Lots of times whilst in the Services. In Germany I served with a Regiment in which a very good friend (a god-father of Harleys) commanded the Troop of three Bell 47s which were Air Observation Posts for our gunnery. We had lots of fun chasing roe deer across the fields and wildfowl around the lakes ...
Later, in Oman, we used Huey 205s and 214s as workhorses to resupply our bases on the jebel and, when necessary, to shift my artillery about - and also me, when I was visiting remote operational gun positions. Helicopters are brilliant machines when they work, but catastrophic when they don't. Shortly after I left Oman an ex-Royal Marine heli pilot whom I used to scuba-dive with was flying over the jebel at 12,000 feet when his wingman 30 yards to his left disappeared in a ball of flame. He had been hit by a Soviet-made SAM7 missile fired from 4,000 feet from the top of the jebel. Later, in London, I spent time trying to convince people that the vertical range of the SAM7 was not just 7-8,000 feet as they thought but, instead, was dependent on the altitude from which it was fired - all this because the IRA were trying to use them in Northern Ireland.
Enough of war stories. Helis are great so long as you're not paying and so long as that rotor thing on top keeps on turning!
Tony.
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