Chesno "Coughs?"

The hour after we returned from Boise on Monday I had to leave on a business trip to south-central Utah to do surveys along proposed oil exploration lines. Part of these surveys involved me going in a helicopter to look for birds of prey and their nesting sites. We do this by flying over mountain tops low to the ground where you can see the nests or the birds as they are flushed from the nests by the helicopter.

We took off on Tuesday morning and flew our first line to survey. We flushed one red-tailed hawk and were just about to begin the next line when the helicopter jolted two times with a bad noise.

Having been shot at while flying in helicopters in Iraq, my immediate reaction was that we had been hit. My co-worker looked back and said, "When we get down, get out fast!" I said, "OK", and braced as the pilot brought the bird down fast. He was able to land softly, but I jumped out quickly. That was when I saw the smoke coming out of the engine.

After we got out, my co-worker climbed to the top of a hill to get cell coverage and the pilot got on his phone. I overheard him say, "We felt two coughs."

"Coughs?" I thought. The engine wasn't coughing, it was more like jolts and smoke, but hey, I'm not the professional. Clearly, we were done flying for the trip. We went about our surveys, but now on foot and the pilot towed the helicopter up to Salt Lake for repairs. I'll let you know when I find out if it has the flu, an allergy or was being examined for testicular cancer. Afterall, it only coughed.