Yesterday's special treat at Wenatchee Pangborn Memorial Airport was an opportunity to watch and video firefighters practice rappelling from a helicopter. I compiled some of the footage with a brief intro and some narration to offer an insight into this work. I've asked to interview the boss, the pilots, or the jumpers and am waiting to hear back from them on whether they're willing to get on camera up close and personal. Fingers crossed!
The helicopter is a Bell 205A-1 that belongs to an Oregon based company under contract with the government. It's in Wenatchee for fire season, which has been (thankfully) relatively uneventful this year.
The flying work requires an experienced pilot with excellent out of ground effect hovering skills. Not only is the pilot flying a medium helicopter with a bunch of firefighters onboard with their equipment, but he has to hover over one spot that might be completely surrounded by flames long enough to get the firefighters safely on the ground. This guy did a great job on the three practice runs I watched.
The group doing the rappelling is the Wenatchee Valley Rappel Crew. You can learn more about them and their Wenatchee Airport air base here: [ Ссылка ]
I was very impressed with the obvious attention to safety and professionalism of the pilot and fire crew. I feel fortunate to have been able to watch them practice and to share what I saw with you.
If you're a member of this crew or are part of this operation, I sure would appreciate sitting down with the folks who do this and can tell us more about this work. Contact me at this channel name at Gmail.
About the Video
- The video was recorded with an iPhone 8 Plus using the built-in microphone. For some of the shots, I used a gyro stabilized mount. (I wasn't impressed.)
- The video was edited on a Macintosh using Screenflow software. Learn more about it here: [ Ссылка ]
- The intro music is by Bob Levitus, famed "Dr. Mac." You can find him here: [ Ссылка ]
I try to drop cockpit POV videos every Sunday morning and "extras" with more info about owning and operating a helicopter midweek. I also host occasional livestreams with Q&A chats. Subscribe and click the bell so you don't miss anything new! And tell your friends. The more subscribers I have, the more motivated I am to keep producing videos like this one.
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