Sydney Heli

For my birthday last year (2008) Amy got me a red letter day to fly in a helicopter over Sydney. I said I’d wait until the summer to do so I’d get a real nice day to get some great photos. Well that day came and it was a scorching 37 degs out west so I headed to Sydney Airport for the 20 minute joy flight.

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Me with Bell 206L-3 LongRanger at Kingsford Smith Aerodrome

The 206L is a seven seater aircraft but there was six of us on the joy flight so everyone got a window seat. Two other people who went up flew in a helicopter that had no doors which would have been cool but you cannot take your camera on those flights in case you drop it. You have to wear a lifejacket for the flight, I thought a parachute would have been more convenient.

Having never been in a helicopter before it was a fantastic sensation taking off, helicopters don’t require a run up like planes so suddenly going from being on the ground to being up in the air is fantastic, plus the forward speed can be much slower in a plane so you get the sense of just floating in mid-air I really enjoyed it.

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Australia vs. South Africa – 3rd Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground

After taking off from the airport and flying over a couple of parked 747s we flew over the SCG where a game was going on. The strange thing about flying in the helicopter was it reminded me of Flight Simular 2004 for the PC but with really good graphics.

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Downtown Sydney

This is Fort Denison which sits in the middle of the harbour, it looks cool from the helicopter a bit like a Google Maps shot.

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Fort Denison

We then header over to the Northern Beaches, stopping over Manly where I could see our flat. You can see how low lying the penisular of Manly is, I bet one day I do a blog post about how the Corso floods! The beach furthest to the right is Collins Flat, one of the finest beaches in the Harbour.

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Manly with the Manly Ferry

The helicopter swang around and I got a great shot of Fairlight and our flat (three buildings to the left of the furthest right hand white building by the beach.

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Fairlight and our Flat

It was a fantastic experience thanks to Amy, if you like these pictures then you can see all 313 photos at Flickr.