I would imagine it's like 23 hours of boredom and loneliness followed by an hour of frantic life-flashing-before-your-eyes adrenaline. May they all come home safe.
Carl Zimmer is the "go-to" guy on parasites. He helped me with the Zombie Animals series at mental floss. Check out his blog The Loom at Discover Magazine.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/
http://www.neatorama.com/2007/07/28/video-effect-of-helicopter-in-flight/
He'd raise his hand and ask, "How can you tell if your wife's faking it?"