AircraftOwner Online

I was not a typical tour pilot for the company. Besides being a woman — which has its own issues in a male-dominated field like aviation — I was about 20 years older than most of the “kids” they’d hired. It was an entry level job, after all. Most of my coworkers had built their time the usual way: as helicopter flight instructors. I, on the other hand, owned my own helicopter, a 1999 Robinson R22 Beta II, and was trying to run my own helicopter tour business with it. I’d built my 1,000 hours of PIC time flying passengers for hire, tooling around the desert, or taking very long cross-country flights by myself. To this day, I believe I have more solo flight time than 90% of the commercial helicopter pilots out there.

While I enjoyed flying at the Canyon and all the challenges that went with it, it soon became clear that flying there could not be a permanent position for me. My writing career was doing extraordinarily well and I was earning far more on my days off from flying than I could ever learn sitting in the pilot’s seat for 8 or more hours a day. I realized that June that I was at a crossroads of my life and careers. I knew I couldn’t build a real business with an R22 — especially without a CFI rating. I began thinking about taking the next step and buying a larger, better equipped helicopter. One that could take more passengers. One that made sense to build a business with, likely with a single-pilot Part 135 certificate to give me additional flexibility.

On June 30, I ordered a Robinson R44 Raven II.

The Wait Begins

In those days, Robinson had a 6-month backlog for new helicopter orders. You’d work with a dealer to choose options like instruments and colors and other features. The dealer would come up with a price. I’d already done all that in February of the same year, at HeliExpo. When it came time to order, all I had to do was make a phone call, sign a bunch of papers, and send in a check for $25K. That got me on the waiting list.

At the end of September, I left my job at the Grand Canyon. It would probably be the last time I flew there an I was more than a little sad.

In October, I sold my R22. I’d need the money for part of the R44’s down payment. I was planning to put enough money down to keep my monthly loan payments the same as the R22’s were. I also started work with the local FSDO to get my single pilot Part 135 certificate.

By November, I was going stir-crazy. It was the first time in years that I didn’t have access to an aircraft for flying. I flew as a passenger with friends who had helicopters. I buried myself in my writing work. I tried not to think about it.

A friend of mine used Photoshop to doctor up a photo of another friend’s R44 flying near my home, applying my color scheme. It was a fake air-to-air photo of a helicopter that didn’t exist yet. But it existed to me. I’d already begun referring to it by its last three call sign digits: Zero-Mike-Lima.

When my family flew in from the east coast for Thanksgiving, some of us took a road trip out to California. We got a tour of the Robinson factory. By some incredible coincidence, it was the day they put my helicopter’s frame on the assembly line. My sister snapped a photo of me standing next to the frame, holding up the fake photo I’d brought along to show the folks at the factory.

(Yes, I realized that I sound like a giddy kid.)

By late December, the six month wait was almost over. I started booking rides gigs. I was anxious to get the helicopter by year-end, but that wasn’t going to happen. December ended and January 2005 started. By now, I was very anxious. I’d already cancelled one gig for December month end. I had another lined up for January 8.

The Long Wait Comes to an Abrupt End…Sort Of

It started to come together on Wednesday — which is a good thing, because there wasn’t a day to spare. A huge storm was moving into the Los Angeles area from the west and forecasters were promising heavy rains and high winds there from Friday through Tuesday. If I didn’t get Zero-Mike-Lima out of Torrance before Thursday night, it would be stuck there for another week. And I’d miss yet another potentially lucrative flying gig.

Justin, the dealer, called my cell phone late Wednesday night to tell me Robinson had sent the bill of sale via FedEx to MBNA, the finance company. MBNA would not fund the loan without the original copy of this piece of paper. Unfortunately, my cell phone was turned off — in those days, I got most calls on my land line — and I didn’t get his call until Thursday morning. By that time, I thought we’d missed the window of opportunity. Although Mike, my husband, and I had planned to hitch a ride to Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport with a friend early Thursday morning, there seemed no reason to bother. But when I got Justin’s message, I began to get a glimmer of hope.

I called MBNA and told my lending guy that the bill of sale was on its way. He told me he didn’t get his mail until about 1 PM. He didn’t seem interested in hunting down the package earlier. It was obvious that he didn’t care much about the weather situation. But he said he’d be able to fund within two hours of receiving the package.

Time ticked by. Mike had gone to work. I checked Southwest Airline’s schedules. Since tickets were refundable, I bought two tickets for the 11 AM flight from PHX to LAX.

No word from anyone on the situation. I knew we had to leave Torrance no later than 4 PM to get out of the area before nightfall. Before long, it was too late to catch the 11 AM flight. The next flight was 12:30. I decided to make sure I was on it.

I called Robinson and left a message to say I was coming and to ask for transportation from LAX to the factory.

My husband’s car was already down in the Phoenix area. It would have been stupid for me to drive mine down, too. So I spent the next hour or so working out logistics to get a ride down to Phoenix and have someone else pick up my husband’s car.

Veronica from Robinson called. She told me they’d send a helicopter to pick us up at LAX when we arrived. All I had to do was call when we got in and meet the helicopter at the Heliport at Terminal 4. She gave me the code to go up to the roof there and I wrote it down.

By 11:30, Mike and I were at PHX. We only had one small piece of luggage — an overnight bag — so getting to the gate should be quick, right? Well, because we had bought one-way tickets, we had to go through an extra security screening process. They went through our coats and overnight bag and my purse. They wanded us very thoroughly. Heck, the woman who wanded me even patted me down a bit where the rivets in my jeans had set off her wand.


At 1:00 PM, we boarded a plane and it took off. It was a nice flight that followed I-10 most of the way. I saw the Salt and Gila Rivers flowing and I’m pretty sure I saw where the Hassayampa (which was also flowing at the time) meets the Gila. I saw the truck stop we flew my R22, Three-Niner-Lima, to for breakfast once and Quartzsite, with its seasonal urban sprawl. I saw the Salton Sea and, looking straight down, saw the roads in Joshua Tree National Park. I saw the runways at Palm Springs, San Bernadino, and El Monte. The sky was partly cloudy, with most clouds high up. Good weather for flying.

At the airport, I called Veronica and left her a voicemail message saying that we’d arrived. Then we made our way from Terminal One to Terminal Four. It was a long walk, but it was nice to stretch. At the heliport, I called and left another voicemail message. We watched a Pasadena Police Helicopter land and depart. Then Veronica called back and told us it would be about twenty minutes.

A white R44 with pop-out floats approached from the south, crossed the two south runways, and made a nice approach to the Heliport. When its skids were firmly on the ground, Mike and I walked over and hopped in. We buckled up, put on headsets, and sat back for the wild ride to Torrance, which included a flight along the beach at about 150 feet above the waves and a 180 degree autorotation to the Robinson ramp.

Zero-Mike-Lima was parked on the other end of the ramp. It looked beautiful. But we couldn’t take a closer look. Paperwork.

We were led through the factory and into the lobby. Then there was a more waiting time. I checked my voicemail and got a message from Justin, telling me that MBNA had sent the money.

It turned out that although MBNA had sent the money, a wire transfer isn’t a quick as a fax. The money goes into the ether for a while before it ends up in the recipient’s bank account. Robinson had just gotten the money. Normally, they need at least 24 hours from the time they get the money to the time the have all the paperwork ready. They were doing all the paperwork while we waited.

We waited at least 30 minutes. I read the Wall Street Journal and looked at Mike’s watch. Mike reminded me that every minute we were delayed was 2 miles of distance we couldn’t cover.

Finally, Veronica appeared. She led us out to the delivery room where she loaded up my R44 bag with all the accessories that came with the helicopter: blade tie-downs, cabin cover, short-pilot cushion (not something I’d need), and all the warranties and manuals. And the ground handling wheels. I signed a bunch of papers. Then she let us loose on the ramp. By this time, it was almost 4 PM local time.


The helicopter was beautiful. Incredibly clean and perfect. Really nice. Mike laughed and said, “It’ll never be this clean again.”

A guy came out of the factory to check us out on the route. I got some frequency information from him and assured him that I knew the route and had flown it before. (Robinson does not allow its helicopters to be ferried away from the factory by pilots who have not previously flown the route.) Then I did as much of a preflight as I could without a ladder. I checked the oil; it was so clean, I couldn’t see it on the dipstick. Mike took a photo of me. Then we climbed on board, and I started it up.

It’s interesting to note that at this point in my flying career, most of my time was in Robinson R22 and Bell 206L (Long Ranger) helicopters. I probably had about 25 hours in R44s at the time. I hadn’t flown any helicopter since October. So I was pretty nervous starting up, especially given how close the factory folks tend to park delivery helicopters to the building.

But you know what they say about riding  bicycle, right? You never forget how. A few minutes later, I was hovering away from the factory and talking to Torrance ATC as if I’d been flying every day of my life.

The Long Flight Home

The first leg of the flight — from Torrance through Fullerton — was crazed. I talked to Torrance, Long Beach, and Fullerton towers — all within fifteen minutes. The R44 is fast (we were cruising at about 110 knots) so those places came up quickly, one after another, bam-bam-bam. Then a bit of a break until we got to Riverside and March Air Force Base. Then a longer break until we got to Palm Springs.

By that time, it was getting dark. The sun had gone down and it was time to think of a place to stop for the night. I wanted to stop at Bermuda Dunes (east of Palm Springs) because it was relatively close to a motel I’d stayed at once before. So that’s where we landed for the night.

I was on final and a plane was on base when a third aircraft called in. The second aircraft knew the third one and chatted a bit over the Unicom frequency. It turns out, the second plane was brand new, too, and the pilot was taking his first flight in it.

We got a rental car and a cheesy tourist map and made our way to the Fantasy Casino off of I-10. This is one of those Indian casinos that had been popping up all over California. It was a nice place, with a brand new high-rise hotel that sure beat the Holiday Inn Express I’d stayed last time. We got a room on the 4th floor and Mike took me to dinner, complete with champagne, in the casino restaurant. Afterward, we fed singles into a few slot machines, got locked out of our room, got a new key, and went up to bed.

I slept badly. I think it was because the sheets were so new they were still rough. We may have been the first people to sleep in that room.

By 4 AM local time, we were both awake. The Weather Channel showed us that the storm would be on our heels and the sooner we departed, the better off we’d be. But it was still very dark out and the sun wasn’t scheduled to rise until 6:51 AM. We couldn’t wait. We checked out of the hotel and were back at the airport at 5:50 AM. It was already starting to rain.

I did the best preflight I could in the dark with a flashlight and we climbed on board. Mike wiped down the windows on the inside while I started up and warmed up the engine. There was some confusion with the Aux Fuel Pump warning light and circuit breaker that I think may have had to do with us using so much power right after startup. The problem went away and we took off.

It was still dark. And raining. I wasn’t happy about this, especially when I realized that once past the Bermuda Dunes area, I would not be able to see the horizon. Was I about to perform my final stupid pilot trick? I almost turned back. But the lights of I-10 below us were easy to follow and showed good visibility far into the distance. There were no obstacles at our altitude. And as we flew into the dark and our eyes adjusted to it, the faint outline of the horizon appeared. No problem.

If you’ve ever flown from Los Angeles to Phoenix, you know the barren emptiness of the desert between the Palm Springs area and Blythe. The interstate, I-10, climbs out of the low desert along a smooth hill between two jagged mountain ranges. The freeway has few exits, most of which have no apparent reason to exist. At the top of the slope is Chiriaco Summit, with a gas station, two restaurants, the Patton Tank Museum, and a runway with cracked pavement. Then there’s a gradual descent down toward the Colorado River, with just a few sad examples of desert communities, a prison, and several dry lake beds and sand dunes along the way. This has got to be one of the most boring stretches of highway in California and it’s only marginally more interesting from the air. It takes at least an hour to cover in a helicopter.

It got lighter and lighter as I flew, bringing into sharp focus the nothingness around us. Unfortunately, the rain kept falling. In fact, it rained on us all the way to Blythe. The sun came up and, after blinding us for a while, retreated into the clouds above the horizon. There was some ground fog at Blythe, probably because of the river. Then the rain stopped and we had nice weather the rest of the way to Wickenburg, which we reached by following U.S. 60 after passing over Quartzsite.

Some friends met us at the airport. Mike got out and escorted them onboard — the first of many, many times he’d do this for my passengers — and I gave them rides. Finally, with my fuel nearly exhausted, I shut down.

Some of the airport bums came around to check out the helicopter while we assembled the tow bar and pulled the helicopter into the hangar. We parked it in the same spot my old R22 had occupied for years until the previous October.

I admit that I was saddened to see a bit of paint worn off the blades from flying in the rain. After all, the helicopter had less than 10 hours on it.

The rain came to Wickenburg later that afternoon. But it cleared out by Saturday morning and I was able to work the rides gig I’d planned. That’s also where I had my first bird strike.

But that’s another story.