You have not been to Kauai, and you have not taken a helicopter tour? What in blue blazes are you waiting for? This desires to be at the prime of everyone’s bucket checklist. No fooling, you basically will have to get out to the island, e-book your tour, and choose a helicopter trip close to the most beautiful, enchanting, awe inspiring put on earth. Prevent reading through this and simply call your vacation agent, now!
Alright, I am a little bit biased I in fact flew Kauai tours for numerous many years, and in the desire of entire disclosure, I flew for a business referred to as Air Kauai. So of class I have a diverse viewpoint on helicopters, and traveling all over islands in them. I’m heading to attempt to share with you, pricey reader, why it is that you simply just will have to fall what ever other family vacation options you might have, get a ticket to Lihue, and hop aboard a tour helicopter. You can go to Orlando, or Branson, or the Catskills subsequent yr.
Here is why you have to have to do this, what helicopter corporation you should really consider, how a great deal it may well expense, what to consider alongside, and what time of yr and time of day to go. Plus a handful of extras: what to hope on the helicopter tour, what you could possibly see, a protection overview, and other odds and ends to make your life-altering working experience even extra gratifying. Let’s get started with obtaining to Kauai, and a bit of the island’s mystique, beginning, as they say, at the beginning, the origin of Kauai.
Kauai, or the Garden Island, is the furthest (exposed) northwest island in the Hawaiian chain. I say uncovered since the Hawaiian Islands are gradually disappearing. No, this just isn’t a cause to move your vacation up a number of weeks, rest. Here’s a bit of Hawaiian trivia that some of your tour mates probable will never know. There are in reality 127 islands in the Hawaiian chain, not just the 7 you see on a map right now–Hawaii, Maui, Molokai, Lanai, Oahu, Kauai, and Niihau. The Hawaiian chain stretches across the Pacific for one,two hundred miles, ending in a very little coral atoll referred to as Kure, which is, in reality, the quite initially Hawaiian Island, relationship back again almost a hundred million several years. As a reference, one of the Hawaiian Islands is a minor position named Halfway which is located, well, mid way throughout the chain, about 600 miles Northwest of Oahu.
All the islands are volcanic in origin. Their source is a volcanic rift in the ocean flooring known as the Hawaiian Emperor vent, which lies deep below drinking water seventy miles south and east of Hawaii, the so-referred to as ‘Big Island’. Above the past a hundred million a long time this volcanic vent has designed all 127 islands*. The islands crack the area, create into a land mass, amazing adequately to support everyday living sorts, and then, because of to wind, drinking water and natural corrosive elements, they slowly but surely erode away, sinking back beneath the waves. The islands are also located directly on a tectonic plate with a northwesterly drift, which can take them off towards Japan and Asia above their lifetimes. Each and every Hawaiian island really moves Northwest about 50 percent an inch per calendar year. Geologists assert that Kure, for instance, will, in a several dozen million years conclusion up parked close to the Kamchatka peninsula.
Kauai alone is about 7 million decades previous. Its precise origin, the volcano that produced the land mass called Kauai, is now known as Mount WaiAleAle (Why-Olly-Olly). WaiAleAle sits in the middle of the island. Go to Google Earth and sort that in, and see in which it normally takes you. Far more about this mountain later on, through your tour.
Talking of the tour, let us get on with it. E book your flight into Lihue, the most important city on Kauai. There are direct flights from the west coast. Most of the helicopter tour operators fly from Lihue airport. This is a record of those businesses, and an overview of just about every:
Blue Hawaiian: Good corporation, excellent safety record, not the lowest priced, but possibly the finest, and this is no time to scrimp. ‘Blue’ flies from Lihue 12 months round, offering a thorough, educated tour of about an hour. Not approximately enough time to see it all, but more than enough to drop your jaw to the floor. speak to Blue Hawaiian Helicopters
Safari: Excellent business with a long record on Kauai. Good protection record, and extremely educated pilots. Safari presents some benefits other tour firms do not these kinds of as a movie of your journey, available for a nominal price. Safari Helicopters Inc.
Island Helicopters: Island is the deal tour, the no frills, hop aboard and see the island helicopter tour. Superior but not fantastic, and, as I claimed, this is no time to scrimp. Connect with Island Helicopters.
Jack Harter Helicopters: Jack Harter himself was the original helicopter tour male on Kauai. Jack is the outdated person of helicoptering on island, acquiring the moment flown Frank Sinatra and other Hollywood forms around many motion picture destinations when ‘ol blue eyes was filming on Kauai a lot of moons in the past. Jack Harter Helicopters is the authentic. That mentioned, the firm is good, not great, remarkably professional, harmless, with competitive selling prices and a superior tour. Harter provides two diverse aircraft relying on your desire–the AStar for a standard, comfortable, tour, and a minor fowl flown without having doors for people who tote costly cameras and are, by God, going to use them. connect on twitter .
There are other businesses to decide on from, but those people over are the kinds I suggest. Here’s the relaxation of the story: what to assume, what to choose (and not get), pricing, temperature, protection, when to go, and various other issues.
When you arrive for your tour you’ll be presented a safety briefing per FAA rules, just like on the plane. You will study about working with several protection items, and be specified a brief overview of your tour. Then you’ll have to stage on a scale. Sorry, people, the airways are permitted to use conventional weights, helicopter operators will have to use precise. And of course, some businesses do demand more over a sure body weight. It is really for aircraft operating parameters, so for your protection and others’. You can expect to have to shell out of class, and the charge construction is dependent on so quite a few variables I will not get into facts. Suffice to say that a tour will price wherever from $one hundred seventy five.00 apiece up to $three hundred,00, as I say, dependent on booking preparations, enterprise, reductions and so forth. Pay it, you can never ever regret it. Soon after the business go to you can expect to be taken to the helicopter where you are going to meet your pilot and floor crew.
At the flight line you’ll receive an considerable basic safety briefing from the pilot on exiting the plane, use of flotation products, intercom system, headsets and a variety of other protection and wonderful to know goods. Relying on the enterprise you select, you can probably board the plane ‘hot’, that is with the motor in procedure, blades turning. Just pay back focus to your floor crew, and no anxieties. A single observe of warning–do not go around the tail of the helicopter, ever. Constantly continue to be inside of the pilot’s line of vision. The tail rotor is NOT your good friend.
