We live on the 27th and 28th floors of a building with a view of Chicago’s busy heart, so we’re accustomed to seeing and hearing helicopters at or below our balcony level, doing police work, traffic reports, or stunts for movies and the gazillion stupid TV shows filmed in our neighborhood.

Today, though, soon after I brought Marcia her morning coffee, the helicopter noise was a bit more prominent than usual. I walked outside and had a GAWP! moment as a huge Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane buzzed right by me, and then settled slowly to hover above the corner of Randolph and Columbus, half a block away. Wow!

The Skycrane made two round trips from that corner up to the top of AON Tower — two buildings over with a rooftop just a smidge over 1,000 feet tall — carrying new transformers up and ferrying old ones down. Over the course of an hour or so I snapped and snapped and snapped, whee!

Here are some of the better shots from this morning’s entertainment, for the aviation dorks. Click for bigger versions, if you’d like, though I might have to apologize for my camera’s graininess if you do.