Helicopters to Soroka Hospital today

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While at Ben-Gurion University today I chanced to see two big IDF helicopters landing at Soroka hospital, which is right across the street.
 Here above is the landing.

And then the take-off.
I don't know where the wounded came from; there was no word of any incident in the news.

The helipad is just a big fenced-in patch of grass in between hospital buildings.
You can see the windsock on the roof. 

During the 50 days of fighting with Gaza last summer this was, sadly, a very busy place.
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UPDATE: I see now some statistics from the director of the hospital: 

During Operation Protective Edge, as in previous rounds of fighting in the South, Soroka Medical Center was at the forefront of treating the wounded. Life-saving teams at Soroka cared for the majority of the soldiers wounded during the operation. In the 50 days of warfare, 1,263 casualties received treatment, among them 777 soldiers and 486 civilians, of whom 53 were seriously injured.
There were more than 60 helicopter landings on the hospital's helipad, evacuating the wounded from the Gaza Strip.

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It takes balls to do this!

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These are favorite photos from last winter  when I still lived in the Jerusalem Hills, the Hills of Judea. 
You will want to click a few times and enlarge them--you won't believe what you see!

The helicopter was hovering right next to the high tension wire high above the road in Soreq Valley!

And what's more--a man was sitting on a platform under the helicopter!

Can you see his legs dangling?
I watched the team work for hours, for several days in December and January.
I was amazed, impressed, scared, and always thinking "Glad I am not that man's mother."

Here you can see the man and the big orange balls that he was about to attach to the miles of  live high tension wires.

Today's City Daily Photo Theme Day is about heights,  so today is a fitting day to pay tribute to these brave men in the sky.

An Australian government website says that

Queensland-based Aeropower, which uses helicopters to provide airborne

electrical services to power companies, provides the Israel Electric Corporation with a range

of services including support for cable stringing (pulling out draw wires from structure to

structure), airborne line  maintenance services and live-line insulator washing on their overhead power lines.

Watch a video of these guys in action, if you have the guts.
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A mistake with "The Beast"

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Trust me, the photo shows 2 of the 7 helicopters that just came over our place carrying President Obama, Peres, and Netanyahu.
Such a short flight from Ben-Gurion Airport to Jerusalem.

But what a fashla  just as Air Force One was approaching Israel's shores!
"The Beast,"  the very special armored limo of the President, would not start!

Jordanian and Israeli officials quickly coordinated the airlift of  a replacement  presidential limousine from a US storage facility in Jordan.

According to The Times of Israel  live blog,  the Americans had filled the tank of  The Beast with diesel**  fuel by mistake!

Just when you think every little detail has been taken care of for this historic visit . . .
I'm just glad it was not Israelis who made the mistake.
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UPDATE at 9:00 pm:
The Jerusalem Post is reporting this:

. . .  Various news reports said it had been mistakenly filled with the wrong fuel, but the Secret Service did not confirm this.
"One of our protective vehicles experienced mechanical problems in Israel earlier today. This is why we bring multiple vehicles and a mechanic on all trips," Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary in Washington.
"Situations like this are planned for extensively by our advance teams so that the president's itinerary is unaffected by these types of issues."

**UPDATE #2 at 11:00pm:
Now it's the other way around. According to CNN, The Beast should have gotten diesel but was filled with gasoline by mistake:

The official limousine awaiting President Barack Obama's arrival in Israel malfunctioned after its driver refueled it using gasoline rather than diesel fuel, an official said Wednesday. The limo failed to start, and required towing . . .

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(Linking to Our World Tuesday.)
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Landing in a cloud of dust

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Getting off the bus at Hadassah hospital, I heard a helicopter nearing.
I ran to the corner of the parking lot and was in time for the excitement of the powerful sound and sight!

But instead of a stretcher, some VIPs were brought out and whisked away in a black car.
The unique square license plate must be of some top official. Maybe the President?

I was worried the armed guards might look back and look up and see me "shooting" (photos, of course!).
Then it worried me that they never even noticed me.
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But I was relieved to realize that IDF helicopters landing at Hadassah helipad carry important passengers who are alive and well, and not only wounded soldiers and civilians.
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(The helicopters being an almost daily part of my world, this post goes to Our World Tuesday.)
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Jerusalem's first snow since 2008 coming?

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The helicopter landing at Hadassah hospital helipad had clear visibility just last Monday.
But that was the last we saw of blue skies this week.
The good news is that Jerusalem might have SNOW on Saturday!

The weather forecasters say snow may fall on peaks higher than 700 meters.
Too bad the hill of my village is a bit lower than that.

Jerusalem Municipality has fifty salt spreaders and bulldozers at the ready.
Buses do not work on Shabbat and religious Jews do not drive their cars; not much traffic.
So Saturday snow sounds perfect!
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Happy SkyWatch Friday wherever you are.

Action in the air

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Two military helicopters land at Hadassah Medical Center, probably carrying wounded.

The wind sock at the helipad twirls around and straightens out or bends, showing the pilot the direction and strength of the wind.

Today's subject for City Daily Photo Theme Day is "Action shot."
Click here to view thumbnails for all participants.
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Evening sky

Some evening pictures from Hadassah hospital (Ein Kerem campus), about 8:00 pm, while waiting for the bus to my village.
Good ones for SkyWatch Friday, I think.
These are the same sleeping cranes you saw from far away a few weeks ago.

My village, with her first lights coming on.

It's just half an hour's walk.

And for the SkyWatchers who missed my funny windsock post, here is another shot of it, at the helicopter landing pad.
A neighboring moshav is up on top of the hill. They and we often have a few helicopter flying over us during the day or night. Not everyone is so lucky to live so close to a world-class medical center. (May we all be well and healthy!)

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Windsock

Welcome to ABC Wednesday.

Windsock without wind

Windsock with wind
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The sign says "Entrance to helicopter landing pad. No parking!"

At Hadassah Medical Center, Ein Kerem.

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Sleeping cranes

Just across the valley, Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center is constantly expanding. Never-ending construction on the hilltop.
The illuminated cranes look quite pretty against the evening sky.
I guess they have to be very visible to the helicopter pilots. The round helipad is bathed in blue.
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Happy SkyWatch Friday to all who contribute their presence with a photo or a visit.

Habemus Papam!

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Habemus Papam--"We have a Pope!"
Pope Benedictus XVI just flew over my house in this Blackhawk helicopter!
Jerusalem will have the Pope for five very full days.

Pope Benedict made the 40-minute flight from Amman in a Royal Jordanian airliner, landing at Ben-Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv at 11:00.
The official state (i.e. military) welcoming ceremony went perfectly.
The band played the two national anthems.

I must say, I was very moved to see the head of the Catholic Church standing as Hatikva (The Hope) was played, here in the sovereign State of Israel.
We have all come a long way in the last century.
Thank God for progress in Christian-Jewish relations.
Thank God for an independent and strong Jewish state.
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President Peres welcomed His Holiness in Hebrew, English, and even a sentence in Latin.
The Pope made his good speech in English.
Lots of handshakes on the long red carpet.
Finally three helicopters took off for the 20-minute flight to Jerusalem.
However, just over my house the convoy split up.
It was announced that the Pope had asked for an extra little sivuv, wanting to see even more of the Holy City from above.
His entourage and the journalists proceeded directly to Mount Scopus.
On Mt. Scopus the Mayor of Jerusalem and 120 kids of the three faiths welcomed the Pope at 12:30.
Within 15 minutes the Pope was in the super-secure black Audi car, on the way to the Mount of Olives for a short rest at the Vatican Ambassador's place.
Welcome, Pope Baruch. As Mayor Barkat said, make yourself at home, feel at home, here in Jerusalem.
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That's My World Tuesday has other bloggers' current worlds on display. Check it out.

Vacation turned deadly

What a tragedy, but this time not terrorism. A group of travel agents and families from St. Petersburg had just landed in a small airport north of Eilat and were on a tourist bus en route to Eilat, Israel's southernmost city on the Red Sea. On a curve in the mountainous area the bus went over, falling over 60 meters into a ravine.
Some 30 Russians are wounded and 26 dead. God help them.
We just watched live coverage of the rescue on the Internet.
The small and secluded city of Eilat has a small hospital. They stabilized the wounded but can't keep all of them.

Soon the helicopters will be flying over my house with some of the wounded and landing at Hadassah hospital just across the valley.

Remembering the fallen

This was a day of sad thoughts about death from the skies.

I thought back to THE September 11, how I had sat in the Visitors Center of Heifer Ranch in Arkansas with my fellow volunteers watching the dreadful events occur on the TV screen.
We watched in shocked silence.
At first there was only visual, no audio from the scene. Suddenly the audio was added.
Hearing the sirens and hearing people on the street screaming and sobbing--it transported me to the all-too-familiar sounds and scenes of terror strikes in Israel and especially Jerusalem, then in the throes of the second intifada.
I burst out crying and got up to leave, to go cry on my donkeys' necks, murmuring to no one in particular, "I'm so sorry, Americans, that it takes this for you to feel what Israel has felt so often."

Their . . . our, world would never be the same.

Last night was also the end of the world as they knew it for two families in Israel.
Major (reserves) Yuval Holtzman, 40, father of three, and Major (res.) Shai Danor, father of five, were piloting a helicopter when apparently its rotor flew off and the body of the Cobra crashed to the ground and burned.
All our Cobras were today grounded.
They are in use in the Israel Air Force since the 1970s and before that, the Americans used these same gunships in Vietnam. They are getting old.


Now for some nice words about helicopters. This is the new helipad nearing completion at Hadassah Hospital.

The wounded and injured will be taken on the elevator directly down to the Emergency Medicine Department.

That will be an improvement over this. Here two choppers are landing on the outside landing place.
From here the stretcher cases have to be transported across the street and through several buildings.

Our moshav is just on the next hill. My house is under the flight pattern to Hadassah.
I see the helping helicopters almost everyday and say a little prayer each time.
But today all Israel says a prayer for the pilots we lost last night who themselves became victims.

President Bush in Israel's sky

I'm pretty sure President Bush was in this helicopter over my house. A whole row of choppers from America's Marine One fleet went over, flying from the airport to Jerusalem. Bush came for Israel's May 14 Independence Day and to contribute to the Facing Tomorrow Presidential Conference. Also participating were present and former presidents, prime ministers and senior officials from 27 countries, along with Jewish Nobel Prize winners, Google founder Sergey Brin, and Susan Decker of Yahoo. (By the way, none of these countries recognizes Jerusalem as our capital. Their embassies are in Tel Aviv.)
Bush also requested to be helicoptered to the desert mountain fortress of Masada. In the year 73 C.E., after a long siege, the Romans were about to break through the walls and capture the Jewish resistance fighters inside. Rather than fall into Roman slavery, the 960 men, women, and children died by their own sword. Masada is a powerful symbol for our modern nation; some say we have a Masada complex.
Bush later addressed the Knesset and to a standing ovation declared: "Masada shall not fall again! Israel's population may be just over 7 million. But when you confront terror and evil, you are 307 million strong, because America stands with you."

(To see more Sky Watch Friday contributions visit Tom's blog.)

Helpful helicopters

Not one but two helicopters landing at Hadassah. The hospital is now building a bigger helipad atop its tall emergency medicine building. I am always saddened seeing such copters fly over my house, wondering who has been hurt, and where, and why.

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