Why I Thought I Might Barf in the Helicopter

I was using a new GPS during the helicopter site visit trip. I wasn't super familiar with it, so I was using just it's very basic functions. Well, last week my friend at work finally got the programs installed to download the data from our trip.

I thought that I had been shutting the GPS off between sites, but as it turns out, I had forgot once or twice. Who knew that it would record data the whole time. When we plugged the GPS in to the computer back at the office, we could see speed and elevation, recorded every few seconds. These were drastically different went I was in the helicopter versus limping around on site (with my rolled ankle). Here are a couple of photos of what was recorded. You will probably have to click on them to get enough detail to actually see anything. In the photo on the left, you can see blue flags were I was recording way points on site. You can also see the path that the helicopter took when I left the GPS on in my pocket. (It records a point every few seconds and then connects them with a line). Note the couple of places that we fly around in tight little circles. There were willow trees on some sites had grown high enough to prevent us from landing. Instead, we circled, we took pictures, we drew diagrams, and I tried really hard not to barf. The photo on the right should give you a pretty good idea the type of flying we were doing (and it was windy!). Fun times for sure, and a great experience, but wow...el barfo.