AircraftOwner Online

Again, but this time with video.

The initial call about the January photo gig at Lake Powell came in December through one of my Russian connections. Apparently, two Russian businessmen who were attending the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas wanted to photograph the Lake Powell area from the air. They were willing to pay me to fly up to Lake Powell from Phoenix and make at least two flights totaling 3 to 5 hours.

Trips like this are extremely costly -- after all, the client has to pay for 4 hours of flight time just to get me up there and back -- and I honestly didn't expect it to happen. But a week before the chosen dates -- January 12-13 -- I got the green light and the all-important credit card number I needed to get paid for that 4 hour repositioning flight plus a standard overnight fee to cover my expenses and compensate me for my time away from home.

The Gig

I admit I wasn't looking forward to the gig. The two photographers claimed to weigh 242 pounds (converted from kilos) and I knew they likely weighed more fully dressed and carrying camera equipment. I calculated the weight and balance as soon as I had this information and discovered that I'd have to strip all non-essential equipment out of the helicopter to lighten it up so we could take enough fuel for 2 hour flight segments (plus FAA-required reserves). Anything that was left on board would have to be shifted from under my seat to under the seat behind me, just to shift weight backwards. Having two fatties -- yes, including me -- up front would make us front-heavy. Having two fatties on the left side would make us heavy on that side. But even after adding 15 pounds of weight for each of them, I confirmed that'd be in balance with 2/3 fuel or less on board.

The other thing that bothered me was weather. Page, AZ was having unseasonably cold weather with daytime highs barely getting above freezing. Flying a helicopter with two doors off guarantees plenty of outside air inside the cabin and no amount of heat is going to win against 30°F outside air. So not only did I have a bit of a challenge ahead of me with a listing (but still within acceptable CG) aircraft to fly, I'd likely be freezing my ass off.

As far as the helicopter goes, I wasn't worried about the cold weather affecting operations. My R44 Raven II is fuel injected, so carburetor ice is not an issue. I'd flown it in cold weather before and it was always peppy -- once I got it started. In fact, that was my only real concern: Lake Powell photographers usually want to get off the ground at dawn for morning flights and with overnight temperatures under 20°F, I worried a bit about getting the helicopter started for its morning flight.

But the gig did have one big thing going for it: at least 4 hours of revenue time. And if there's one thing I'm interested in, it's getting paid to fly.

The Flight Up

Lake Powell is about 200 nautical miles north of the Phoenix area. Since my clients were paying for a 2-hour flight, my goal was to make it there in two hours. That meant flying as close to a straight line as I could.

Using Sky Vector, I plotted a course from Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (KDVT) to Page Municipal Airport (KPGA) with only one waypoint in between: the Little Colorado River Gorge (LCRG) on the east side of Grand Canyon's Special Use Airspace. I wrote down the coordinates for the LCRG to punch them into my GPS -- a recent GPS battery change had wiped my user waypoint list clean. The flight path would take me north along the east side of I-17, crossing it just before it dips down to Camp Verde. I'd cut across the Verde Valley between Sedona and Cottonwood, then climb the Mogollon Rim west of Sedona, pass east of the restricted area for the Navajo Army Depot, west of Flagstaff, and west of the San Francisco Peaks, the tallest mountain in Arizona. From there, I'd drop back down into the Navajo Reservation, flying over its western edge, hop the Echo Cliffs, and drop back down to Page, AZ.

And that's mostly how it all came off.

I departed Deer Valley at about 8:45 AM under partly cloudy skies with little or no wind. It was a cool morning, with temperatures just climbing through the 50s. I crossed Deer Valley's runways at 2000 feet MSL as required by the Tower there and got right on course, aiming for the LCRG waypoint I'd added to my GPS.

It was interesting and different to fly a straight line route through an area I knew so well. After all, I've been flying from the Phoenix area to Sedona, the Grand Canyon, Flagstaff, and Lake Powell for years, so it's not as if the area I'd be flying over was new to me. But I usually fly with passengers on board and, to make the flight more interesting, I fly over or past various points of interest, such as towns, highways, mine sites, and canyons. On this flight, speed was the goal -- I wasn't interested in scenery. But I got scenery anyway -- how can you fly a helicopter through Arizona without seeing something spectacular every mile?

As I flew, my GoPro Hero camera recorded a 720p widescreen video of the flight. Mounted up front, it offered an unobstructed view of everything ahead of me. The wide angle lens brought in details of what was close while pushing back distant points. Later that night, I'd watch much of the 2 hours of video and remember the various points of the flight.

What fascinated me was the way the light changed throughout the flight. At first, it was partly cloudy. Then the sun slipped behind the clouds and it was cloudy. Then the sun began to break through, speckling the mountainsides with light. This still image, captured from the video, gives you an idea of what I mean. The light changed numerous times over the two-hour period of the flight -- at one point, clouding over completely only 1,000 feet above me -- giving the illusion that the flight was conducted over multiple days.

It wasn't just the light that changed, of course. It was also the terrain. Flat desert in the Phoenix area, soft mountains studded with saguaro cacti as I headed north, flat mesas with steep basalt sides, deeply carved canyons, wide valleys, red rock cliffs and hoodoos, alpine forests blanketed with snow, tall mountains, ancient cinder cones, flat "painted" desert, deep gorges, buttes, uplifted cliff faces, slot canyons. I saw it all over the course of my two hour flight -- all without trying to see it. My nearly straight line course simply put me over the top of all these things. I sat comfortable and warm in my seat, admiring the view as I glided over it.

Glided is definitely a good word. There was hardly a breath of wind during the entire flight so it was amazingly smooth. A pilot's dream. And although outside temperatures dipped as low as -5°C, I was cosy and warm with the heat up only about halfway.

One of the highlights of the flight was crossing the red rock cliffs west of Sedona and climbing up over the Mogollon Rim. The light was absolutely perfect, breaking through light scattered clouds to illuminate the rocks with a soft golden light. Absolutely breathtaking and the GoPro camera captured the whole thing.

Beyond that was a surprising amount of snow and a light overcast layer that shrouded the top of the San Francisco Peaks. The temperature there was around 0°C, but the Flagstaff ATIS reported -5°C -- a real thermal inversion only 10 miles east. The low cloud layer and dimly lighted snowfields made me feel claustrophobic. Ahead of me, it looked as if some precipitation could be falling from the clouds. That got me a bit worried about icing, but I continued on. By the time I got to the point I thought I'd seen rain or snow falling, it had stopped -- and so did my worries.

The only surprise on my flight was upon reaching the GPS coordinates for the LCRG. Simply said: it wasn't there. It was about 10 miles northwest of where I'd plotted it to be. I can only assume that I'd punched in a wrong digit when I entered the waypoint into my helicopter's GPS. So rather than fly over its most dramatic point, I crossed a bit to the east and kept going. I deleted that waypoint so I wouldn't depend on it again. Oddly if I'd made a serious mistake in the entry, I would have noticed it a lot sooner. But because it was only off by a little bit, it wasn't until I passed the waypoint that I realized the error. I'll definitely be more careful in the future.

When I got to the empty expanse of the Navajo Reservation, I dropped down and flew low over the ground. There were few homes in the hundreds of square miles and only a handful showed signs of life. In the video, my helicopter's shadow is clearly visible: small when I'm flying higher and larger when I'm flying lower. The video makes it seem as if I'm going much faster during this portion of the flight, but I'm not. I managed to keep a steady 100-110 ground speed for most of the flight. It's just an illusion: the closer the camera is to the ground, the faster I seem to be flying.

I crossed over the Echo Cliffs at Cedar Ridge -- at least I think that's where I was -- and sped across more of the Navajo Reservation north. In all, I think about 45 minutes of the flight was spent over the Rez. It's an amazing land of stark beauty, sprinkled with traditional homesteads, more modern yet simple homes, and, on its far western reaches, the ruins of abandoned homesites clearly visible as rock rings and corrals. The traditional Navajo home is a round or octagonal building called a hogan and they are clearly visible from the air. Also visible on most days are livestock such as cattle and sheep and wild horses.

I descended down toward the lake, flying at a low enough level that I didn't actually see its clear blue water until I was about 15 miles out. Of course, I could see other landmarks -- notably the bulk of Navajo Mountain about 50 miles to the east of Page and the Navajo Power Plant, with tall stacks belching ugly smoke into the air just outside of town. The radio frequency was silent as I descended toward the airport. I lined up with the taxiway and set down on one of the helipads.

The Video

Later, after doing 3.4 hours of photo flying around the lake and points east, I watched the video shot by my GoPro Hero. It was probably some of the best footage I'd ever captured with the camera. My only regret was that I hadn't shot in in 1080p.

Over the course of two days, I assembled a movie from seven-second clips shot during that two hour flight. Last night I added titles and music. I exported it for my iPad and uploaded it to YouTube. Here it is. Enjoy.

In September 2007, I was hired for a five-day aerial photography gig in northern Arizona and the Four Corners area.  After three days at Lake Powell, we moved on to Monument Valley, where my clients had obtained photo permits to legally conduct the aerial photo flights over the Monument Valley Tribal Park. We did several flights over two days, including flights at sunset and sunrise.

This is the account of my fourth day of the gig, on the first morning at Monument Valley. I’d flown at sunset the night before and was low on fuel. Trouble was, there is no fuel for sale at Monument Valley’s airstrip.

I slept badly and was up at 4 AM. It was very dark outside. I needed to make the 30-mile flight to Cal Black for fuel and be on the ramp, ready to fly before sunrise.

My Thoughts on Night Flying

I’m not afraid to fly at night. I do a “moonlight dinner tour” in the Phoenix area that flies all around the area before I return to Wickenburg. It doesn’t matter whether there’s a moon when you’re flying over the urban sprawl that is America’s fifth or sixth largest city. It’s so darn bright that I get reflections from the ground in the bubble.

I also fly around the Wickenburg area at night when there’s a moon. I did it twice in earlier that month. No big deal.

But the Navajo Reservation isn’t anything like Phoenix or Wickenburg. It’s thousands of square miles of mostly empty land with mountains and ridges and buttes and canyons. And it gets very dark at night.

That said, I knew what I needed to do to be on the ramp with fuel in time for my dawn flight. I had to wait until I could see the horizon in the direction I was going to fly—northwest—and then go for it. By the time I got to Cal Black, it should be light enough to see the runway. Ten to fifteen minutes on the ground while Maury (the FBO manager in those days) fueled me would be more time for the sky to brighten. The return flight was toward the dawn sky, so I shouldn’t have any problem coming back.

And that’s pretty much how it all came off. Except that when I took off at about 6 AM, I could barely see that 6,000+ foot ridge I had to cross on the northwest side of the San Juan River. I started climbing immediately. I could see a large butte to my left and had no trouble avoiding it. Below me, each Navajo home I flew near had a big bright light that illuminated the yard. I could see trailers and hogans and trucks. The homes were dark. The occupants were probably still asleep.

When I passed the last Navajo home, still 20 miles from my destination, I suddenly felt very lonely. There were no lights in front of me. Just that dark ridge with a hint of taller mountains way out in the distance. To my left, however, I was very surprised to see a bunch of lights near the base of Navajo Mountain, about 30 miles away.

I continued to climb. I couldn’t remember how tall the ridge was, but I wanted to clear it with plenty of room to spare. 8,000 feet MSL should be enough. I climbed.

And then I saw the lights of the Bullfrog and Halls Crossing marinas on Lake Powell. I wasn’t flying into emptiness. There was something up ahead.

But nothing warmed my heart as much as the rotating beacon at Cal Black airport, which I saw when I was still 15 miles out.

That’s when I crossed the ridge. It was actually a series of ridges with deep canyons between them. Very dramatic during the daylight hours. A cool place to take a hike, I bet—if you could get to them from the ground. I probably cleared the ridges by 1,000 feet, but they looked a lot closer in the gray, predawn light. And I knew that if my engine quit right then and there, I’d be dead. There simply wasn’t any way I’d find a decent emergency landing zone there in the dark.

Fortunately, my engine kept running and I kept flying. After the last ridge, I reduced power and began the long descent to the airport over the downward-sloping terrain.

I’d been making radio calls since I was 20 miles out, calling in every 5 miles. Maury hadn’t replied. He’d told me he slept with the radio on beside his bed. I hoped he had the volume turned up loud enough to hear me and wake up. It would be a bummer if walking to the terminal building to wake him caused me to be late.

I was still 5 miles out when I activated the pilot controlled lighting with five clicks of the mic button. The airport’s runway lights appeared in the gloom, bright white and blue lights that outlined the runway and taxiway perfectly. Now all I had to do was figure out where the fuel pump was along that line.

A light came on over the pump as I neared. And there was Maury, standing by his golf cart. I pulled in close to the pump and shut down.

While he fueled, we talked about the joy of living in remote places. I told him that if he ever wanted to go on vacation, I’d watch the place for him. He told me he’d rather read about vacation places in books and magazines. Less of a hassle. He told me that when he was a kid, he always wanted to be a lighthouse keeper. But now they’re all automated. I pointed to the rotating beacon and told him that he was a lighthouse keeper.

When Maury was finished fueling, I climbed back into the helicopter and started back up. He flicked off the light over the pump just as I was lifting off.

As I expected, the flight back was easy. Clouds in the east showed color briefly as the sun, still beneath the horizon, illuminated them from below. I sped across the desert, climbing the slope to the ridges and crossing over them. In the distance, I could see the lights at Goulding’s. But I could also see the texture of the land I flew over. It was almost daytime.

I set down at the pad at Gouldings at 6 AM. My clients, Mike and Oleg, were waiting.

Photo Flight at Monument Valley

We took off to Monument Valley sometime around sunrise. We weren’t sure if the sun was up or not. The clouds in the east were thicker than I thought and hid the sun from view.

Mike was bummed. The light was too soft. But it wouldn’t be long before the sun peeked over the top of the cloud. He wanted to be in position. So we headed out to the formation commonly known as the Totem Pole, watching the light on the buttes as we went.

What followed was more than an hour of precision flying, following the instructions issued by Mike and Oleg. I flew all over Monument Valley at all elevations, back and forth around the buttes. The scenery around me was beautiful, the light eventually very good. We flew briefly to Agathla Peak (also known as El Capitan), which is halfway between Kayenta and Monument Valley on Route 163. Then back to Monument Valley for more shots.

Another Fuel Run

Although we had enough fuel for a trip to the nearby Goosenecks of the San Juan River, Mike wanted to get there later in the morning, so we went for fuel first. And as we made our way toward Cal Black, I realized that the sky was quite thick with clouds.

Mike noticed, too. “Is it raining?” he asked.

“Looks like it to me,” I said.

“We will get wet,” he said.

“Maybe a little,” I agreed.

He suggested that we go back to Goulding’s and wait until the rain stopped. I didn’t like that idea. First, it wasn’t raining at Goulding’s (yet). Second, we couldn’t see the area where it was raining from Goulding’s. Third, the idea was to fly early in the morning when the light was good. And fourth, I really wanted to get the flight finished so I could get some rest.

Rather than explain all this, I told him that at 90 to 100 knots, which was the speed I was flying, the water tended to skim around the helicopter. This is what I’d always observed in the past. Heck, I’d once flown through the edge of a thunderstorm in pouring rain with all four doors off and had barely gotten a drop on me!

But when we hit the rain, just after crossing the ridge, I realized that Mike and Oleg were indeed getting wet. They moved their cameras away from the gaping doorways. I was nice and dry with my door on.

I should explain something here for readers who are not desert dwellers. In normal climates, getting wet is a big deal. It often means that you’ll stay wet until you do something to get dry. But in the desert, just leaving a wet area is enough to get you dry. The air is so dry that anything that is wet dries within minutes as soon as you take it away from the source of wetness. That’s one of the reasons I don’t mind leaving the windows off in my Jeep, even in the rain. The seats and carpet will dry when the rain stops.

When we landed at Cal Black, Maury was waiting at the pump. It was raining there, too, but had evidently just started. When I told Mike that no, he could not smoke in my helicopter, he and Oleg stepped out into the rain. I chatted with Maury, unwilling to stay dry while he was getting wet for my benefit. When he was finished, I waved the others over. Maury hurried back to shelter in his golf cart. I dried the two passenger seats off with rags I keep under my seat and loaded my passengers in.

“Are we going to leave now?” Mike asked.

“Sure,” I replied. “Why not?”

“Well, it’s raining.”

This is something I don’t understand. So many people think that you can’t fly in the rain. Like the helicopter will melt or something. But we’d flown in the rain to get to the airport. Why couldn’t we fly in the rain to leave?

I pointed in the direction of Goosenecks, where the sky was bright and the sun was probably shining. “It’s not raining there,” I said.

I started up and, a few minutes later, we were heading toward sunshine.

Goosenecks

It was partly cloudy at Goosenecks. We spent a lot of time hovering not far from the parking area—but about 1,500 feet above it. We got a few shots of a rock formation near there, then went back for more Goosenecks shots. The air was relatively smooth, but Oleg did not ask for one of his 360° panoramas.

Then it was done. Mike told me to fly back to Goulding’s.

R and R?

Back at Goulding’s, we put the doors back on the helicopter. I stood on the bumper of Mike’s rental SUV and tied down the blades. Then they departed to rejoin their group. Their plan was to go camping with a guide atop Hunt’s Mesa, which overlooks all of Monument Valley. With clouds moving in, I had concerns about their timing.

Goulding’s lodge had been fully booked, so I was staying in one of the overflow rooms: a nice sized motel room with kitchenette on the west side of the hangar near Goulding’s runway. The pilot lounge, set up with a television and limited kitchen for tour pilots, was next door. My room was extremely convenient for keeping an eye on and prepping the helicopter, but it was a long walk from the lodge building with their restaurant and wifi. Fortunately, Gouldings offered a shuttle service.

I was hungry after the flight, and went up to the lodge and restaurant for lunch: Navajo fry bread with a bowl of pork chili stew. A bit on the spicy side for me, but excellent. Later, in Goulding’s lobby, I checked e-mail and got some work done on my laptop.

It began raining while I was in the lobby doing my work. The tourists who’d eaten in the restaurant clustered together under cover on the stairs, waiting for their bus. No one wanted to get wet. Obviously not desert dwellers. I got a lift back to the hangar. A while later, I was warm and dry in my room.

Visibility in Monument Valley had dropped to just a few miles. I could no longer see the ridge to the northwest that I’d crossed four times that day and the buttes in the valley were shrouded by clouds. It rained on and off. Every once in a while, I’d pop outside to see what things looked like in the valley. A few times, I went out and took photos.  I relaxed.

Later, it cleared a little and the two Huskies that had been on the ramp overnight returned from wherever they’d been all day.

A Bell 206L landed on the helipad beside mine. I was standing in the doorway, looking out into the day while chatting on the phone with my brother when he came in. The pilot shut down and, when the blades stopped spinning, he walked over. Turned out, he was from a company based in Mesa, AZ. He’d been hired as a film ship for a movie being filmed in the valley. As we talked, a Budget rental truck pulled up next to his helicopter and two guys began rigging it with a Cineflex camera mount. I told him about the pilot lounge next door and let him go about his business.

About an hour before sunset, the sun broke through some of the clouds, illuminating one of the buttes. I took out my “good camera”—my Nikon D80 is nothing compared to the super high tech professional equipment carried by the photographers I’d been flying for the past few days—and took some photos, including a panorama of the runway area. I could see the hint of a rainbow to the east, but not enough to photograph.

I thought about my Russian friends atop Hunts Mesa. I hoped they were warm and dry and getting a good show.

I worked on my blog entries into the night. It was very dark when I finally shut off the lights and went to sleep.

 

Note: You can see the photos that accompany this blog post in the January 2011 issue of AircraftOwnerOnline magazine. Just follow the Magazine link at the top of this page.

Although I'm based in the Phoenix, AZ area, I spend an unusual of time at Lake Powell doing aerial photo flights for amateur and professional photographers. In September of this year, I flew a total of 20 hours over the lake with at least 20 different photographers on board. I usually get as far uplake as the San Juan River confluence, which is halfway to Monument Valley. But due to the difficulty and expense of getting aerial photo permits for Monument Valley, I rarely fly there.

The one thing that does get me to Monument Valley is Flying M Air's Southwest Circle Helicopter Adventure. That's a 6-day excursion by helicopter that starts in Phoenix and spends a night at Sedona, Grand Canyon, Lake Powell (at Page), Monument Valley, and Flagstaff before returning to Phoenix. I don't do this trip often -- frankly, it's quite costly and there aren't many folks who want to spring for it -- but I happened to do one in October 2010. In fact, as I'm typing this on my laptop, I'm looking of the window of my room at Goulding's Lodge at the first light striking the famous monuments of Monument Valley.

On this particular trip, I rigged up a GoPro Hero camera on my helicopter's nose. Although I used this "nosecam" to shoot video on the first day of the trip, the mount introduced too much vibration to make the video usable. For the remaining days of the trip, I switched over to still photos. The camera automatically shoots a high resolution image every 5 seconds as I fly. With 720 photos per hour, I usually get a few good shots on each leg of the trip.

Wednesday was one of the most scenic legs of the trip. We flew from Page Airport (PGA) up Lake Powell to the San Juan confluence and then east to the airstrip at Goulding's Lodge in Monument Valley (UT25). On board with me were my two excursion guests and all of our luggage for the 6-day trip. I pack the luggage on and under the seat behind me and sit my guests in the two right seats (front and back) so they get the same view. I then fly to put the best views on their side of the aircraft.

We lifted off from Page at about 2:30 PM. The ASOS reported wind at about 8 knots out of the north, but it sure didn't feel that strong. I made my radio call and then departed right across the runway, heading uplake. A Citation jet called a downwind a few moments later; we caught sight of him high above us as we crossed the airport fence.

Our shadow as we crossed the runway at Page Municipal Airport.

It was a beautiful day, with high, thin clouds tracing lazy lines across a clear blue sky. The October afternoon sun bathed the landscape with a soft light that illuminated the red rock cliffs and buttes, cast shadows in the canyons, and accentuated the blue of the water. Sure, the light was too harsh for the aerial photographers I usually take around there, but for my passengers and me, it was great for taking snapshots of our surroundings.

The first canyon we crossed was Antelope Canyon, which is just east of the airport. Normally, I just buzz across it, but the tour boat was inside the canyon, so I made a turn to the left so my passengers could get a photo of it. I didn't circle, though. I'm extremely conservative with fuel on the fourth and fifth days of the excursion, since there's no fuel between Page, Monument Valley, and Flagstaff (or, in this case, Winslow). I need every drop of fuel I have on board to get to my Day 5 destination on Thursday with required reserves on board.

Most people see Antelope Canyon from the inside, where it's a masterpiece of sandstone swirls carved by wind and water. But this is the view I see most often.

We continued uplake, passing Antelope Point Marina and the mouth of Navajo Canyon. I made a position call a mile north of iconic Tower Butte and changed from the Page airport frequency to the uplake frequency (122.75). I repeated the call on that frequency and got into a discussion with the returning tour pilots. They'd be coming my way at 5,000 feet; I'd stay out of their way by flying at 4,500 feet.

The tour traffic is a major concern for anyone flying at Lake Powell. It's a very good idea to learn the tour routes, altitudes, and reporting points they use before exploring in your own aircraft. There's nothing scarier than flying the lake and seeing a plane flying where you don't expect it, especially if it's not on frequency or doesn't know where it is in relation to the usual reporting points. Ten minutes with a tour pilot and a chart at Page Airport is enough to get the basics.

We slipped between Dominguez and Boundary Buttes at the south end of Padre Bay and continued uplake. Winding canyons opened up on our right. I pointed out a cluster of kayaks near a powerboat in a canyon with water as smooth as glass. In the main channel, you could clearly see the wind on the water. Not enough to make whitecaps, but gusty enough to see round patterns of movement appear and disappear across the water surface.

My usual uplake route takes me between Dominguez and Boundary Buttes. In the far left of this photo, you can see Padre Butte, referred to by local pilots as "submarine." Navajo Mountain looms in the distance.

We passed the south side of Gregory Butte and Last Chance Bay as two tour planes flew by overhead. Last Chance is a long, wide canyon with steep sandstone walls. It's a long boat ride to the end where there are a few sandy spots suitable for houseboat parking. Distance to parking and the cost of fuel are part of what keeps the canyon free of traffic, even during busy summer months. On this October day, however, the whole lake was quiet; I don't think we saw more than 20 or 30 boats.

We flew over the main channel of the lake as the canyon narrowed. One of my passengers pointed out Dangling Rope Marina and asked me about it. I told her what I knew: it was a marina only accessible by water. There were no roads in or out. I then told her a story about our stop there 20 years before on a houseboating trip. How I miss cruising the lake in a houseboat!

Over the main channel of Lake Powell just uplake from Last Chance Bay. The canyon walls rise about 800-1,000 feet off the water's surface here.

We were nearing the mouth of the canyon that would take us to Rainbow Bridge. As I flew, I'd been listening to the radio and knew there was a female pilot in the area. I also knew there was another tour plane behind me, on its way to "the bridge." It's a tight squeeze in the canyon and my challenge is always to stay as low as possible to ensure my photography clients can get the shots they need. Over the years, I've perfected my approach.

The female pilot was just leaving the area when I reached the mouth of the canyon and turned in. I flew up the canyon at 5000 feet, telling my passengers what to look for as we flew: the dock, the trail, the giant stone arch of Rainbow Bridge. I was busy keeping an eye on the mesa to the right of the helicopter. On a day like that one, with occasional gusts of wind, I wouldn't get any closer than 200 feet from it's edge. I verbally pointed out Rainbow Bridge when I saw it, keeping both hands on the controls. We flew past and they snapped photos. I circled around the back, assuring the pilot behind me that I'd stay at or below 5000 feet until I was clear of the area. Then, when abeam the bridge a second time, I broke off to the left and climbed out toward the San Juan Confluence.

This wide-angle shot gives you an idea of how tricky the area around Rainbow Bridge is. I get very close to that mesa top. Can you see the bridge in the photo?

The trickiest bit of flying I'd have to do on the entire trip was behind me.

I climbed to 6500 feet to give my passengers a good view of the twists and turns of the San Juan River just upstream from the confluence. Then I punched in my user waypoint for Goulding's Lodge, adjusted course, and headed east over the eroded desert terrain south of the San Juan River.

The San Juan River twists and turns dramatically before meeting the Colorado.

We were east of Navajo Mountain now and the area was riddled with water-carved canyons, windswept rocks, and stunted trees. Below us, here and there, were two-track roads leading back toward the river. One of the roads looked very well maintained, although there was no sign of any homesteads or other reason to use it.

We flew over the top of No Man Mesa, where two or three ranches are scattered. A pickup truck drove slowly along a two-track toward one of the ranches. We saw a herd of horses and a flock of sheep tended by a dog before crossing over the top of the mesa and beginning our descent toward Monument Valley. The famous monuments started coming into view as we rounded the edge of a cliff face.

A wide canyon cuts across the desert just past No Man Mesa. While not as beautiful as the Grand Canyon, it offers a glimpse of what the Grand Canyon may have looked like before it became grand.

I switched to the Monument Valley frequency and heard several tour planes making calls. I leveled off at 5500 feet and flew directly over the first paved road we'd seen since leaving the airport. Ahead of us, at the airport, I could see three tour planes launch, one after the other. One crossed overhead in front of me, the others climbed out beside me and likely crossed behind me. All of them were returning to Page the quick way. They'd be back within 30 minutes; we'd taken 60.

Before landing at Gouldings, I always make a quick loop around the western part of the Monument Valley Tribal Park. That day was no different. I climbed to 6000 feet and followed the road into the park. Once I reached the visitor center area, I banked left toward the Mitten buttes. I flew between them, on a route the tour pilots refer to as "splitting the mittens." Then I banked left again and headed back toward Goulding's.

The two Mitten Buttes (East and West) are iconic Monument Valley images.

I restrict my quick loop around Monument Valley to the west side of the park to minimize noise impact on the ground.

As we came in for a landing, a small herd of horses, spooked by the sound of my helicopter, galloped across the desert east of the airport, kicking up fine red dust.

Monument Valley Airport has just one way in and out. Not the kind of airport where you want to overshoot the runway.

It had been a good flight with few bumps or unexpected challenges. Later, in my hotel room at Goulding's Lodge, I was pleased with the quality of the images my Hero camera had captured. What a great way to document a flight.

Note to Pilots: If you do plan a trip to Goulding's Lodge, remember that the airport there is private and for use by Goulding's guests and tour clients only. Go to Goulding's Web site at www.Gouldings.com to learn more about restrictions regarding airport use.

Last month, I presented the first half of our cross-country helicopter flight from Wickenburg, AZ to Seattle, WA. Here’s the rest of that trip.

    Back at the airport the next morning, the helicopter was all fueled and ready to go. Louis did a very thorough preflight and, after saying goodbye to the FBO guy, we climbed in and started up.

    Our route would have us following Route 101 north, through an area of low mountains and rivers to the coast at Eureka. From there, we’d follow the coast past Newport and head inland to Portland. That was the plan, anyway.

    The morning was cool with a very gentle breeze as we headed north. We were at the northern end of Sonoma Valley, where it narrowed. We climbed into the hills. As we climbed, the landscape changed. There were tall pine trees, rocky outcroppings, and rushing rivers below us.

    We continued up route 101 until it dumped us into a valley at Eureka. In the distance, beyond numerous farm fields, we could see the ocean with a marine layer moving it. It appeared that we’d have the same coastal clouds we’d had the day before. I wasn’t interested in flying over the tops of clouds along unfamiliar coastal terrain. I wanted to go inland. But with fuel at half tanks, I also wanted to top off fuel before we changed course. According to the chart, Murray Field at Eureka had fuel. So we headed in and landed at the field.

    The FBO gal greeted us on the radio when Louis set down near the pumps, telling us she’d be right out. Murray didn’t have a fancy self-serve system. In fact, it had the sort of system we had at Wickenburg when I ran the FBO back in 2003—completely manual. The FBO gal came out to keep us company while we fueled. She was soon joined by a man who, after exclaiming that a “flying tomato” had landed, struck up a lively conversation about Eureka, the Phoenix area (where he’d once lived), and alternate routes.

    By this time, the wind was coming off the ocean, bringing clouds inland with it. You could see wisps of clouds speeding east, over the airport. We were advised to head north along the coast until we got to Crescent City, then follow route 199 (I think) inland to Grant Pass. That’s where we could pick up I-5 north to Portland. I was doubtful; I really didn’t want to fly over the clouds for the 50 to 60 miles to Crescent City. But I decided to take a look.

    We said some quick goodbyes and started up. I took off, climbing steeply at 1000 feet per minute through a scattered 200-foot ceiling of clouds. From that vantage point, it was easy to see where the clouds ended and the land began. Sometimes the clouds would be out over the ocean. Other times they stretched inland into the mountains. I handed over the controls to Louis and we continued north along the edge of the cloud bank at about 1,500 feet.

    We didn’t even realize that we were passing over the Redwood forest until Louis asked me about it and I checked the chart. The tall trees didn’t really look special from above. But when you looked down into the forest, you could clearly see that one kind of tree towered above the others. From down on the ground, these trees are amazing. From 1,500 feet above sea level, passing over them was a non-event.

    The cloud bank had shifted out a bit to the ocean by the time we reached Crescent City. It was very tempting to continue north along the coast. But when I looked out beyond the nearest clouds, it seemed to me that the clouds were thickening, climbing higher into the sky. I didn’t want to have to climb with them. And I certainly didn’t want to lose sight of the ground. So I decided to head inland, following the advice of the guy at the FBO. We turned east, found route 199, and followed it.

    This route wound along a number of valleys and canyons past tree-covered hills and mountains. The streams and rivers below us were gushing with white water from snow melt. The northwest had had plenty of snow during the winter months and the recent record high temperatures were melting that snow quickly. Later, I’d hear on television about the flooding expected in Portland, Seattle, and other communities near rivers and streams.

    After a while, we broke through the mountains into the valley at Grants Pass. We picked up I-5 and headed north into more hilly terrain. I noticed on the chart that a local mountain pass had its own automated weather observation system (AWOS) and I tuned into the frequency to get weather information. A similar station on my route between Seattle and Wenatchee would be useful when it was time to move the helicopter to Quincy for June and July.

    At Myrtle Creek, the mountains ended, dropping us into a broad valley. The highway straightened and we followed it. By this time, I was pretty hungry and fuel was dipping to quarter tanks. It seemed like a good time to look for lunch and fuel. As we approached Creswell, just south of Eugene, I heard other pilots talking in the pattern. I asked if there was a restaurant and was told that there was a sandwich place just a quarter mile away. We headed in for landing.

    The fuel pumps were decidedly helicopter-unfriendly. Maybe you know the kind: they’re situated at the edge of the ramp and have a shade cover over them that extends out to the ramp area. The shade’s height is about even with a helicopter’s spinning blades. The trick is to hover close enough for the hose and static reel to reach but not close enough to hit the shade with your blades. Louis did a marvelous job, landing to one side so that airplanes could still roll up next to us. I was hoping to leave the helicopter parked while we went to get some lunch.

    The hose just reached the helicopter—Louis had to stretch it out while I fueled. I topped off the tanks. Then we used the facilities and I went in search of someone who could tell me where the food was. I found two people in a small trailer that seemed to house a flight school. It turned out that the restaurant was more than a quarter mile away—on the other side of the airport, as a matter of fact—and that he wanted us to move the helicopter before we walked there. I wasn’t interested in either the long walk or moving the helicopter. So we decided to continue on, with the promise of a Chinese restaurant right at the end of the runway at Albany. I like Chinese food and rarely get an opportunity to eat some.

    We continued north along I-5. I should mention somewhere here that we caught glimpses of some of the Cascade Peaks along the way: Mount Jefferson, Mount Hood, and later, Mount St. Helens—all huge snow-covered peaks towering above the terrain. We were getting rather close to Portland. It seemed stupid to land at Albany and waste an hour when we could press on to Portland, arrive by 3 PM, and get some food there. So we decided to skip lunch. We snacked on the sugar snap peas I’d brought along and kept in my little cooler.

    About 20 miles south of Portland, I dialed in Portland Approach and told them where we were and where we wanted to go. Although we were landing at Portland, it wasn’t Portland International. It was Troutdale (TTD), which sits on the Columbia River just east of Portland. Neither Louis nor I knew the area, so I used the magic word: “unfamiliar.” We got a squawk code for our transponder and vectors toward Troutdale. When we got closer, we were handed off to Troutdale Tower. I told the controller we wanted to land at “TV Land”—which is what I’d been told—and he guided us in to a ramp near the east end of the runway. The grassy field I’d been told to park in was clearly visible and I told the controller we’d land there. Louis set us down and we shut down.

    We’d stopped in Portland so I could get some specialized cherry drying training in preparation for my summer job in Quincy, WA. I worked with Dave, who was kind enough to spend some time with us, on Sunday evening to cover some of the basics over dinner. We flew on Monday morning.

    When I was finished flying with Dave, Louis and I reloaded the helicopter and started north. We were on the last leg of our flight from Wickenburg to Seattle and had chosen a relatively direct route. Expected flight time was less than an hour and a half.

    The day was overcast, with high clouds masking the sun. A dreary light illuminated the landscape. Although the temperatures were mild—in the 60s—it felt like winter. I didn’t take many photos. The light was just too darn ugly.

As we flew, we had clear views of Mount Hood, Mount Adams, Mount St. Helens, and Mount Rainier, four of the tall peaks of the Cascades. All were covered with thick caps of snow.

    Our course took us quite close to Mount St. Helens. So close, in fact, that when Louis asked if I wanted to fly over Spirit Lake, I said yes. Mount St. Helens, which was once just another beautiful snow-capped peak, had a massive eruption in 1980 that blew off its top and most of the north side of the mountain. Nearby Spirit Lake was the recipient of much of the ash and other debris that increased the water level and changed the look of the lake. The best views of the volcano are from the north, where you can see the lava flow and debris field. Since we were so close, it made sense to take a look.

    By the way, if you’re ever in the area, visiting Mount St. Helens, I highly recommend taking a helicopter tour up the valley to the mountain. The views are up close and personal, much better than the photos here.

    I punched Boeing Field (BFI) into the GPS and we got back on course. We passed far to the west of Mount Rainier, then headed inbound. Louis had done much of his training at Boeing Field, which is squeezed into a tight area north of Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) and Renton (RNT), I so I turned all navigation and communication over to him.

    In the meantime, I was getting seriously stressed about the amount of small airplane traffic around us, most of which was showing up as targets on the helicopter’s TIS system. We were flying up in “airplane land”—the same altitude small airplanes fly at when they’re trying to stay under the class Bravo airspace. This wouldn’t have been so bad if we were talking to a controller who could advise us of traffic, but we weren’t. I urged Louis to descend and he did. But it wasn’t until we were cruising at about 500 AGL that I felt comfortable again.

    We landed at Boeing Field and set down near Pad 6. The mechanic who was going to be doing my helicopter’s annual inspection, Rich, came out to meet us. A while later, all of our gear was unloaded and they were wheeling Zero-Mike-Lima away. I wouldn’t be seeing or flying it for more than two weeks.

            We’d completed the flight from Wickenburg to Seattle in about 13 hours of flight time. Louis was home, but I was only halfway through my travels.

Benjamin Franklin, printer, scientist, diplomat, signer of the Declaration of Independence, among his many wise sayings, coined, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

 

That aphorism perfectly characterizes the work of the International Helicopter Safety Team, or IHST, that Mark Schilling wrote about in the July/August 2010 FAA Safety Briefing Vertically Speaking column. That column introduced IHST’s work to reduce the worldwide helicopter accident rate by 80 percent by 2016. The approach: Rigorously analyze accident data and then develop mitigations based on the analysis.

 

The U.S. Joint Helicopter Safety Analysis Team (JHSAT) is the IHST element that analyzes U.S. helicopter accidents. JHSAT includes members from FAA and NASA, helicopter and engine manufacturers, operators, and helicopter associations. The team does not determine probable cause; that’s the role of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Yet, JHSAT uses the significant amount of information gathered through NTSB investigations to probe deeper than the probable-cause finding. For example, for a helicopter accident earlier this year, NTSB stated the probable cause as: “The pilot’s failure to maintain control of the helicopter during takeoff.”

 

That is the probable cause, but, it alone, does not provide the needed information to develop an effective ounce of prevention. That’s the point of the JHSAT’s work—better understanding the factors that lead to accidents in order to develop the most effective interventions.

 

Over recent months, JHSAT analyzed 523 helicopter accidents from the NTSB accident docket for U.S.-registered type-certificated helicopters. The product: Thoroughly researched findings on the leading problem areas in U.S. helicopter safety and recommended interventions. It should be no surprise that the analysis affirmed what many already know—the biggest safety challenge is addressing “pilot judgment and actions.”

 

The judgment of a pilot is often the initiating event in the accident sequence and comes into play in all phases of flight. One of the first questions is whether the preflight planning was sufficient? Did the pilot adequately consider the enroute weather? At other times, the pilot’s incorrect judgment or reaction during flight turns a manageable situation into an accident. For example, an improperly executed autorotation following power loss as well as attempts to fly to the destination airport after a hydraulic system failure, rather than landing at the first suitable area, has led to accidents.

 

Since the pilot is the single-greatest factor affecting accidents, improving pilot judgment and performance offers the greatest area for improvement. The JHSAT’s strongest recommendation was for improved pilot training, specifically for “training on cues critical for safe flight.”

 

While the pilot has the last opportunity to affect a given flight’s outcome, the pilot’s organization has the first opportunity to affect the safety of all its flights. This involves, of course, the organization’s commitment to safety, both in general and in terms of its specific commitment to operate under a Safety Management System (SMS). That’s what the JHSAT found to be the second greatest problem area: the lack of an organizational SMS.

 

An effective SMS incorporates both organizational and individual risk management. For example, an organization with an SMS provides clear guidance on whether a flight occurs or not. An organizational SMS can include standard operating procedures on such topics as weather minimums, crew-rest requirements, landing-zone requirements, and oversight of remote operations. To address this problem area, the IHST provided an SMS toolkit that helicopter operators can use to develop their own SMS.

 

This is a snapshot of a major work in progress. The JHSAT will continue to analyze what it hopes will be fewer helicopter accidents and provide additional recommendations on prevention strategies.

 

Jim Grigg, Co-Chair of the Joint Helicopter Safety Analysis Team, is an Aviation Safety Engineer at the FAA Rotorcraft Directorate in Ft. Worth, Texas.

In May 2008, another helicopter pilot and I flew my helicopter from Wickenburg, AZ to Seattle, WA as the first step of repositioning the helicopter to Central Washington State for cherry drying season. It was the longest cross-country flight I’d ever completed, taking more than 10 hours of flight time over three days.

 

    My companion, Louis, was a recently certificated flight instructor interested in building time in R44 helicopters to qualify him for flight instruction in that aircraft. Louis did most of the flying, leaving me to document the flight with photographs, which appeared in a series of blog posts. This article is adapted from those blog posts.

    We got off the ground around 6:15 AM, which Louis says is a big accomplishment for him. He’s not an early riser like I am and waking up at 5 AM was a bit of hardship for him. But an early departure was vital. Temperatures in the Arizona and California deserts were expected to reach 100°F. We were flying west, so the sun would be mostly behind us during the 4+ hour flight. That was a good thing. But midday, the sun would be shining into the cockpit and no amount of forward speed would get cool air moving through the ventilation system. I wanted to be on the
coast by noon.

    From Wickenburg, we headed almost due west to Parker, AZ. I’m very familiar with this stretch, having flown to Parker many times. It’s a pretty dull flight across the desert. We crossed the Harcuvar Mountains at Cunningham Pass, crossing one of the empty valleys where Patton once trained his tank corps. Patton’s training area stretches for well over 100 miles between the area north of Chiriaco Summit on I-10 in California to the area north of Bouse, Arizona. From the air, you can still see the faint double lines of tank tracks criss-crossing the empty desert.

    A short while later, we reached Parker, AZ, along the Colorado River. On the right, we could see the airport with its new runway. On the left, we could see the farmland south of Parker, with the blue ribbon of the Colorado River winding away toward Mexico.

    From Parker, we continued west toward Twentynine Palms, CA. This was probably the most dreary part of the flight—mile after mile of empty desert. I didn’t take many photos. The only point of interest was a “substation” (according to my chart) at Iron Mountain north of Joshua Tree National Park. The open canal winds its way to the base of the mountain and enters it there, coming out of the mountain on the opposite side. Are they generating electricity there? Or is it a pumping station? Either way, Louis and I agreed that it was weird for the canal to take a detour through the mountain when it could have easily followed the road.

    We continued through Twentynine Palms, then headed northwest around the mountains of Big Bear to our first fuel stop at Hesperia. I’d never been there before; I usually refueled at Apple Valley. Louis landed on the runway and I hover-taxied us through the dusty ramp area to the self-serve pump. We worked together to fuel quickly. It was getting hot—nearly 90° at about 9 AM—so after a quick bathroom break, we took off again. By that time, a bunch of small airplanes were coming in, probably to fuel up. Hesperia was the cheapest fuel around.

    We continued west. The area beneath us was now densely packed with homes. We passed south of Palmdale Airport, flying between the canal and the main road. A while later, we were climbing into the foothills of the mountains. We passed just south of the Gorman VOR at Grapevine and continued on up a valley. It was a pleasant flight between rolling hills covered with green and tan grass and billions of orange flowers. Beneath us were ranches and small lakes—and the same road my husband and I had driven on two years before on a road trip to Napa, CA.

    Soon we were headed down the opposite side of the mountain toward the Pacific Ocean. I dialed in the ATIS and Tower for San Luis Obispo and started a dialog with the tower controller. She directed us to park in an area marked “No Parking” (which I still think is funny). We shut down and went into the restaurant for lunch. I was surprised to see four airliners come in during the short time we were there: American, Delta, US Airways, and United. They were all small commuter planes, although one of them was a jet. I didn’t think San Luis Obispo was that popular.

    Once away from San Luis Obispo, we headed northwest, intersecting the coast at Morro Bay. Anyone who has driven the Pacific Coast Highway (the PCH; Route 1) can tell you how incredibly beautiful it is from the road. But that’s nothing compared to the view from 1,000 feet up, just off the coast. I took quite a few pictures, experimenting with my fisheye lens along the way.

    A while later, we took a detour past Hearst Castle at San Simeon. My camera was having trouble focusing through the Plexiglas—I really should have taken the door off—but I managed to get a pretty good shot of this monstrosity, despite the glare. Mike and I had visited it years ago and it really is amazing inside.

    We continued north along the coast, taking a minor detour past Hearst Castle at San Simeon. Although we were wearing life jackets—which insisted on—I didn’t want to be beyond gliding distance of shore. Louis, who lives and trained in Seattle, is used to flying over water; I’m not. If we had a problem, I wanted to come down on dry land. Of course, for much of the distance, the only suitable landing zone on the coast was the thin ribbon of the PCH. An emergency landing would not be pretty.

    I made a communications error as we approached Monterey’s class C airspace. We needed to go through the airspace, with the permission of the tower, to stay on our coastline course. Unfortunately, we were flying at 1,000 feet with 2,000-foot mountains between us and the tower. Instead of climbing right away as I should have, I waited until we were only 7 miles out. We still had to climb to talk to the tower. The tower told us to call NorCal approach. I did and received a transponder (squawk) code. But they didn’t tell us we could enter. So we circled around just south of Monterey’s airspace, waiting. Finally, when they figured they’d punished us long enough, they got on the radio and told us to talk to Monterey tower. I gave them my request and was approved. We went back down to the coast to transition at 1,000 feet. The entire process took a good 15 minutes, but I learned my lesson. I’d call NorCal approach in the future.

    We flew past Monterey and Pebble Beach, cutting across the peninsula to save time. On the other side, the tower instructed us to head due north, right across the bay. We were about three miles offshore, only 1,000 feet off the water, when I started getting nervous. I asked the tower if we could either come in closer to shore or climb. (I really do hate flying over open water.) The controller sounded annoyed, but let us come back to shore. Then he cut us loose, telling us to call NorCal Approach. I was glad to be rid of the Monterey area.

    A while later, when we were still about 40 miles short of Half Moon Bay, we saw the marine layer starting to build along the coast. This was a bad thing for navigation. We’d planned on hugging the coast all the way to the Golden Gate so we wouldn’t have to talk to San Francisco tower for a transition of the area. But with very low clouds blanketing the coast, that would not be possible. Louis wanted to climb above the clouds and follow the coast anyway, but I was definitely not interested in that. My VFR on top experience is limited and it never included large bodies of water. Besides, what was the sense of flying above the clouds when we could fly somewhere else with a better view?

    So we climbed to 2,000 feet and I managed to get the Flight Service Station on the radio. I asked if the low cloud condition persisted all the way to the Golden Gate. She told me that her satellite image was not that detailed. So we decided to take a more inland route. When she told us she couldn’t give us flight following at our altitude, I volunteered to climb to 3,000 feet so she could see me on radar. I don’t think she was happy about it. She turned us over to NorCal Approach just as we passed Half Moon Bay. I was glad we hadn’t landed there for fuel, since the clouds had already covered half the runway.

    NorCal approach gave us a squawk code and confirmed that it saw us on radar. Then it turned us over to San Francisco Tower. They asked us to climb to 3,500 feet. That’s like nosebleed territory for me, but we complied without complaint.

    The view from up there was absolutely amazing, with the marine layer coming in from the west like a thick, white, wooly blanket. To the east, however, the airport and city remained perfectly clear. I got a few good shots as we flew through.

    I also got a chance to show off my traffic information system (TIS), which only works in Class Bravo Airspace. It clearly identified a number of targets that we were able to see in the air. With the fog coming in through the Golden Gate, all the sightseers were out in their planes. The tower warned us about a small Cessna at our altitude as we approached the bridge area. He recommended that we climb, but since we were already a bit lower, I told him we’d descend. Louis dropped us down another two hundred feet and we passed behind him. I don’t even think he saw us. I really don’t like flying high because of the planes that are up there. There are seldom any planes down at 500 to 1,000 feet AGL.

    San Francisco handed us off to Oakland Center as we continued up toward Sonoma Valley. We’d planned to refuel at Healdsburg, but the delay at Monterey had eaten into our fuel reserves. We decided to stop at Petaluma, which was at 20-30 miles closer. When I told Oakland Center that we wanted to discontinue radar coverage because we needed to make a fuel stop at Petaluma, he asked if we needed any assistance. I guess he thought we were really low on fuel. I told him we were fine and squawked VFR.

    Petaluma is a very pleasant airport. Louis set us down right in front of the self-serve pump and we shut down. Then we got right to work. We were both very tired and I know I just wanted to finish up for the day. It wasn’t far to our overnight stop at Ukiah.

    We took off a while later and the heat hit us soon afterward. Inland California was suffering a heat wave. We’d avoided the bad heat for most of the day, but it had finally caught up with us at 4 PM in that valley. The OAT hit 101°F at one point. The sun was coming in through Louis’s side of the bubble. It was hot.

    But we reached Ukiah quickly and without incident. The FBO guy topped off the fuel tanks and helped us get rooms and a cab. We wound up with a pair of “King Suites” at the local Comfort Inn for the astoundingly good price of only $89. Free Internet (WiFi or Ethernet), free breakfast, a pool, and a Starbucks right across the parking lot. Who knew traveler heaven could be found in Ukiah, CA?

 

Next month, I’ll fill you in on the remaining two legs of our trip, through Oregon to Portland and then past Mount St. Helens to Seattle.

    Helicopters have a reputation for being high utility aircraft. Sure, we all think about their uses for search and rescue, firefighting, and emergency medial services (EMS). And some of us might think about electronic news gathering (ENG) and traffic watch. If you live in a metro area, you’ve likely seen police helicopters and if you vacation in scenic areas, you may have enjoyed a sightseeing flight.

    But helicopters are used for far more unusual endeavors: logging, seismic survey, Christmas tree harvest, bird control, crop spraying, frost control—the list goes on and on. Cherry drying is the unusual helicopter service I provide.

    Here’s how it works. During the last three weeks of so before picking, cherries are susceptible to water damage. When it rains, the cherries get wet—especially around where the stem attaches—and if left that way, they can rot or split. The packing houses won’t buy damaged cherries because the public won’t buy them.

    There are several things growers can do to get rainwater off the cherries. They have big fans in the orchards that blow air over the tree tops. They have blowers that they normally use to spread fertilizers, pollen, and other substances that, when empty, simply blow air. But neither of these methods are as quick or effective as having a helicopter hover over the treetops, using its downwash to blow the branches around, thus shaking and blowing the water off the ripening fruit.

    A handful of helicopter operators provides cherry drying hover service to cherry growers in Central Washington State. It’s a very short season—some pilots are lucky to get three weeks worth of work. On a dry year, an operator is lucky to break even. On a wet year, an operator can do pretty well. The flying is dangerous and tedious. The standby conditions can be unpleasant and mind-numbingly boring. But as I begin my third season doing this work, I’ve learned to enjoy it.

    I got my start in 2008, working as a subcontractor for another pilot. He, in turn, subcontracted out to another organization that hired pilots with their own helicopters for the work. So rather than work directly for the growers, I worked for one or two middle men.

    The summer of 2008 was unusually dry. I was on contract for three weeks without having to fly even once. Then I relocated for a 10-day contract that based me in Pateros, WA, right on Lake Pateros. I was living in a motel on the lake with the helicopter parked outside on a patch of grass. I’d expected to have that week off and my husband, Mike, had flown up from Arizona to spend the week with me. The 10-day contract was a pleasant surprise. It also turned out to provide the only two flying opportunities for me the whole summer. The first came on July 1.

    We were watching the weather radar on the Internet and saw what looked like a little “perfect storm” converging on the town of Brewster, just up the river from my motel in Pateros. Convective activity to the west, east, and south all moved toward each other, as if they were magnetically drawn together. But it was the thunderstorm cells from the southeast that actually hit the town, one after the other. The wind kicked up, lightning flared, and whitecaps appeared on the normally calm lake surface. Although not a drop fell on us eight miles downriver, we could clearly see that Brewster was getting dumped on.

    My boss called. “It’s raining like hell in Brewster,” he said. One of the growers had called him to report in. I was put on “active standby.” Since it was only around 6 PM, that meant there was a pretty good chance I’d fly.

    We waited, watching the storms move through. An Enstrom helicopter came upriver and slowly settled down over an orchard just south of the downpour, upriver from our position. Beyond him, the sky was dark gray and forked lightning bounced from cloud to cloud. He wasn’t there long. He departed to the southeast.

    My phone rang again at about 7 PM. “I’ve got some for you,” the boss said. “Got a pen?”

    He listed five orchards. I wrote down their names. They were all within 10 miles of each other, starting just upriver from my position. By that time, the wind had calmed. Although it looked as if it might still be raining in Brewster and beyond, it had apparently stopped over my orchards.

    “Okay,” I told him, “I’ll get started.”

    I changed into my flight suit and put on socks and sneakers. Then I went down to the helicopter with Mike. We pulled off my door and the tie-downs. The motel guests saw what we were doing. There were some kids and they started asking questions. Mike told them he’d answer all the questions when I was gone.

    I started up the helicopter and organized all my gear out on the passenger seat while I was warming up: my handheld GPS with coordinates for all the orchards and a loose-leaf binder with marked-up aerial photos of all the orchards. I plugged my cell phone into the device I’d bought to enable cell phone communication in flight. I tuned the radio into the frequency Mike would be monitoring on the handheld: 123.45. Then I finished my startup process, gave Mike a thumbs up, and took off.

    I was climbing through about 200 feet, heading upriver, when my phone rang. It was the boss. “C called and says its raining there,” he told me.

    C was the second orchard I’d be drying. (I won’t use real names here for various reasons.) It was across the river from the first and not far from where I’d seen the Enstrom do some drying at least 30 minutes before.

    I asked him what he wanted me to do. He responded that he was just letting me know. I ended the call. I was already arriving at the first orchard, M.

    M’s orchard was snuggled into a strip of land between a rocky bluff and a road. The rows stretched across the field at an angle that went downhill toward the river. I got down low and flew around two of the main block’s three sides to get a handle on how I’d tackle the job. At that time, I also looked for obstacles. The only power lines were on the other side of the road and were not a factor. Other than that, there were three tall PVC poles that stuck up about 5 feet above the tree tops in various locations and, of course, that rocky bluff.

    I settled into a hover five feet over the treetops on one end of the block and worked my way down the first row, from the rocks to the road. I pivoted with a pedal turn over the road, pleased that the wind wasn’t going to fight me. Then I worked my way up the next row. At the top, I sidestepped to the next row, made a 90° pedal turn, and began flying sideways down the row. When I was sure my tail would clear the rocky bluff, I completed my turn with another 90° pedal turn and continued down the row.

    I repeated this process at the top and bottom of each row, noticing a few things as I flew:

 

    • There was enough wind to push the downwash I generated to the southeast side of the helicopter. So as I flew over one row, I was really drying the row next to it.

    • When I flew downhill, I flew higher and faster than when I flew uphill. Both made perfect sense, although the speed was sloppy flying. I had to fly higher on the way downhill to prevent my tail rotor from tangling in the trees uphill, behind me.

    • It was extremely difficult to see the rows of trees. They were big and bushy and, from the air, there wasn’t much space between them. I had to rely on occasional views of the reflective material on the ground to remain lined up.

    • I was generating a lot more downwash than I expected. I may have been flying a little low.

 

    I was about a third of the way through the field when it started to rain. Keeping in mind that it was my job to dry the cherries, it didn’t make much sense to dry them when it was still raining. So I decided to call it quits and work on the next block, Orchard C. I flew across the river. It was still raining there, but much lighter. As I did my reconnaissance around the field, the rain just about let up. I settled down over the first row of trees and started drying.

    This block was also on a slope, but a much gentler one. Its main obstacles included a tall fan in the middle of the field and a set of power lines that ran across the upriver side of the block. Down below were numerous white picking buckets like the 5-gallon plastic “cans” filled with paint that you might buy to paint your house. The helicopter’s downwash sent most of them flying—in fact, if anyone had been down there, he would have been in serious danger. There were also some ladders, most of which were lying on the ground. The ladders must have been sturdy because my downwash did not knock over any of the ones that had been left standing.

    I went up and down the rows, being careful to avoid the wires at the end of each row when I made my turn. When I got to the rows closest to the fan tower, I simply sidestepped around it, double-drying a set of trees a bit farther away and pretty much avoiding the ones closest to the tower. But I think that my altitude—ten or so feet off the top of the trees—spread the downwash around enough to get most of the trees. I wasn’t going to get fancy with the maneuvers I’d learned on my training flight in May—not on my first flight, anyway. I finished that field in about 20 minutes, then climbed and crossed the river. Then I restarted the first block, Orchard M.

    In the meantime, I could hear other pilots on the radio. There was a group working out of Brewster Airport. One of them was flying a JetRanger; another was flying a big Sikorsky. They were working together, somehow. I didn’t see them. Later, I did see a few Sikorskys hovering over fields in Brewster. They looked like big bugs hovering 50 feet off the trees.

    I finished the main block of Orchard M and repositioned over a tiny block of younger trees farther down the hill. The trees were smaller and I found that I could dry two rows with one pass. I finished them off quickly and pulled up, heading toward my next orchard. I’d finished 23 acres (including the re-do) in a little more than an hour. Not exactly fast, but with ferry time factored in, it wasn’t bad.

    My next orchard was full of surprises. Only 3 acres in size, it was shaped like a quarter circle. The rounded edge was lined with seven very large pine trees. Where the trees ended, a set of power lines completed the border of the field. There was a house on one side and another house not far away from the rounded edge. I soon realized that I’d have an audience for my flight as I saw folks gathering along the deck of the second house.

    As I approached the orchard and got ready to settle down to tree top level, I saw two areas where the tree branches were going wild, as if Big Foot were walking among them. It turned out to be ground blowers that the grower was using to get the drying process started. The first time I got into the wake of one of these blowers, I got pushed around quite a bit, but when the grower realized I was overhead, he repositioned to one end of the orchard and shut down.

    Meanwhile, I’d begun drying. In this particular orchard, due to the shape of the block and the size of the trees, it was impossible to see the rows. I’d fly down what I thought was one row, make a complex turn at the end to avoid a big pine tree, and get ready to start up the next row only to realize that I’d either already done that row or I’d missed a bunch. Fortunately, my downwash was covering more than just one row at a pass and I had to satisfy myself (and the grower) with that.

    Near the end of the block, while making a difficult turn to avoid a big pine, I heard a loud noise and felt the helicopter shudder. At first, I thought my tail rotor had struck the tree and I shot forward to clear it. But the helicopter seemed to fly fine and, as I continued flying, I figured I must have just overflown one of the bird cannons. Erik, who had hired me for the summer, had warned that it would “scare the crap out of you the first time you hear one.” He wasn’t kidding.

    As I neared the very last row of the block, I realized that it was uncomfortably close to the power lines I’d noticed there before. Still a little frazzled by the loud noise I’d heard only minutes earlier, I decided I’d done enough. I lifted up and started toward my next orchard.

    I climbed to about 250 feet to cruise to the next orchard and consulted my list of orchards to do. I knew I had only two left. That’s when I realized that I’d forgotten to do the one near to the quarter circle. The only problem I had was that although I had a photo of the block, I’d never actually seen it in person from the air. We’d skipped it during my preview flight and I didn’t have its coordinates. That meant I had to find it from the air while in flight, using the photo as my guide.

    It’s not as easy as it sounds. There were orchard blocks all over the place below me. I had to get down low to look at the fruit on the trees. Most of them seemed to be apples and pears. When I finally found a cherry block, I assumed I had the right one and settled in over it. It was a block of young trees in a very easy layout with no obstructions. Nice and calming after the previous block.

    I noticed my phone ringing and reached out to answer it. It was Jim, another pilot who is based in Chelan. “Dan’s on the phone with the grower. He says you’re drying the wrong block.”

    I found that hard to believe. How many cherry blocks were
out there?

    “He says to go closer to the gray house.” What followed were instructions relayed by phone to get me in the right place. It was a lot like the game kids play when they’ve hidden something and give instructions to find it. “You’re getting warmer, it’s to your right, now it’s behind you.” You get the idea. I finally homed in on it.

    The block was easy and went quickly. I was definitely able to dry two rows at once and that really sped things up. I was making up for my earlier slow flights. As I flew back and forth, I caught sight of the people on the gray house’s porch supervising. Then I was done and climbing out for my last orchard.

    I had the coordinates for that, as well as the photo. I should have followed the GPS until I got a bit closer before descending to look for the fruit on the trees. I was cruising over orchard blocks at about 50 feet when I saw a set of power lines crossing the road about 150 feet in front of me. I pulled pitch and brought the cyclic back smoothly. Two men walking on the road stared as I climbed almost straight up to clear the wires. Whew! Learned my lesson. I followed the GPS the remaining 3/4 mile to the field.

    This last block also had blowers going. It was a nice 6-acre block with no wires and just one fan tower. I settled down 10 feet over the space between two rows of relatively young trees and followed them to the end at about 10 knots. When I got near the end, I spotted the grower watching me from a seat on an ATV. He gave me a thumbs up.

    I can’t tell you how good that simple gesture made me feel. It was my first day on the job and I’d made someone—a man who had waited more than 90 minutes for me to arrive—happy. Maybe I’d saved his crop. Who knows? But it sure made me feel good as I cruised over every other row of trees, drying the whole block in about 15 minutes.

    By this time, it was nearing 9 PM. The sun would be setting shortly. The storm had cleared out and the setting sun was casting an orange light over the Columbia River and mountains on the east side. It was beautiful. I climbed up to 400 feet and pushed a few buttons. Soon I had the boss on the phone. I told him I was done and asked if there were any others. He couldn’t hear me. Not at all. He told me to do the one I’d just finished, but if the grower waved me off, I should forget about it. But the grower had given me a thumbs up. I was done. Since I couldn’t communicate, I hung up. I figured I’d call him from the ground.

    I got Mike on the radio and told him I was coming in. He met me on the lawn beside the motel, holding my door. I shut down and we buttoned the whole thing up, adding fuel to top the tanks and putting on the tie-downs.

    That’s when I got a good look at the tail rotor. Although it was not damaged beyond a bit more paint worn off, it did have signs of something green on each blade. Maybe that loud noise wasn’t a bird cannon after all.

    I’d flown 2.1 hours. Although I probably should have done the work more quickly, this first flight taught me what to expect and how to get the job done more efficiently.

    I flew again two days later. When my ten-day contract ended, I went back to my base in Quincy and twiddled my thumbs for three weeks of beautiful, rain-free summer days. My total cherry drying flight time for the entire season was less than five hours.

    Afterwards, I headed home to Arizona, where I did aerial photo flights over Lake Powell for two months. By the middle of October, I was back in the Phoenix area, prepping for the winter season.

    Last year, the season was even drier—if that’s possible. If it weren’t for the standby pay, I would have had a very heavy loss.

    But this year is different. As I write this in early June, I’ve been on contract just four days and I’ve already flown twice. Growers who didn’t hire pilots have lost their crop, making the remaining cherries very valuable. This promises to be a profitable year for me and the growers with enough foresight to get cherry drying hover service protection.

    I now work directly for a handful of growers, providing them with better service while making a bit more money by being able to cut out the middleman. I take an active role with them in monitoring the weather and protecting their crop. When the picking is done I get more fresh-picked cherries than I can eat.

    Best of all, I’m away from the brutal heat of central Arizona’s summer.

It’s often said, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” When it comes to improving rotorcraft safety, this is certainly true. The model followed is the Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST); the follower is the International Helicopter Safety Team (IHST).

 

The helicopter community came together in 2005 to form the IHST, whose sole purpose is improving helicopter safety. The seminal meeting was the first International Helicopter Safety Symposium (IHSS), hosted in Montreal by the American Helicopter Society International (AHS), Helicopter Association International (HAI), and AHS Montreal/Ottawa Chapter. At this meeting, participants made a compelling case for change. For instance, the worldwide number of helicopter accidents has remained relatively constant at around 600 per year. The United States, which comprises about half of the worldwide fleet of rotorcraft, accounts for about 40 percent of the annual accidents—or about 180-200. Based on these numbers and the desire to do better, participants achieved agreement to form the IHST.

 

Early on, the IHST membership strongly agreed that work to improve helicopter safety must follow three basic tenets that are so successful with CAST:

 

- Solutions must be data driven, i.e., based on actual accident data.

- Helicopter community stakeholders must perform the analyses.

- Performance of recommended safety improvements must be measurable.

 

The key to success is examining and understanding accident data. For example, two thirds of the 2001 U.S. accidents were in part 91 operations. The majority of these accidents occurred during personal/private flying and instructional/training operations, with EMS operations in a not-too-distant third place. Based on the data, we know the top accident categories were loss of control, auto rotations, and system-component failures. The main causes were attributed to poor pilot judgment and actions, lack of safety management systems, and inadequate pilot situational awareness.

 

This tells us we can do better. IHST, which includes international partners and members from helicopter operators, manufacturers, maintenance organizations, as well as regulatory and accident investigation agencies, set an ambitious goal: Reduce all helicopter accidents by 80 percent by 2016.

 

The IHST approach is working. Here’s how. IHST has one group that analyzes accident/incident

data and another group that develops prioritized interventions based on the data analysis. The worldwide data reviewed includes the full range of helicopter design types—from small reciprocating engine helicopters to large multi-engine turbine types. The analysis team also addresses the varied missions flown by helicopters in conjunction with the wide spectrum of operators, from single helicopter operators to large companies with complex organizations.

 

We’re finding common themes across the community. We are close to developing the ten top accident causes/causal areas, which, in turn, will help us focus our intervention strategies. Here’s an example. We already know there are too many accidents involving helicopters that provide emergency medical transport. Yet, further study shows that the accidents are more frequent during the repositioning of the helicopter, not during the actual transport of the patient to the hospital. This is a crucial piece of information in designing the intervention that will make the biggest difference for safety. For one, it focuses our attention on the existing regulations and the need for implementing a safety management system and risk management procedures for large and small EMS helicopter operators.

 

In another example, we know that leading factors in accidents—especially for helicopters operating under part 91 in personal/private flying and in instructional/training flying—are loss of control and the inability to control the helicopter during an autorotation. This guides the workgroup as it develops interventions that could take us back to the basics: Reviewing Practical Test Standards, knowledge test questions, and advisory material. This could lead to changes to training and testing standards with a sharpened focus on autorotations and loss of control, aeronautical decision-making training, and improved access to helicopter

simulators and flight-training devices.

 

Yes, knowledge is power. The knowledge that the IHST is gaining about the “whats” and “whys” of helicopter incidents and accidents is going a long way to inform safety professionals on how to more effectively prevent accidents and save lives. It doesn’t get any more important than that.

 

Mark Schilling, acting manager of the FAA’s Rotorcraft Directorate, co-chairs the IHST with Matt Zuccaro, president of HAI.

    Last month, I told you about my flight from Wickenburg, AZ to Georgetown, CA, which is in the Sierra Nevada foothills, not far from Sacramento. I spent a few days with my friends and taking care of business. By Saturday, it was time to go home.

    I’d left Zero-Mike-Lima at Placerville after giving rides to my friends, Rod and Liz, and some of their family members. After breakfast, they brought me up to Placerville’s ridge top airport. It was about 11 AM by the time I was ready to go and a beautiful clear day was quickly filling with puffy clouds. After much hugging and many thanks, I cranked up, warmed up, and took off.

    The first stop was Mariposa, to take advantage of the “cheap” fuel there. On the way, I passed over Columbia again. There was a parade in town and I altered course just a little to take a look before going on my way. When I landed at Mariposa, I was the only one at the pumps. I took my time about arranging the awkward platform ladder and filling both tanks. A biplane was parked nearby and after a while a couple came out and stood by it. I assumed it was their plane. They didn’t talk to me and I didn’t have anything to say to them, so there was no conversation between us.

    “When are you going to get fuel?” the woman asked the man.

    “Well, when she’s done and she hovers away, I’ll move the plane over,” the man said.

    The conversation ended. The woman walked across the ramp to one of several V-tail Bonanzas parked there. I began to get the idea that they weren’t flying in the biplane. She came back and continued to hang out with the man. A woman who worked at the FBO came out and chatted with them. She didn’t talk to me either. I was starting to feel like a social outcast. I don’t think I’d ever been at a less friendly airport.

    I finished fueling, put the receipt in my Hobbs book, and went inside to use the bathroom. I was about halfway to the building when I heard the woman say, “For Christ’s sake. We’re never going to get out of here.”

    She obviously knew exactly how I’d felt only a few days before when two airplanes took their time fueling while I was waiting for them to finish, spinning my blades 100 feet away.

    I left a short while later. I was following the same flight plan I’d used earlier in the week, but in reverse. It was all programmed into my GPS, so it was easy enough to do. The weather was still nice, clearer than the day I’d flown up but with big puffy clouds. Mountains gave way to farmland that stretched out as far as the eye could see. Then, at Porterville, the foothills began and I started climbing again. It was after 1 PM and the clouds seemed to be descending faster than I was climbing. I was 30 miles away from Tehachapi when I listened to the Bakersfield ATIS and learned that the clouds were scattered at 3,600 with a ceiling of 4,200. Tehachapi was at 4001 feet.

    Soon I was flying around clouds, following valleys and ridge lines. Scud running. I’d approach a ridge at about 100 feet above it and, if I could see the next ridge, I’d cross it. If not, I’d follow the ridge line down toward the valley until I could see the next ridge. I did this for about 15 minutes, venturing far to the west of my course. Soon, I wasn’t getting any closer to Tehachapi and I wasn’t climbing. I reached the valley where a highway and railroad track climb up to Tehachapi and followed it with my eyes. I got about 2 miles before the road disappeared beneath the clouds.

    Damn.

    I punched the NRST (nearest) button on my GPS and learned that Bakersfield Municipal was 15 miles to the northwest. I changed course and descended. A while later, I was on the ground, parked in a transient parking space conveniently located beside the self-serve fuel island, at Bakersfield Muni. It was sunny there, but back in the direction I’d come from, the sky was full of low clouds. The tops looked pretty high, but not high enough to be convective. The bottoms blended into a white haze that shrouded the mountains.

    I used my cell phone to call Flight Service. It connected to Prescott’s FSS. Not what I wanted. I hung up on the recording.

    I pulled out my Airport/Facilities Directory and tried an after-hours phone number for Tehachapi Airport. The idea was to get a report of weather conditions from someone on the ground there. No answer.

    I called the AWOS at General Fox in Lancaster. Clear skies, 10 miles visibility. Winds 10 miles per hour. It was less than 40 miles away as the crow (but obviously not the helicopter) flies, but it could have been in another world.

    Then I spotted a pay phone. I dialed Flight Service’s toll-free number and was connected to the Rancho Marietta FSS. I pushed the appropriate buttons and went on hold. Instead of music, they played a recording of a current AIRMET. Mountain obscuration, it said. Duh. Really?

    I was finally connected to a briefer. I gave him my N-number and told him I was a helicopter trying to get from Bakersfield Muni to Apple Valley over the pass at Tehachapi. I told him it was socked in and that I’d tried to cross but had turned back. “If a helicopter can’t make it,” I told him, “you know it must be bad.”

    He laughed. He then consulted the info he had. “When the wind blows from the northwest through that Central Valley,” he told me, “The clouds sometimes get piled up in the southeast corner.”

    “That’s what it looks like,” I told him.

    “Let me look at the satellite images,” he said. There was a pause, then, “Oh yeah, that looks like a mess. But over by Gorman, it isn’t so bad. You might be able to make it that way.”

    “I’ll have to check my chart,” I said.

    “Well, if you’re steering about 110 degrees for Tehachapi, you’d be steering about 160 for Gorman. You’d be following I-5 through the Grapevine.”

    I’d heard of Grapevine and told him.

    He described the road up to the pass, which was at 4200 feet. “There’s a flat grassy area at the top,” he said. “If things are dicey, you could always fool around there for a while.” He meant that I could land, but he wasn’t about to say that. “Just be careful for the power lines.”

    I’d heard about the power lines. We talked a bit more and I thanked him for his help. He reminded me that they always welcome Pilot Reports, then hung up.

    I went into the FBO, used the bathroom, then went back to Zero-Mike-Lima and topped off the tank closest to the pumps. When you’re heading into weather, you can never have too much fuel. I already had enough for at least another 90 minutes of flying time, but wound up putting another hour’s worth in. Why not?

    I consulted my charts and decided on a route that would take me to route 99, which intersected with I-5 a bit further south. I’d follow that up to the pass. With my plan made, I started up, warmed up, and took off.

    I flew over route 99 at about 500 feet AGL. Movement to my right caught my eye. It was a crop duster, painted bright red, yellow, and green, coming toward me on the west side of the road. It let a bit of smoke loose and rocked its wings as I diverted to the east a bit to give him room. He was flying about 200 feet below me. That’s something I’m not accustomed to: a plane flying below me.

    When I hit I-5, I started climbing. The road climbed up the mountains and I climbed with it. The clouds closed in, but always remained above me. At the highest point, when I was about 4500 feet MSL, the clouds were still at least a few hundred feet above me. I managed to snap a photo of the pass. I saw the flat area the briefer had told me about -- it was the same spot I’d decided to make my turn to the east. I turned, crossed the area, and began my descent.

    I hit some nasty turbulence as I descended. The wind was coming over the mountains there, causing mountain waves or rotors. I got bumped around quite a bit and had to reduce power and speed. My descent rate at one point was about 1500 feet per minute. Then I was off the mountains, in the valley beyond, heading toward Rosamond, listening to the controller at Fox (Lancaster) try to direct a half dozen planes that didn’t seem very interested in acknowledging his instructions.

    It was a perfectly clear day on the south side of the Tehachapi Mountains. The clouds were stuck, but were trying to overflow down into the valley. I snapped a photo to document the sight. I realized that there was no way I’d ever be able to get through the mess sitting on top of that pass.

    The rest of the flight was uneventful, if not downright boring. I had a 15-20 knot tailwind most of the way and averaged about 120 knots ground speed. At Apple Valley, the restaurant was closing early, but the manager had the cook make me a turkey sandwich. It was about 4 PM.

    I ate, topped off the tanks with fuel, and headed out again. I was now on the home stretch, with only two waypoints between me and Wickenburg. Then one. Then just Wickenburg, 157 nautical miles away.

    I was exhausted by the time I got to Cunningham Pass, but got my second wind over Aguila. I dropped down to about 300 feet AGL and sped across the desert. The wind had died down and the flying was smooth again. After the power lines at Forepaugh, I followed 60 at about 200 feet AGL for a while, racing the cars below me. I set down on the ramp at Wickenburg at 6:20 PM.

    It had been a good, long trip. Just what I needed to get flying out of my system for a few weeks.