Our Brother-in-Law is a Superhero

This past weekend we were in St. Louis visiting our little sister. Actually, we were surprising her—she’s turning 30 next week so her husband, Doug, was throwing a surprise party.

Doug is a helicopter pilot for the St. Louis Police Department. So his job is to fly around, catch bad guys and have them hauled off to jail. Basically, Doug is Superman. Except he doesn’t wear tights. (That we know of.) Instead, he wears a bad ass helmet with night vision goggles and wields an infared camera that can find perps hiding in dumpsters from 1,000 feet overhead. (Good job, crook. Now you smell like poopy diapers AND you’re going to the Big House.)

We weren’t leaving town without cashing in on this action. So on Saturday night he strapped us into the back seat of his McDonnell Douglas MD500E and we went out looking for some hookers, pimps and drug dealers. Actually, it was more of a sightseeing mission, but we were secretly hoping those sights would include ho’s scurrying like cockroaches.

We took off into a cold, clear sky at 8:32 PM. The city was pitch black, save the millions of twinkling lights below. Our headsets crackled with voices of police dispatchers from across the city. This was the coolest experience of all time.

Doug maneuvered the chopper toward downtown. For a cop, he was also a very good tour guide, pointing out local landmarks below like Forest Park and the Anheuser Busch Brewery. But we were headed for the only landmark that mattered: The Gateway Arch. We could see it in the distance, a gleaming sentinel standing guard over the city.

As we approached, we were just a little bit higher than its 630 feet. We circled, going all the way around, over the Mighty Mississippi. When we got to the east side, Doug went slowly past, offering us a view few people will ever get to experience. Few people outside of Lois Lane, that is.

We continued on, hovering briefly over Busch Stadium (Go Cards!). Just when we thought we’d be heading back, Doug informed us it was time for the in-flight entertainment. Before we had a chance to reach for the barf bags, the nose of the chopper jerked 90º upward, as if heading for outer space. We were thrown back into our seats—a rollercoaster without rails. We soared up into the blackness for an eternity of about 10 seconds. Then, suddenly, stopped, as if God himself were blocking the way. The chopper paused, then dropped, tail first, leveled off and transitioned into a nosedive. Down we went, fishtailing toward earth. In that moment, even if we had been in real danger, death would have been worth it.

“That’s what we call the Negative G Pushover,” said Doug. Whatever. We called it a pants-crappin’ good time.

But the fun wasn’t over. Doug wanted to show off the chopper’s agility. So he took us into a series of circling hairpin turns called “Orbits,” a maneuver they perform when hovering over a crime scene. It was as if the chopper was tethered to the ground by the world’s largest push pin, circling continuously on a dime. Apparently this move makes many passengers vomit. It made us squeal with joy.

Twenty minutes later we were back on the ground with a great story and even better videos (see previous blog entry). What a ride. As we walked to the hangar, we turned and looked back for Doug. We can’t be certain, but just before he climbed from the cockpit we’re pretty sure we saw him stash his cape in the glove box.