Helicopter Trip Around Town

We went on a very unique ride last week, instead of cruising around town like the majority of bored guys, we thought we might fly around town for a change. Well, it did not exactly start like that, but my housemates are helicopter pilots that work for Royal Oman Police and they occasionally go a routine round around Muscat on which practically anybody could just go. They asked me if I would like to come along and I said yes!

We took off from the Police Airport right next to Seeb International Airport, we headed towards Bustan and then turned back and flew all the way to Khaboorah in Batinah, unfortunately we did not reach Sohar cause it was already getting dark. Helicopter flights are very noisy and a bit bumpy at take off, I did not think that there was anything scary about it, the greatest part was how the helicopter leans forwards and the tail goes up at take off, so you end up with the pilots downwards while speeding ahead, I can't explain it more, but it was just really cool. The highest thing we reached in air was 500m. We also did some low level flying on the coast which felt just like driving when you look outside - it was that close to the sea level.

Muscat looks generally crowded from the air, Gonu damage could only be relatively seen in Aamirat area, otherwise it looks as good as ever. On the other hand, Batinah looked surprisingly greener than what it looks like from the ground.

Here are some of the photographs I took.