They’re as omnipresent as dragonflies on a summer breeze. Three classic Bell 47G helicopters quietly slap the air with their rotors all day long over Wittman Regional Airport (KOSH) during EAA AirVenture Oshkosh in Wisconsin.
AirVenture visitors pay $60 for a five-minute air tour with unparalleled visibility of the huge gathering of aircraft and air-minded campers. It is not uncommon for the helicopter ride queue to take an hour to place passengers at copter-side, but the EAA volunteers staffing the operation keep up just enough friendly banter to make the time pass quickly.
In 2021 — the most current data available as of this writing — the Bells made 1,498 circuits over the AirVenture campus during the week of the fly-in. They carried about 2,600 passengers, and statistics for 2022 promise to match or maybe beat these numbers.
Launching from the grass at Pioneer Airfield beside the EAA Museum, each helicopter turns left in front of the museum and surveys the huge Camp Scholler complex before passengers get a chance to look down at Boeing Plaza and the exotic aircraft parked there.
The open-air sides of the Model 47 canopy provide even more sensory cues and this is an invigorating part of the flight. The pilot sits on the left side, with space for a center passenger and a right side occupant at the open door. Many riders clamor for the open door seat, some prefer the middle.
After the campground, a swing up the flightline, offset to the west, leads to a view of homebuilts and then warbirds, before a turn over the North 40 brings the Bell back to Pioneer for a landing.
If you walk the AirVenture grounds, your feet will tell you how immense it is. Some opt for the aerial view to let their eyes do the communicating.
Keith Huebner travels from Mount Vernon, Iowa, each year to volunteer as ground crew for the popular helicopter flights. He owns two Bell 47s back in Iowa because he wants to preserve this classic helicopter and highlight its place in history. His helicopters came from a cranberry farmer in Massachusetts who used them to fertilize and apply chemicals to his boggy crop as needed.
During AirVenture, 15 to 18 qualified Bell 47 pilots take turns supporting the effort, Huebner says. Every 90 minutes, each of the Bells slips off for refueling and servicing before returning to the airlift. About 85 volunteers support the entire operation.
Huebner notes it is a pleasure to watch people react to the flights. Some passengers, including a number of children, are apprehensive at their first sight of the whirling machine. Upon return to landing, they are grinning from ear-to-ear. On the day we flew, we observed that smiling phenomenon multiple times.
Huebner and the other volunteers lean forward to accommodate passengers with special needs. Rather than presume one cannot make such a flight, Huebner says interested visitors can check things out to see if they can be accommodated.
He still gets emotional when he tells the story of a blind passenger who was assisted by an EAA volunteer who works with the visually impaired in her regular job. The EAA member knew just how to communicate the visual parts of the flight to the passenger, while the beating rotors, movement of the helicopter, and rushing slipstream completed the picture.
If you want to experience flight in a helicopter like the one that opened each segment of MASH on television — with the added bonus of seeing what AirVenture looks like from on high — Huebner and the Bell 47 team stand ready each AirVenture to make that happen.
Very interesting article. What a great description of the action. Thank you.