There were alot of things about riding in a helicopter that I didn’t expect.
It’d been on my to do list for so long…
I’d had one attempt – a helicopter tour through the Grand Canyon – foiled due to bad weather; another attempt over a volcano in Rotorua, New Zealand dissipated due to only being able to book an 8 minute flight… And so the list goes.
So when the day finally came (our third day on Oahu) I was more than ready for some surprises of a positive kind.
My Hawaii Helicopter Experience
We started the day making our way from Waikiki Beach to the North Shore of Oahu. We’d decided to fly with Paradise Helicopter Tours, and after a slightly unorthodox journey, we made it to Turtle Bay Resort, the take off point for the morning’s voyage.
As we belted up, cheeks smushed inwards by our ear muffs and looking very chipmonk-esque, we began our ascent into the clear blue skies of Hawaii’s third largest island.
First thing that surprised me… and I say so at the risk of sounding dumber than I look… Choppers move considerably faster than they appear to. When you see them from the ground, you imagine them floating, kind of cruising through the air with no real haste… or maybe that’s just my association from seeing too many traffic chopper news reports.
We lifted off and immediately shot through the air over an entire golf course in what seemed to be seconds. The lower to the ground you are, the faster it seems too. At low altitute, when you can see in detail all the ground passing below you, your mind can compare it to the speed of a car or a train and realize that both the acceleration time and the speed are considerably higher.
As we climbed gradually higher, moving slowly along in the air above the coastline of Oahu’s lengthy North Shore, I came to my second surprise: The smoothness of the travel.
Having been in small aeroplanes, I figured that the smaller an air vessel was, the more succeptible to turbulence and hence the more bumpy. No sir-ee! Moving around the air in a helicopter (at least on this particular day and at this altitute) seems to incur little resistance, even less turbulence and provides in actuality, a far smoother trip than any aircraft I’d been on.
That is, until you rotate.
As we came to popular spots like Pearl Harbour, the Wahiawa world’s largest Hedge Maze (it’s A-MAZE-ING! – stole that joke from the pilot), and Waikiki Beach, the pilot dutifully spins the helicopter around on the spot to allow all passengers to see the sight from all angles. While it’s not the same as the abrupt bumpiness of airline turbulence, the albeit controlled swinging while simultaneously floating in the air was definitely a cause for a little stomach weakness the first couple of times it happened.
Which brings me to the fourth surprise: Floating.
If you’ve been in a plane you’ve probably observed the beauty and awe of large expanses of the earth observed from the viewpoint of the sky. What you won’t have experienced in a plane is the feeling of viewing the same expanse of earth for an extended period of time because you’re sitting in the sky but you’re not moving! (otherwise known as hovering) The feeling of floating over a single piece of earth was rather surreal, kind of like your dangling from a big string whose other end is hidden somewhere in the clouds above you. You also get the sense that maybe you should be falling.
When I hear a funny noise in an airplane, I often think, “what if that was the engine’s dying”, then in my mind, play out a situation where the plane’s forward movement gradually comes to a halt and then after hanging in the air a brief moment, instantly begins falling straight down towards the ground. (maybe that’s just me, but I doubt it!) When the helicopter came to a halt in mid air and began floating silent and still in the middle of the sky, I have to say I expected the same thing to happen.
However, floating soon became a joy, as we had more and more “hover stops” over spots like the Diamond Head Volcano and the old millitary bunkers dug deceptively into it’s walls, the snorkelers enjoying coral spotting at Hanauma Bay, and the giant swimming pools and uber ritzy mansions of the Kahala region, Oahu’s Beverly Hills.
Just like the terrain covered, the nature of the flight conditions never quite seemed consistent, keeping you always on the edge of your seat, a mix of enjoyment and trepidation. We next passed between the walls of the breathtaking Kahana Valley, where Jurassic Park was filmed and made our way to the Manoa Falls, Oahu’s highest waterfall. This is where things got dicey.
Final surprise was that, when you float down low, when valley walls surround you, it creates swlrling air. As the pilot moved around this crater type land mass to make sure we saw the falls, the chopper swung (what seemed to me like) just a little more wildly back and forth, and although the pilot didn’t seem in the slightest perturbed, I confess that at least for a moment, the enjoyment of the landscape was overcome by the fear of plumetting to our death. But this was soon all over, we moved on from the crater and continued up the coastline back to base, and the hour long flight which seemed more like 15 minutes had come to an end.
If you’re considering a chopper flight and you haven’t taken one before, I can confidently say that there’s no way possible that you’ll forget the experience and if you’re like us, you’ll remember and cherish it forever.
Best Oahu Helicopter Tour Company
If you’re trying to decide which service to use, I can tell you that our experience with Paradise Choppers was completely professional, very easy, and more than great value for the price we paid.
I left the North Shore with complete satisfaction, and the complete hope that whatever happens, Oahu won’t be the last place I hover on my travels.
View more recommendations with my Hawaii travel tips.
