Unfortunately flying in SkyKING, especially this time of year, is totally dependent on the weather. The conditions at the Tacoma Narrows Airport which is adjacent to the bridge had a cloud ceiling at 200 feet and visibility of half a mile, too foggy for us to fly in.
We have to have enough visibility to always be able to find a place to land if any emergency situations come up, which means no flying into clouds or fog. When the cloud ceiling is low it forces us to fly low and for safety concerns, we try not to fly below 800 feet with visibility of less than 2 miles for extended periods of time. When an area has thick fog we avoid it totally. SkyKING can fly from one clear area to another clear area if there are only patchy areas of fog and clouds below, since clouds come in layers we simply fly above the low layer in the clear air above.
The determining factor in all this is the ability to see the ground, generally speaking a helicopter can auto rotate (glide) if the engine fails, only as far in distance as your altitude in the sky. So at 800 feet we can travel 800 feet or less laterally to find a nice safe flat place to land.
I really don't know a lot about flying other than I enjoy participating, but the little bits of the vast amount of knowledge needed to be a pilot can be very interesting.
Anyway the video is our path back to the KING 5 heliport from out in the Puget Sound flying past Alki Beach after we discovered the conditions were unfavorable. Click here to view the SkyKING aerials.
The most consistent attribute about the weather is that it continually changes, with any luck we'll be headed for the Narrows Bridge soon and you'll see our pictures in Gary Chittim's story.