Here’s a unique gift idea — zip yourself and your sweetheart, at about 100 mph, to dinner at a nice restaurant along Maryland’s Eastern Shore, or down on Tangier Island (Va.). And do it without breaking any speed limits — or even fighting traffic, for that matter.
Special to the Coastal Point • SAM HARVEY:
The Horizon Helicopters hangar, in Newark, is full of helicopters.
Harry Griffith has that service available, via helicopter. While he’s hangared in Newark (Del.), he lands locally — in Rehoboth Beach, or even Ocean View, on a private airstrip.
Griffith actually started Horizon Helicopters as a roofing contractor — their range and speed enabled him to buzz jobs in Baltimore, Washington, D.C. and Richmond, for instance, all before lunch. While other contractors were still driving, on the road somewhere between points A and B, Griffith was sitting down to prepare bid proposals.
“I’m a helicopter evangelist,” he stated. “They’re real working machines.”
OK, so maybe Horizon Helicopters didn’t have the most romantic of beginnings. But they do their share of scenic tours now.
From their Web site at www.horizonhelicopters.com, try a bird’s-eye view over “Winterthur, Longwood Gardens, Hagley Mills, in fact all of Chateau Country or perhaps you’d enjoy an Eastern Shore Tour over the Chesapeake, Sassafras, North East, Elk and Bohemia Rivers.”
As noted, a dinner stop can be part of these tours, and Horizon Helicopters offers a dozen or so suggestions.
They offer charter flights, too, Griffith pointed out. And he said winter was just getting busier all the time. “Especially when there’s nothing to do down there, we’ll take people back up to Baltimore or Philadelphia to catch dinner and a show,” he noted. “Or Atlantic City — by helicopter, that’s only 40 or 45 minutes away.”
And, of course, Horizon Helicopters provides opportunities for surveying and aerial photography, which Griffith suggested might be of particular interest to new landowners. “Unless you’re up in the air, you might never see those wetlands back in the trees,” he pointed out.
Or, a photograph over the family farm could certainly make a nice gift. And Horizon Helicopters offers gift opportunities in training, too.
According to Griffith’s son, B.J., who recently joined the company as an instructor, there are gift certificates available for just about everything.
They offer a “demo flight,” for instance, for just $170 — which, according to B.J., includes an opportunity to briefly take the controls. (One time per customer.)
After that, things get a little more expensive — it takes 40 hours of training, at $355 an hour, to qualify for a private (non-commercial) license, B.J. pointed out. That adds up to more than $14,000 — if everything goes perfectly.
Typically, it takes students a little longer (and more) than that, though, he said, because very few fledgling pilots ace their flight tests the first time out. He recommended the company’s flight simulator, both for the practice and because it’s a lot cheaper (and approximately seven of those 40 hours can be in the simulator).
B.J. said he’d worked for his father ever since he was young, but eventually got sick of washing parts and went away to college.
“But it wasn’t really my thing,” he recalled. “And I kept running into people at college asking, ‘You left that to do this?’” So, he said he’d gone home to take up his flight training.
He paid for his instruction by working for one of his father’s customers, but also with his labor around the hangar, after-hours and on weekends.
Griffith hadn’t given him any discounts, B.J. stressed, but he’d gotten over the whole parts-washing era. “Before, we butted heads a lot,” he admitted. “I knew everything.”
Now, they get along well enough to work side-by-side, and not just around Horizon Helicopters. At present, they’re working together on Griffith’s house in Bethany Beach.
“I’m a Sussex Countian now,” Griffith pointed out. And there may even be plans for a local Horizon Helicopters operation somewhere out in the future. Until then, they’ll continue lifting off from Newark, heading down to Sussex County for local pickup and drop-off.
That should ease the mind of a least one other traveler from the north, who’ll know he’ll have a backup if his sleigh breaks down as he cruises over Delaware.
For more information, call Horizon Helicopters at (302) 368-5153.