Wap, Wap, Wap

It’s not easy to describe the iconic sound of a Huey, but I thought that Nelson DeMille’s description of them going “Wap, wap, wap” fitted the bill.




Today a dream came true; I finally got to go for a flight in the iconic UH-1H Huey. I’ve been waiting for this for two years, so it just goes to show that good things do come to those that wait.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to sit up front; so I sat towards the back, facing sideways. With the doors wide open, it meant I could get some amazing photographs.

After a quick safety briefing, we piled in, and got strapped in. The pilot said “You are flying in a legend.”
Then one of the pax said “Are we leaving the doors open?”
“Yes.”
“And we don’t have to turn our cell phones off?”
“Yes.”
“This IS a legend!”
I couldn’t help but laugh.

After that exchange, we started up. Wow! It was completely different to the Eurocopter. It’s loud, and you shake and wobble in your seat as the main rotor picks up speed. As the rotor begins to turn faster, the wobbling stops, but there’s still a lot of vibration. I sat there and thought “This isn’t so bad; I thought I’d be blasted by wind.” I was wrong.




With everything set and ready to go, we gently lifted off the ground, flew backwards a couple of meters, swung to the left and climbed out to the south. We then turned left and headed towards the Simonsberg Mountain. As soon as we had lifted off, I was blasted by wave after wave of icy air. I actually started to shiver.

As I admired the view and listened to the blades turning above me, the machine vibrating beneath me, I thought that all I needed now was a gun, helmet and flack jacket. Then I thought about the young soldiers that flew in these during war time. That must have been something.

As we approached the Simonsberg, we turned left to fly along the western slopes, almost level with the peak. I felt like I could reach out and touch the rocks. We then hopped over some trees, flew clockwise around the mountain and looked for a place to land.



After a couple of minutes of flying around, the pilot decided to try put her down. I think one of the skids was on the ground, but it wasn’t stable and she began to tip backwards. The pilot immediately took power and climbed, the blades thumping. He tried again, but this time she wanted to roll to the side. So the co-pilot jumped out, and directed the pilot towards a suitable landing spot.

It’s the first time I’ve landed on a mountain, and I must admit that it was quite freaky. He shut down and we jumped out once the blades had stopped turning. The aircraft rocked back and forth slightly. Two of the pax left and climbed to the peak of the Simonsberg to join their friends, and I stayed behind and watched the pilots jam rocks under the skids to try and make it a bit more stable.

The reason for the flight was to drop two people off at the top of the mountain so they could join a group of people for their initiation (first year thing at university). The one guy had an injured knee, so he couldn’t hike up the mountain, hence the heli flight up. Talk about arriving in style.



It was absolutely amazing up there! Wisps of cloud floated past, but the air was perfectly still and I had gone from freezing to melting in a matter of minutes. We sat around for about 20min-30min, and then it was time to go. Two other guys would be joining us.

We all climbed in (me somewhat hesitantly as the thing still rocked back and forth), strapped ourselves in, closed the doors (good), and sat tight while the machine started up. Hearing that turbine always puts a smile on my face, and hearing the blades when they reach that certain speed where they sound ‘chunky’ sends shivers down my spine.

We lifted off and turned right as soon we were clear of the rocks and shrubs. The flight back to Stellenbosch was rather uneventful; the landing however, was quite something…



We flew overhead the field and came to a hover just to the west of the hangers. The pilot then pushed the cyclic forward so we were in a nose-down position, and turned relatively steeply to the left. Getting sucked into me seat, I’m sure I had a stupid-looking grin on my face. He then flew over the Dromader’s and turned left so that the nose was pointing west, and flew sideways along the taxiway to the landing spot.

Awesome! He set her down gently and that was that. The flight was over. It was definitely much better than my Eurocopter flight, and now I just want to be able to sit up front and see what it feels like to actually control a helicopter.

Thanks to everyone that made it possible for me to go with! Not many people get to say that their second helicopter flight was in a Huey, and involved landing on top of a mountain.