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Helicopters Don't Fly

If you’ve been reading The Courage Run for a while, or if you know me a little bit, you know that I’m enthralled by helicopters. I can’t rattle off stats like an aviation buff, but I’ve been up in the air more than most people I know, with the exception of helicopter pilots and air crews. Three times in a Blackhawk, once in an LAPD bird that rode like a Cadillac. In my ideal departure, they’ll drop me out of a Blackhawk over the ocean, when I’m too out of it to comprehend what’s going on. There’ll be a bagpiper playing Amazing Grace for the first time ever at a Jewish wake. A handful of old friends will show up, except for Don Lubach, aka Chip, who is viscerally opposed to bagpipes, no matter the situation. I’ve got my eye on you, Chip!

Helicopters don’t fly, they beat the air into submission. The whomp whomp whomp of the rotor blades means a whole lot more to friends like Tucker, for whom that sound recalls salvation from a mission gone horribly wrong. Those pilots and crews fly straight into hell and back, their nerves of steel and hearts of gold. “Do what the crew chief says” and you won’t go wrong. For me, who has an even less than rudimentary knowledge of these wondrous machines, the draw is a love at first sight type of feeling. The sound, the smell, words like “collective,” wires and rivets, the crazy vibration and the open door and windows, leaning out while harnessed in, the skids, and of course the collective consciousness of where these birds have been, and with whom, and the tales embedded within. When I told Tucker I’d been up in a Blackhawk for the first time, he admonished me not to do it again. They crash. Death by misadventure, which sounds real cool on paper, is still death, after all, and certainly untimely nine times out of ten.

There’s a Coast Guard helicopter slated to give us a demonstration of hoisting and personnel recovery. I’m down on the ground by the water looking up, not up there with them. They make circles over the bay, without hoisting or personnel recovery. Maybe fifteen or twenty minutes, waiting for the right conditions. The wind is impeding us. Eventually, our friends in the sky make their way south, having reached bingo fuel or whatever term the Coast Guard uses to describe having to head back to base.

Earlier in the day, split into Alpha group and Bravo group, we toured a secure location where all cameras, phones, watches, and anything bluetooth (like Airpods) had to be left outside during the briefing. Downstairs, in the conference room, the atmosphere was much more casual. We learned about the Coast Guard’s history and mission, and for the BOSS Lift portion, we toured the bay on board the US Coast Guard cutter, the Tern. Awards were given to employers who’d gone above and beyond in their treatment of employees who serve. Lunch. Group and individual photos. A warning to go through and photoshop any pictures showing the wifi password on the board.

We drove the long way to get here, and the short way back. Toured Hearst Castle. Paid ten bucks a gallon for Premium in Gorda. Could’ve been higher, had they added another digit to the pumps. Remember when gas popped over a buck? They had to retrofit the pumps for that extra digit, and I was already wondering what’d happen when it hits ten.

What’s it cost to fill the tank of that Coast Guard cutter, or to beat the air into submission? What’s it cost if we don’t?

10:12 to Bedtime

A short selection of music to carry you through the week.