Helicopters bring lift to Easter egg hunts
By AOPA ePublishing staff
Churches and communities across the country turned to general aviation to add some excitement to their Easter egg hunts last weekend.
AOPA member Scott Eslinger was pilot in command of an Athens, Ga., egg drop on March 22.
“Obviously, we had the door off on the side that the eggs were dropped, and I could actually hear the kids screaming through my Bose headsets from 30 feet in the air,” Eslinger said. “After the drop, I hovered around the rectangle and waived to all of the children that were there. I didn’t think they were looking at me, but when I raised my hand and started waiving, they immediately started waiving back and jumping up and down.”
“I have two little girls, and that has to be the coolest thing I’ve ever experienced in flying helos.”
As many as 40,000 plastic eggs were dropped at some of the events, including one in Yuma, Ariz. “I want to see the eggs come out of the helicopter!” spectator Marie Gribble told the Yuma Sun.
After the eggs were tossed overboard, thousands of children were turned loose to comb the field for the goody-filled eggs. Get a bird’s-eye view of an egg drop in Canton, Ga., in this short YouTube video.
March 28, 2008
