Got $25? Take a helicopter tour at Lake of the Ozarks

$25 will get you two tickets to a movie on Friday night, lunch and a beer at a ski resort, a day’s bike rental in most major cities... or it’ll get you a helicopter ride in Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri.

Lake Ozark Helicopters, which opened last spring on the Bagnell Dam Strip at Lake of the Ozarks, offers very short helicopter tours for $25 seven days a week. Other tours start at $40 per person and go up to $199, depending on length of time, amount of people in the helicopter, and destination.

Having watched the graceful red whirly-bird levitate vertically and fly all summer, my interest was piqued. Turns out the $25 price gets you just a few minutes in the air-- about five minutes after you take off and land. But that five minutes is enough to experience the thrill of riding in a helicopter, an opportunity most people don’t get. You’ll fly over the dam and back, clipping away over the tops of trees and watching boats soar across the lake. $40 gets you about a 15 minute flight; $65 translates to about a half hour.

Lake Ozark Helicopters is family-owned and operated. The pilot is a former navy helicopter pilot. My dad decided to take my mom and myself on a ride as part of a birthday gift. An initial conversation proved the pilot amenable to deviating from their advertised routes and taking us anywhere we wanted to go along the lake or in the area, which was great because my parents wanted to fly over their house and see it from the air.

After being grounded because of fog and rain on the day of our reservations, we called the next day and were told we could come by any time. Because I wanted to take photos, we waited until later in the day for the haze to lift.

It’s a strange sensation to be in the air before you realize you’ve even moved. Not being a fan of flying, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about a helicopter ride, but it was pure exhilaration. Strapped in and wearing headsets, the pilot pointed out landmarks and told us of other flights he’d taken as I snapped away pictures from the back. My mom’s view from the front was all sky, and beneath her the trees and water of the Ozarks. Boats raced down the Channel as we banked and turned, circling my parents’ house.

When we touched down again, my mom said she felt like we’d been gone a few mere minutes, not the 30 that had passed. I nearly skipped inside to tell the pilot’s father how great the flight was. There aren’t many things you can do for $25 or even $65 that let you experience a thrill, see the world differently, and take stock of your fears, but my helicopter tour did all that. Now I want to see everything from the air. For a girl who doesn’t like flying, I’m learning there’s a lot of different ways to travel in the sky.

Lake Ozark Helicopters
1075 Bagnell Blvd
Lake Ozark, MO 65049
(573)302-0022


Details: Flights start at $25 per person and are priced according to route and duration of time. Other routes can be requested in advance. Helicopter seats up to three passengers at a time, and walk-ins are welcome. Open seven days a week until 7pm, weather permitting. Flights being scheduled through the first week in October, and then again Thanksgiving-Christmas.