JP5 fumes fill the air as we wait. Rotor spinning above strobes the sunlight sneaking in through the window. Crowded tight - no room for elbows or knees - like an ultra-low cost economy class flight in some forgotten land. People resting, waiting for some unknown signal to lift off. 25 passengers crowded together but isolated from one another by double hearing protection. The less than one percent.
The fumes now combine with sweat from a crowded cabin, sticking to the skin. The vibrations increase in the frame of the bird and the body, rattling through the muscles and connective tissues as we taxi and lift; the mighty bird wrestling with the pull of gravity, each straining and pulling at the other like wrestlers in the heat of a fight. The ground pulls further away, fading into the distance. Fresh air sweeps through the cabin allowing the body to again take sufficient breathe and fill the lungs. Off we go...
