Veteran chopper pilot set to retire after 4 decades in the air


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PROVO — After flying helicopters for more than 45 years, including 20 at KSL, longtime pilot Dan Brown is retiring.

“You get to the end and it starts to get to you,” Brown said, getting a little emotional. “I have been doing this two-thirds of my life.”

Flying a helicopter was a career Brown said he dreamed about as a kid.

“My uncle was a pilot, and I got to fly with him, and it got me thinking about flying,” he said.

When he was drafted in the Army, Brown became a helicopter pilot and flew two tours of duty during the Vietnam War. After his time in the military, he flew commercially, taking the controls of Chopper 5 in 1985.

“Chopper 5, it was the fact we did something different every day,” Brown said. “(There were) a lot of fun flights with a lot of different people throughout the years.”

For two decades, he took KSL viewers to places all over Utah, giving them a bird’s eye perspective on hundreds of major stories and creating a lot of memories with those who got to fly with him.

Ten years ago, Brown gave up the excitement of TV news to help save lives, becoming a pilot for Life Flight. That decision may have had something to do with a particular flight nurse — his wife, Jean.

Dan Brown, former KSL helicopter pilot and current Intermountain Life Flight pilot, poses with his wife, Jean, who is a flight nurse as he talks Wednesday, May 27, 2015, at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo about his career that began flying in the Vietnam War. (Photo: Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)

“We started flying together back in the '80s, and today they are letting us fly together on one of his last flights,” Jean Brown said.

While they are rarely allowed to fly together, Jean Brown said her husband is a natural when he is in the air.

“I think it is amazing that someone could do something for 46 years and still love it. And that is probably one of the things I see about Dan: He loves flying,” she said.

While the days of landing on the 17th hole to get in a round of golf are over, it's the feeling of flying through the air that Brown says he will miss the most.

”It is just the freedom of looking down and seeing the stuff that no one gets to see, that I won't get to see that again in my life after I finish these last few days,” he said.

Brown still has three more night shifts left. His final day on the job is Monday.

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