A Lake Highlands couple was following their passion for all things flight when they opened Sky Helicopters in the early ’90s. Connie and Ken Pyatt operate the heliport, at 2559 S. Jupiter, a few minutes northeast of our neighborhood. We tracked them down because we wanted to feature their heli-tours in our upcoming story about daycations, which includes a bunch of really cool things you can do close to home.
A large sum of Sky Helicopter’s business comes from photographing news footage for local broadcasts, but a portion of their profits come from tours and flying lessons. The skyline tour — which flies passengers over White Rock Lake, Downtown Dallas, Cowboys stadium and the Rangers’ ballpark — runs $375 for a half hour (it is pretty popular during Valentines days and weekends and Christmas light season), and the flight simulator lesson/flight combo seems like a steal: for $159 you receive 30 minutes of instruction followed by 30 minutes in-the-air practice in a controlled environment. The Pyatts recently opened a second Sky Helicopter location south of Dallas.
Ken was charitable enough to fly Advocate photo editor Danny Fulgencio and me all over the metroplex — we covered White Rock Lake, Lake Highlands, Northeast Dallas, Dixon Branch, Arlington, Grand Prairie, Trinity Forest, Downtown Dallas, Oak Cliff and South Dallas. Not much Preston Hollow, because George Bush (a large no-fly zone exists around his Preston Hollow property). I did not get woozy until the very windy end. This video is just a little teaser. Danny has impressive photos galore, which we will share in June.
OK, we’ll share one in advance. This is the view of Lakewood and the Advocate offices from a R44 Raven & Clipper helicopter: Photo by Danny Fulgencio
Look for the Choose Your Own Adventure/Daycations story in the June issue, and expect a profile on the fascinating Pyatts in early fall.
