This past week saw sunshine, rain and helicopters. Now, I don’t know about you, but I love helicopters. I have no idea why, I just do. I have never been in one, I don’t really want to go into one, but there is something about them, their ability to fly in ways an airplane can’t, that appeals to me. When I worked for the US Defense Department I had a poster of an Apache attack helicopter, fully loaded and ready to kill tanks, and I loved it. Silly, but there you have it.

This past week we had two helicopters at our place for the whole day. It was an experience. The first one arrived just after 8:00 AM. Big, thumping, bass-toned whumps filled the air. It landed in the field near my horse barn; looking down from my house it looked almost as big as the barn. I drove down, in my pj’s, with my first cup of coffee, to check it out. There were three guys from the Henkels & McCoy crew there as well and we surrounded the pilot and asked a bunch of questions. I learned that this particular “bird” is a 1963 Huey that had served in Vietnam. It used to bear bullet holes from that war but over the years those parts had been replaced (I also learned that there is another one in service that still bears those wounds). And I learned that to purchase one of these beauties would set you back about $1,000,000. I think I’ll stick to bicycles!

A second helicopter flies crews. What a ride!

A second “bird” arrived shortly thereafter; this one a more modern helicopter, more like the ones that Reach uses. It wasn’t nearly as cool as the old Huey, but still quite impressive.

I spent a couple of hours of my morning watching the helicopters and the H&M crews at work. The helicopters had two jobs: move equipment and move crews. Each helicopter had a long cable dangling from its belly; this had different sorts of hooks depending on the type of load. The first items to be lifted off were crews; two men (and they were all men, though I was told there are female “linemen”) would hook themselves via a harness to the cable and up and away they would fly. It looked terrifying and thrilling all at once. I really could not get enough of watching this, the hooking up and the flying away. Several of the crew would waive to us watchers, some laid back as though taking naps, ha! After most of the crew was in place then the “birds” began lifting crates of tools and equipment, bundles of wires and other stuff. The final loads were the large metal poles that are replacing the old wooden poles; all of this work is for fire safety (and to help keep PG & E out of another lawsuit, no doubt).

I had to leave to show a property but when I came back the work was still ongoing. This time crews were coming back and being replaced by different crews; I assume different technical specialties. Empty crates or crates filled with obsolete equipment came back. Finally, the old poles were brought back and then sawed into pieces and loaded on trucks for removal. As I watched the back and forth, the occasional landing of the ‘copters for fuel or to change cables or hooks, I kept thinking - if only that old Huey could talk, what sorts of history could it report? If only!

I was able to speak to one of the crew members upon his return. I asked him what it was like to be lifted up and away like that. “It’s a rush!” He admitted that the first time he was pretty nervous, but once you get used to it then it’s just exciting. He said he only had one bad experience and that had been recently, up in Laytonville. The pilot took off and started heading north; as he gained altitude he saw two other incoming helicopters and had to quickly reverse course to the south. There was a delay in the line, a lag if you will, then the line caught up and they were snapped forward at an alarming rate; that was one experience he would not care to repeat.

It was a fun, exciting and noisy day. We are expecting them at least one more time in the next few weeks and I’m looking forward to it. We found the following day to be almost too quiet, with the normal level of non-activity. I will also add this, despite the number of trucks, large and small, the trailers and equipment and all the parts and pieces, when I walked across my field the following day I found next to nothing left to indicate that they had been there; kudos to them for such a respectful, responsible clean up. I look forward to another exciting day of this and also another nice break from our current situation. Other than a few masks and social distancing, Covid-19 took a backseat for a day.

Photos and two short videos below:

Helicopters!