Helicopter Flight Quotes

flight and possibly, antigravity.  In fact, his last patent in 1928 (# 6,555,114) was for a flying machine that resembled both a helicopter and an airplane.  Before

Da Vinci sketched out the design for a helicopter over 500 years ago. Today, that makes those flying machines as impressive as a Pekin duck wildly flapping its wings and soaring through the skies at a height of just over four feet.

A place where a clock's minute and hour hands spread away from its face, flapping like wings. A place where he'd pluck a daisy and watch the petals whirl like the propellers of a helicopter. Where he'd throw a handful of sand, and the grains would buzz away like a swarm of gnats. Where colorful fruits on a tree would burst into flight, and new ones would perch in their place.

The engineer raised the litter, and we used the tagline to prevent the rotor wash from twirling it like a top. The litter reached the helicopter door and the engineer dragged it into the chopper. Noxious fluids leaked from the body bag, blown into sticky mist by the rotors. Sickened by the powerful smell, the flight engineer leaned out the door and vomited a stream into the downwash.

The first few dozen flight crews were soon too sick to continue working, having hovered 200m above the reactor in temperatures up to 200°C, dropping bags one by one by hand, and leaning out of the door to estimate the drop-point. The helicopter’s designers soon devised a clever system for dropping around 8 bags per flight by using a net hanging from beneath the fuselage, allowing them to release the whole payload via a lever in the cockpit.191

I took off my boot and sock and examined my ankle, expecting—and indeed, in that perverse manner of the injured male, rather hoping—to find some splintered bone straining at the skin like a tent pole, making everyone who saw it queasy. But the ankle was just faintly bluish and tender and very slightly swollen, and I realized that once more in my life I had merely achieved acute pain and not the sort of grotesque injury that would lead to a mercy flight by helicopter and a fussing-over by young nurses in erotically starched uniforms.

Monica nudged her husband’s shoulder. “On-time flights are easier when you’re behind the controls.” Trent Fairchild and his two brothers owned and operated Fairchild Charters. A private air charter company with a fleet of jets, big and small, not to mention more helicopters than one could count, which was why they were attending the conference of International Emergency Medicine . . . a conference where professionals worked to improve the emergency response to natural disasters all over the world. “Is Glen with you?” Glen was Trent’s brother and liaison to the fixed-wing portion of air travel for the sick and injured.

The helicopter was equipped with no bombsights or targeting mechanisms that could help them here. To drop the sandbags into the reactor vault, the flight engineer had to aim as best he could by eye, estimate a trajectory, and shove them through the door one at a time. As he leaned out over the reactor, he was enveloped in clouds of toxic gas and blasted by waves of gamma and neutron radiation. He had no protection apart from his flight suit. The intense heat rising from below made it impossible for Nesterov to hover: if the helicopter lost forward momentum, it would be caught in the column of superheated air, its rotor blades would encounter a calamitous drop in torque, and the machine would fall abruptly out of the sky.

Rob thinks that a bullet has punctured the aircraft’s hydraulic system. PJs have a name for the red-colored hydraulic fluid: helicopter blood, and it is crucial to the aircraft’s flight-control systems. Without hydraulic fluid the pilots cannot control the helicopter. The reason for Rob’s alarm is that hot, red fluid seems to be spraying onto his arm and leg from somewhere behind him. He reaches up to locate the source and feels his face hanging down from his skull. He is stunned to realize that what he thought was hydraulic fluid spraying under pressure is really his own blood. His face is splayed open from his eye to his ear. The bullet exited from the back of his neck only a quarter of an inch from his spine. He feels the back of his neck and his fingers find the bloody exit hole.

And then I see it. Azure Helicopter Tours. I drag Toraf to the landing pad. “What is that?” he asks suspiciously. “Um. It’s a helicopter.” “What does it do? Triton’s trident, it doesn’t fly does it? Emma? Emma wait!” He catches up to me and burps right in my ear. “Stop being a jerkface,” I tell him. “Whatever that is. You don’t care about me at all, do you?” “You came to me, remember? This is me helping you. Now be quiet while I buy tickets.” It’s a private ride, no other passengers to worry about. Plus, we’re not stealing anything. The helicopter can return to land with its pilot as soon as we’re done with our part of the mission. “Why do we need to fly? The water is right there.” He points to it longingly. I almost feel bad for him. Almost. But I don’t have time for pity. “Because I think these helicopters can still cover more distance faster than you can haul me. I’m trying to make up for all the time we spent at security in LAX.” “Humans are so weird,” he mutters again as I walk away. “You do everything backward.” Since this is a sightseeing flight, the pilot, Dan, a thick Hawaiian man with an even thicker accent, takes his time pointing out all the usual tourist stuff, like the fishing industry, the history of the coast, and other things I have no interest in at the moment. The view of the blue water and visible reefs, the chain of islands, and the rich culture would be breathtaking if I weren’t preoccupied with crashing a Syrena get-together. I can imagine spending time with Galen here. Exploring the reefs like no human could, playing with the tropical fish, and making Galen wear a lei. But I need to stay focused if I ever want a chance to do it.

On our first flight out, and for all the following ones, we boarded two Black Hawk helicopters. On that first flight, we were looking for the area where a marine in our group lost both of his hands. While we were airborne, the door was kept open. There were only a few pairs of headsets for the group, so whoever was the focus of the trip got first dibs on a pair and would help guide the pilot to the right spot. The rest of us shared the remaining few sets as we squinted against the wind to the terrain below. Right before we made it to this marine’s area, the guy sitting next to me handed me the headset. Just as I put it over my ears, I saw the marine looking out the window, and then I heard him say, “And that’s where my hands are.” Suddenly it wasn’t about me, the injured guy. I was privy to this man’s intimate struggle. It was a painfully shocking statement. I knew all of the rest of these guys were injured, too, but I don’t think it really hit me until that moment that these guys all faced the same kinds of struggles and confusion I’d faced.

In a matter of sixty short minutes, that thing could whisk Neil away to civilization, I thought. Hmm. My goodness, that was a beautiful prospect. Somehow I had to get on that chopper with him. I packed in thirty seconds flat, everything from the past three months. I taped a white cross onto my sleeve, and raced out to where Neil was sat waiting. One chance. What the heck. Neil shook his head at me, smiling. “God, you push it, Bear, don’t you?” he shouted over the noise of the rotors. “You’re going to need a decent medic on the flight,” I replied, with a smile. “And I’m your man.” (There was at least some element of truth in this: I was a medic and I was his buddy--and yes, he did need help. But essentially I was trying to pull a bit of a fast one.) The pilot shouted that two people would be too heavy. “I have to accompany him at all times,” I shouted back over the engine noise. “His feet might fall off at any moment,” I added quietly. The pilot looked back at me, then at the white cross on my sleeve. He agreed to drop Neil somewhere down at a lower altitude, and then come back for me. “Perfect. Go. I’ll be here.” I shook his hand firmly. Let’s just get this done before anyone thinks too much about it, I mumbled to myself. And with that the pilot took off and disappeared from view. Mick and Henry were laughing. “If you pull this one off, Bear, I will eat my socks. You just love to push it, don’t you?” Mick said, smiling. “Yep, good try, but you aren’t going to see him again, I guarantee you,” Henry added. Thanks to the pilot’s big balls, he was wrong. The heli returned empty, I leapt aboard, and with the rotors whirring at full power to get some grip in the thin air, the bird slowly lifted into the air. The stall warning light kept buzzing away as we fought against gravity, but then the nose dipped and soon we were skimming over the rocks, away from base camp and down the glacier. I was out of there--and Mick was busy taking his socks off. As we descended, I spotted, far beneath us, this lone figure sat on a rock in the middle of a giant boulder field. Neil’s two white “beacons” shining bright. I love it. I smiled. We picked Neil up, and in an instant we were flying together through the huge Himalayan valleys like an eagle freed. Neil and I sat back in the helicopter, faces pressed against the glass, and watched our life for the past three months become a shimmer in the distance. The great mountain faded into a haze, hidden from sight. I leaned against Neil’s shoulder and closed my eyes. Everest was gone.

In the shock of the moment, I gave some thought to renting a convertible and driving the twenty-seven hundred miles back alone. But then I realized I was neither single nor crazy. The acting director decided that, given the FBI’s continuing responsibility for my safety, the best course was to take me back on the plane I came on, with a security detail and a flight crew who had to return to Washington anyway. We got in the vehicle to head for the airport. News helicopters tracked our journey from the L.A. FBI office to the airport. As we rolled slowly in L.A. traffic, I looked to my right. In the car next to us, a man was driving while watching an aerial news feed of us on his mobile device. He turned, smiled at me through his open window, and gave me a thumbs-up. I’m not sure how he was holding the wheel. As we always did, we pulled onto the airport tarmac with a police escort and stopped at the stairs of the FBI plane. My usual practice was to go thank the officers who had escorted us, but I was so numb and distracted that I almost forgot to do it. My special assistant, Josh Campbell, as he often did, saw what I couldn’t. He nudged me and told me to go thank the cops. I did, shaking each hand, and then bounded up the airplane stairs. I couldn’t look at the pilots or my security team for fear that I might get emotional. They were quiet. The helicopters then broadcast our plane’s taxi and takeoff. Those images were all over the news. President Trump, who apparently watches quite a bit of TV at the White House, saw those images of me thanking the cops and flying away. They infuriated him. Early the next morning, he called McCabe and told him he wanted an investigation into how I had been allowed to use the FBI plane to return from California. McCabe replied that he could look into how I had been allowed to fly back to Washington, but that he didn’t need to. He had authorized it, McCabe told the president. The plane had to come back, the security detail had to come back, and the FBI was obligated to return me safely. The president exploded. He ordered that I was not to be allowed back on FBI property again, ever. My former staff boxed up my belongings as if I had died and delivered them to my home. The order kept me from seeing and offering some measure of closure to the people of the FBI, with whom I had become very close. Trump had done a lot of yelling during the campaign about McCabe and his former candidate wife. He had been fixated on it ever since. Still in a fury at McCabe, Trump then asked him, “Your wife lost her election in Virginia, didn’t she?” “Yes, she did,” Andy replied. The president of the United States then said to the acting director of the FBI, “Ask her how it feels to be a loser” and hung up the phone.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Once upon a time our politicians did not tend to apologize for our country’s prior actions! Here’s a refresher on how some of our former patriots handled negative comments about our great country. These are quite good JFK’S Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France in the early 60’s when De Gaulle decided to pull out of NATO. De Gaulle said he wanted all US military out of France as soon as possible. Rusk’s response: “Does that include those who are buried here?” De Gaulle did not respond. You could have heard a pin drop. When in England, at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of ‘empire building’ by George Bush. He answered by saying, “Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.” You could have heard a pin drop. There was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break, one of the French engineers came back into the room saying, “Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intend to do, bomb them?” A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: “Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?” You could have heard a pin drop. A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Germany and France. At morning tea the Frenchman complained that the conference should be conducted in French since it was being held in Paris. The German replied that, so far as he could see, the reason that it was being held in English was as a mark of respect to the other attendees, since their troops had shed so much blood so that the Frenchman wouldn’t be speaking German.

NORMA FOERDERER, TRUMP’S LONGTIME aide, rushed into the boss’s office on the twenty-sixth floor of Trump Tower. The helicopter that carried the three executives had gone down. Agonizing minutes went by. Then a New Jersey police official called with the news: no survivors. Three of Trump’s most trusted aides, including the ones most responsible for opening the Taj, had perished, along with the crew of two. Trump would later learn that the scrape on one of the rotor blades had expanded during the flight, the result of metal fatigue. Over the pinelands of New Jersey, at an altitude of twenty-two hundred feet, a portion of the blade broke, the helicopter’s aerodynamics went askew, and the aircraft split apart in midair, raining wreckage on the Garden State Parkway. Trump

ACs very seldom took part in unnecessary or idle conversation during any mission. They constantly cross-checked flight instruments for normal readings, planned every minute for an area to land in case of an emergency during flight, and maintained proper intervals in formation during combat assaults.

A flight suit. ’Cause you’re a big bad pilot, right? You fell out of your helicopter. Now unzip your onesie so you don’t bleed to death.

A memorial on the crash site. Behind the memorial is the mountain that Parrado and Canessa climbed for the final push to reach rescue. That evening, as Parrado gathered firewood, Canessa looked up and saw a man on a horse on the other side of the river. Parrado dropped his sticks and, although he was utterly exhausted, he galloped down to the water’s edge. The world knew first For the fourteen people still at the crash site it was the most joyous radio broadcast they ever heard: the national news announced that Parrado and Canessa had successfully found help and rescue teams were on their way. Parrado guided two helicopters back to the site and by the morning of 23 December 1972 the fourteen remaining passengers of Flight 571 had been plucked from the mountain.

In late June 2023, the Sovereign Grant Report, an annual document that outlines the royal family’s expenditures, revealed that spending had risen by 5 percent from the previous year to £107.5 million (the second time in history it had broken the £100 million mark). Despite Charles campaigning on environmental issues, reports for 2022 and 2023 also revealed that he still regularly travels by helicopter between his numerous royal residences at an average cost of £15,000 per flight.

Leonardo da Vinci was perhaps the greatest biomimic of all time. Not only did he precisely adhere to nature's proportions in his art but also spent the last ten years of his life studying-even obsessing over-the geometry and motions of natural flow. Based on years of observing birds in flight, Leonardo, the world's first fluid dynamicist, designed flying wings, a helicopter, and numerous other machines. His understanding of how the human heart actually operates-through manipulation of whirlpools-has only been rediscovered in the past decade. Even five hundred years later, the depth of Leonardo's insights into the secrets of nature's form and function cause scientists to marvel.

Neil’s feet were still numb from the frostbite. Long exposure up high, sat waiting in the snow for all those hours at the Balcony, had taken their toll. At base camp, we bandaged them up, kept them warm, and purposefully didn’t discuss the very real prospect of him losing his toes. He didn’t need to be told that he was unlikely ever to feel them again properly. Either way, we realized that the best option for them was to get him proper medical attention and soon. There was no way he was going to be walking anywhere with his feet bandaged up like two white balloons. We needed an air-evacuation. Not the easiest of things in the thin air of Everest’s base camp. The insurance company said that at dawn the next day they would attempt to get him out of there. Weather permitting. But at 17,450 feet we really were on the outer limits of where helicopters could fly. True to their word, at dawn we heard the distant rotors of a helicopter, far beneath us in the valley. A tiny speck against the vast rock walls on either side. In a matter of sixty short minutes, that thing could whisk Neil away to civilization, I thought. Hmm. My goodness, that was a beautiful prospect. Somehow I had to get on that chopper with him. I packed in thirty seconds flat, everything from the past three months. I taped a white cross onto my sleeve, and raced out to where Neil was sat waiting. One chance. What the heck. Neil shook his head at me, smiling. “God, you push it, Bear, don’t you?” he shouted over the noise of the rotors. “You’re going to need a decent medic on the flight,” I replied, with a smile. “And I’m your man.” (There was at least some element of truth in this: I was a medic and I was his buddy--and yes, he did need help. But essentially I was trying to pull a bit of a fast one.) The pilot shouted that two people would be too heavy. “I have to accompany him at all times,” I shouted back over the engine noise. “His feet might fall off at any moment,” I added quietly. The pilot looked back at me, then at the white cross on my sleeve. He agreed to drop Neil somewhere down at a lower altitude, and then come back for me. “Perfect. Go. I’ll be here.” I shook his hand firmly. Let’s just get this done before anyone thinks too much about it, I mumbled to myself.

Under the communist regime, a helicopter would fly in once a week and the Evenki could send pelts and furs to sell in the local town, buying tools and summer clothes with the money they made. Back then, the helicopters were free but with the introduction of Siberia’s market economy, they now need to pay – and the flights are hugely expensive. The good thing is, though, because they’ve retained the skills to live in the forest, the Evenki will survive whatever happens in Russia.

Friday afternoon before we broke for Christmas vacation, Andy and I boarded the school’s helicopter. We flew to London to catch the Simorgh to Paris. Ubaid was already on the plane waiting for us. He had helicoptered in from Dublin. Our Arab friend was in good spirits during our 45-minute journey to Charles de Gaulle airport. On the flight I was curious to find out if he had defied his father's wishes and continued to see Gianna. I asked, "You must be happy to be back at university, judging from the look on your face." "Yes, that is true. I am very happy. Gianna flew to Dublin to spend several days with me before she left for New York, with Allegra.

When Diana was unable to visit, she telephoned the apartment to check on her friend’s condition. On her 30th birthday she wore a gold bracelet which Adrian had given to her as a sign of their affection and solidarity. Nevertheless, Diana’s quiet and longstanding commitment to be with Adrian when he died almost foundered. In August his condition worsened and doctors advised that he should be transferred to a private room at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington where he could be treated more effectively. However Diana had to go on a holiday cruise in the Mediterranean with her family on board a yacht owned by the Greek millionaire John Latsis. Provisional plans were made to fly her from the boat by helicopter to a private plane so that she could be with her friend at the end. Before she left, Diana visited Adrian in his home. “I’ll hang on for you,” he told her. With those words emblazoned on her heart, she flew to Italy, ticking off the hours until she could return. As soon as she disembarked from the royal flight jet she drove straight to St Mary’s Hospital. Angela recalls: “Suddenly there was a knock on the door. It was Diana. I flung my arms around her and took her into the room to see Adrian. She was still dressed in a T-shirt and sporting a sun tan. It was wonderful for Adrian to see her like that.” She eventually went home to Kensington Palace but returned the following day with all kinds of goodies. Her chef Mervyn Wycherley had packed a large picnic hamper for Angela while Prince William walked into the room almost dwarfed by his present of a large jasmine plant from the Highgrove greenhouses. Diana’s decision to bring William was carefully calculated. By then Adrian was off all medication and very much at peace with himself. “Diana would not have brought her son if Adrian’s appearance had been upsetting,” says Angela. On his way home, William asked his mother: “If Adrian starts to die when I’m at school will you tell me so that I can be there.

there to Baltimore,” he says, and Lucy keeps her helicopter in Norwood, just outside of Boston, where she has her own hangar. “I see. That’s why she’s in a flight suit. She’s taking you,” and I think about the timing of her showing up as I emerged from the trailer. Benton must have let her know about Briggs’s death hours ago. “When I’m done here I’ll come meet you,” I promise as we approach a black Tahoe with dark-tinted windows and government plates.

To minimize the sense of confinement, one of our video channels provided a breathtaking view of our journey, as seen from a helicopter flying low over the landscape, following our exact route on a lovely spring day. The photographic sequence had been speeded up so that each view corresponded in real-time to a point directly above our location deep underground in the floater tunnel. That was, I concluded, a rather easy trick technically, because all the photographic information obtained in the original helicopter flight was stored electronically for easy recall.

The president called upon the Marine emergency evacuation helicopter that the White House Military Office had stationed nearby in the event of a surprise Soviet nuclear attack. The flight across Narragansett Bay lasted just six minutes, as opposed to the hour Eisenhower would have spent on the ferry—and the helicopter, piloted by Virgil Olson, was nearly triple the size of the Bell Ranger passenger-wise. This, Eisenhower decided, was a much better option. Since the Air Force didn’t possess the large transport helicopters Eisenhower desired, the Marine Corps took over the presidential helicopter fleet. Within two months—lightning speed in government

I had a terrible premonition. His flight was to Miami. The old news footage flashed through my mind of Air Florida Flight 90 to Miami that went down in a freezing rain. It showed pieces of the wings and smashed fuselage floating in a huge hole in the ice next to the Fourteenth Street Bridge. A helicopter trying to lift a survivor from the black water. Rescuers watching helplessly from the shore. I tried to call him, but the network was down. I’d seen this fearsome power of the past before, how it can rise up without warning and strike the living with unerring timing. Later Lorenzo called from Miami and said it was a rough flight but they made it. I was happy that for once my intuition was wrong.

Without the skills to handle setbacks—bred, indeed, to believe that setbacks are inconceivable obstacles on the non-negotiable path to success—the child raised by helicopter parents is ill-equipped to handle defeat. Behind a flawlessly groomed exterior lies an immature and fragile personality. Rejection that in a healthier context might be interpreted as a challenge or an opportunity to seek out success somewhere else—“when a door shuts, a window opens”—feels unbearable to a young person with an unformed sense of self.

eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no colour in anything, except the posters that were plastered everywhere. The black-moustachio'd face gazed down from every commanding corner. There was one on the house-front immediately opposite. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said, while the dark eyes looked deep into Winston's own. Down at street level another poster, torn at one corner, flapped fitfully in the wind, alternately covering and uncovering the single word INGSOC. In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between the roofs, hovered for an instant like a bluebottle, and darted away again with a curving flight. It was the police patrol, snooping into people's windows. The patrols

Gratitude shone in Danaan’s eyes. Understanding what only Hunt could do. The Old Square and glowing Gate at its heart became visible. The only signal he needed. There was no hesitation in Hunt. No fear. Hunt leapt out of the helicopter, his wings tucked in tight. A one-way ticket. His last flight. Far below, his sharp eyes could just make out Bryce as she curled herself into a ball, as if it’d save her from the death soon to blast her apart.

From my experience, I knew that if I could make it to a flight nurse in a flight-for-life helicopter, I would have the chance. I have seen flight nurses do incredible things in really bloody, gnarly situations. That became my goal…make it to the helicopter.

But along with the importance of work, he also believed in the magic of flight. He was a helicopter pilot, after all, so he particularly loved seeing me steer these jets over the marshy flats at ungodly speeds.

Generally speaking, helicopters produce a distinctive percussive chop-chop rotor sound caused by the positioning of the blades. Adjust the blade angle, increase the number of blades in the main and tail rotors from four to five or six, and the noise diminishes, blending into the background sounds. Moreover, these Sikorsky Black Hawks had been re-engineered and reimagined with swept stabilizers and a noise suppressing “dishpan” cover over the tail rotor. Further refinements included reducing the rpm, especially in forward flight below maximum speed. To the untrained ear, it appeared that the helicopters were much farther away, not heading in, but away from a target. There were also changes that reduced the chances of returning radar signals. Retractable landing gears and fairings over the rotor hubs cut down the radar cross-section (RCS). And sharp edges, standard on the UH-60s, were replaced with curved surfaces coated in a special silver-loaded infrared skin. These important

Wilbur Wright set the tone in 1909 when he said, “Like all novices we began with the helicopter [in childhood] but soon saw that it had no future and dropped it. The helicopter does with great labor only what the balloon does without labor, and is no more fitted than the balloon for rapid horizontal flight. If its engine stops it must fall with deathly violence for it can neither float like the balloon nor glide like the aeroplane. The helicopter is much easier to design than the aeroplane but is worthless when done.”1

When you’re in need of a rescue the approaching thump-thump-thump of rapidly rotating blades is a joyous sound. To give the helicopter rescue the greatest chance of success, a suitable landing zone will have to be found. The ideal landing zone should not require a completely vertical landing or takeoff, both of which reduce the pilot’s control. The ground should slope away on all sides, allowing the helicopter to immediately drop into forward flight when it’s time to take off. Landings and liftoffs work best when the aircraft is pointed into the wind because that gives the machine the greatest lift. The area should be as large as possible, at least 60 feet across for most small rescue helicopters, and as clear as possible for obstructions such as trees and boulders. Clear away debris (pine needles, dust, leaves) that can be blown up by the wash of air, with the possibility of producing mechanical failure. Light snow can be especially dangerous if it fluffs up dramatically to blind the pilot. Wet snow sticks to the ground and adds dangerous weight. If you have the opportunity, pack snow flat well before the helicopter arrives—the night before would be ideal—to harden the surface of the landing zone. Tall grass can be a hazard because it disturbs the helicopter’s cushion of supporting air and hides obstacles such as rocks and tree stumps. To prepare a landing zone, clear out the area as much as possible, including removing your equipment and all the people except the one who is going to be signaling the pilot. Mark the landing zone with weighted bright clothing or gear during the day or with bright lights at night. In case of a night rescue, turn off the bright lights before the helicopter starts to land—they can blind the pilot. Use instead a low-intensity light to mark the perimeter of the landing area, such as chemical light sticks, or at least turn the light away from the helicopter’s direction. Indicate the wind’s direction by building a very small smoky fire, hanging brightly colored streamers, throwing up handfuls of light debris, or signaling with your arms pointed in the direction of the wind. The greatest danger to you occurs while you’re moving toward or away from the helicopter on the ground. Never approach the rear and never walk around the rear of a helicopter. The pilot can’t see you, and the rapidly spinning tail rotor is virtually invisible and soundless. In a sudden shift of the aircraft, you can be sliced to death. Don’t approach by walking downhill toward the helicopter, where the large overhead blade is closest to the ground. It is safest to come toward the helicopter from directly in front, where the pilot has a clear field of view, and only after the pilot or another of the aircraft’s personnel has signaled you to approach. Remove your hat or anything that can be sucked up into the rotors. Stay low because blades can sink closer to the ground as their speed diminishes. Make sure nothing is sticking up above your pack, such as an ice ax or ski pole. In most cases someone from the helicopter will come out to remind you of the important safety measures. One-skid landings or hovering while a rescue is attempted are solely at the discretion of the pilot. They are a high risk at best, and finding a landing zone and preparing it should always be given priority.

From ancient times and into the Middle Ages, man had dreamed of taking to the sky, of soaring into the blue like the birds. One savant in Spain in the year 875 is known to have covered himself with feathers in the attempt. Others devised wings of their own design and jumped from rooftops and towers—some to their deaths—in Constantinople, Nuremberg, Perugia. Learned monks conceived schemes on paper. And starting about 1490, Leonardo da Vinci made the most serious studies. He felt predestined to study flight, he said, and related a childhood memory of a kite flying down onto his cradle. According to brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright of Dayton, Ohio, it began for them with a toy from France, a small helicopter brought home by their father, Bishop Milton Wright, a great believer in the educational value of toys. The creation of a French experimenter of the nineteenth century, Alphonse Pénaud, it was little more than a stick with twin propellers and twisted rubber bands, and probably cost 50 cents. “Look here, boys,” said the Bishop, something concealed in his hands. When he let go it flew to the ceiling. They called it the “bat.” Orville’s first teacher in grade school, Ida Palmer, would remember him at his desk tinkering with bits of wood. Asked what he was up to, he told her he was making a machine of a kind that he and his brother were going to fly someday.

About twenty minutes ago, during a commercial break, Melba had thought she’d heard a helicopter in the distance. Tom had been unable to hear it, but that was no surprise, given his progressive hearing loss, and she’d heard nothing since. He told her it was probably nothing to worry about. Statistically, Mississippi had some of the worst drivers in the nation, so LifeFlight helicopters were common at all hours, even over rural counties.

Welcome!’ said the lady with the clipboard. She looked like a flight attendant – blue business suit, perfect makeup, hair pulled back in a ponytail. She shook our hands as we stepped onto the dock. With the dazzling smile she gave us, you would’ve thought we’d just got off the Princess Andromeda rather than a bashed-up rowboat. Then again, our rowboat wasn’t the weirdest ship in port. Along with a bunch of pleasure yachts, there was a U.S. Navy submarine, several dugout canoes and an old-fashioned three-masted sailing ship. There was a helipad with a ‘Channel Five Fort Lauderdale’ helicopter on it, and a short runway with a Learjet and a propeller plane that looked like a World War II fighter. Maybe they were replicas for tourists to look at or something. ‘Is this your first time with us?’ the clipboard lady enquired. Annabeth and I exchanged looks. Annabeth said, ‘Umm…’ ‘First – time – at – spa,’ the lady said as she wrote on her clipboard. ‘Let’s see…’ She looked us up and down critically. ‘Mmm. An herbal wrap to start for the young lady. And of course, a complete makeover for the young gentleman.

Later, toward the end of my presidency, The New York Times would run an article about my visits to the military hospitals. In it, a national security official from a previous administration opined that the practice, no matter how well intentioned, was not something a commander in chief should do—that visits with the wounded inevitably clouded a president’s capacity to make clear-eyed, strategic decisions. I was tempted to call that man and explain that I was never more clear-eyed than on the flights back from Walter Reed and Bethesda. Clear about the true costs of war, and who bore those costs. Clear about war’s folly, the sorry tales we humans collectively store in our heads and pass on from generation to generation—abstractions that fan hate and justify cruelty and force even the righteous among us to participate in carnage. Clear that by virtue of my office, I could not avoid responsibility for lives lost or shattered, even if I somehow justified my decisions by what I perceived to be some larger good. Looking through the helicopter window at the tidy green landscape below, I thought about Lincoln during the Civil War, his habit of wandering through makeshift infirmaries not so far from where we were flying, talking softly to soldiers who lay on flimsy cots, bereft of antiseptics to stanch infections or drugs to manage pain, the stench of gangrene everywhere, the clattering and wheezing of impending death. I wondered how Lincoln had managed it, what prayers he said afterward. He must have known it was a necessary penance. A penance I, too, had to pay.

My stubborn reluctance to fly was further evidence to my father of my status as second-rate adventurer and thus second-rate child. This battle over flight raged for my entire childhood, but airplanes never played as prominent a role in my life as they did from the fourth birthday of my son, Fred, until three months before his fifth. For those nine months, I lived and breathed jets, helicopters and fighter planes. I called my son Orville at his demand. I stalked appliance stores for refrigerator boxes that could stand in for crude, wobbly airplanes—cardboard boxes that Fred ate in, played in and slept in when I was simply too worn-out to fight him. As you can imagine, my father, Captain Lance “the Silver Eagle” Whitman, was thrilled with my son’s obsession. For those nine months, I was elevated to the first-class status I had craved my entire life.

In what appeared to be a rehearsal for a strike on Iran, one hundred Israeli F-15 and F-16 fighters flew from Israel over the eastern Mediterranean to Greece and returned. The exercise included the deployment of Israeli rescue helicopters and the use of refueling tankers. Flight tactics and other elements of a potential strike were rehearsed. The distance the fighters flew was 862 nautical miles. The distance from the Israeli airfield to the Iranian uranium enrichment facility at Natanz was 860 nautical miles.