The female climber was picked off the side of the mountain first in a "Toe In" maneuver after Deputy Kneeshaw climbed out of the helicopter and placed her in his seat.  Kneeshaw stayed behind with the male climber waiting for his partner and helicopter to return.  During the wait Kneeshaw and the male climber were almost overrun by fire and had to run across the face of the mountain to evade the flames.

Deputy Bligh fought through reduced visibility, smoke, and burning embers to fly back in and locate Kneeshaw and the male climber in their new location on the mountain.  At one point during the pick up Bligh received a low rotor rpm warning in the cockpit, indicating that the engine could be losing power. Bligh quickly recognized that the engine was still creating power and the momentary low rotor rpm was a result of the extreme flight conditions and demands on the helicopter.

After outrunning flames once, Deputy Kneeshaw made a quick decision to ride the skid of the helicopter out of the hot zone, a technique he had never practiced and had never trained for.  After loading the male climber into the front seat Kneeshaw stepped onto the skid and shouted at Bligh to take off.  With flames once again threatening the tail of the helicopter Bligh and Kneeshaw flew the remaining climber off the mountain and to safety.  You can read a more complete article on the rescue here.  

Pomatto was in a stolen car and was in possession of two weapons he found in the car when he stole from a Starbucks in Chula Vista earlier that day.  Pomatto was essentially lying in wait for the father of his ex-girlfriend, whom he planned to kill.  During the pursuit Pomatto fired numerous rounds from both a shotgun and 9 MM pistol.  Some of those rounds were fired at the San Diego Sheriff's helicopter with Deputy-Pilots Gene Palos and Darren Dollard on board.  

You can read more on this story here.

AS350 performing a Toe In at 12,300' in the Colorado Rockies, Photo Via KVAL.com

I say it is an amazing photo because I honestly didn't think you could do much of a Toe In with a Eurocopter, based on how far back their skids set on the airframe.  Compare the skids on an MD500 with those on a Eurocopter, and you will see that the front of the skids on the MD500 are almost out in front of the entire airframe.  This along with the shorter- 5 bladed rotor disc, makes the MD500 or MD530F an ideal platform for this maneuver.  The Eurocopter AS350 does come with a lot more power however, making operations at 12,000' a bit easier.

Note how much further forward the front of the skids are in relation to the cockpit on this MD530F.In this case hiker Joe Yearm suffered a compound fracture just below the knee as he was descending from the 14,159' El Diente Peak.  For unknown reasons Yearm was hiking alone, and in the dark, when he fell 20' into a snow field breaking his leg.  Yearm was able to crawl to a nearby slope where he was discovered by two other hikers a few hours later.  One of these hikers was in possession of a personal locator beacon which he used to notify authorities of the injured hiker.  

On Sunday Pilot PJ Hunt was flying the AS350 helicopter for his employer Heli-Dunn based out of Phoenix Oregon, when he was hailed over the radio by Commander Eric Burg of the San Miguel Sheriff's Department.  Burg advised Hunt of the pending rescue and asked if he could assist.  Hunt quickly obtained permission from his supervisors and within a few minutes was landing at Burg's house to pick him up.  

Hunt and Burg flew to the coordinates sent out by the locator beacon and eventually located three people on a steep rock strewn slope at 12,300'.  Hunt performed the Toe In landing long enough for Burg to climb out of the helicopter and provide medical attention to the injured hiker.  Burg and the two uninjured hikers then carved out a slightly better landing site for Hunt, where he was able to perform a one skid landing in the Astar.  The one skid landing allowed Yearm to be loaded directly into the helicopter.  Yearm was then flown to a waiting ambulance in Telluride Co.  

The AS350 pictured above is registered to T. Scott Dunn Construction Inc., out of Medford Oregon.

You can read the full story here.

Carlsbad is a coastal city that enjoys a pretty low crime rate anyway.  As we arrived I was directed to the jewelry store by officers on the ground.  The store was the end unit of a rather long but quaint commercial building in the downtown area of Carlsbad known as the village.  

The primary Carlsbad PD officer requested that we check the roof since the robber seemed to emerge from the lady's restroom to commit his crimes, and then disappeared back into the lady's restroom after robbing the two employees who had just opened up shop.  Sure enough, peering through my stabilized binoculars I observed a definite hole in the roof of the business, not far from the back door.

The robber had been wearing a full mask and gloves, so there was very little description for law enforcement to go on at the time.  We did however conduct some PA announcements in the area in an attempt to find potential witnesses, who may have seen anything or anyone suspicious prior to the robbery.   

A short time later officers confirmed that there was a hole in the ceiling of the women's restroom.  A few minutes after that they announced that a mask, an airsoft gun, a bag and jewelry were found in the crawl space between the ceiling and the roof.  We stayed on scene for some time while officers cleared the crawl space, and surrounding businesses.  I could see why the robber might think it was smart to leave his gun and mask behind, but why would he leave some of the jewels behind?  Had officers arrived on scene while the suspect was still in the roof, causing him to abandon his loot?  Ultimately it would be DNA from the mask that would convict him.

Eventually it was determined that the suspect was most likely out of the area.  With nothing else for us to do, we went back into service and flew away thinking we had probably heard the last about the case. 

Imagine my surprise this morning when I ran across this article published just today in the San Diego Reader.  It seems our robber friend had a long history of similar criminal conduct.  So much so that the judge found it acceptable to sentence him to 50 years to life in prison for this robbery.  It's a great read!