Have been following you for about a year now, Jim, and decided to chime in. I probably made a hundred chopper flights for one meaningless story or another. There was a period when I was going up every day just to get a weather shot! There were several terrifying moments, especially when inside the little Robinson R22...which you once described to me as a "Volkswagen Beetle with a propeller on top..." and then went on to tell me that the very aerodynamics that keep a chopper in the air are also trying to tear it apart. Wish I'd had the courage to say "no more" as you did. Really enjoy your stuff!
Left KXAN in '97. My wife, a professional violinist, and I opened a violin shop (in Austin) a couple of years prior. I ran the store for twenty years, then sold it in 2015 along with the property. Been pretty much retired since then.
FWIW, despite all its nonsense, I miss the news biz...the bonds, the relationships and those rare times when you really nailed a story and felt you were doing something important and worthwhile. Hopefully, you still feel that way with your writing. I think your readers do.
Quite a story, Jim. We repped KCNC TV/Denver for quite a while during my TV ad sales career with Katz Media. Your ability to provide so much back story is always appreciated. Take care and be well. JGS
Thanks, Jeff, for reading. Things are rarely as they appear, eh, a fact we learn as we age. Anyway, no excuse for these tragedies covering the news. Trust you and yours are well.
Wow! Thank you for this story. I hadnt heard of her. But I remember those days. I worked for a few stations that used choppers and small planes like news taxis. In 1983, four days after I had flown with him, KHOUs pilot went down flying a private charter assignment. You are right; hubris and misplaced values caused us to take unnecessary risks with our lives to enrich those corporations.
I, eventually, refused to go up, Myra. My last chopper flight was hovering at 3000 feet over the Gulf to maintain the microwave connection to Houston so I could anchor hurricane segments. It was late 80s and Bonnie was approaching the mouth of the Sabine River. We hovered for a damn hour, bounced around in the increasing wind just enough to make it look dramatic for the news. That was when I said, no more.
Whilst on paid vacation as a truck driver in '04, I was waiting to make a delivery in Dallas. Parked across the street from a nondescript warehouse, not an airport. I heard the whip-whip-whip of an approaching helicopter just over head. I thought a crash was immanent. It just landed in the empty parking lot outside one of the big doors. Like you described, a bubble with a seat. The pilot got out and walked inside. About the time its' blades stopped spinning, he came out the door with a floor jack, pumped it up, and pushed it inside. About thirty minutes later, a different pilot, with a floor jack, pushed another "bubble" out fired it up and took off. Traffic reporters, I'll assume.
The whole traffic reporting thing was idiotic, too. bro. Flying over the roads to inform people watching at home which ones were jammed, as if it was valuable enough to take that risk to inform a small amount of people they needed to take different routes to work. There was a young female reporter in Orlando who got hired to be a traffic reporter and her parents came down from Ohio to watch her first day on the job. They tuned in just in time to see her helicopter crash live on the air and take their daughter's life. Fortunately, broadcast use of choppers has diminished greatly.
As a TV news reporter from back in the day when Karen Key was Sky Queen, I understand the risks she took. I was a TV news reporter at WFAA TV in Dallas, young, blonde and ready to roll just like Karen, eager to prove that as women we could easily compete with men. Although I was not a helicopter pilot, I flew on them, eager to get the story first. In November of 1980, WFAA's news helicopter -- returning to Dallas from Waco with video of the Baylor-Texas football game -- crashed killing all three aboard, including the photographer I had befriended and worked with regularly. When I heard the news that weekend, I dropped my head and cried as my stomach flipped. I whispered to myself, "There but for the grace of God go I." And to what end?
I remember that crash, Kay, and it is the perfect example of unnecessary risk. Three people died to ferry tape back to the station so there could be 60 seconds of highlights of a college football game on the air. Satellite trucks had not been put into use yet but I think there was a video microwave relay out of Waco at that time. We certainly had one from Austin to Dallas and Houston.
Have been following you for about a year now, Jim, and decided to chime in. I probably made a hundred chopper flights for one meaningless story or another. There was a period when I was going up every day just to get a weather shot! There were several terrifying moments, especially when inside the little Robinson R22...which you once described to me as a "Volkswagen Beetle with a propeller on top..." and then went on to tell me that the very aerodynamics that keep a chopper in the air are also trying to tear it apart. Wish I'd had the courage to say "no more" as you did. Really enjoy your stuff!
Great to hear from you, Al. How are you doing? I’m sure you got out of TV. Thanks for reading my stuff.
Left KXAN in '97. My wife, a professional violinist, and I opened a violin shop (in Austin) a couple of years prior. I ran the store for twenty years, then sold it in 2015 along with the property. Been pretty much retired since then.
FWIW, despite all its nonsense, I miss the news biz...the bonds, the relationships and those rare times when you really nailed a story and felt you were doing something important and worthwhile. Hopefully, you still feel that way with your writing. I think your readers do.
Another great story, thanks for sharing...
Thank you, Frank.
Quite a story, Jim. We repped KCNC TV/Denver for quite a while during my TV ad sales career with Katz Media. Your ability to provide so much back story is always appreciated. Take care and be well. JGS
Thanks, Jeff, for reading. Things are rarely as they appear, eh, a fact we learn as we age. Anyway, no excuse for these tragedies covering the news. Trust you and yours are well.
Wow! Thank you for this story. I hadnt heard of her. But I remember those days. I worked for a few stations that used choppers and small planes like news taxis. In 1983, four days after I had flown with him, KHOUs pilot went down flying a private charter assignment. You are right; hubris and misplaced values caused us to take unnecessary risks with our lives to enrich those corporations.
I, eventually, refused to go up, Myra. My last chopper flight was hovering at 3000 feet over the Gulf to maintain the microwave connection to Houston so I could anchor hurricane segments. It was late 80s and Bonnie was approaching the mouth of the Sabine River. We hovered for a damn hour, bounced around in the increasing wind just enough to make it look dramatic for the news. That was when I said, no more.
Smart move. I had a scare at KATC in Louisiana. while covering a gas well blowout in a small plane wind from the blow out knocked the plane, hard.
It wouldve been a stupid way to die at age 21.
Another winner JB.
Whilst on paid vacation as a truck driver in '04, I was waiting to make a delivery in Dallas. Parked across the street from a nondescript warehouse, not an airport. I heard the whip-whip-whip of an approaching helicopter just over head. I thought a crash was immanent. It just landed in the empty parking lot outside one of the big doors. Like you described, a bubble with a seat. The pilot got out and walked inside. About the time its' blades stopped spinning, he came out the door with a floor jack, pumped it up, and pushed it inside. About thirty minutes later, a different pilot, with a floor jack, pushed another "bubble" out fired it up and took off. Traffic reporters, I'll assume.
The whole traffic reporting thing was idiotic, too. bro. Flying over the roads to inform people watching at home which ones were jammed, as if it was valuable enough to take that risk to inform a small amount of people they needed to take different routes to work. There was a young female reporter in Orlando who got hired to be a traffic reporter and her parents came down from Ohio to watch her first day on the job. They tuned in just in time to see her helicopter crash live on the air and take their daughter's life. Fortunately, broadcast use of choppers has diminished greatly.
As a TV news reporter from back in the day when Karen Key was Sky Queen, I understand the risks she took. I was a TV news reporter at WFAA TV in Dallas, young, blonde and ready to roll just like Karen, eager to prove that as women we could easily compete with men. Although I was not a helicopter pilot, I flew on them, eager to get the story first. In November of 1980, WFAA's news helicopter -- returning to Dallas from Waco with video of the Baylor-Texas football game -- crashed killing all three aboard, including the photographer I had befriended and worked with regularly. When I heard the news that weekend, I dropped my head and cried as my stomach flipped. I whispered to myself, "There but for the grace of God go I." And to what end?
I remember that crash, Kay, and it is the perfect example of unnecessary risk. Three people died to ferry tape back to the station so there could be 60 seconds of highlights of a college football game on the air. Satellite trucks had not been put into use yet but I think there was a video microwave relay out of Waco at that time. We certainly had one from Austin to Dallas and Houston.
You must've worked with my first cousin Sandra Brown and her husband Mike.
I remember them but wasn't in Denver much because I lived out in Glenwood, reporting west of the Divide.