I have had more people puke in the glider back in the first two years of my aviation career than all of my 18 years of flying helicopters. Maybe it was because I was new and my skills have since improved a little, but I think it’s more because gliders do get bounced around quite a bit. With the gigantic wings they pick up every little updraft (duh! That’s the idea!) and the sun beating down on the poor passenger through the bubble creating the “ant underneath the magnifying glass” effect isn’t really helping either I’m sure.

My brother, the artist, once filled up the bag in the back of my plane but got everything inside the bag at least. However he forgot to take the microphone out of the way. Good times …

When I tell people that helicopter flying is actually surprisingly smooth I often get asked the question “But not when you’re flying into a fire, right?” “That HAS to be pretty rough!”

I used to say “not really” and “you’d be surprised” but I have since learned that I just never noticed how rough fire flying can actually be because I was always too busy driving and working. Now that I am flying a in a multi-crew cockpit environment where I am not always the one driving I often think “holy moly, this is rough!” and “how come I’ve never noticed that before!”

It may also have something to do with the fact that this gigantic aircraft is not exactly known for being the smoothest machine in the fire world. It kinda feels like driving a gravel truck down a gravel road. It’s probably a good thing we don’t have any passenger to worry about while fighting fire.