Helicopter into the Grand Canyon Arizona

“I’d been in a helicopter once before but it didn’t stop me being amazingly excited, especially when I realised I was riding shotgun. There was that stomach lurching wobble as the helicopter began to take off and hovered precariously above the ground. The captain made a few jokes to settle our nerves before turning the music up on his iPod (yes, you can play your iPod in a helicopter!) and speeding off towards the canyon. We hovered above the trees for about five minutes and strained our eyes to spot deer and byson. The captain then told us to get our cameras ready and brace ourselves but no amount of warnings could have prepared me for what we were about to see. One second we were hovering above the trees and then the world had plummeted beneath us. The canyon suddenly dropped off to more than one mile below us. It was like having the earth pulled out from below your feet.”

“The first thing you should know is that passengers in a helicopter have to be positioned carefully so that their weight is even. Great news for my brother and me, who ended up sitting up front with the pilot and were spoilt with insane views. The flight from an airport outside Las Vegas was around 30-40 minutes and featured bird’s-eye views of the Hoover Dam, Lake Mead (the Lake created by the Dam), and the Colorado River. The bright blue of the water stood out like a vein running through the red landscape - the image sticks in my mind even now, 15 years later. What does flying in a helicopter feel like? It’s difficult to describe. It definitely felt flimsy compared to the sturdy airplane travel we are used to. It is loud and you are very aware of your movement through the air. That’s not to say I felt unsafe. The landscape below us was stark and vast, with little in the way of settlements, so it didn’t feel so daunting to look down.”