A Helicopter, a Backyard, and a Whole New Perspective
- searcylivingads
- Jun 8
- 6 min read
A Tour With Joe Sims
By Jennifer Webb
When I texted Joe Sims asking for an interview about his helicopter and the landing spot in his backyard, I never expected to find myself literally 1000 feet off the ground.
“Sure! I’ll take you up in it (the helicopter). What do you think about that?” he asked me when he called back to confirm time and place.
I might have lost my professional demeanor for a minute in my excitement, but I answered in the affirmative. I’d been up in small planes before, but never in a helicopter.
When I got to his hangar at Searcy Airport, I greeted Joe and asked if the wind and the low clouds were going to affect our flight. “It doesn’t bother me if it doesn’t bother you,” he told me.
The Robinson R44 Raven I helicopter was beautiful and sleek—black with windows all around the cabin. He attached wheels to the landing skids and a device of his own design to push it outside the hangar. “This is how I keep from having to go to the gym,” he joked, as he nimbly bent down to lock it into place and pushed the entire helicopter out of the hangar.
We disconnected the wheels and come-along, and he asked me if I wanted to fly. I wasn’t feeling quite that brave, so he took off the handle on the front passenger seat on the left-hand side of the helicopter.
I got in and fastened my seatbelt, the familiar motion strangely comforting. I donned a noise-cancelling headset and paid attention as Joe went through a pre-flight checklist. He had already performed a preflight inspection on the outside of the chopper before I got there. The familiarity of the pre-flight checks made any residual nervousness fade away. For both small planes and helicopters, you check everything that can be checked on the ground. If something happens in your car while you’re going down the road, you can pull over, not so much when you’re in the air.
Joe made his calls on the radio, telling other pilots in the area that he was about to taxi down the runway. In a small plane, you basically drive it down the taxiway with your feet. But the helicopter’s wheels were sitting in the hangar. We hovered over the taxiway, flying low to the ground, until the appropriate place to take off.
The helicopter did go sideways once in the process, but since Joe didn’t seem to notice, I dismissed it as just being part of flying in a helicopter. “I thought helicopters were hard to fly?” I asked.
“Nah. They’re easy to fly, just hard to learn.” I could hear radio calls from a student and instructor practicing around the airport.
Joe’s been flying for 35 years. He started with small planes, then went to helicopters. He’s owned a hangar in Searcy for 31 years. He got his helicopter rating after taking instruction from Steve Foster in 2011. He’s had an interest in aviation as long as he can remember, starting with assembling model planes at the age of 10. He’d always dreamed about flying. In the 80s, his wife Marilyn bought him flying lessons at the airport as a Christmas present. He remembers the many people who encouraged him along the way, and does his best to pay it forward.
“That’s what I do. I’ve encouraged many, many pilots. Took them flying and they went on to do big things and become airline pilots.”
- Joe Sims, Helicopter Owner, Pilot, and Hangar Owner At Searcy Airport
I’m not a pilot by any means, but that’s exactly what he was doing for me—taking me flying, encouraging me, and generally showing an interest and encouraging my curiosity about flying.
“Where do you want to go?” he asked. “Race Street?”
I hadn’t expected this question. In truth, we could have gone anywhere and I would have been happy. Just to get to go UP in the helicopter was a treat.
I agreed to Race Street, and much to my delight, I found that Joe flew much lower than I had flown in a small plane. He stayed around 800-1000 feet. We flew over Henard Utility, got a great view of the Harding University Bison Football Stadium, the Searcy Lion Football Stadium, Searcy Courthouse, downtown, and the hospital. I was able to more or less keep my orientation. (Since I am “geographically challenged,” as my husband puts it, I was quite proud of myself for that.)
The Little Red River makes for a distinguishable landmark from the air. Being that high up gives you a different perspective. Kids playing on the playground looked like little ants running around. Cars on Race Street looked the size of Hot Wheels. “What’s the visibility up here?” I asked.
“Oh, you can probably see some of the tops of buildings in Little Rock from here. The storm that moved through yesterday cut a lot of the haze, so visibility is good today.” Little Rock is 50 miles away. And I could see just as well in the other direction.
He took me to his house, and we almost landed in his backyard. We hovered a few feet above the ground. “There’s one of my motorcycle ramps,” he pointed out to me. Joe was in the motorcycle business for 40 years and was the owner of Searcy Yamaha before he retired on May 1, 2000. He personally raced motorcycles for years, competing in both motocross and supercross. He also completed the Baja 1000 in 1998. Though at 78 he no longer races motorcycles; he still follows the sport on TV.
“Everything you do, if you do it right, has risks. But if you do it like you should and wear the safety equipment, and take all the precautions, then you know it’s as perfectly safe as possible.”
- Joe Sims, Helicopter Owner, Pilot, and Hangar Owner At Searcy Airport
“You’re not boring, are you?” I asked with a sideways grin. He just replied with a nope, but I could see the twinkle in his eye.
At my request, we flew over White County Central School District, where I used to teach, then back again to the Searcy Airport. We saw cows and horses, a grass farm, lots of cell phone towers, golf courses, walking tracks, swimming pools, and houses. The wind that I had initially been concerned about wasn’t bad at all. The helicopter rotors were much less affected by them than I expected.
As we were coming into the Searcy Airport to land, he calmly told me, “We just lost an engine.” It took a minute for the words to register. He was still sitting there, cool as a cucumber, piloting the helicopter. The rotors above us were still spinning.
“Did you just say that we lost an engine?” I asked, mimicking his calm demeanor. I wasn’t sure that I believed him. I’d always heard that helicopters flew like rocks without the engine turning, plus he had shown me a safeguard during the pre-flight check. On the other hand . . . we did happen to be over a bunch of trees that were getting closer.
“Yeah,” he confirmed . . .“Simulated. This is what it would feel like if we did lose an engine. See the speed and rotation going down to 60?”
I knew from when my husband got his private pilot’s license that SIMULATING engine failure is a normal part of pilot training. (It’s also a fun way for the pilots to “entertain” passengers.) That’s why I didn’t hit the panic button. “Oh yeah, I see that.” I replied, like I had instead said, “Yes, nice weather today.”
To land, Joe followed the same pattern that planes do when they land, approaching the airport in the standard way. He followed the grass beside the runway a bit, bleeding off speed and altitude. He came to a beautiful and smooth landing on the grass. It was nearly as smooth as pulling your car into the driveway . . . but vertical. I complimented his landing since I knew that a landing that smooth was a show of skill.
“It won’t be quite that smooth on pavement,” he told me, as we once again took off to move the helicopter back to the hangar and “taxi,” by flying very low to the ground. But instead of the smooth, slow takeoff before, the helicopter jumped back into the air like a spring.
“Wooo! That was fun!” It felt a bit like an amusement park ride.
We landed again in front of his hangar and brought the ride to a close. It felt like we had been up 15 minutes, but the chronometer read 50 minutes.
Back at the hangar, we sat and visited in his office. He called the student helicopter pilot who had been up and offered some encouragement, even offering to go with him on cross-country flights once he was able to solo. Joe told me that he comes to the airport every morning. Earlier in the week, he’d changed the oil on his friend’s helicopter, gave it a good look-over, put some spark plugs in, leak checked it, and put it all back together.
All those are little things to Joe. But they add up to a huge investment in love for others, encouragement, and making a difference in people’s lives by showing up, being there, and showing that he cares.
For me, time had literally flown, and I walked away with gratitude to Joe and an unforgettable experience.
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