Helicopter Jumps

Last Saturday we did helicopter jumps at Double Eagle ll airport west of Albuquerque. Here's the Bell 206 B-lll Jet Ranger. We did the jumps as part of the 2008 New Mexico Pilot Bash, which is an annual social gathering of aviation enthusiasts. There were several hundred pilots in attendance, so there were a LOT of comments about "perfectly good" airplanes. It always surprises me that GA pilots are such whuffos. 

All aircraft look better with the doors off.

We put up 5 loads of 3 jumpers for a total of 15 jumps. Here I am waiting to hot turn my load. I got to jump with pioneer BASE jumper "Big" John Walter and Kelly Wilson who is an AFF and Tandem instructor at our DZ.

Hot turning.

Lift off.

Here I am landing my trusty Pilot 150 at the edge of the tarmac.

The jump was exceptional. The exit was very similar to a hot air balloon or an ultralight in that there's almost no relative wind. As I've said before, still air exits are the best, and I took full advantage of the situation by leaving the skid head high and transitioning into a subterminal track. 12 seconds later I was at terminal  velocity and it was time to pull. The canopy flight was beautiful and I made a soft landing.

Rudi is still recovering from hip replacement surgery so he didn't jump.  Rudi's already healed enough to be flying Cessna loads at Belen Alexander, but he's waiting till Water Boogie to return to parachuting.

Here I am packing up in the hangar after the jump.