Overview of Panama Canal Helicopter Tours with Hunter Schultz
This video from Going Panama documents a decade of aerial experience over the Panama Canal, narrated by Hunter Schultz, a veteran helicopter and airplane tour guide who has flown dignitaries, celebrities, and thousands of tourists. The tour takes you over one of the world's most remarkable engineering achievements—a waterway that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and handles nearly 15 percent of U.S. trade. From the air, you see what ground-level visits cannot convey: the sheer scale of the original construction (1904–1914) and the modern expansion known as the Neo-Panamax locks.
This experience suits anyone fascinated by engineering history, large-scale infrastructure, or geopolitical significance. Whether you're a cruise passenger with a bucket-list moment, a business traveler with a few hours to spare, or someone who simply wants a new perspective on how global commerce moves, a helicopter tour of the canal delivers awe and education in equal measure. The video reveals what makes passengers—from billionaires to first-time flyers—walk away permanently changed in their understanding of what humans can build.
Key Moments
Memorable Sights and Moments During Your Aerial Tour
- Gatun Lake and the True Scale of the Project — The lake, at one point the largest man-made lake in the world, is revealed from the air to be roughly the size of metropolitan Detroit. Dirt excavated from the original canal construction would have filled a train circling Earth 3.5 times.
- The Curved Gamboa Bridge — This 1904-era railway bridge crosses the Chagres River with an intentional curve that doubles as a dam. From the ground it seems odd; from the air, the engineering genius becomes clear—the curve was designed to withstand water pressure if the river ever needed to be blocked.
- Mirror Floors Lock Control Center — The white control building in the original locks housed mechanical systems so complex they may have been the most intricate mechanism ever built at the time, preventing operator error through ingenious fail-safes before computers existed.
- Gatun Dam and the Nuclear-Powered Sturgis — Once the world's largest earthen dam, Gatun Dam hosted an unusual visitor during the 1968 Vietnam War drought: the USS Sturgis, a WWII Liberty ship converted into a floating nuclear power plant that kept the canal running for eight years.
- The Neo-Panamax Construction Zone — During the canal's expansion, a massive concrete plug held back Gatun Lake from the new lock site—a structure monitored constantly because even a small breach would drain the lake and cripple world trade for three years.
- Gatun Locks and the Caribbean Approach — Flying in from the Caribbean side, you see how the canal descends in gravity-fed steps from the lake (83 feet above sea level) down to sea level, with zero pumps—purely by water pressure and human-engineered precision.
What to Know Before Booking Your Panama Canal Flight
- Route Coverage — Tours typically depart from Panama City and cover Gatun Lake, the original locks (on the Caribbean side), Gatun Dam, the Gaillard Cut, the newer Neo-Panamax locks, and Gatun Lake's interior. The entire aerial footprint gives unmatched perspective on the canal's scope.
- Best Passenger Mix — Tours accommodate a wide range of visitors—from cruise ship passengers (often on tight schedules) to VIP groups. Schultz mentions post-flight gatherings at hangars with maps where passengers ask detailed questions, so expect an educational experience, not just sightseeing.
- Weather and Visibility — The video emphasizes that from the air, water color varies across the canal due to ongoing dredging; clearer sections (especially the Gaillard Cut) offer better visual clarity. Optimal conditions come during dry season (December–April) for clearest skies.
- Duration and Booking — While not specified in the video, Schultz's ten-year tenure and mention of "VIP room" gatherings suggest tours range from 1–2 hours. Book through Aéreos (aereos.com.pa), the operator referenced in the description; spots fill quickly, especially for sunrise or late-afternoon flights.
- What to Bring — A camera or phone with good zoom is worthwhile; the video shows how much detail appears from altitude (the Gamboa Bridge's curve, the lock mechanisms, the Sturgis's former location). Dress layers; altitude and rotor speed create temperature changes.
- Preparation Tip — Knowing the historical context beforehand (original construction 1904–1914, expansion opened 2016) deepens the experience. Schultz repeatedly mentions how awestruck passengers become when they grasp the scope—priming yourself with basic facts maximizes that impact.
Frequently Asked Questions About Panama Canal Helicopter Tours
What makes the Panama Canal so impressive from the air?
From the ground or online maps, the canal's scale is abstract. From the air, you see that Gatun Lake alone covers an area the size of a major metropolitan region, and the entire project—built almost entirely with slide rules, pencil, and paper in the early 1900s—becomes viscerally real. Passengers consistently remark that the sheer engineering ambition only sinks in once they see it.
Why is the Gamboa Bridge curved when most bridges are straight?
During the original canal construction, engineers designed the railway bridge's curve to serve a dual purpose: it functions as a dam capable of blocking the Chagres River if maintenance or emergency required it. The curve is not decorative—it's structural, distributed water pressure the way modern dams like Hoover Dam do, making it far stronger than a straight design would be.
How does the canal operate without pumps?
The entire lock system relies on gravity. Gatun Lake sits about 83 feet above sea level, and water flows downward through the locks in stepped stages. Operators open and close valves to allow gravity-fed water from the lake to fill each lock chamber, raising or lowering ships, and then drain it back to the lake. The original mechanical control systems were so ingenious that they prevented incorrect sequences through mechanical fail-safes alone.
What is the Neo-Panamax expansion and why was it needed?
The original locks, opened in 1914, accommodated ships up to about 950 feet long. Modern cargo vessels are far larger. The expansion (completed 2016) added a third set of locks capable of handling ships over 1,200 feet long, roughly doubling the canal's capacity. The video shows the construction process, including the massive plug that temporarily held back Gatun Lake during construction.
How much of the global economy depends on the Panama Canal?
According to Schultz, approximately 15 percent of the U.S. economy is impacted by traffic through the canal. The video emphasizes this by contrasting it to the recent Suez Canal blockage (the Ever Given incident): a three-year closure of Panama's canal would be catastrophic globally. This economic significance is one of the most eye-opening takeaways passengers report.
Video by Going Panama on YouTube. If you enjoyed it, please subscribe to their channel and show your support for the great video.
Description
Panama Canal Helicopter Tours: Most memorable moments and sights from an experienced helicopter tour guide. For over ten years, Hunter Schultz gave helicopter and airplane tours for dignitaries, celebrities, business tycoons, and tourists. After each flight, they had questions and comments.
Most were awestruck by one thing, and all had a new appreciation for the people who built the Panama Canal, and for those running it now.
Going Panama is all about living, working, playing, touring, and hangin' in Panama.
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Video transcript for “Panama Canal Helicopter Tours: Most Memorable Moments and Sights” Accessibility
A full written transcript of this video, provided for accessibility. Select any timestamp to jump the video to that moment.
[Music] most memorable things for people coming off the aircraft after a tour of the panama canal gosh i've done them for over 10 years so one of the things that i think is most striking is probably the scope
of the project both the original and to a lesser extent the new locks the expansion as it was called or is called you don't get a sense of just how big a project it was back in 1904 going back further to the french construction the original french construction
it was a 10-year project for the u.s from 1904 to 1914 and i've had passengers a variety of passengers from all over the world a russian billionaire with his ex-wife and his daughter and his mistress or girlfriend that was interesting
governors of u.s states billionaires millionaires thousand airs people i'm taking a bucket list people from cruise ships but they remark about that's probably the thing that hits them the most is just how big it is and you don't get that sense from google earth or the ground so going up in the air you you see
what it means when i say gatun lake is the size in metropolitan detroit for instance at one point it was the largest man-made lake in the world and with the expansion i think it may have reclaimed that that crown so yes the scope and when you add in the little
factoids about the construction the original construction for instance the amount of dirt that's been taken out that was taken out for the original construction would have filled a train that would go around the earth three and a half times that's an awful lot of dirt they usually
will ask where'd all the dirt go and i said well i'll show you when you it it didn't just go off to the side you don't do that you you can't do that otherwise it would just come back in the the weight would just refill the land over time so it went out into the caribbean or into the
pacific side the amador causeway was built from landfill from the canal construction so those things are them perspective and they realize my goodness that was that was amazing and the other thing that hits them is at that point wait a minute they did this all with
slide rules and and pencil and paper there were no computers really back then there were some calculating machines rudimentary but it was slide rules and paper that's what they had and human ingenuity and there's a there's the bridge at gamboa that crosses the we call it the gamboa
bridge it crosses the chagras river which is one of the main water feeds filling the canal i've driven over this bridge i don't know hundreds of times and it was always a little strange to me there was something about it and this is the bridge where you have it's actually a little
scary when you go across it the first time you think oh no wait and then you see a panama canal train panama canal railway train going over it and you think okay fine but it is a structure that was built in the original construction of the canal and what's odd about it is you go over
it a few times you realize this bridge is curved what on earth is going on here you say why on earth does this bridge go most bridges are straight there's no obvious reason why the bridge is curved it's not that long why is this thing curved when you get up in the air then you see
it and i i tell people in advance oh yeah keep an eye out for the gamboa bridge we're going to fly across it or we're going to fly next to it and then they see it and they go and i say do you notice the bridge is curved and i'll go yeah why is that i said well back during the original
construction when they made this bridge they made a curve so it could be a dam to block off the chagras river so what they what they could do back then is is put steel plates on the the curve is like like this i don't know the perspective with the camera but it's it's curved like this the
water's coming in it's curved and structurally from an engineering standpoint all dams have a curve to them basically because they're stronger that way oh good dance hoover dam is curved for instance so you find you find the human ingenuity that they realize we may have to to slow or cut off
the chagras river from overwhelming the canal in some way shape or form or they may need to do maintenance but they had the ingenuity to say we better make this bridge curved that is pretty memorable that hits home the fact that these are incredibly brilliant engineers minds working on the canal back then
another little factoid about the ingenuity of of the people who constructed the locks and the canal in general each lock has a control center the old locks and mirror floors is the most famous it's a big white structure in the middle of the locks in between the two locks inside that structure is a table
and it was the controls for the locks themselves in other words you would you would open a valve to let water in from the lake in to fill the because it's all gravity fed there's no pumps involved in this it's simply gravity forcing water from the upper level of the lake the lake level which is about
83 feet above sea level and it it goes down like stair steps well in those uh in those tables underneath the tables is a complex mechanism far more complex it may it may even have been the most complex
mechanism ever made at that point it will as you turn a valve it won't allow you to turn the valve unless the locks are in the proper position closed or open and you can't open the gates unless the water level is at the correct position between them so you don't have a spill i mean a
massive accident there are there are mechanisms that prevent them from being turned which in turns prevents mention which in turn prevents problems really brilliant stuff so all three of those structures have those mechanisms in place they're no longer used they're done by computers
now and that reinforces the point that yeah these are really smart people really smart people as you fly up towards cologne you get to you go back borrow colorado and that's where the smithsonian has their research facility and i tell people okay all the islands that you're going
to see now were once hilltops more perspective then they see lago get tuned and and they realize boy this thing's huge as you get closer to the caribbean side the gatun locks you also see gatun dam which if you're going towards that going north
really northwest direction you see gatun dam you see the lox and then you see cologne and france field or or the free zone in front of you well gatton dam was at one at one point in time it was the largest earthen dam ever built now it's been superseded by i think a
dam in china memory serves but here's here's where they here's where they tend to get especially panamanians get a little what surprise during the vietnam war 1968 panama had a huge drought the canal authority had they were in kind of uncharted territory
here because the amount of shipping going through traffic uh going through because of the vietnam war let alone commercial traffic had been increasing over the years though nowhere near where it is now the canal was was thinking we're going to run out of water we may not we may not have enough water to be able to do
all the transits we need to do for the us military and and commercial traffic so keep in mind that the canal is is hydro powered both hydroelectric and as i said gravity there's no pumps for the locks but hydroelectric powers the the locomotives that that help guide the ships through the locks
and the lights and navigation and in general power the canal so they had this problem and they called up the us army corps of engineers and they said hey can you send down the sturgis the sturgis was an old world war ii liberty ship that in the early 60s had been converted to a nuclear reactor power plant
power station essentially they cut a big chunk of the middle section out of the ship and replaced it with a nuclear power plant and because they took the engines the ship's engines out it became a barge so they towed the thing down and they put it in between gatun dam and the lox and it sat there
for eight years providing power to the canal and also to panama city so panama city was nuclear powered for a while and panamanians tend to their eyes go wide and go what there's a there's another story about jimmy buffett being an electrician's mate on the on the sturgis which is not true and i did find out the real
story behind it um too long for here but it is a good story maybe i'll do that sometime again this is all part of the the how the canal developed over time and the sturgis was a a good example of human ingenuity how do we how do we overcome this
this issue another thing that strikes people is the color of the water in the canal parts of it are clearer than the other and especially in the middle in the cut especially the guyard cut and what people don't realize is the canal really hasn't they've never
stopped constructing the canal okay it's maintenance but the dredging of the canal has never stopped other than for maybe six or eight months and that's it it's the constant dredging going on and that's because the earth comes in the sediment flows in from chagras and from from other parts uh just run off into
the canal so they have to dredge it they have to keep dredging it's an ongoing process and we'll continue there's no way to stop it so they don't realize what um what an awesome job it is just to maintain the old the old locks and the canal then they get to the new expansion
and probably the most memorable part of the expansion was during construction when we would go over a specific spot at gatun dam or gatunlocks and they're kind of surprised that the u.s had been planning on expanding the the locks the canal
to allow bigger sized ships back in the uh 20s and 30s in fact they started to build to dredge a new channel to the east of gatun locks and you could see it on google earth and for a while during construction they had gotten to the point where
the the from the perspective of the caribbean side they were going towards the towards the lake and there was a a a wall and that was like a plug and that's where the the new locks are right now the new uh construction and that plug was the only thing that kept the water from running out of gatun lake
so they monitored that like there was no tomorrow there were seismic monitors in there there were lasers there's all sorts of monitoring equipment because had that thing for some reason had there been an earthquake and that that plug had been damaged and it doesn't take very much it
you don't realize that that it doesn't you don't need a big breach all you need is a very small breach just as long as the water starts flowing it's going to cut its way through very quickly and the lake would drain and that would be it for about three years it would take about three years to refill
the canal had that happen would have been catastrophic for world trade and if you saw what happened to uh evergreen uh or ever evergreen ship the ever whatever it was uh in the suez canal recently you have an idea what that would be like for three years and that's another point that people are taken with is
is the economic impact of the canal if the canal was a totally private corporation you ought to think of it as like ibm it's huge almost 15 percent of of the u.s economy is impacted by what goes through the canal so just imagine what would happen over three years it was it was an enormous enormous
impact that the canal has on on the american economy let alone a global economy so those are the things that i think are the most memorable i get the most questions on them that's probably why i know them the most they they want me to to say it again after they get off and we go to a map
like a big map that's usually what happens to go in a vip room at one of the hangars and there's a map and they'll point to things and those are the things they they tend to find the most memorable about their panama canal tour
you
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