You have not been to Kauai, and you have not taken a helicopter tour? What in blue blazes are you waiting for? This needs to be at the top rated of everyone’s bucket checklist. No fooling, you just ought to get out to the island, e book your tour, and acquire a helicopter vacation all-around the most gorgeous, enchanting, awe inspiring location on earth. Halt studying this and get in touch with your journey agent, now!

Alright, I’m a bit biased I really flew Kauai excursions for numerous decades, and in the interest of comprehensive disclosure, I flew for a organization known as Air Kauai. So of training course I have a different viewpoint on helicopters, and traveling all over islands in them. I’m likely to try to share with you, pricey reader, why it is that you just need to fall whatsoever other holiday vacation ideas you may well have, get a ticket to Lihue, and hop aboard a tour helicopter. You can go to Orlando, or Branson, or the Catskills next yr.

Here is why you have to have to do this, what helicopter company you must consider, how a great deal it might charge, what to acquire together, and what time of year and time of working day to go. Plus a several extras: what to be expecting on the helicopter tour, what you may well see, a protection overview, and other odds and finishes to make your lifetime-altering expertise even far more gratifying. Let us start off with receiving to Kauai, and a bit of the island’s mystique, starting, as they say, at the beginning, the origin of Kauai.

Kauai, or the Backyard Island, is the furthest (uncovered) northwest island in the Hawaiian chain. I say exposed because the Hawaiian Islands are slowly and gradually disappearing. No, this is just not a rationale to transfer your vacation up a handful of weeks, loosen up. Here’s a bit of Hawaiian trivia that some of your tour mates likely will never know. There are in fact 127 islands in the Hawaiian chain, not just the seven you see on a map currently–Hawaii, Maui, Molokai, Lanai, Oahu, Kauai, and Niihau. The Hawaiian chain stretches across the Pacific for 1,200 miles, ending in a tiny coral atoll known as Kure, which is, in truth, the very very first Hawaiian Island, relationship back again approximately a hundred million many years. As a reference, just one of the Hawaiian Islands is a little area called Halfway which is situated, effectively, mid way across the chain, about 600 miles Northwest of Oahu.

All the islands are volcanic in origin. Their resource is a volcanic rift in the ocean flooring named the Hawaiian Emperor vent, which lies deep below drinking water seventy miles south and east of Hawaii, the so-referred to as ‘Big Island’. Around the past a hundred million a long time this volcanic vent has developed all 127 islands*. The islands break the floor, acquire into a land mass, interesting sufficiently to aid lifetime forms, and then, thanks to wind, h2o and all-natural corrosive things, they little by little erode absent, sinking back down below the waves. The islands are also situated right on a tectonic plate with a northwesterly drift, which can take them off towards Japan and Asia more than their lifetimes. Each individual Hawaiian island actually moves Northwest about fifty percent an inch for every 12 months. Geologists assert that Kure, for occasion, will, in a couple dozen million decades conclusion up parked around the Kamchatka peninsula.

Kauai by itself is about 7 million a long time previous. Its distinct origin, the volcano that developed the land mass named Kauai, is now referred to as Mount WaiAleAle (Why-Olly-Olly). WaiAleAle sits in the center of the island. Go to Google Earth and form that in, and see where by it usually takes you. connect with Robinson Helicopter about this mountain later, all through your tour.

Talking of the tour, let’s get on with it. E book your flight into Lihue, the most important city on Kauai. There are direct flights from the west coastline. Most of the helicopter tour operators fly from Lihue airport. This is a record of all those firms, and an overview of just about every:

Blue Hawaiian: Very good enterprise, excellent safety record, not the most economical, but maybe the greatest, and this is no time to scrimp. ‘Blue’ flies from Lihue yr spherical, providing a comprehensive, educated tour of about an hour. Not nearly sufficient time to see it all, but enough to drop your jaw to the ground. get in touch with Blue Hawaiian Helicopters

Safari: Excellent business with a extended historical past on Kauai. Excellent safety history, and remarkably proficient pilots. Safari provides some benefits other tour companies do not these kinds of as a video clip of your vacation, readily available for a nominal rate. Safari Helicopters Inc.

Island Helicopters: Island is the cut price tour, the no frills, hop aboard and see the island helicopter tour. Great but not terrific, and, as I explained, this is no time to scrimp. Connect with Island Helicopters.

Jack Harter Helicopters: Jack Harter himself was the original helicopter tour man on Kauai. Jack is the outdated person of helicoptering on island, having at the time flown Frank Sinatra and other Hollywood sorts about different motion picture spots when ‘ol blue eyes was filming on Kauai a lot of moons back. Jack Harter Helicopters is the original. That explained, the company is fantastic, not great, very knowledgeable, secure, with aggressive costs and a superior tour. Harter gives two unique plane relying on your desire–the AStar for a common, cozy, tour, and a minimal bird flown devoid of doors for those people who tote high priced cameras and are, by God, going to use them. Jack Harter Helicopters Inc.

There are other corporations to pick out from, but people over are the ones I advocate. Here is the relaxation of the tale: what to hope, what to just take (and not consider), pricing, climate, safety, when to go, and several other factors.

When you arrive for your tour you can be offered a security briefing for each FAA restrictions, just like on the plane. You can expect to learn about making use of numerous safety merchandise, and be given a short overview of your tour. Then you are going to have to move on a scale. Sorry, individuals, the airlines are authorized to use conventional weights, helicopter operators must use precise. And indeed, some companies do cost more over a certain pounds. It is for aircraft operating parameters, thus for your basic safety and others’. You can expect to have to pay back of course, and the rate composition is dependent on so lots of variables I won’t get into aspects. Suffice to say that a tour will charge wherever from $a hundred seventy five.00 apiece up to $three hundred,00, as I say, depending on scheduling preparations, business, bargains and so forth. Pay back it, you can never regret it. Soon after the business office visit you will be taken to the helicopter the place you can expect to satisfy your pilot and ground crew.

At the flight line you’ll obtain an in depth protection briefing from the pilot on exiting the aircraft, use of flotation devices, intercom process, headsets and several other protection and wonderful to know products. Based on the organization you opt for, you can probable board the aircraft ‘hot’, that is with the motor in operation, blades turning. Just pay out consideration to your ground crew, and no worries. 1 be aware of warning–do not go around the tail of the helicopter, at any time. Usually stay in the pilot’s line of vision. The tail rotor is NOT your mate.