Two people can take the exact same flight over the Sonoran Desert and walk away with completely different memories. One spends the whole time fighting window glare on their phone and lands with forty blurry photos and a vague sense that it went by fast. The other lands quiet, a little stunned, holding six images they’ll actually print. The difference is almost never the flight. It’s what they did in the twenty minutes before it.
We’ve flown thousands of passengers out of our private hangar at Scottsdale Airpark, and the guests who get the most out of it tend to do the same handful of small things. Here are the five helicopter flight tips we’d give a friend before their first time in the air.
1. Pick the Flight That Matches What You Actually Want to See
This is the single biggest lever, and most people pull it by accident. Before you book, finish this sentence: “The thing I really want to see is ______.”
If the answer is the Valley — Camelback Mountain, Papago Park, the lights of Old Town Scottsdale, the McDowell Sonoran Preserve stitched with trails — the 35 Minute Adventure covers it cleanly and leaves you wanting more, which is the right way to end a first flight. If you want the desert to open up, the 1 Hour Adventure pushes past the city toward the Salt River, the Four Peaks, and the Superstitions.
If what you’re really after is the moment you step out of the aircraft somewhere with no road and no trail, that’s the Mountain Top Landing, and nothing else on the list substitutes for it. Red rock country calls for the Sedona Experience. The big one is the Grand Canyon Experience. Matching the flight to the answer beats booking longer and hoping.
2. Tell Us What Matters Before You Take Off
Every H5 flight is private — just your group in the cabin, never strangers, never a shared schedule. That’s not only a comfort thing. It means the flight has room to bend toward you.
So tell us. If it’s an anniversary, say so. If your father-in-law spent thirty years working a ranch east of Fountain Hills and would love to see that ground from the air, mention it when you call. If someone in your group is nervous, tell us that too — it changes how our pilots brief and fly. If there’s a specific landmark you’ve been circling on a map all week, name it, and we’ll tell you honestly whether airspace, weather, and the clock allow for it.
Mitch and Steve have 55-plus years of combined flying between them and know this terrain intimately. Ask them things. The intercom is live for the whole flight and the questions are half the fun — most guests are surprised by how much of the experience is conversation rather than sightseeing in silence.
3. Dress for the Cabin, Not the Parking Lot
Our AS350-B2 A-Star, “SaberCat1,” has a fully air-conditioned cabin, which is a genuine relief in an Arizona August and worth planning around year-round. A light layer you can add or shed is smarter than dressing for whatever the tarmac feels like when you arrive.
A few specifics that make a real difference: skip loose hats and scarves, which can’t be worn near an aircraft on an active ramp. Wear closed-toe shoes, especially if your flight includes a landing on unimproved desert ground. Bring sunglasses — the desert light is bright even at altitude. And wear darker colors if photography matters to you, because light clothing reflects off the inside of the window glass and shows up in every shot.
Travel light. Whatever you don’t need in the cabin is happier in the car or the hangar, and a lap full of bags is a lap you can’t turn to the window with.
4. Get the Shot, Then Put the Phone Down
You will want photos/videos, and you should have them. A few things that make them dramatically better from a helicopter:
Hold your lens close to the window without touching the glass — vibration transfers and softens the image. Shoot at a slight angle rather than straight on to kill reflections. Turn off your flash entirely, since it will only bounce back off the window. If you’re using a real camera, a fast shutter speed handles the movement better than anything else you can adjust. And take fewer, more deliberate shots than instinct tells you to; the first thirty seconds of any flight generate a lot of frames nobody looks at twice.
Then here’s the tip most guests tell us afterward they wish they’d followed sooner: about halfway through, stop. Put the phone in your lap and just look out the window for a few minutes. The desert at that angle, in that light, with the shadow of the aircraft running along the ground beside you — that’s the part no photo brings home anyway.
5. Give Yourself Margin
Guests who arrive at 16114 N 81st Street with breathing room have a noticeably better time than guests who arrive right on the minute, still in traffic mode. There’s a briefing before every flight, headsets to fit, and a few minutes standing near the aircraft that are genuinely part of the experience — our hangar sits on a private heliport (81AZ) adjacent to Scottsdale Municipal Airport, and there’s a lot to look at.
Build in the buffer. Don’t schedule a dinner reservation so tight that you’re checking your watch in the cabin. And if you’re weighing time of day, morning and late-afternoon flights tend to be the smoothest and the best-lit, so book those early when your dates are flexible.
Quick Answers Before Your First Helicopter Flight
What should I wear on a helicopter tour? Comfortable clothes in darker colors to reduce window reflections, closed-toe shoes, sunglasses, and a light, removable layer for the air-conditioned cabin. Avoid loose hats and scarves near the aircraft.
Can I take pictures during a helicopter tour? Yes. Keep your lens close to the glass without touching it, shoot at a slight angle to avoid reflections, and turn your flash off. On a private flight you can also ask the pilot for the side you want.
Do I need any experience to fly as a passenger? None. Every passenger gets a full safety briefing beforehand, and H5 Helicopters has flown with a perfect safety record since 2008.
Ready to put these to use? Call us at (480) 272-1100 or email info@h5helicopters.com and tell us what you want to see — we’ll point you to the right flight rather than the longest one. Browse the 35 Minute Adventure, 1 Hour Adventure, and Mountain Top Landing on our packages page to compare routes and reserve your date at Scottsdale Airpark.
Veteran-owned, family-run, private flights only, one very well-kept A-Star. Come find out what the desert looks like from up there.