{"id":3040,"date":"2015-01-25T21:13:10","date_gmt":"2015-01-26T01:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/?p=3040"},"modified":"2015-01-25T21:13:10","modified_gmt":"2015-01-26T01:13:10","slug":"if-i-may-share-an-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/if-i-may-share-an-anniversary\/","title":{"rendered":"IF I MAY SHARE AN ANNIVERSARY\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is January 26, 2015, and I am now two years helicopter-crash-free. \u00a0I told the story here shortly after it happened: http:\/\/backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/2013\/01\/27\/dont-be-afraid-of-flying\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I would like to thank the many people who added poignant and sometimes funny comments at the end of that blog entry. It\u2019s worth reading. I love you people.<\/p>\n

Two years later, all three of us who were on board are doing fine. Graham Harward, the pilot who \u201cbrought us home alive,\u201d is still flying as far as I know. John Strayer still has some range of movement issues with his gun hand, seriously injured when it went through the shattered Plexiglas when we hit, but is nonetheless still winning pistol matches. I\u2019ve only got one visible scar from it. We were indeed lucky.<\/p>\n

Share in our \u201ccelebration of survival.\u201d The song written and sung by our friend Steve Denney, \u201cPorkchopper Blues,\u201d overlays the first three and a half minutes of the video, some of the flight film having been edited for brevity.\u00a0 If you hear hysterical laughter in the background, it\u2019s us survivors and the women in our lives and some good friends: we\u2019re hearing it for the first time on the recording, as you are now.<\/p>\n

When the overlaid music stops, it\u2019s your warning that things are about to get serious.<\/p>\n

John Strayer, on the port side of the bird, was wearing a Go-Pro camera which recorded the short, fun flight, and the no-fun-at-all crash.\u00a0 Sorry for the engine sound. You won\u2019t hear us talking on board the aircraft; we had radio mics and headphones for that which didn\u2019t pick up our conversation over the engine noise. In the seconds before the crash, you won\u2019t hear me say to Graham, \u201cThose trees are getting\u2019 kinda tall, bro,\u201d nor will you hear him say \u201cI don\u2019t like this\u2014I don\u2019t like this at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since I have a mechanical IQ of about 50, I didn\u2019t hear the engine sputtering with the muffs on\u2026but John and Graham did, and thanks to the Go-Pro, so will you.\u00a0 Some folks asked why we didn\u2019t just auto-rotate into a hard but safe landing when the engine failed and we lost altitude. It\u2019s kinda hard to auto-rotate when you don\u2019t have rotors, and as you\u2019ll see in the video, the rotors were gone in the first fraction of a second when they hit the treetops.\u00a0 Notice how quickly things proceed from there.\u00a0 \u201cGravity sucks\u201d\u2026fast.<\/p>\n