Jesus and Helicopters

By David Hobbs

Here are three entries that relate Jesus with the flying of helicopters

#1—The “Jesus Nut”
I spent 4 years on a helicopter crew on the Klamath National Forest in far Northern California. Though I wasn’t saved at the time, I found that Jesus and helicopters were intertwined. Ever hear of the “Jesus Nut?” The Jesus Nut refers to the nut that holds the main rotor on the rotor shaft. Virtually anything else can go wrong with the helicopter in flight, and there’s still a good chance of landing safely. This includes blowing an engine, losing the tail rotor, running out of fuel, etc. (I personally saw a crash landing of a helicopter that had blown an engine, in my first year. The pilot walked away without a scratch, though the helicopter was totaled [see Out of the Fire, A Life Radically Changed, pp 46-49]).

But if anything happens to the Jesus Nut and the main rotor separates from the helicopter, it’s “game over.” No more control over the craft is possible and it drops like a stone.

It was so named by Igor Sikorsky, who invented the helicopter in 1939. One story is that before taking off for the very first time, one of his mechanics was heard to say, “We better pray to Jesus that nut holds the whole thing together!”
(http://www.thejesusnut.com/JesusNutStory.html.)

Another account has Sikorsky, a highly religious man, explaining that “should this small bit of machined metal fail in flight, the crew and anyone else aboard would be meeting Jesus as a bonus for suffering a horrible death.” (http://texino.blogspot.com/2008/07/jesus-nut.html). The Bible says that Jesus is the force “that uphold[s] all things by the word of his power (Heb. 1:3).”

#2—Translational Lift
Then there is the phenomenon of “translational lift.” This is a force that kicks in, usually as the helicopter is taking off, that lifts and transitions it from earth-bound to airborne. Seeing it in operation never ceased to amaze me around our Hueys.

Now the Huey with its two, floppy rotors, is not good at taking off straight up. It needs a “runway” to build up a little speed to break the bands of earth. The runway could be a brush patch, field, water, whatever. It just had to be close to ground level.

It was like this: a loaded Huey, upon takeoff, lifted into a hover, and then started to inch forward. While in a hover, the helicopter sits on a cushion of recirculating air from the rotors. But when the rotors are tilted forward to begin moving ahead, the rotors start blowing the cushion of air out the back. Without this cushion holding it up, the helicopter starts to drop toward the earth (it’s only maybe 10 feet off the ground at the time).

Just when you think it’s going down, this translational lift kicks in and it’s like an invisible hand lifts it up when there’s no reason for it to go up. You can sense it while riding in it during takeoff as well. As you start to move forward, you can feel the helicopter begin falling toward the earth. But again, something that feels like a giant hand suddenly pushes you upwards and you’re airborne. Even unsaved, I couldn’t help but think of it as the hand of God.

Now I think of it as a picture of God’s power we all need to slip the bands of this earth and soar with Him into heavenly places. As we seek Him we get lifted up a little, but then we need to encounter His power lifting us the rest of the way—that gigantic, invisible hand of God lifting us out of the bands of the earth and seating us with Him in heavenly places (Col. 3:1-3).

#3—Awesome Power
We were on a fire in Lake Chelan in Central Washington in 1970. The fire was on one side of the lake and the fire camp was on the other, so we had every Huey the Forest service could get its hands on throughout the Western U.S. (including one from Alaska) working the fire.

One day I was riding “shotgun” in our Huey when they made up a slingload of supplies and asked us to take it over to a helispot near the fire. Now our pilots didn’t like long sling loads because too many things could go wrong, so we opted for about 50 feet max. But the place we were putting it into was a flat area covered with 200-300 foot tall trees. They had cut down enough trees to make a clearing (probably with enough board feet in them to build a small subdivision!), and we were going to have to lower our sling load into this clearing. The pilot asked me to talk him down over the intercom while looking through the bubble on the bottom of the craft, while he looked straight ahead and kept us level in the middle of the opening.

I kept saying “Lower! Lower” as the guys waving on the fallen trees below grew from tiny specks to close enough that I could see the beards on their faces and the “whites” (boots) on their feet. Finally the load flopped down on a log and the rope grew slack. “Let ‘er go,” I shouted into the intercom, and the pilot released the cargo hook and I saw the rope land in a pile on top of the load.

Then I took my eyes off the drama below and looked out the windshield straight ahead again. I was shocked! Instead of sky, all I could see was trees! We were 100 feet or more down in this narrow shaft in the tree canopy, like being in a well. Something like a claustrophobic panic clawed at me, kind of like what Jonah must have experienced when he was thrown overboard and sunk to the bottom of the ocean—“The earth with her bars was about me for ever (Jonah 2:6).”

Then the pilot applied pitch to the rotors, fuel surged into the engine and again, it was like this giant hand lifted us straight out of that deep well and launched us back into the sky. What a glorious feeling to experience that power rush, that “wind beneath our wings” lifting us! I imagine that’s what the Rapture will feel like, and what Jesus experienced as the Father’s power lifted Him out of the lowest hell and “seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come (Eph. 1:21).” Praise the Lord for His power!

(This story was reluctantly deleted from the final version of Out of the Fire, A Life Radically Changed due to space considerations. For more on the Lake Chelan fire, see p. 150 +. Also read David’s latest book, Walking in the Spirit, [4L Press] out in Aug. 2011)