Our seat belts snap shut. I'm sitting shotgun next to the helicopter pilot, while my wife, Lisa, has her iPhone in camera mode in the seat behind us. The chopper blades are rotating, and we have our head phones on.

  "G'day mates," says the pilot. "Is everybody ready?"

  "Let's do it."

And off we go, rising into the desert sky, first in an upward trajectory, then accelerating forward.