Journey to the Golden Hour: My Path to the Most Dangerous Job in America: Flying a Medical Helicopter

Journey to the Golden Hour follows the path of Randy Mains, an ex-Vietnam combat helicopter pilot harboring a burning passion to fly after the war. In this personal account, using his personal diaries that he’s kept over the years, Mains recounts his incredible journey to find work abroad which he does first on a 1369-square-mile cattle station in the Australian outback. There he and his boss purchase a crashed airplane in the Simpson Desert where they rebuild her and fly her out like a Flight of the Phoenix Down Under. He then takes a job flying helicopters over the sweltering triple-canopy jungle in Papua New Guinea, then he takes a job as a senior instructor pilot for Bell Helicopter International in Iran prior to the Islamic Revolution where he ends up fleeing the country on the last commercial charter only to find himself back home twenty-four hours later asked to become a pioneer, along with six other dedicated ex-Vietnam helicopter pilots, who are trying to prove to a doubting American public and skeptical medical community that the helicopter can save lives in peacetime just as it did in the battle fields of Korea and Vietnam. The book then details his six years as a helicopter EMS pilot in the early days where he finds himself in an industry turning so dangerous he nearly loses his life on five separate occasions. So buckle up, get cozy and get ready for one rollicking good read.