I don’t normally like to talk about my job here on my website, but I’ll make an exception with this little story. There’s really no other place to tell it.
Our helicopter is flying this afternoon, covering a bad fire in Stamford. Our 5:30 PM producer offered a shot from the helicopter for me to use with weather. I asked for the tail-cam.
As I came on-the-air I could see the sky was white and indefinite. The tail-cam shot shows the copter fixed in the image. It looked like a still photo.
Live, on-the-air I asked the pilot to make a turn, so you could see it was real.
As he banked left, the horizon tilted in the picture. I mentioned it as he kept banking… and banking… and banking.
I don’t fly in copters every day, but it looked like a pretty big bank, when the picture went black.
Oh my!
It was only gone for a split second before returning, but it scared the living daylights out of me. And I was a little shaky for the rest of that particular on-air hit. I’m calming down now… but slowly.
No more requests of the copter pilot. That’s my new policy.