What is it like to land a helicopter on a snowy mountain? — featuring Stefan Drury (The Helicopter Line)

0:00 today we're flying again it's a little bit more overcast but hopefully we're gonna jump on board one of these helicopters but this time actually get out take a look around and hopefully see some snow up close although I've not got appropriate Footwear on for traipsing about in snow

0:15 [Music]

0:52 Alfa's point and where the jet boat base is out towards there as well we'll see that down the bottom of the valley

1:17 I'm just gonna sort of Pat the helicopter down into the skyline here say I'm on it feel it drop a little bit [Music] all right we just got out of the chopper now I'm not wearing the right shoes look at these jeans and trainers up the top here we're actually at the top of Coronet Peak and our pilots just Lisa's

1:42 doing some selfies with the other people here he just bumped the helicopter down into the snow to keep it nice and stable and yeah look at this look at this view so now we hardly tree on top of the mountain with all of this behind us and very very wet soft with this you don't tend to come up here on your

2:04 own you might these shoppers they put a few groups of people with you the other guys here there are ever your snowball fight also a snow depth snow depth official mission I'm getting involved in this

2:32 snowball fight now our official snow depth measurement I'd say at least a fir there's at least a foot of snow up here now and even though it's warming up it's probably only about 1011 degrees out here at the moment there's still quite a good base of snow this time of the year well this is very cool one disadvantage

2:50 of the sr22 can't do that all right the other thing you'll notice as well so I clamp around here the other thing he's obviously my um headsets not working I don't know whether you pick that up on the way out so I can't actually talk on the way down but please as we jump back you to the helicopter

3:06 now enjoy the beautiful visuals applying from the top of Coronet Peak all the way back down to Queenstown Airport what a privilege you have to do this oh my pleasure max my pleasure

3:31 try and make our way out towards a little light or delightful odor we can't get out of that boy they come back down through the queenstown likes [Music]

4:02 [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

4:32 excellent thanks again guys thank you likewise [Music] let's give some context to what we're doing here were actually on a road trip getting out to a place called wanaka now or UAV h is out there might know the

4:57 name wanaka you might recognize it there's a quite a well-known airshow here in New Zealand called warbirds over wanaka it's not on at the moment but as the name suggests you can tell there's a lot of old vintage flying aircraft that fly down there at wanaka or some airshow I've heard I've never been I would love

5:12 to go down one day but we're just gonna go to one okay to check it out it's beautiful place to go and a great drive over the mountains as well near coronet peak where we've been the last couple of days up in the air but this time down on the ground but you go through this place place called arrow town which is

5:25 stopping for a coffee looks like an old Wild West town this used to be a settlement in the gold rush era and they've kind of preserved it to make it look like how it was back in the day it's very cool

5:58 [Applause] wait here for ten minutes if he's coming my depends have you got flight radar there yeah we've just stopped off we're on the road from where we started off this morning from arrow town now on the way to wanaka but almost at the top of the hill you can stop and

6:23 you get this tremendous view over the valley now a lot of people are stopping here to take pictures of the beautiful scenery and the mountains but if you're a bit of an aviation tragic like a few of us here you can actually see all the way down to Queenstown Airport and when they're doing one of the visual

6:38 approaches down the valleys here you actually get the aircraft coming in almost it looks like have pretty much the same level if not just above before hooking the left on the final turn and heading into the runway we're just seeing the Jetstar flight from Wellington coming in is that right

7:04 yes yeah just see the Jetstar flight from Wellington there now we're waiting for who are we waiting for have you got him he's 11 kilometres

7:40 vibrator we just had to make a quick stop because the view was so nice so if I'm just getting that perfect Instagram moment so any few chocolate parties know what these guys do this is hovering near the cliff we have no idea what he but he's actually doing surveying it's not a rescue chopper

8:12 [Music] I'm not going to go fully in because the water here in this lake comes up all

8:38 those mountains in the background you see all that snow they ends up here so my feet I can't really feel my feet at the moment the man is worth it this is like Veronica then so we were just in the town of wanaka got some lunch we're here on the banks of the lake there's a fourth largest lake in New Zealand and then ten

8:54 internet points if you can name one other of the top five lakes in New Zealand in terms of size like not in terms of how cool they are alright times up if you said anyone if these lakes including Lake Wakatipu which we were flying over in one of the last videos on this channel thin

9:13 congratulations you know your New Zealand Lakes whilst I would love to spend the whole afternoon just wading through these crystal-clear waters we've got to get back to Queenstown because we've got a 4 o'clock booking this afternoon on well let's just say the pace of this video is about to change

9:30 entirely [Music]

10:10 both with us on board waves about three and a half ton we only need about ten centimeters of water to get through the snow propellers underneath we're pushed along by two water jet units so same thing as the GT suck up water from under the boat blow it out the bank at a rate of about 800 liters secret

10:28 [Music] no rush here in the light

10:55 [Music] [Music]

11:43 that was awesome well worth doing definitely recommend you do that one pro tip you're gonna sit in the front seat don't have your wallet in your pocket because everything gets weird that was brilliant you [Music]