Third post in a series…
We were sorry to leave the luxurious environment of Galaxy FBO at KCXO (north of Houston), but a massive multi-day system of thunderstorms was coming in so we flew through some rain and under low clouds to escape east. First stop was KCWF in Lake Charles, Louisiana. There must be a great restaurant nearby because Million Air CWF was hosting a broken F/A-18 and two broken T-38s.
(The “NJ” on the tail refers to a carrier air wing, not the Great State of Feminism.)
If you want to fly a helicopter over rice paddies without staging a mostly peaceful invasion of a Southeast Asian country, Louisiana is the place:
This was where I was glad to have brought the PLB and the iPhone 14:
Crossing the Mississippi at the Nottoway Plantation (White Castle(!), LA)… (let’s hope that Californians are going to tax themselves to pay each descendant of the builders of this amazing house $5 million)
Folks in New Orleans did a great job building their original airport terminal, now used for a café (sadly, we arrived after it was closed) and a helicopter tour counter (trusty R44!).
The gals at Flightline said “this neighborhood isn’t safe. Don’t get out of the crew car until you’re at least 15 minutes from here”. They made an exception for the former Dixie brewing restaurant, 7 minutes away, because it is surrounded by a fence. It’s now “Faubourg” and the food served is entirely free of poisonous vegetables:
We flew under/around some clouds and over some Tesla fuel in Mobile, Alabama:
Destin, Florida (KDTS) was reporting only scattered clouds, so we flew at 2,500′ in beautiful clear conditions over a broken layer (a little unnerving in a helicopter) and then descended over the beach to 500′ before landing at the airport.
Glad to see you surviving your new R44, so far. Hope you don’t appear on the 14 (!) pages of R44 incidents on Aviation-Safety.net any time soon:
https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/type/R44
I took a ride in an R44 out of NOLA’s Lakefront Airport once. We buzzed an old fort, now surrounded by water, multiple sites next to the Mississippi, and Jackson Square. It was quite enjoyable – I just wish that I had brought a better camera! Unfortunately, our pilot, Burt, died when his Cessna 172 had an issue over Lake Pontchartrain and crashed into the water a few years later.
How’s that iPhone 14 camera working out? The specs are far better than that of my 11, but I’ve heard that the 14’s photos sometimes look weird due to Apple’s automatic post-processing. I’m guessing that there’s some way around that?