Helicopter Capture Compilation

[theat]

I was deleting a bunch of old photos and video off my phone yesterday and realized that I had a bunch of cool video clips I filmed with my phone at my previous job. A lot of the time I had a GoPro attached to my helmet, but there were also a lot of days I just didn't want to deal with it. These clips are from when my coworkers or myself felt it worth the risk of taking a glove off and pulling our phone out of a zippered pocket. Sticking an exposed hand out of a moving helicopter in the winter is pretty cold and you would be surprised how hard it is to hold on to it in the slipstream. As you will see, I was playing around with the slow-mo function on my iPhone quite a bit. Has a little of just about every type of western big game other than antelope. Quite a bit of it was filmed vertically and I converted it to horizontal, so its worth watching on a computer or tv rather than a phone.

 

[Visiting Hunter]

Mmmhmm yes... tell us more about your old job. Living the life it looks like

 

[MNElkNut]

Fascinating. The ability and talent of the pilots is unbelievable. Thanks a lot for sharing!

 

[seeth07]

Might be the coolest thing ever posted on HT?

 

[jryoung]

I feel like Fortunate Son or Flight of the Valkyries really needs to be a part of the soundtrack. Awesome footage as always @theat

 

[Big Fin]

Doing that on a daily basis elevates the lever of courage and coolness to the nth degree, for all involved.

 

[The Hedgehog]

That is some bad ass work.

 

[Mtnhunter1]

Awesome....simply Awesome!

 

[buckbull]

it looks like some of those cow elk hit the ground pretty hard when netted. What technique results in a safer outcome, net or tranquillizer?

 

[MThuntr]

As jealous as I am of you for doing something so badass, I know jumping out of that helicopter and tackling animals is brutal on your body.

 

[TheTone]

Cool stuff! I can’t imagine untangling those net gunned bucks was all that fun

 

[The Hedgehog]

@theat I suggest a user name change to BallsofSTEEL

 

[DFS]

The chopper going around trees in the old burn is scary. That pilot is a badass.

 

[Bambistew]

That's some wild west shit. Thanks for sharing! I recognized a few of those locations.

 

[theat]

it looks like some of those cow elk hit the ground pretty hard when netted. What technique results in a safer outcome, net or tranquillizer?

Either has the potential to result in injury or death. Despite how rough those falls looked, the animals rarely end up with more than bruises.

When I am putting videos together, I often pick the most dramatic looking footage to use. Most of the nettings are much less intense looking than the ones in this video.

Since elk are so tall and bucks have high racks, a lot of the time the nets don't catch their legs and they don't go down. Those times can easily end up as a rodeo with us chasing them on foot then tackling them to knock them down. That is why elk were my least favorite species to catch.

Lots of factors that go into successfully netting an animal. Each species, and each animal for that matter, reacts differently to a very loud helicopter swooping down to 10 feet from them. Timing the shots correctly by the pilot and the gunner is tough. If possible, we try to catch them in spots with some snow. It helps to keep their speed down if you can get them to run uphill. If it works out with the terrain, taking a shot right after they start to turn away from the helicopter usually results in them falling down on their side rather than a face first tumble.

The drugs used to tranquilize large animals like moose and elk are very expensive. Not sure what they are now, but at that time a dose was $400-500. That is on top of what the agencies were paying us to catch and collar them. If the dosage is incorrect or the animal reacts badly to it, they can overheat or stop breathing and die.

Another issue was that we were using certain drugs that are highly sought after by hardcore addicts. Some states made us net bull elk and moose due to them having so many issues with agency vehicles getting broken into. Some of the most intense experiences of my life involved chasing, being chased by, and eventually taking down large bull elk wearing multiple nets like a superman cape.

 

[MThuntr]

Some of the most intense experiences of my life involved chasing, being chased by, and eventually taking down large bull elk wearing multiple nets like a superman cape.

These are the videos I want to see and completely understand why you aren't doing that job anymore

 

[theat]

The chopper going around trees in the old burn is scary. That pilot is a badass.

I've worked with helicopters quite a bit and flown with at lease two dozen different pilots. These capture pilots are on a completely different level. Not many guys can handle the constant stress of that kind of aggressive flying all day, everyday for months. The company I worked for hired a couple former 160th Special Operations pilots. One only lasted half a day and the other a week before quitting.

There is so much going on and so many life and death decisions being made constantly. They have to watch the terrain, watch for trees and power lines etc, and know what the wind is doing. While paying attention to all that, they use the helicopter to push the target animal to a spot where he can get close enough for the gunner to get a good shot that will also be relatively safe for the animal and the guys getting out.

There were many times where we had to push something out of the timber and into a small opening. The pilot then had to time it right so that for a split second the animal and the gunner were both lined up before pulling up and missing the trees on the other side of the clearing. Had a few times while I was onboard where tree tops scraped some paint off the skids and belly.

 

[Corn king 60]

Might be the best 19 minute movie I ever seen.
Great skill all around.thanks for sharing

 

[theat]

These are the videos I want to see and completely understand why you aren't doing that job anymore

I have GoPro video of a couple of those rodeos. I have 100's of hours of GoPro capture video. I often just left it on for hours at a time at work. It is a bit daunting and very time consuming to go though all that footage to make a video, but I'm planning to get after it at some point over the next few months.

 

[TheTone]

I've worked with helicopters quite a bit and flown with at lease two dozen different pilots. These capture pilots are on a completely different level. Not many guys can handle the constant stress of that kind of aggressive flying all day, everyday for months. The company I worked for hired a couple former 160th Special Operations pilots. One only lasted half a day and the other a week before quitting.

There is so much going on and so many life and death decisions being made constantly. They have to watch the terrain, watch for trees and power lines etc, and know what the wind is doing. While paying attention to all that, they use the helicopter to push the target animal to a spot where he can get close enough for the gunner to get a good shot that will also be relatively safe for the animal and the guys getting out.

There were many times where we had to push something out of the timber and into a small opening. The pilot then had to time it right so that for a split second the animal and the gunner were both lined up before pulling up and missing the trees on the other side of the clearing. Had a few times while I was onboard where tree tops scraped some paint off the skids and belly.

I did helicopter surveys one time and called it good. Nothing weird or bad happened on that flight but shortly after it I moved to an area with vastly different habitat, terrain and with more history of bad helicopter experiences. People that fly a lot and for capture work are doing stuff I want nothing to do with