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Friday, August 1, 2008
Chopper Whoppers
By: Bob Barry Jr.
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Photo(s) By: Kyle Danztler/MyActionPortraits.com
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Tales from high above the Friday Night Lights
When you’ve been flying over the Los Angeles freeways over traffic jams and car chases, navigating the Oklahoma skies for Friday night football games isn’t too tough.
KFOR-TV’s excellent Chopper 4 pilot Jim Gardner used to do just that, now he takes me places all over the state, and while I’ve only been “concerned” once, we have had our share of stories to tell.
Like the time we were flying to Clinton for the Red Tornadoes showdown with nearby rival Weatherford. I always take a nap when I’m flying. I don’t wear the headphones because the noise of the rotor blades is like my big fan at home, and I usually nod off like a baby. I was riding in the left side seat up front when Jim woke me up with a loud voice. I didn’t think I was awake yet because when I looked out the bubble in front of me, I couldn’t see anything. Turns out, we had flown into an unexpected fog bank which, based on Jim’s reaction, was not good at all.
After several violent twists and turns, the fog cleared for just an instant, and I honestly thought we were going to clip the roof of a car driving on I-40.
We were literally 10-15 feet above the vehicle and I was getting nervous. But Jim skillfully maneuvered his way over the highway, staying below the fog, to the Weatherford airport and set us down safely. From there, we hopped into a pick-up truck and drove to Clinton to cover the game, played in an absolute downpour.
Funny stories, we’ve got those, too.
We were in a small town a couple of years ago that had bamboo just beyond the back of the endzone. I decided to treat the bamboo “setting” like the corn field in the classic baseball movie “Field of Dreams” and do what we TV-types call a “Stand-Up,” emerging from the bamboo. I had an audience of interested spectators, and when I came out, some bamboo chutes caught me by the foot and flipped me like a waffle. I fell down, a little embarrassed, and had a hard time getting up.
The people watching got a big hoot out of the not-so-slick OKC sports dude wallowing around like a beached whale, but what the heck, we went ahead and used the shot on-air when we got back. And in typical fashion, I had more people tell me about how much they enjoyed my spill. Oh well, I guess bloopers sell, don’t they?
We’ve certainly made a lot of parents of band members or homecoming ceremonies unhappy over the years, thanks to our chopper. We can’t ever predict when we’re going to arrive or depart a football game and we try to land several minutes before games and leave after we get some highlights before heading to the next stop. But it’s amazing how it seems like it’s always halftime at our second landing.
And, yes, the jet engine on the chopper can drown out a high school band pretty easy. And that’s when hear it from the angry band moms and dads and even the kids after we shut the engine off and get out. All we can do is say we’re sorry. It’s never intentional, and we’ve even hovered high above stadiums and circled for awhile, to let the bands and cheerleaders finish their halftime shows. But due to our tight time schedule and limited fuel, we mostly blow in and blow out as quickly as possible.
We love the reaction from the Oklahoma communities who treat us so well when we land, get out, hang out with the kids in each city, get free burgers and hot dogs, get rides in golf carts to the fields, have folks fetch us programs, do radio interviews for the local stations, toss out our KFOR “Friday Night Heroes” shirts, watch the games from the sidelines and then get escorts back to our ride ” for a safe take-off and a quick trip back to OKC. It’s the only way to travel to football games and a great way to make some more memories.
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