Cig Helicopter
12-16-2021 | 08:41 AM
#3
Registered
Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 11,901
Likes: 1,138
Funny............
https://flightaware.com/resources/registration/N948PH
You can see the flight it took last week, 3 hour flight and never got over 450 feet (click on flight tracking). Also shows pics of what it used to look like before the repaint.
https://flightaware.com/resources/registration/N948PH
You can see the flight it took last week, 3 hour flight and never got over 450 feet (click on flight tracking). Also shows pics of what it used to look like before the repaint.
12-16-2021 | 11:26 AM
#6
Registered
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 3,674
Likes: 250
From: Rhode Island summer, Florida winter
Interesting to see the sport grow from..... photos taken from other boats, of the start and maybe a checkpoint boat and the finish of races.
Then the daredevils used small bubble helicopters and small single engine overhead wing planes, to get really up close and personal photos, sadly some resulting in the loss of life of the photographers.
Post Vietnam, came the era of the helicopter with much more powerful engines and abilities to do much more based on the pilot's war experience.
These became working tools of both the photographers and the teams themselves as the courses were very far offshore and the speeds were growing every year. It was a lot of comfort to the families of the racers to actually see what was happening in real time as they rode along from start to finish. Many teams rented and many teams had their own choppers that grew to be big marketing tools for the companies the racers owned.....like Popeyes.
Soon a big area for the helicopters was needed as a 'Dry Pits" for them to land very close to the boats themselves.
My team used the Bell "Jet Ranger" of the era, included pilot, front seat and three people in the back seat if needed. The Jet Ranger was quickly replaced with the newer Bell "Long Ranger" that had the rear compartment holding facing bench seats adding three more people to the total
Then the daredevils used small bubble helicopters and small single engine overhead wing planes, to get really up close and personal photos, sadly some resulting in the loss of life of the photographers.
Post Vietnam, came the era of the helicopter with much more powerful engines and abilities to do much more based on the pilot's war experience.
These became working tools of both the photographers and the teams themselves as the courses were very far offshore and the speeds were growing every year. It was a lot of comfort to the families of the racers to actually see what was happening in real time as they rode along from start to finish. Many teams rented and many teams had their own choppers that grew to be big marketing tools for the companies the racers owned.....like Popeyes.
Soon a big area for the helicopters was needed as a 'Dry Pits" for them to land very close to the boats themselves.
My team used the Bell "Jet Ranger" of the era, included pilot, front seat and three people in the back seat if needed. The Jet Ranger was quickly replaced with the newer Bell "Long Ranger" that had the rear compartment holding facing bench seats adding three more people to the total
Last edited by Top Banana; 12-16-2021 at 11:29 AM.
