richanton

Didn't Warpath have a picture of a helo on the deck with the ghostbusters ring going through it? What was that about?

388SLW

No prob, we will get a time to do it!!but thanks !! I'll see u over at Murray I live there and have the slw ready to go , see ya soon !!!!!!!

RT930turbo

That is one really, really cool shot!

PhantomChaos

very cool!!!!!!!!!! Wait.....where is the BIG water?

Sydwayz

iTrader: (1)

2 different events. Bank shot was in Norfolk, VA.

T2x

I know a little about this.....200+ races and Poker Runs. I was privileged to fly with and do commentary for the NNRT team (Phil Lewis, Frank De Board, Peter Lewis, Walt Mistyn), ESPN, IPI, Speedvision, Speed Channel, Prime, TNN, etc, etc, etc.

We had 3 forced landings ...all fully controlled.....and only one near misshap, which was during a race while covering rescue and debris after an accident and we got the tail into the wind.

I did see two other crashes while we were flying. Frankly, based on the fact that we took more chances than all of the others combined for over 20 years...I guess we were damn lucky.

We did have boats run beneath us...on purpose ..and got great footage as a result...with no danger to us or the boat... We also partially ate a few rooster tails...one from the 4 engine Popeye's Cougar...but never a direct hit...no biggy.

Flying low and fast right next to the best boats in the sport was our hallmark all thanks to an amazing pilot, Frank De Board, who flew night missions over water below radar in Vietnam....(do the math) and, of course, the greatest boat racing camerman in history...Phil Lewis. I have also flown with bad pilots who were afraid of their own shadow and wanted a 500 foot minimum space from the boats....One actually became hysterical after seeing another ship crash and I had to slap him and talk him through a landing....another called me "cruel"....... The craziest guy was an ex gunship pilot who flew up and over a bridge near Baltimore and descended so fast that some blood vessels in my eyes actually burst leaving me with red blood smears next to my retinas.

My biggest challenge was always raising the volume on my voiceovers of the action to compensate for the seemingly endless wind and engine noise.

The scariest moment of all was when we flew up between the towers of the World Trade Center during a delay in a race in NYC in the early 80's (pre terrorism). Sitting in my usual left front seat with the doors off at about the 75th floor....all of us looked down and got eerily quiet ..... The perspective of those two structures immediately beside us...gave us a glimpse into the life of those high altitude iron workers on skyscrapers...None of us wanted any part of that....

Best Helicopter I ever flew in for speed and maneuverability was a French Gazelle (Predecessor to the A-Star). It ran over 140 with a door off for the camera. Hughes 500 was a close second, but was tricky for camera mounting. The Bell Long Rangers were the work horses (Especially Greg Norman's personal machine in Florida and of course our legendary NJ bird, "Tango Yankee") while the Twin Star was the most disappointing

I will never get in a piston powered helicopter (Too flimsy..)...and the term "Jesus nut" has a whole different meaning in those "toys".

Okay....I'll turn it back to the experts....but I could probably write a book on our adventures in the sky.

T2x

Tom A.

Had some great helicopter shots over the years.
My first experience was with the late Tom Newby in 2003 Atlantic City Poker Run and my 29 Kryptonite.

Two of my favorite helo pics below:

The first was in Nov. 2007 - Just bought the Donzi and had it out for my first run - Photo by Jay.
The second was A/C 2009 - Love this because a friend of mine took this pic from his boat, Sharkey was shooting from the helo, my friend shot video from my boat, while the dive medic shot video of my boat. We literally have 4 different running angles shot at the same time.

Here is the video:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v...type=3&theater

BraceYourself

I'm a pilot and have taken helicopter lessons. I stopped learning to fly the helicopter because.

Planes want to fly, helicopters want to crash.

Much more performance and capability with planes. I.E. weather, distance, etc...

SHARKEY-IMAGES

I just spoke with my pilot to book him this season for Atlantic City.

He just informed me his engine blew up again for the 3rd time. This last one only had 400 hours on an engine that is supposed to see 2000 hours...

Some of the things he is telling me about Lycoming and the FAA is frightening.

His chopper has been out of service for the last two months and is losing a fortune in Charters.

Fortunately he survived all 3 emergency landings.

He had outfitted the chopper with a data recorder and installed temp sensors on all cylinders. The stock engine only comes with one sensor. So now he records all readings from all of the cylinders. I flew with him to Oneida Lake, NY and on our return trip I couldn't keep my eyes off the temp gauges. At that time we even had a cylinder running hot, but he managed to get it to cool down.

This pilot has a lot of maintenance experience which makes he him tough to fool if the engine manufacturer tries to lie to him about anything.

This last failure he has found metal separation (as he described it) on the valves.

Could it be that the manufacturer has gone to China for engine parts to reduce costs ?

If China can't make a toy correctly how can anyone expect them to make engine parts that put people's lives in danger ?

I hope he can get it all taken care of and get back to business, but most importantly get the engine fixed with good parts... He already is looking to place an order for a turbine, not that he doesn't like the piston engine. He actually swears by the piston engine, but if you don't know where your parts are coming from, you don't know how good your engine actually is....

Phil M

Many Memories Richie - you should write a book some day !

Phil