> > I was expecting a post about helicopters. Here in Manhattan, we occasionally see some Chinooks flying down the Hudson with several West Point students hanging off a wire. They're large birds.
>
> One time, we were walking the Palisades and heard several fly overhead, perhaps sixty feet off the water.
>
> -Faux "always liked helicopters" Pas

I always like seeing them coming in to land over the water at the Marine Rescue Centre (helicopters in general, not Chinooks). It's so cool the way the water underneath them gets blasted by the downwash as they go past.

We had a really cool training session with the helicopter guys the other week, about winching people up or down between the boat and the helicopter. (Classroom, but we'll be doing it some time later also.) (Being on the boat to bring in or send up the person, I mean, not to actually GET winched up ourselves. DARN!) The helicopter is thirty feet above the water for that, and both the boat and the helicopter are moving quite fast.

I don't know why I love watching helicopters take off and land. I don't feel the same way about planes; I like being *in* them on takeoffs and landings but they don't look exciting doing it from the outside.

Brunnen-"it's just...the way they...you know...WHOO! THERE IT GOES!!ooh!"G