Sacramento native Sheldon “Lu” Hurley was among the first broadcasters to report on traffic from a helicopter. KGO listeners in the early 1960’s came to anticipate Hurley’s witty reports from the “Hurleybird”.
Hurley’s Commodore Aviation owned the two-seat piston-engined copter as well as the Mill Valley heliport from which it flew. KGO would later claim Hurley had flown more than two million miles covering Bay Area traffic.
Hurley’s broadcasting career started at KSRO in Santa Rosa in 1944. He had some television experience and was selling advertising at KGO when station management decided to launch helicopter-born traffic coverage.
Lu Hurley died in 1989 at age 72.