to be done, but this isn't a lift, from point A to B, with transportation as the object, nope we are flying for the sheer sake of flying.
Which meant, for the first time since I arrived, lots of people were up at an early hour, as we briefed the mission, grabbed some coffee and got ready to go.
The day was grey, which they have all been, pretty much. When the clouds thin, we get a soft golden light, but blue sky and hard shadows have been rare, and brief.
We drive to the airfield, and get the usual brief (enter when the crew-chief tells you {a PFC, reminder to anyone [which doesn't usually affect people in our line of work] that authority can trump rank} from 3, or 9, o'clock, if we have crash, the rally point is 12 o'clock, if smoke makes that no good, then it's 3, and then 9 o'clock. There are two fire extinguishers in the bird; for personnel, not equipment.. etc.) and head out to the flight line.
For the first time I'm sitting with a lot of room. A Blackhawk's default configuration seats twelve... and we are but six.
One forgets how small the inside of one of these seems. From the ground they seem huge, great hulking insects, lumbering deftly through the sky. From the inside, on the ground, they seem just short of cramped. The overhead is inches above one's head, feet are separated by only a few more inches than that.
When the starter whines, and the rotors make that loud, slow, grinding noise; overcoming the inertia of rest... the whole frame rocks on the wheels. And the flicker starts... a counter-rotational moire-pattern (from the reflections on either side of the plane) that covers every surface in the plane.
And we're aloft. I think, esp. from the inside, helicopters seem more at home in the air than planes. No struggle to leave the ground, and they can do anything they want. As we head out the cranes in the grass take off, and they remind me of the Blackhawk... a crouch, then a leap and just that easy they are no longer of the earth.
And they leave us behind, as we hover for a moment... the pilot getting some instruction from the tower.
From 200-500 ft. the land is close enough to not lose perspective, but one is not connected to it. A fear of heights doesn't matter. We go from place to place, getting our pictures, the nose comes up, and the pilot loses his forward motion by tilting the rotor; we hover, and twist... crab and drift, until the nose goes down, and we zoom to the next location, hard banks and the wonderfully bizarre sensation of displaced gravity... the ground is on my left... the sky above me, and I am still of the opinion is down... through my butt, and out the floor of the bird. When I'm looking through the camera (and I wish I'd had a 28-200 lens, rather than the 28-105, but I didn't bring that one with me and wider seemed better when we left (and was, though longer would have been useful at times... I'll just have to keep that in mind for the next time)
An hour and a half, and we head back to to a hot-fueling on the bird. We try to stand straight, as we walk beneath the rotors, but it's hard. One can't see the blades, but the sense of movement is omnipresent, and the downblast is palpable. We go over what we have, and head back for more.
Further North. Over the site of the Seoul Games, looking down on apartment buildings, seeing the ubiquitous drying of peppers on the roofs of smaller buildings, the currents in the rivers... the graveyards. Small clearings on the sides, and tops of hills, with round mounds, surrounded by walls; with a standing stone. The trails up the hills are narrow, and the older ones are completely overgrown, a tunnel in the woods... dark and intimate.
And hovering over a river... on the way we saw small firebases... Howitzers, with their long, stubby, snouts pointing north. The nose pulls up, the bird shudders and stops, floating above the water, nose to the east, and I am gazing at more hills, range after range of them..., running west to east, an endless set of hard slogs; for foot soldiers. I am looking across no man's land... into North Korea.... It isn't peace, just a cease fire.
Banking, dropping and the pilot takes us home, hugging the slopes, and banking along the ridgetops... I can see straight out the window to the ground, and then the clouds... Roller coasters have nothing on this, none of it is rough and it's all done full-speed, no waiting for the cars to crest the peak and make the drop.
On the ground again... once more back where we belong, and feeling diminished... that freedom, which we stole with machinery is heady stuff.
More please.
