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     It was the day before Halloween, 30^th October 1970, my favorite time of the year, right before the spooks and hobgoblins appear with their infamous battle cry: “Trick or treat!”

    

 One of the towns we patrolled was Half Moon Bay, the pumpkin capitol of the US, which did a bang-up Halloween!

    

     As I recall it must have been nearly 4:30 in the afternoon, when the low sun deepens colors to a breathtaking status, causing the incredible sight spread out before me to inspire a sort of religious awe.  At that moment it hit me how privileged I was to be a helicopter pilot; the average Joe or Jill never being allowed to observe what I was currently witnessing.

     I was riding in the right seat of a San Mateo Sheriff’s helicopter – one of the first factory-new Hughes 300Cs, with a more powerful engine and longer main rotor blades, giving the bird more speed and stability – which I discovered was a genuine delight to fly.  In the left seat was a sheriff’s deputy with whom I was conducting an orientation flight – getting him familiar with helicopter operations in the San Francisco Bay area.

     We were just leaving the recreation area, north of the Golden Gate Bridge, cruising south bound at 800 hundred feet, in mild weather with a visibility in excess of 50 miles.  Despite this, 300 feet below us, a white sea of fog hugged the deck as it rolled in from the Pacific, and spilt through the narrow straight into San Francisco Bay.  Both north and south towers of the bridge poked their heads up through it, as an onshore wind caused the fog to flow past them, while that special California sunlight reflected off the moving fog’s surface - the beauty of it both surprising and stunning.

   

     Beyond stretched the bay and the city – resembling a series of glistening jewels in the late afternoon light - as yet untouched by this cotton candy invader - while all manner of water craft navigated the bay’s ultramarine, choppy surface.

     To be able to scoot above one of the most glorious cities in the world – at any altitude I chose in this wonderful machine – gave me a huge injection of what we rotor-heads term the “superman complex.”

     No doubt, dear reader, that same sublime feeling of exhilarated freedom, which any woman experiences when she runs away with all the community property in the divorce, along with “Pablo” the pool boy!  Hence, because the average person is never allowed to experience what helicopter pilots see, I always felt as if I were “stealing” something.

     Upon passing the Golden Gate’s south tower, I instructed my deputy/student to break left, and head for Fisherman’s Wharf. Which we did, and, upon leaving the fog behind, I had him descend to 150 feet in order to snap some photos.

     After snapping the tourists as we passed Fisherman’s Wharf, and the sea lions sunbathing at the Pier 39 Marina, we climbed to 500 feet, followed the coastline’s bend to the southeast and picked up Highway 80 coming off the Bay Bridge.  I snapped photos of the tall buildings in the financial district - sparkling and throwing long shadows from the low sun. 

     Sailing over the bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic, we followed 80 southwest bound until it curved due south and became Highway 101.

     For reasons of safety, the FAA had setup certain helicopter transit corridors surrounding San Francisco; Highway 101 being one of them.  Therefore, at this juncture, I had my deputy/student contact the control tower at San Francisco International, and get permission for us to transit their airspace southbound on Highway 101.  Permission was granted.

     The San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office patrolled 741 square miles.

     Our destination was the San Carlos Airport on the edge of the bay, roughly ten air-miles south of SFO; where the sheriff’s office had leased a hangar to headquarter their air operation; consisting of two Hughes 300Cs.

   

  

   Heidi, one of the deputy’s girlfriends, who loved to ride nude and supplied us with batches of homemade walnut fudge.

     Highway 101 eventually skirted the west boundary of SFO, and as we approached the airfield, I marveled at its four runways that stretched right into the bay itself; two parallel runways angling northwest to southeast and two running northeast to southwest.

     Later, as we came abeam of the airport, something caught my eye that immediately caused me to break one of the Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt not covet...” 

     Man oh man, friends and neighbors, did I ever begin to covet...we’re talking big time!

     Parked at several jet ways, sparkling in the late afternoon sun, sat a half-dozen, factory-new, Pan Am 747s in their trademark blue and white livery.  In 1970 this was the newest and biggest airliner in the world.  And as a pang of regret stabbed my heart, I knew a ragged-assed helicopter pilot, such as myself, hadn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of ever flying one.

     Humor me a moment, dear reader, as we hit the “pause button.”  The only way I could possibly get my grubby mits on a 747 was to get hired by an airline.  However, this was 1970 when all the major airlines wanted pilot candidates in their early twenties, having two years of college, and preferably with military flight hours in heavy jets.  At twenty-eight, I was over the hill, having no college, no military jet experience and, with half my flight time in helicopters, I fell into the classification of “flying leper.”  In short, the airlines wouldn’t touch my leper’s carcass with a cattle prod.  Thus my coveting eyes led to a mountain of regret and depression.

Occasionally, when transiting SFO Terminal, I’d happen across a 747 Pan Am crew, causing me to drool with envy.

     Facing a stacked deck like that, how could I have possibly imagined, or foreseen in my wildest dreams, that a disruptive element would come crashing into my life – setting me on a completely new course - that would ultimately lead me to being checked-out on the Boeing 747.

     So what was this life-altering element, dear reader? Strangely...it proved to be a beautiful woman.

     

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