Hell-icopters

Thanks to Julie for ‘things to blog about’ sent to me in February.

In the mid-sixties I was employed by Rossmoor Corporation in Laguna Hills, Leisure World, as a landscape draftsman. Our team occasionally flew to Walnut Creek, CA and New Jersey (other Leisure World locations) to lend a hand in their architecture department. We’d take Los Angeles Airways helicopters from O.C. airport to LAX and then on to our destination.

This aircraft flew only a few thousand feet off the ground north to LAX…they were military helicopter converted to seat around twenty passengers, the doors did not seal when in the air and the noise was deafening…fortunately the ride took about twenty minutes with no beverage services and no peanuts…my rides were always to Walnut Creek and when we arrived in San Francisco we were driven to the offices there…

I’ve never been a big fan of flying in airplanes, much less in helicopters…I remember reading the emergency card that said: ‘emergency flotation systems would keep the helicopter afloat long enough for all the occupants to evacuate in the event of a water landing’…I didn’t remember too much water between O.C. and LAX…

Shortly after getting back from my second trip North one of L.A. Airways ‘copters’ fell out of the sky in Los Angeles somewhere…Then maybe a few months later another fell in an abandoned school yard in Buena Park, or near there…perhaps a year later the third of L.A. Airways’ ‘copters’ fell on to a street in Norwalk…newspapers were quick to point out that the last crash was the third of four that L.A. Airways owned… and then they went bankrupt…

I had not flown in between the three crashes and I happily lived ever after…

You couldn’t pay me enough to fly in a helicopter again…