Of Riding in a Black Hawk Helicopter

Ask me how my day was today!

Usually when someone asks me how my day went, I say what most of us say. “Pretty good,” or “Like a day at school,” or even, “It was a long day, and I‘m tired.” Depending on the kind of day I had, and who is asking, I may or may not elaborate any further.

Today I had one of those days that begs for elaboration… I want someone to ask me “How was your day today, Bea?”

Let me tell you!

The highlight of the day had to be the Black Hawk helicopter ride. Yes, I was at school, it was about 2:00, when I, and seven other teachers, our principal and assistant principal boarded the Black Hawk with its pilot and three other crewmen. For about twenty or so minutes, we flew around the Graham, Mebane, and Saxapahaw communities. It had to be the most exciting thing to happen in our school. Ever. It was absolutely the most fun ride. I took about fifty pictures while we were flying, mostly pictures of the land below us, but also pictures of the teachers smiling fearlessly across from and beside me during take-off. We all agreed that it was awesome, and as teachers who are always looking for a better word to describe an experience because “awesome” is often overused, we couldn’t come up with anything that more aptly described the total experience. It was AWESOME!

What made it so awesome? I think it was a combination of the fine National Guard pilot and his crew, the fearless teachers who flew together, and the unusual point of view.

I am certain that the National Guard pilot and crew made it especially memorable. In fact, they pretty much made the whole experience extraordinary. First of all, they had spent half the day with our students, beginning with the arrival of the Black Hawk helicopter at about noon. As soon as the announcement was made that the helicopter was in the area, all the fourth and fifth graders and their teachers ran out to the ball field next to our school to watch it land. Once the blades stopped turning, the crew waved us on, and our kids lined up to see the helicopter from a very close point of view: from inside. Two of the crew helped kids climb into the Black Hawk and buckle up their seat belts which looked more like harnesses. Eight kids at a time buckled up and smiled for their picture to be taken (by me!). This the crew did for nearly the next two hours, smiling, laughing, and talking with the kids, answering their questions with humor and understanding, and posing patiently in the relentless hot sun for class pictures. They did not stop buckling kids into their seats, helping them get back down again, and posing for whole class pictures, until all 463 students had passed through their helicopter. When I commented to one of them how many students they had worked with today in such a short time, he said “We are very efficient!” I’ll say. To these four soldiers, whom we will probably never meet again because our paths may not cross, soldiers who could as well be sent to Iraq or some other far away place and put in harm’s way, I say thank you for making this day special for our children, and God bless you and keep you safe, and may His face shine upon you!

The teachers made it awesome as well. We knew we’d be flying, but none of us knew when. In fact, we didn’t know until about an hour before the flight that we were going up. Only one teacher seemed to have any reservations, but being the stout hearted person she is, she did not back down. She told us she was terribly afraid of heights, but one of our STAR BASE commanders had promised her she would be fine in the air. During take off, we all grasped each other, more for assurance that we were in this together rather than out of fear. The smiles and grins I saw on the faces across from me proved that they were feeling like little kids again. Just like me. There were a couple of moments when the helicopter seemed to drop in altitude a little too quickly, and those butterflies shook us up a bit, but for the rest of the ride, we were just giddy with excitement and disbelief. I don’t know that any of us really had time to think about the dangers involved, and we all put those thoughts far away from our conscious thinking. Sharing the BlackHawk ride with each other like that means we will always have that memory. Four of the teachers who went up with us today are new to our school, having started just this August, placing even more value on this shared experience, of which we will certainly be talking about at the lunch table for a very long time. We’ve seen each other in the classroom teaching, at Staff meetings, Committee meetings, and teacher workshops, but I have never seen such expressions of thrill, joy, and fear all at once as I did in that Black Hawk during take off.

Finally, the view of the world below, or at least our part of the world, took our breath away. I probably speak for all of those on board, we have never seen Alamance County from the air. Some of us have flown before in airplanes, or little tourist helicopter rides, but to fly over the cities and towns in which one lives is something most people never get to do in their lifetime. We saw a bird’s eye view of our school, nestled in amongst the surrounding pine, oak, and poplar woods, and our tiny yellow school buses lined up neatly in the parking lot. When I recognized our school, our parking lot, and our buses, I thought, “That’s my school down there! That’s where I work!” I felt so proud to be part of this school and community. When the pilot flew us over Graham, I said, “There’s the Court House!” (although no one could hear me because we wore ear plugs to protect us from the sound of the whirling chopper blades). It stands quite stately in the center of Graham, directing all traffic north and south, east and west. I had become so accustomed to the small, quaint, country appeal of Graham, that I had not realized how spread out and flat everything there looks from the air. Still, it is my county and my county seat, and I smiled when I saw it. There were little doll-house sized neighborhoods lined with neat, curved streets, and water towers guarding community baseball fields. We saw the busy interstate streaming with vehicular life below us as it flowed from city to far away city. Also, there were enormous, flat-top buildings planted off the main roads that I had not known existed, and great swatches of plowed fields marked by tractor tracks and pick up truck trails. Hundreds and hundreds of acres of wooded land rolled and stretched out below us, broken here and there by a pond, or a road, or a field with one crop or another. I spied someone’s deer stand in the middle of one unplanted field. The Haw River wound this way and that, like a massive brown snake on a rocky path, marked in familiar areas by bridges and nearby golf courses. There were a few moments when we looked puzzled at each other. Where were we? The pilot flew for some time over open country, but we could not tell where we were. We shrugged our shoulders and gave in to not knowing. We simply sat back and enjoyed the spectacular view.

The ride in the Black Hawk helicopter was not the only exciting event of the day, but it is definitely going down in my memory album as the most exciting event of the past decade. How could I ever forget the patience and politeness of our young National Guard helicopter crew as they worked with our students, the laughter of my excited colleagues as we flew over our school, and the extraordinary opportunity to view our county from the air? This is one day I will talk about to my students in all the years to come.

The teachers gave me their permission to use the pictures above. You'd think we were on a ride at Disney Land or Carowinds. Look close and you can see the orange ear plugs we had to wear. Unforgettable.