[mdip]

I did one of those chopper tours over a big city one time in a splurge. Yeah, I hear ya.

I was surprised at how similar the feel is. Your bicycle analogy made me laugh -- spot on. I used to love taking my macho friends up in my dad's plane. There's this moment after take-off where my Dad will comment on "how smooth the air is" ... it's either "perspective" or a pilot joke, I'm not sure, because said "smooth air" is about as bad as reasonable air-turbulence on a jet and the flight is usually marked occasionally by the kind of turbulence that would have the overhead bins tossing luggage onto passengers. I recall a humorous incident where my buddy Tim dropped an F-bomb over a hot mic on the headset when we got smacked sideways.