DIXFIELD – Way cool.

Having never before flown in a helicopter – my favorite form of aviation – Saturday afternoon’s 15-minute flight over the River Valley area was a thrill well worth the $20 ticket.

Pilot Dan Miller of Jungle Aviation And Radio Service of Waxhaw, N.C., skillfully flew away my pre-flight jitters on Flight 17, as he and I, and fellow passengers Clifford Hall and his 6-year-old daughter, Hattie, both of Dixfield, hovered high above the Androscoggin River.

I missed the chance to fly last September when JAARS conducted its first ever two-day Missions-at-the-Airport at Swan’s Airfield off the Canton Point Road in Dixfield. Last year’s offered flights, in both a helicopter and short-takeoff-and-landing single-engine plane, attracted several hundred people.

But on Saturday, the first of three days of flights, there were no lines and no waiting. By noon, less than 100 people had stopped in. The event, complete with live Christian music and food vendors, lets people see and experience some of the technical aspects of Wycliffe Bible Translators. The aviation service is Wycliffe’s technical division.

Wycliffe, according to its Web site, www.wycliffe.org, employs about 6,000 workers worldwide who are charged with bringing the word of God to people around their world in their own language.

Compared to Huey choppers, my favorites, Saturday’s flight in a Robinson R-44 Raven II helicopter was akin to riding a dragonfly.

After signing away my life rights on a waiver, pre-flight volunteer Ralph Adley of Rumford greeted me. He ran through the basic rules of helicopter passenger etiquette: don’t venture into the rear rotor area of the tail section when getting in or you’ll get chopped to bits; to unlock your seatbelt, flip the latch all the way forward; and, to open the door, lift the latch and press it forward.

Oh, and if you want to talk to the pilot or fellow passengers, keep your headset’s microphone against your lips. That was it.

Having flown high over Bethel and the Androscoggin River during the winter in a hot-air balloon several years ago, Adley’s instructions, I thought, lacked the what-to-do-if-we-have-to-ditch-in-the-river aspect, but, maybe that was God’s way of saying, “Have a little faith.”

Unlike the hot-air balloonist, who enjoyed tapping the passenger basket in the river, Miller’s flight was thankfully free of derring-do.

Getting into the cockpit was tough for a minute while wearing the Sun Journal-required long pants.

Of course, once we were ready to fly, I promptly forgot Adley’s instructions.

Hovering away from the airfield, I had one brief unsettling moment when I saw, over the rapidly diminishing grassy horizon, the cliff above a gravel pit I didn’t know was there.

“Wait! Wait! Did I buckle my safety belt?” my panicked brain thought.

And then, before my stomach could dash to my feet as my mind screamed, “We’re going to drop! We’re going to drop,” over the cliff we zoomed, upward bound.

Marveling at the trees, river and surrounding hills, my next thought, was, “You know, it’s amazing how many people living along the Androscoggin have swimming pools.”

Getting used to rotor vibrations and the tail swing was easier for me than were the sudden mid-air drops in an airplane or 747.

It wasn’t until we were halfway into the flight, though, that I remembered the microphone.

After the ride, and while standing beside hangars watching others take off, my lower legs had yet to shake off the vibrations that still coursed through them.

But, hey, the chopper thrills sure beat the balloon ride and, most importantly, my feet stayed dry.

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