[Leica] Re:The Harmless Pursuit of Photography

[tedgrant at shaw.ca (Ted Grant)]

Hey Jim good on you! :-) If I'd any engine failures I'm sure I'd have 
remembered also. But my exciting moments always had the engine still going, 
well one of them sort of. ;-)

Although in 1957 I did a full auto-rotation into the arctic ocean due to 
some stupid flying on the part of the pilot. We were in a small "dragon fly" 
bell of those days with door off as I'd been shooting, so we had lots of 
water come in. No injuries but bloody cold and wet! Not to mention scared 
near to death! :-(

The machine had to be crane lifted onto the deck of the ice breaker, it 
never flew again until we returned south to Montreal where it under went 
over haul.

Another chopper in the arctic, a Huey this time, had a fire in the heater 
and we had to put down on the ice in the middle of nowhere about 50 below 
zero. One might say a bad scene for a few moments. However, we managed to 
get the plane OK, then had to fly another hour without any heat.. COLD? Lord 
Jesus lad I thought I'd die before we arrived at the Decca station we were 
flying to. :-(

By then a "rescue plane," so to speak, arrived so our helicopter was left 
for a week until repair parts came up on the next re-supply flight. The fun 
thing about the rescue plane, an Otter on skis, the heater had crapped out 
while it was
enroute to where we were! We weren't happy campers flying for about two 
hours back to the main base camp

A couple of other flying incidents along the way, but I always managed to 
walk away, so I suppose that's paramount in any "touch and stay!" ;-)

ted