[spectr17]

Having flown helos into the local mtns here for years to work at the commo sites, it's tricky flying, lot's of wind and buffetting.

Pic is of a mountaintop worksite here in southern Californy called Little San Gorgonio Mountain, 9,000 ft high, and very interesting chopper landings in the winter.

One interesting landing with pilot Pete had the landing pad covered with an 8 foot high snowdrift. Pete says "Hold on", as we approached the landing pad and I'm like "Hold on hell". "We can shiskabob the skids into the snowbank", says Pete. We crash land into the snowdrift, the helo skids sticking out of the snowbank like a fork in a pickle. Silly me, I thought that fun ride was over until we had to leave.

The skids had frozen into the snowbank and Pete says "Hold on"again. Well, I've been on some purty hairy rides in choppers before, but when Pete went full juice, and starting rocking the chopper and then the chopper popped loose from the moutainside, the pucker factor rose quite rapidly. Pete still laughs about that one.

That's Pete in the pic. Some of you may remember the helo crash in Oak Glen in the mid 80s and the helo crash at the 7 Oaks dam a few years back. Pete was the pilot who saved the crew in both auto rotations down. One of the best helo pilots I've ever flown with.

[Fitzcarraldo]

maybe you remember the rescue I am refering to...two guys were at the top of an ice chute near the summit of gorgonio...both fell into the chute, one managed to stop his fall about 300 feet down, but the other kept going, hit rocks and was killed. The copter rescued the live guy directly, but the other required a ground team to recover the body and place it where a copter could pick it up. The guy who survived went on to become a CHP officer, I recall.

[PhiKapMom]

Remember the helo crash in Oak Glen. How do you get the nerve to fly in choppers in these mountains?

[Travis McGee]

I realize it's tough to land a chopper on a mountainside in heavy winds. But how hard is it to fly several hundred feet above a fire and drop water?

Navy Seahawk pilots who land on pitching destroyers in high winds should be able to drop water from 200 feet up, don't you think?

There are 100 idle Seahawks sitting idle ten minutes from the fires!

[First_Salute]

Bump.