Jedi5150
HTHL
In honor of Kerri's "Happy Tongue Tuesday" (HTT) photos, I wanted to post this Happy Tongue Hot-Loading photo of Ari and I over the weekend.
Hot-Loading is the practice of boarding and egressing a helicopter while the engine is running and the rotor blades are spinning. It obviously saves time from the safer practice of waiting until the engine and blades have stopped, but the biggest reason to practice it is that there are some times when it simply isn't possibly for the pilot to shut off the engine while loading passengers.
This last weekend we had our annual SAREX (Search And Rescue Expo) training, where agencies and teams from all over California (and beyond) come and train in everything from swift-water rescue, to mounted (horse) operations, to land navigation, to K9 medical training, etc. Hot-Loading was one of the things I chose to train on with Ari, since he has never been in a helicopter before, and all dogs react differently.
I was not the least bit surprised by Ari's grace and confidence in boarding the helicopter. He jumped up without my assistance and laid down next to me, relaxed as could be. The vibration and noise didn't concern him at all...to watch his reaction you would have thought he'd been riding to work in helicopters his whole life.
The photo was taken by my friend Chris, one of our SAR K9 handlers. I just played around with the post processing. I maxed out the "clarity" and gave it a sepia tone. I was going for the Viet Nam photojournalist look. ;-)
HTHL
In honor of Kerri's "Happy Tongue Tuesday" (HTT) photos, I wanted to post this Happy Tongue Hot-Loading photo of Ari and I over the weekend.
Hot-Loading is the practice of boarding and egressing a helicopter while the engine is running and the rotor blades are spinning. It obviously saves time from the safer practice of waiting until the engine and blades have stopped, but the biggest reason to practice it is that there are some times when it simply isn't possibly for the pilot to shut off the engine while loading passengers.
This last weekend we had our annual SAREX (Search And Rescue Expo) training, where agencies and teams from all over California (and beyond) come and train in everything from swift-water rescue, to mounted (horse) operations, to land navigation, to K9 medical training, etc. Hot-Loading was one of the things I chose to train on with Ari, since he has never been in a helicopter before, and all dogs react differently.
I was not the least bit surprised by Ari's grace and confidence in boarding the helicopter. He jumped up without my assistance and laid down next to me, relaxed as could be. The vibration and noise didn't concern him at all...to watch his reaction you would have thought he'd been riding to work in helicopters his whole life.
The photo was taken by my friend Chris, one of our SAR K9 handlers. I just played around with the post processing. I maxed out the "clarity" and gave it a sepia tone. I was going for the Viet Nam photojournalist look. ;-)