What do you see on a Seattle twilight holiday helicopter tour? — featuring Sam Gilliss

0:24 Sam, where are we going? We are going to Belle, then Everett, then back through Seattle. Cool. And

0:59 Which way are we headed this evening, my friend? So, I thought we'd try and do the same thing that we did. We going uptown uh to Belleview and then on up to Everett. Sounds good. Okay. Do a little touch and go there. Yeah, like that. And then uh come back down the coastline

1:25 like we did that one time. zip through Seattle. Maybe take an orbit around it. I think they'll let us do that. Let's see here. Where's my shoulder strap? There it is. This one. That is the right one. Okay. Interesting. I had no battery, but I

1:51 have battery. All right. Do you have a checklist on that side, man? Probably. That's the one thing I forgot to check out of right here. Awesome.

2:16 Seems in fairly good shape. All right. Thank you. All right. Seat belts fashioned. Fuel shut off is on. Okay. Friction's off.

2:45 Long screw on that one. Good motion. Engine's still just a hair warm. It's not real warm anymore. Friction's back on. Okay. All right. Cool down neutral.

3:12 Pedals neutral. Sorry. Rotor brake off. Circuit breakers in. Mixture guard and mixture for rich. Mixture guard installed. Trim time. Clutch disengaged.

3:41 Ter set is about right. Okay. Hydraulics. Okay, leave that on. All right, throttle twist. Okay, so priming. I'm going to do three, maybe four. It's not not real warm.

4:06 So key. We're going to go both. Battery on. This big hog is probably not going to hurt. Three ones can go. Okay. One, two, three, four. All right. Clear. Clear on the left. Clear left. Okay. Hanger almost slipped off that

4:34 little little fuel in there. That's why we have the governor on. Yeah, it is. Clutch lights on. Fill pressure is good.

5:08 Rotor. [Music] Okay, thank you.

5:46 Ah, that's on.

6:34 I'm there. Go here. Ready to go.

6:59 I'm going to roll this up a little here. Yeah. Thank you. Instructions. Oscar. Okay, we got Oscar for weather. Rolling field information Oscar 23 53 Zulu wind calm visibility 1 Z 2000 scattered temperature 8 2.4 4 3 0 1 4 ILS runway 32 left approaching use

7:25 landing and departing runways 32 left and 32 right read back hold short instructions adise you have Oscar okay Oscar go ahead and turn that off all right so let's come three bravo turn off but turn behind that's northbound 737 green.

7:50 All right, mag drop. We're already at speed. Okay, going left. Good check. Going right. Good check. Victor Bo tower rebel. Okay. All right. Do a needle split. Clutch off or I'm sorry, governor off

8:15 and split. All right, going to leave her down. 13 Bravo, you said you're going to southwest hydraulics bravo. You can go ahead and text southwest be bravo. That's 73 away for you. Feel good there. 13 bravo. You can stay with me. All right, the hydraulics off.

8:45 Still good. Hydraulics on. Okay, much easier. Awesome. All right, we are ready to roll up. 51 Quebec safe parking. 51 go back runway 32 right clear to land and base south runway 32 left. You do have a 737 about to depart the big runway.

9:10 Land 32 uh right and uh the base call again. Oh, he's one already. Thanks. Go back. Sorry. You said runway 32 right clear. I heard that. And did you have a question? Yeah. You cop five back. Sorry. I was just saying base south of the big runway for departing traffic. Copy that. Southwest base runway for

9:33 south of the big runway for training base. All right, rolling up.

10:03 in my head there for a second. Okay, there's our governor bolt back. Punch lights. Punch lights out. Sportsman 8 Victor you parking west

10:28 side. All right. Doing low rotor RP low rotor Martin Victor. Roger. Extend that one. I'll call your base. Good there. Express India 006.

10:54 All right. Tower helicopter 7 447 Romeo Charlie at spot 8. Uh looking for a sewer departure with Oscar. Good evening. Express India 06 44 7 tower hold position will be a couple minutes. Holding position 7 Charlie 0 6 point

11:20 tower runway 32 left full length clear for takeoff. 32 left full length clear for takeoff. Best

12:09 51. Come back. Turn right when contact ground. Connect. back up.

12:36 Okay, I think we got this guy coming. Yeah, I figured that was going to happen. Yeah. Yeah. And every time we get ready to take off, there's like sportsman Victor 737 departure ahead. Runway 32 left. Clear to land. Always a lot of traffic.

13:16 Helicopter 7 remain Charlie the caution marks for that 737 departure spot eight clear for takeoff for now flying northbound along Bravo clear eastbound turn. Roger. Uh fly northbound along Bravo and

13:41 he'll call my eastbound turn. 7 runway Charlie. All right, taking off. Okay, taking up slow. We'll feel a little kick back from that. Express India 06 contact departure safe flight. Uh 12 0.4 confirm. Express India 6.

14:06 Express India 06 affirmative 12 0.4. Thank you, sir. Good day. All right.

14:37 Hold her right there for a minute. There you go. Thank you very much. Bridge getting another 44 ready. Uh probably pick up 7way Charlie. Uh you

15:02 can resume the sewer departure. Roger that. Resume sewer departure. 7 runway Charlie. Thank you. Number five, Victor, turn left enabled, then contact ground. Yeah, I heard he sold the yellow one that's in the hanger. Oh, really? That one's probably like a maintenance chopper or the one that the guy bought,

15:19 maybe. Oh, gotcha. All right, going to 900. Passing through five. Actually, I'll probably just go on up to a th00and. Yeah, you might as well. Yeah,

15:45 it's a decent little night flight. We'll have to kind of watch for the vapor situation out here. Yeah. Yeah. I was noticing there's uh ever there's only four degrees between the Dupoint. All right. Pass1 tower. Are you ready? Yes, sir. Ready to go. Jet

16:12 211. Wind 330 6 runway 32 left at alpha 11. Clear for takeoff. Clear for takeoff. Uh jet 21. All right, there's 1,000 ft. Uh going to 90 knots.

16:41 Heat. Heat.

18:12 All right. I'm going to orbit around Belleview once. Figured I'd hit over the uh 520 bridge like we did last time, too. Yeah. Doing okay back there, Chan. Yeah, I am. Cool. Got 1,000 ft. Beautiful night.

18:38 Not too bad so far. Still see pain, so that's good. Yep.

19:09 Good evening. Boeing tower system 7 ner 91 uniform over back for back entry and we have Oscar 7 ner 91 uniform bowing tower we're fly the bash on arrival 91 uniform point the bash on arrival the

19:34 bash on arrival 91 uniform thank you 1229 And on 229

20:02 a little bit later and you could go actually uh see candy cane lane going up like Vegas. There it is right there. Belleview area traffic helicopter 7 on

20:28 Charlie 1100 ft orbiting ground Belleview downtown then heading west towards 520 still on the falling tower frequency. Oh, sorry about that. Thank you. Let's see where you're at. That's not a bit calm up here. Let's go.

21:05 Try that. I got you on com two. Oh, you got com two on here? I do now. Okay, gotcha. Sorry, I was just hitting the switch. I don't think it was working. all the air traffic helicopters runway Charlie going to orbit around downtown at uh 1,200 ft and then head west over the 520 bridge.

21:32 That is absolutely gorgeous. Can't complain. Heat. Heat.

23:59 Lake Washington area traffic helicopter 7 runway Charlie uh go at the 520 bridge uh 900 ft uh east to Best

25:12 Lake Washington area traffic helicopter 7 runway Charlie 800 ft uh westbound along 520 near the Husky Stadium 7 runway

26:15 Lake Union area traffic helicopter 7 runway to Charlie turning uh north of I5 at uh 800 ft.

27:39 got to put Boeing in. I forget. Uh, okay. 12865. Yeah. What's their tower? 203. Yeah, what is the tower?

28:06 Look that up. Try that one up here if you want. 1 123. Is that what it is? Two Z

28:59 All right. So, yep. If you walk back to one here. Oh, yeah. Bravo that strength. Good night.

29:34 Yeah, we'll probably do exactly what we did last time. We'll just shoot the downwind, right? Join down 146. Six.

30:57 connect. Oh, we still got a ways to go yet. Yeah, we're probably a good 10 out, I'd imagine. Yeah, 10 10 right now. 95.

31:27 Christmas tree on top of something over there.

31:58 You think uh what uh say five or six to the south? Yeah. Okay.

32:27 Yeah. Pretty hard to miss painfield. It's like so bright up there all the time. Yeah. There's nothing else around it really either. So you're just like, "What's that big thing?" like uh got some fog developing over there though. Yeah, at least it's north so we'll probably be all right for a bit.

32:48 Actually looks better than the one we x-ray south of Lake Stevens. Reflecting full stop 6842 Xray left base 16 left base. Uh she was over left base 16 left 42 x-ray and we have information Sierra 42. Thanks. Okay. Clearly that was a call of two

33:13 different people. Yeah.

33:39 Painfield helicopter 447 Romeo Charlie. We got six to the south with Sierra looking for a touch and go. Helicopter 447 Romeo Charlie Paint tower to right down 16 right 16 right Charlie.

34:09 Sounds like it's the same exact thing we did last time. Yep. Pretty much. Right on. I got to start studying big time. Yeah. How many more hours of PAC you need?

34:34 I think I need about 30 right now. Now would be a good time to start cracking the books, my friend. We need to get that written out of the way. Yeah, we sure do. Yep. The sooner you get that done, we can start pumping out some ground. Yeah. Probably wouldn't hurt just to open that

34:54 PTS and just look at it. So while you're scrolling around through stuff, you're like, "Okay, yep. I need to know this. I'm going to need to know that." That's true. Guarantee there's going to be heavy emphasis on privileges, limitations, um, a lot of cross country information. Yeah, had my hands full lately. The um

35:23 work's been insane. Sky 42 X-ray number one. Runway 16 left.

35:49 Cleared to land. 42. X-ray. Cleared to land. 16 left.

36:44 7 Charlie run six right clear. Touch go and pay attention on the go. What was that last part? Uh we're going to do touch and go and depart back to the uh north or sorry south along the shoreline. Roger six right clear. Touch go on the go southbound approved. Roger. Then down and go. Attention go.

37:06 I stumble over my words. No worries. I just jumped in there. You didn't want to do the shoreline, right? What? You didn't want to do the short run right. Okay. So, he changed to 16 right. Clear touch.

37:31 Uh, correct. 16 right. Uh, touch. Thank you. Hopefully, we're still going to do the downwind here though. Yeah, since we're already here or what? What's the plan? I mean, we're right next to the runway.

40:04 Look up for 7 Charlie look like you haven't quite started your base turn yet. Just extend and follow that traffic ahead and right. Ah, okay. All right. Roger that. We were wondering about that. Thank you, sir. 73 Charlie extending down. All right. Well, I'm going to keep my altitude in.

40:25 Yes, good idea. 42 xray contact ground point. Connect ground decimal 8 42 x-ray. Good night.

40:57 All right. So, I'mma be in Paintville, I'm on base now. So, runway

41:47 Heat. Heat. Definitely

42:17 high and wide. There we go. Time one mile final.

42:49 500 HL. start uh bleeding off some speed

43:25 Cool part about corner one Mike left turn alpha 4 contact 18 good night. Cool part about pain is there's all kinds of places to auto. Yep. Heat. Heat.

44:01 All right, ETL's coming in. There it is.

44:29 Beautiful. And we are on the go.

44:58 Okay. Okay. So, we only have the option for touch and go. And uh we're departing out to the coast. So, we're good. Good to go. Mainfield cop runway Charlie on the upwind out to the coastline. Copy

45:24 Charlie. Approve. Roger. Thank you. through some Charlie. Sweet. I always uh feel like these guys are pretty nice up here. They are pretty helpful. I I actually really liked doing the lessons up here when when I first started out.

45:50 It was like lowkey lowkey. Yeah.

46:22 Love that light on the horizon. Is it still just a bit? Huh?

46:57 Heat up

47:24 here.

48:37 Can Can you see the lights? You see the lights ahead of us? Yeah, it's kind of a 23 right turn. All right. Probably get you back on two here. 7 Romeo Charlie. No traffic for this house. Freak change approve. Connect frequency change approve 7 Charlie. Thank you. You beat me too.

49:08 All right. Got you back on 229. Calm two. Thank you. Oh, that's the Edmonds Fair.

49:59 725. Yeah. 725 or no for 750. 750. Okay. Yeah. So close.

51:18 Heat. Heat. Heat up

52:07 here. A little bit of a tailwind.

52:32 Yeah, seem like we're cruising a little bit. Yeah, it's like 5 knots. Today's been extremely calm day today. Yeah. Heat.

53:05 Heat. We see a train or something at least.

53:32 Yeah. Is it come through that little gulch right there or whatever? Yeah. That looks like some kind of park down through there or trail. Car park right there. Are traffic

53:59 southbound running down the coastline. Going to go through the locks. Okay. So, it needs uh yeah instructions. Advise you have Oscar. Oscar still

54:27 information. Oscar 2353 Zulu wind calm visibility 1 Z 2000 scattered temperature 8 2.4 4 altimeter 3 0 1 4 ILS runway 32 left approaching use landing and departing runway 32 left and 32 right that in cool all the Christmas lights on the

54:52 boat it's pretty empty down there is surprisingly so well at least they don't all have Christmas lights looks like it's a lot of empty slots all right going to go down about uh 3900 good area traffic in the south box

55:19 eastbound 900 ft.

55:47 locks are being worked on right below us. If you can see that out on your right side here. Okay. Sorry, enough of that. You're all good. Okay. Uh, one. Yep. So, you just flip to comp one. You're on 1837

56:21 kilowing tower. The wind calm runway 22 right click for takeoff. Make right close traffic. All them here. I'll do it in orbit around. Yep. Bing tower 4 or 447 Charlie inter bay would like to uh cruise the shoreline with a quick over space needle inbound travel spotted 47 bower approved

56:40 as requested all 31 port inbound for spotting report inbound spotted 447 approved as requested 737 clear for takeoff right where space needle uh needle do you want to hold town traffic at this time we'll be remaining at 000 ft. So in the pattern, I'll see if we can do that.

57:06 Going to 447 Charlie. Can we amend the orbiting uh to go around downtown? Charlie approved as requested. 447 is requested. There you go. Easy. All right. So, I'm going to keep it about 800 ft.

57:40 doing okay back there, Chen? Yeah, thank you. Y All

58:13 right. So, same drill as last time. Going to split the stadiums, go around, and head back through here. Sounds good. Oh, that's a little drum below us. Oh, it sure is. The heck? It's an Amazon drone. Deliver packages.

59:01 7 kilo Julia to turn toward the down when there's traffic above you 1,300 ft indicated helicopter. Roger. Uh we're looking 7 kilo Julia 3 that traffic just turned from crossing a downwind 1000 ft looking for you

59:29 tower 92 A3 we just departed like transition air skyline city tour that was the previous call Traffic additional traffic 700 ft over the stadium's helicopter 923 7 Julia wind 32 right click for the option for the option 32 right 7 Julia 283 alpha bing transition approved

59:55 number three 0 one niner transition approved 23 alpha helic there's traffic VA hospital northwest on 1 1300 airless helicopter Uh traffic traffic sit at 71

60:30 Heat. Heat. You know, I always mean to mount the camera towards the side and I never do.

60:55 Well, you might have another chance someday. Yeah. 33 alpha remain below the uh class Bravo airspace 1,900 ft. Danger below 1,700. 1,500 A3 alpha. Thanks tree one niner. Sorry, I'm getting comfy here.

61:22 Charlie appears cold helicopter sending into harbor should be a factor.

61:55 Clearly, Roger. All right. Going to start going down about 600 ft. 700.

62:21 Funny cuz someone wrote that there was little drones flying around on the chalkboard in there and I thought it was a joke. Maybe that's real. Yeah, it might be actually. All right, there's my six. I'm going to maintain try.

62:47 Well, they really cleared this place out. A3 alpha. Traffic be in the stadium 500 ft on the shorelines. A helicopter inbound. Traffic inside 923 alpha

63:15 do some counterclock 3 0 one niner. Heat.

64:12 There you go. Got you on the west side there. Awesome. Thanks. All right. So, same drill here. Go ahead. Charlie on the 12 spot. Thanks for char. Good call. 447 Charlie.

64:53 All right. So, over the museum and then uh back up Bravo. Yep. See if I can do it a little slower this time. Heat. Heat.

65:38 All right, start bleeding off some speed.

66:53 Heat. Heat.

68:13 Yeah, that's a little drone out there flying around out in front of us at 12:00. Yeah, it is, isn't it? I'm sure that it is. All right. That ridge still here? No. What?

69:03 Oh god, the wind right there. Not much wind that here.

69:41 Wait. All right. Governor off. Pedal's neutral. Friction's on. runway 32 right click for the option.

70:07 Oh, it got hot. I put a little cap heat on earlier. Just a smidge though. Ah,

70:36 our motorb 169 is with you on the visual or ILS runway 32 left command tower wind com 32 left clear land 32 left clear to land. Couple seconds.

71:33 Oh, come on. Where's that sweet spot? There it is. Nice. There it is. All right. Mixture.

72:10 [Music] All right. That's good, man. [Music]