AircraftOwner Online

My friend, Rod, who flies helicopters throughout the west during the fire season, had been asking me to come visit him and his significant other, Liz, in their new home in Georgetown, CA for some time. Georgetown is not far from Placerville, where I visited them in my R22 back in November 2003. It’s also not far from Sacramento. So when Apple Inc. invited me to show off my latest Mac OS book at an internal event in Elk Grove (just south of Sacramento), and the Arden Fair Apple Store gave me a time slot for a presentation on the same day, it seemed like a perfect excuse for a cross-country flight in my five-month-old Robinson R44 Raven II helicopter. Nothing like mixing business with pleasure.

I took off from Wickenburg on Tuesday May 3, 2005 just before 9 AM. I’d planned the flight out and had checked the weather. Except for moderately high winds in the Edwards Air Force Base area of CA, the weather looked good and I was confident that I’d make the 500+ mile trip in one day. My calculations showed about 5-1/2 hours with two fuel stops. I headed almost due west from Wickenburg, with Twentynine Palms punched into my GPS as my first waypoint. That was a distance of about 150 miles.

It was all familiar terrain; I’d flown the route before. It passes just north of Aguila, slips through Cunningham Pass in the Harcuvar Mountains, cuts across the barren desert, and crosses the Colorado River just south of Parker. Then it’s more barren desert, marked up by the tread tracks of World War II tanks. The area was used extensively for tank training, and the two-track marks are still clearly visible from the air for mile after mile. I crossed over the town of Rice, which is no more than a deserted landmark. The flying was smooth and I listened to tunes on my iPod as I flew. It’s a good thing I had the iPod for entertainment, because there was very little beneath me worth noting. I skirted along the northern boundary of Joshua Tree National Park toward Twentynine Palms. There were signs of civilization beneath me. Small square houses scattered on the north side of the road. All of the homes were abandoned and there wasn’t much around them to indicate why they’d been built in the first place.

I crossed over Twentynine Palms and my GPS automatically steered me toward the next waypoint, Williams. There was nothing going on at Twentynine Palms, but at least I was flying over a good-sized town with things to look at. I’d flown to Williams airport before, but it wasn’t called Williams. I couldn’t remember what it had been called until I flew over it again: Hi Desert. It was painted on the runway. The place had been for sale the last time I’d stopped. I’d been in the R22 and had stopped there for fuel. It had one impressive home on it and the rattiest restroom I’d ever been in. I guess someone bought it and changed its name. I didn’t stop that day; the R44 holds more fuel so I didn’t need to stop until my next waypoint, Apple Valley.

There was a student pilot in the pattern at Apple Valley when I arrived. I think he was Asian, if his accent was an indicator. I got in behind him on downwind, watched him turn base and final, then cut in behind him, crossed the runway, and landed on the ramp. There were two men there, sitting in the shade of an Decathalon’s wing. After I landed, one of them climbed aboard and taxied away, leaving his companion on the ramp. I shut down and walked to the FBO to place a fuel order. Then I hit the terminal for the bathroom and a bite to eat. It was about 11:20 AM and I was right on schedule. I’d planned to leave Apple Valley by noon.

The restaurant at Apple Valley, Leonard’s, wasn’t anything to write home about. But it does make hot food. I ordered bacon, egg, and cheese on an English muffin -- they serve breakfast until 4 PM -- but was told that I could save money by ordering one of the breakfast plates. Rather than argue with the waiter, I just ordered what he suggested. When the food came, it was bacon and egg on a buttered English muffin with potatoes on the side. No cheese. Whatever.

Outside, a biplane landed and picked up the man who’d been on the ramp. I started thinking about whether it was possible to cross the country as a hitchhiker at small airports. You know, hitching rides with local pilots who are going 20 or 30 or 50 miles in the direction you want to go. Sounds like a summer adventure when I run out of money and have to sell Zero-Mike-Lima.

I paid for my breakfast and fuel, did a walk-around of Zero-Mike-Lima, and climbed on board. When I took off, it was just after noon. The first waypoint was Southern California Logistics (Victorville), the only towered airport I transitioned. It was about 10 miles from Apple Valley, so I reached it quickly. The controller cleared me across at 2800 feet and gave me the altimeter setting.

Victorville is an airliner graveyard. The last two times I’d crossed over it, I’d noticed a lot of Tower Air planes. A friend of mine, Alta, used to fly for Tower. This time, there were lots of United planes. The Tower planes were in the process of being chopped up. It was a very sad thing to see.

From Victorville, I flew toward Rosamond. On my last trip, I’d been stuck at Rosamond for an overnight stay because high winds made it hazardous to cross the mountains. I had no plans to ever stay at Rosamond again.

My flight path took me over even more empty desert with even more deserted homes in the middle of nowhere. To the north, I could see the huge dry lake bed of Edwards Air Force Base. But it wasn’t all dry. The heavy rains in the southwest seemed to have filled the southwest corner of the lake bed with water, making a shallow lake. Rosamond’s lake was full or overflowing, too.

I flew over the airport at Rosamond, exchanging calls with a southbound airplane pilot who passed about a half mile to my left about 200 feet up. Then I headed north, toward Tehachapi, where I planned to cross into the central valley.

The mountainside approaching Tehachapi from the south is a wind farm. There are hundreds of windmills. The 15-20 knot winds forecast for that time of day in the area didn’t seem to have materialized. It was a relatively smooth flight as I climbed over the windmills. Only about 2/3 of them were spinning. New ones were under construction. It was nice to see that someone was interested in alternative energy sources back then.

I crossed over the mountain town of Tehachapi and its two small airports. One of these days, I’m going to land there.

Next waypoint, Porterville, 62 miles northwest. I’d programmed all of this into my GPS, so navigation was an breeze. I backed it all up by keeping track of my location on a sectional chart. The charts were all piled up on the passenger seat, folded so I could see what I needed to. Very neat.

A while back, I saw an AOPA safety video about situational awareness and over dependence on GPS for navigation. If your GPS fails, do you know where you are? I’ll never forget that video. That’s why I have the charts to back me up.

I was descending over the foothills of the Sierras, about halfway between Tehachapi and Porterville, when I started hearing a weird metallic clicking sound. It sounded like the seatbelt latch being snapped. Once, twice, a few times more. Then a steady but irregular stream of clicks. I looked around in the cabin, but could not figure out what was making all that noise. My instruments looked fine, the helicopter was handling fine. What the hell was it?

I was starting to think about making a precautionary landing, when I looked through the bubble as a huge bug hit the Plexiglas. Splat! Then clink! I was flying through a bug storm and the clinks I was hearing was the sound of bugs hitting the rotor mast shroud and skid pants. Sheesh! I descended a bit, but it didn’t subside. I started wondering whether the helicopter was being damaged and felt helpless to stop it. It went on for at least fifteen minutes. Then the sounds subsided and I continued my flight looking between bug splats.

The terrain here was gently rolling hills of greenish grass with scattered trees. Pretty but not outstanding. Not much in the way of civilization, although I did cross over a few remote ranches. By the time I got to Porterville, I was down in farmland. There had been some mild turbulence as the wind over the hills tossed me about. But then even that subsided. I was flying at about 500 feet above the ground with a white haze above me and limited visibility in all directions except down. Welcome to California’s Central Valley. I could see the ground perfectly well. The radio, which I tuned into the proper frequencies for radio calls throughout my flight, was quiet. No one was interested in flying in this white muck.

I passed over Sequoia and Reedley on my way to my next fuel stop at Mariposa. Somewhere along the way, I left the farmland and started climbing back into the foothills. By the time I reached Mariposa, I was in rolling mountains full of thick green grass and flowers, dotted with tall trees and cows. I crossed over a small herd of cattle on a hilltop, scattering what looked like javelina, before landing on the taxiway.

Two airplanes were at the self-serve fuel pumps. One had already fueled and its door was open but its pilot was nowhere in sight. The other was being fueled. A few men were chatting nearby. I hovered for a moment, then set down on the ramp about 30 yards away to wait. Spinning. Burning fuel. You think these airplane pilots would get the hint, but they were either being very dense or very rude. After about 10 minutes, I picked up and moved over to the other side of them, making it clear that I was waiting to get at the pumps. By this time they were both done fueling and they were just bullshitting. Seeing my helicopter a bit closer (and feeling its rotor wash) woke them up. They climbed on board and moved so I could get at the pumps.

The airport was beautiful. Well, the airport wasn’t beautiful. The area around the airport was beautiful. To the northeast was a high hill covered with grass and trees. As I fueled my helicopter, a cow and calf walked by on the other side of the fence. I could hear cows calling to each other. I took a photo, but it doesn’t do the place justice.

The airport staff was unhelpful and unfriendly. But the fuel was the cheapest around. And the bathroom was clean. So I guess you could say it was a good stop.

I took off on my final leg to Rod’s place, passing over Columbia and Placerville on the way to the coordinates Rod had given me. I passed over many canyons filled with rushing water. It was really beautiful -- so different from the barren desert I’d been flying over earlier in the day.

I zeroed in on the coordinates without much trouble, but beneath me were just trees and houses. On my third circle, I saw Rod down below, waving at me. I recognized his house from the pictures. I set up for an approach and started in. But the landing zone was surrounded by tall pines and I had to fly right over his neighbor’s house to land. I was about even with the treetops when I decided that I didn’t like the LZ. I added power and pulled out. I circled around, waved to Rod, and headed for the airport at Georgetown, only 2-1/2 miles away. (For the record, I did land there in September 2009 when I came through from Seattle to Wickenburg with my husband. But that’s another story.)

Rod arrived as I was cleaning bugs off the bubble (for the third time that day). He gave me a big hug and spent some time admiring Zero-Mike-Lima. Then we loaded my gear into his Jeep and headed back to his place.

The following days were a lot of fun. The helicopter stayed parked – except for short rides for Rod, Liz, and Liz’s nieces – so I won’t bore you with the details here. In the coming weeks, I’ll tell you about the return flight, which wasn’t nearly as smooth.

Maria Langer is a freelance writer and commercial helicopter pilot based in Arizona. The owner/operator of Flying M Air, LLC, she flies passengers on tours, day trips, and multi-day excursions throughout the southwest. Maria’s stories about flying helicopters will soon appear in a new book tentatively titled, Flying Helicopters: My First Ten Years. You can visit her online at www.MariaLanger.com.

It took four hours of flight time in a single day to shake the flying bug out of my system after being without an aircraft for three months. On that January 2005 day I ran errands all over Arizona in my Robinson R44 helicopter.

FAA Medical

    I started out with a flight from Wickenburg to Prescott. It was time for my annual FAA medical exam. As a commercial pilot, I needed a Class 2 medical certificate, which must be renewed every year. January is my renewal month.

    My doctor of choice was Dr. Gordon Ritter at Prescott Love Field (PRC). Dr. Ritter’s office is right across the road from Prescott tower. Although I could land on the ramp behind his office, I decided to fly in to Guidance Helicopter’s ramp on the other side of the airport. My 1987 Toyota MR-2 was in the parking lot there and I hadn’t driven or even seen it since I brought it down from the Grand Canyon in October. I figured it was high time to see if it was still there and still ran. Besides, I had to talk to the folks at Guidance about a number of things. And heck, it’s always nice to show off a new helicopter where helicopter pilots will see it.

    So I flew into Guidance and parked on the ramp. I was running late, so I just gave the folks in the office a quick hello, telling them I’d be back in an hour or so. My Toyota was right where I’d left it. I got in, removed the sunshades, and turned the key. The darn thing started right up. The engine sounded like the car was staying, “Hey! Finally! Where the heck have you been? Let’s go!” I love that car.

    Although Dr. Ritter’s office is right across the airport, you can’t get there from Guidance. Not on the airport property, anyway. You have to go out and around. In fact, you have to get on a highway (the Pioneer Parkway) and get off at the first exit. It’s about a 10-minute drive, with traffic lights.

    I was worried about my medical. The week before, I’d stopped by the blood pressure machine at Safeway Supermarket and put my arm in. The number it came up with was a bit on the high side. Dr. Ritter always seemed to find my blood pressure high, even when my primary care physician in Wickenburg didn’t. Maybe it has something to do with elevation. (Wickenburg is 2400 feet; Prescott is 5000 feet.) Anyway, I figured that if I saw it high down in Wickenburg, Dr. Ritter would see it high up in Prescott. And with a new helicopter to pay for, I couldn’t afford to have any questions about my medical certificate.

    So I was nervous that Monday morning in Dr. Ritter’s waiting room. Nervousness doesn’t do anything positive for blood pressure, either. And the thought of that was making me even more nervous.

    I wasn’t the only person waiting. Dr. Ritter does a booming business. In the hour I was there, he saw at least 10 people. He has a receptionist who gives you the form you fill out, gives you a cup to pee into, and retrieves the cup when you’re done. The doctor’s son, Garth, takes your blood pressure. Then the doctor spends about 5 minutes with you, checking your eyesight, listening to your heart, and taking your blood pressure.

    Yes, the doctor took my blood pressure, too. When Garth did it with the machine, the numbers he came up with didn’t make sense. At least that’s what he said after he did it the first, second, and third times. Seemed I had a nice slow pulse rate but high blood pressure numbers. “Better let the doctor do it,” he told me, leaving his form blank.

    Of course, that only made me more nervous.

    But in the doctor’s office, the nervousness subsided. He took my blood pressure and the numbers must have been good. I didn’t ask what they were because I didn’t want to start a conversation about blood pressure. He said my pulse was soft and hard to hear. I’d heard that before when I gave blood, so it didn’t surprise me.

    I discovered that my left eye sees better than my right eye and that my short vision is still very good.

    I looked out the window while we were chatting and saw a huge hangar under construction. I pointed that out to the doctor.

    “Yes, that’s mine,” he said proudly.

    “What are you going to do with it?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine how many aircraft it would take to fill it.

    “Lease it,” he said. “Are you interested?”

    “How much?”

    “Six thousand a month,” he told me.

    “I’ll pass,” I said. That’s all I needed. Another $6K of monthly expenses. I still wasn’t sure where I was going to come up with the
$4K a month I needed to keep Zero-Mike-Lima.

    Back in the waiting room, the receptionist was typing up my new medical certificate.

    “I guess I don’t need this anymore,” I said, extracting my old medical certificate from my wallet.

    “Would you like me to shred it for you?” she said, without looking up.

    “I think I’ve already taken care of that,” I replied. She looked up and saw the mangled condition of the little piece of paper that I held up. I’d been caught in a rainstorm at the Grand Canyon over the summer and my medical certificate, which had been folded in my shirt pocket, had been soaked with the rest of my clothes. It was torn and barely legible. Everyone in the waiting room had a good laugh.

    Mission accomplished. I was good for another year.

Eating, Socializing & Showing Off

    I drove my Toyota back to the other side of the airport. I went into the FBO, ordered fuel, and changed the N-number for my credit card record on file. This made it possible to order fuel for my helicopter at Prescott without coming into the FBO to pay or even hanging around while it was being fueled. Then I went into the restaurant for a nice breakfast sandwich: bacon, egg, and cheese on an English muffin. Sodium! Yum!

    Over at Guidance, I chatted with the owner about the drug testing plan I needed for my Part 135 certificate, a bird strike I’d had on Saturday, and miscellaneous other helicopter-related things. He brought me into the hangar to show me “R44 Pods” — skid-mounted storage units. They were very impressive, but very expensive: about $6K for a pair. He told me they make a golf-club sized pod that he hasn’t gotten yet. That interested me. One of the things I’d been wanting to do was take golfers to/from Los Caballeros and valley golf courses via helicopter. I think that if I pushed hard enough, I could create a market for it. At that point, however, I didn’t have time to push and, even if I did, I didn’t have the $8K needed to buy the big pods.

    Before heading back to the helicopter, I called Paul, my first flight instructor. He worked for a charter operator down in Scottsdale. I was going to Scottsdale later in the day but had time to kill. I thought I’d kill it down there with him, showing off Zero-Mike-Lima and having lunch at the airport. But Paul had the day off (it was Martin Luther King, Jr. day) and was spending it with his family. When he heard what I had in mind, I think he was on the verge of saying that he’d come meet me. But I didn’t give him the chance. I’d show it to him another time.

Killing Time

    So now I had at least three hours to kill before meeting George for some practice. I decided to spend it by putting a couple of waypoints in my GPS.

    I took off from Prescott and flew north, to my property at Howard Mesa. I was quite pleased to see that the ugly double-wide across the street still had a For Sale sign in front of it. One of my biggest fears is that some weirdo, anarchist drug maker will buy the place, set up a meth lab, and fill the yard with junk. It’s bad enough I have to look at that double-wide. I sometimes fantasize about winning the lottery (which I do play relatively regularly) and buying the place, tearing out the double-wide to restore my view and using the excellent solar power setup for my own home on my own lot. They say the best way to assure that you like your neighbors is to buy their property. If only I had the money to do it. That place would be history. I’d have that doublewide towed away before the ink on the title papers dried.

    I landed on the gravel helipad we’d put in over the summer. The weeds I’d sprayed with poison were dead, but still rooted firmly. There were patches of snow on the ground. It was 10°C and breezy. I set up a waypoint and named it HMESA. Then I spun up and took off. I headed out toward a house on the other side of the mesa where some people we met had decided to live year-round. It didn’t seem as if anyone was home. So I dialed Sedona into the GPS and headed southeast.

    The flight to Sedona was pleasant. The closer to I-40 that I got, the more ice and snow was on the ground. A huge field that I-40 cuts through was so covered with ice and snow that it looked like a lake from the air, with the highway cutting through it on a causeway. I reached a small canyon where snow melt was running off. I followed the canyon as it grew, looking below me for waterfalls. I wanted to fly in the canyon, but didn’t have a chart handy and couldn’t be sure that there weren’t wires running across it somewhere. So I stayed above it and enjoyed the view from there. The wind was doing weird things over the hills and the ride got a bit bumpy — the kind of bumps that scare first-time helicopter passengers. Nothing serious. But it was the first bumpy flying I’d done in the new ship.

    Sedona was pretty quiet. As I approached from the northwest, I heard a plane land and another take off. As I got closer, I saw one of the tour helicopters flying alongside the red rocks north of the airport. I realized that I could also apply for a summer job with that outfit. That would be plan E or F. I had to work through other summer job plans first. The Grand Canyon, I had already decided, would be plan Z.

    I crossed over the top of Sedona airport and headed south, flying right beside Bell Rock near Oak Creek. There were tourists parked alongside the road below me and I wondered whether any of them took a picture of me. I also wondered how the red helicopter would look next to the red rocks.

    I picked up the Verde River, which was flowing pretty good with brown, silty water, and followed it to Camp Verde. Along the way, I crossed over two paved runways that were not on my GPS. I saw the Montezuma Castle National Monument and got a glimpse of the cliff dwellings from the air. Someone had suggested hooking up the tribe that runs the Cliff Castle Casino near there for tours and that was high on my list of plans for a summer job. I think it was Plan C. A friend of mine who trains horses is living on a ranch in the area and told me I could park my trailer there. She’d train my horses while I gave rides for the casino and lived in the trailer. Now that may not sound glamorous, but if you remember that my main goal was to escape the worst of the summer’s heat, it didn’t sound bad at all.

    I followed the Verde to Red Creek, which is southeast of Payson. Red Creek has a landing strip and a few amenities that make it a nice place to stop for a picnic or camp overnight. I’d tried to arrange a heli outing there on Sunday, but no one could come. I landed on the strip, which was in terrible condition, and created a GPS waypoint I named REDCK. (With only five characters to work with, you get creative.) Then I took off and continued down the river, overflying the shorelines of Horseshoe and Bartlett Lakes, which were nearly full. I hopped over the mountains, crossed over the top of Carefree Skyranch, flew to Scottsdale Road, and made my approach and landing at Scottsdale Airport (SDL).

The Avionics Guy

    It was just after 1 PM. I had two things to do in Scottsdale. First, I needed to contact the avionics people at the FBO to see whether they could program my GPS and transponder to talk to each other. I had a Garmin 420 GPS and Garmin 330 Mode S transponder in my ship. If they were properly connected to each other and programmed, the transponder would take traffic information provided by ATC in metro areas and put it on the GPS as targets. I bought the system not because I was interested in seeing traffic on my GPS — although I admit that could be useful and was definitely cool — but because this was cutting edge technology that could increase the value of my aircraft when it was time to be sold. The problem was, Robinson Helicopter does not support this technology, so they won’t install the two units to work with each other. And they don’t tell you what they don’t do. For example, is it wired but not programmed? Or not even wired? This is what I needed to find out. I’d been advised to have a Garmin dealer attempt to program it to see what would happen.

    I called and was told that the avionics guy would be right out. I waited. And waited. And cleaned the cockpit bubble. And waited. And got fuel. And waited. It was about 1:45 when the avionics guy drove up in a tug. He had the document I’d e-mailed to the FBO the day before, but that was it. It described how to program the transponder, but not the GPS. So we went back to the FBO where I paid for my fuel and he got the information he wanted. Then back in the tug for a slow ride to Zero-Mike-Lima. Then more playing with the transponder and GPS. The message on the screen clearly indicated that no traffic information was available. But the avionics guy said it might work in flight.

My First Sky Harbor Landing

    Meanwhile, 2:30 had rolled around and I was late for my other appointment in Scottsdale: to meet with George at Universal Helicopters for some practice autorotations. I would be taking my Part 135 check ride soon and I wanted some more practice before the ride. The avionics guy gave me a lift in the tug, and we passed George in a golf cart on his way out to get me. I swapped seats and went back to Universal’s offices with George. He said he we had to talk first.

    “So we’re flying into Sky Harbor,” he said.

    My eyes must have opened as wide as platters. I’d completely forgotten my request to do a landing at Sky Harbor, Phoenix’s busy Class B airport (PHX). “I forgot all about it,” I said. I gave him my excuse for forgetting: that I’d been so concerned with my blood pressure for my medical that I’d couldn’t think of much else. “Pretty lame excuse, huh?” I finished.

    “Yes,” he replied.

    “But it’s true,” I protested. “We don’t have to do it today.”

    He talked me into it. And we reviewed what we’d have to do to cross all three runways and land at Cutter on the southwest corner of the field. And then we went out to the helicopter to do it.

    It wasn’t really a big deal. We called into Phoenix’s north tower while we were still about 8 miles north. We were given a squawk code and I punched it in. George reminded me that we couldn’t enter the airspace unless we were given clearance, so I started to circle, I was about 1/4 through the turn when we got clearance to enter and hold short of the north runway (26). Before we got there, the controller pointed out an Airbus on final and asked me if I saw it. How could I miss it? I confirmed I saw it and he told me to cross the runway behind it and hold short of the south runways (25 L and R).

    That’s where it got tricky. There isn’t much space between runway 26 and runway 25R. It’s the amount of space needed for the terminals and roads to access them. So although I could have done a circle there, it would have been tight. George advised me to hover. So I brought it into a 500 foot hover, not far from the tower, switched to the south tower frequency, and told the controller I was with him. No response at first, just some instructions to other aircraft. I called again. After a moment, the controller (who must have seen me hovering outside his window) told me about a Dash 8 on final. I told him I saw it. He told me to pass behind it and proceed to Cutter, remaining south of runway 25L. We landed without incident.

    Piece of cake.

Diving for Autorotations

    We departed to the south. I had some trouble getting altitude quickly for our transition over I-10, but I managed it. George took pictures of the Salt River, which was running. We headed out to South Mountain, got a frequency change, and dropped into the valley there. Then we headed west, flew past the casino, got more pictures of the Salt River, and headed north to Deer Valley (DVT), where we’d practice the autos.

    The south tower controller at Deer Valley was crazed and told us to go around the airspace to the north tower’s territory. Once in the airspace, we did a steep approach to the compass rose, followed by a bunch of straight in autorotations and a bunch of 180 autorotations. Then we headed out to the practice area to try something I’d never done before: autorotation from a high hover. This required me to bring it into a 600 foot hover, then dump the collective, and point the nose down to gain airspeed. There’s an awful moment when you’re looking right down at the ground and it’s rushing toward you at about 60 knots as you drop 1,200 feet per minute or more. Then you nose up to hold the airspeed and finish up like any other autorotation. George did the first one and I did the next two. In a way, they were kind of fun. The only thing I didn’t like about them was the high hover stuff. I never did like coming to a hover way up in the air; it always feels as if I’m falling backwards.

    We had some trouble getting back into Scottsdale. It appeared there was a new controller in the tower and he couldn’t handle the load. It wasn’t much of a load, though. As a result, we were stuck circling north of the airspace along with two airplanes. One of them was circling at our altitude, which made me very nervous. George doesn’t like flying low, but I’ll be damned if I circle in the same space as an airplane. So I brought it down to 500 feet AGL. We were stuck out there at least ten minutes. Finally, George reminded the tower we were out there and he let us in.

Wrapping Up & Heading Home

I paid George and accepted his ride back to the FBO to settle my avionics bill. The GPS traffic reporting did not work, but it had cost me a hefty $90 for the avionics guy to spend 30 minutes fooling around with it. A minimum of one hour labor, I was told. I didn’t tell them what I was thinking: that I wouldn’t be back to the FBO for either avionics work or fuel again.

    I took off from Scottsdale just after sunset. It was a quick flight home — about 35 minutes. It was pretty dark at Wickenburg, but I didn’t have much trouble getting the helicopter put away.

    It had been a long day with lots of flying, but I’d learned a lot. Best of all, I’d had some fun.

    On a January morning in 2005, after being without an aircraft for nearly three months, I went flying in my week-old Robinson R44 Raven II. And boy, did it feel good to be back in the air, just tooling around, again.

    I had a valid excuse to fly. I needed to go out to Robson’s Mining World, an off-the-grid, fake ghost town with a plethora of mining equipment on display, out in the desert near Aguila, AZ. I was doing helicopter rides at their big anniversary celebration that Saturday. I wanted to check out my landing zone and drop off a few signs and flyers for the woman who was organizing the whole thing.

    My friend Jim wanted to get some stick time in an R44. I owed it to him. He’d taken me out a few times in his Hughes 500c. Since the dual controls are always installed in his ship, I always got at least a little stick time. I wasn’t too crazy about the feel of his ship, though. It doesn’t have hydraulics, so the cyclic and collective are very stiff. I felt uncomfortable pushing it around because I had to push so much harder than in a Robinson to get it to do anything. I worried that I’d push too hard and do something sloppy, which would make me look like a bad pilot. So when I flew his ship, I’d fly very conservatively, almost to the point of being boring. Of course, he noticed that and often scolded me for being a boring pilot.

    Which brings up the old saying, “There are old pilots and bold pilots, but no old, bold pilots.”

    So that Thursday morning, I put the dual controls in Zero-Mike-Lima, did a thorough preflight with the assistance of a new ladder, towed it out to the fuel island, filled it up, and positioned it in a parking space for departure. After disconnecting all the bothersome tow stuff, I did a final walk-around (a good habit I picked up while flying tours at the Grand Canyon the year before) and climbed on board.

    It took a long time for the engine to warm up in the early morning cold. It was about 10:00 AM and the winter sun was shining but hadn’t gone to work yet. I think it was still having its morning coffee. I picked up and felt the odd sensation of having all that full helicopter behind me with no one in front with me to balance the weight. I was still in CG, of course — it’s damn near impossible to load an R44 out of CG — but the front end of the helicopter came off the ground about ten minutes before the rear end. Okay, so it just seemed like ten minutes.

    Jim’s house was exactly 2 nautical miles away from Wickenburg Airport. It took about a minute and a half to get there. And once again, the R44 showed me how well it floats. I had to dump all my power to get it to descend to Jim’s helipad.

    Why not just fly lower for that two miles? Well, there was some idiot who kept coming to Airport Commission meetings to complain about helicopter noise. I knew he wasn’t complaining about me because I hadn’t flown in months. It was the medevac outfit, which was based at the hospital, and probably another local helicopter pilot, who flew low to do some aerial survey work on a housing project near town one day. And the flight schools that came up from Scottsdale and Glendale. But since I didn’t want him complaining about me, I figured I wouldn’t give him anything to complain about.

    When I got to Jim’s, he was taking pictures of my arrival. I set Zero-Mike-Lima down gently in the middle of his pad. He gave me the shut down signal and I complied. A few moments later, I was out on the pad, showing off Zero-Mike-Lima to Jim and his wife Judith.

    Jim and I both climbed aboard a few minutes later. I narrated the startup sequence for him. In the few minutes the ship had been shut down, it had cooled considerably. It took a few minutes to warm back up. Then I took off on Jim’s usual departure path, heading northwest.

    We followed the train tracks, then took a detour over Moreton Field. Doug Moreton had just sold the remaining lots in his partially-developed air park to a developer. Jim pointed out the homes and hangars of a few people we knew. Jim told me he was thinking of buying a lot there.
    I couldn’t understand why. He lived on 40 acres just outside of Wickenburg and had his own hangar and helipad.
    Why move?

    From there, we buzzed straight toward Robson’s. I let Jim fly. He immediately commented on how sensitive the controls were. He kept drifting to the right. After a few minutes, he got the hang of it, though, and we zipped over the desert at about 110 knots. Jim said he never cruises that fast. But, like me, I think he was having trouble getting it to go slow. The Raven II just wanted to go.

    He gave back the controls for the landing at Robson’s. I landed in a space between several saguaros, a long, skinny landing zone that gave me plenty of room for my tail. I think I was roughly in the same place
I’d landed the year before. We shut down, got the signs out of the
back, and went into Robson’s. We dropped it all off in the restaurant.

    We took off a while later. Jim wanted me to fly up a canyon behind Robson’s where there are some Indian ruins and petroglyphs. He said I should fly through there on Saturday with passengers. I told him I didn’t want to because there would be people hiking in there and I didn’t want to ruin their hiking experience with noise. I climbed out of the canyon at 1200 feet per minute and I think even Jim was impressed.

    We headed out over the open desert toward the Santa Maria River, near where it empties into Alamo Lake. We followed the river east to 93, then headed up 93 to the bridge at Burro Creek. ADOT was doing construction in that area, building another two-lane bridge. We made a right turn and flew up Burro Creek, dropping into the canyon to get a better look at the things we flew over. Jim wanted to show me a few mining sites he and another pilot friend had spotted on another trip. He thought I could do tours to these places and let passengers off to explore. I know I need to track down ownership and get permissions. (I was in the process of doing that with BLM for the Swansea Townsite and it wound up taking 18 months.) I’m always interested in seeing
new places, so I let him be my guide.

    It turns out that the first place he wanted to show me was a mine site I’d already seen and considered before. It was a definite possibility. I marked it on my GPS while he took the controls and flew. We got to an intersection of three canyons and he flew up the middle one looking for the second mine site. We flew about five miles before he gave up. He pulled up over the left wall of the canyon and dropped into the next canyon over. We continued flying up canyon. Water was flowing down there and it was beautiful. I saw more than a few waterfalls — some of them spectacular. I also saw two abandoned ranch homes that looked to be in good condition. I’d return to explore on foot one day and, if they’d make good sites for heli-camping, I’d track down the owners and get permission.

    We flew up the canyon, climbing at a steady rate of about 200 feet per minute as the canyon floor climbed. We must have flown about 10 miles up that canyon. It was a really beautiful flight. I’d never seen the desert so green. It looked almost lush. Almost. It was the desert, after all.

    Jim finally gave up and climbed out of the canyon, this time to the right. The first canyon we’d been in had ended. We were up at about 6000 feet now and there was ice on the mesa tops beneath us. The outside air temperature was 50°F. In the distance, we could see mountains with snow on them.

    We flew southwest for a while, then dropped into another canyon. This canyon quickly dumped us out in the canyon where I’d spotted the ranch houses. After a while, we spotted the Bagdad Mine’s tailings piles ahead of us. And there was the mine site Jim had been looking for, almost in Bagdad Mine’s backyard.

    We flew over the Bagdad Mine, which was very active that day. Lots of huge dump trucks driving up and down the ramps. The only way you could see how big they were was to see the men or normal sized vehicles bedside them. The bottom of the mine was filled with water and water was gushing into it from a hole in one side of the hill. I assumed they were pumping the water out as quickly as it was gushing in. If not, they’d have a problem in a few days.

    Next, Jim wanted to show me some Indian ruins on a hilltop near Skull Valley. We headed toward Kirkland, buzzing along at about 100 knots. There was so much water down in the desert. I saw a ranch that had lost its access road in a flood that was still flowing.

    The ruins were interesting, but not the kind of thing I like to explore. I guess you can say that I like “white man’s ruins” – remains of structures made by settlers and miners and explorers. Although the ruins he showed me were probably 1,000 years old, I’d rather walk around in 100-year-old ghost towns. I think it’s because I can identify with what I’m seeing. Indian ruins tend to be nothing more than rock piles. It’s hard to imagine them as buildings when
they’re seldom taller than two feet.

    I took the controls and brought Jim over to what I call the Hidden Cabins of the Weaver Mountains (see the November 2009 issue of AircraftOwner).
If you approach the spot just right, you can see the cabins from the air. I didn’t approach just right because even I couldn’t see them — and I know where to look. I wound up taking him there on another outing several months later.

    We came over the Weaver Mountains and dropped into the valley where Stanton is. I flew relatively low over this ghost town turned trailer park. If I had gotten my helicopter two weeks earlier, I would have had a very lucrative gig among the amateur miners there. They all wanted to see the famous “Potato Patch” at the top of Rich Hill, but there was no easy way to get there. I could show them a glimpse of the place where gold nuggets the size of potatoes had been found among other rocks on the mountaintop over a hundred years before.

    We were only about 400 feet off the ground, near the ghost town of Octave, heading toward the Hassayampa River, when I pointed out some cows running through the desert. I wondered, for a moment, what had spooked them — I was too high to be the culprit. Then I saw the R22 helicopter down below me, about 15 feet off the ground, herding the cattle. I swung around to get a better look, trying to
raise the pilot on the radio. No answer. I wondered if he’d seen me.
He headed back toward Congress and I continued on my way to
the Hassayampa.

    The river was flowing big and it was a neat thing to see from the air. The slot canyon, where I’d driven my Jeep numerous times, was wall-to-wall brown water. The water spread out past Box Canyon and headed into town. The river had been running for more than a week. I remember the first year we lived in Arizona. It had been an El Niño winter and the river flowed for three months straight.

    I made a nicer approach into Jim’s helipad, although I may have been a little close to one of his neighbor’s houses. I let him off and took off right away. I buzzed past Vulture Peak before I landed. There were two hikers up top and they waved enthusiastically as I went past.

            I landed, feeling invigorated. We’d logged 1.8 hobbs hours. I fueled up for my Saturday gig and put the helicopter away.
            It was 2 PM.

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

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

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

The Wait Begins

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Long Wait Comes to an Abrupt End…Sort Of

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

The Long Flight Home

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But that’s another story.

  Saturday, February 7, 2004 was a typical Arizona winter day. Temperatures in the 60s, clear skies, light winds. Mike was working at the airport until 2 pm, when we expected a furniture delivery. The monthly airport barbeque was set up by 11:30 when I decided to take a trip down to the place I planned to do some desert barnstorming the following day.

    A few weeks before, my friend, Janet, and I had done some desert barnstorming in Tristan’s Robinson R44 helicopter, north of Carefree Highway, west of Lake Pleasant where some ATVers had gathered to ride on the trails. We didn’t do very well — we just did one ride for three people — but one of the people told us that there was a big motorcross scheduled for February 8. They told us that if we came back then, we’d be able to do lots of rides.

    I decided to check things out the day before. Since my Robinson R22 helicopter was a heck of a lot cheaper to fly than Tristan’s, I fired it up and headed east.

    Things were really hopping when I got there. The place
was full of trailers and dirt bikes and a huge red and white striped tent had been set up not far from a good landing zone. I set Three-Niner-Lima down and kept an eye out while I shut down. When the blades had stopped, I made my way to the
big tent.

    There was a lot of activity in the area. Dirt bikes rolled by, stirring up clouds of dust. Vendors selling all kinds of dirt bike paraphernalia had set up shop under
canopies alongside the dirt road. There was even a food vendor with a smoker.

    The huge tent was almost empty. Tables had been set up around the perimeter, but there wasn’t much going on at any of them. In the back was a table with two computers and a few guys staring at them. I walked back and introduced myself.

   
   Oddly enough, one of the guys at the computers was one of the three people who’d flown with me a few weeks before. He remembered me and called over someone else who was a decision maker. She was thrilled to see me. She told me she was supposed to call me and had forgotten. She was glad I’d come. Of course I could do rides. She called over another boss person and told him. He was busy but seemed mildly interested. He said he’d announce the rides at the dinner that night. I offered three free rides for a raffle and promised to return the next day with my ground crew.

    It was nearly 1 pm when I returned to Three-Niner-Lima. I’d promised Mike I’d be back by 1:30 so I could go home and await the furniture. I checked the oil, walked around to look for obvious tampering, and climbed aboard. Then I went through my all-too-familiar ritual of starting up.

    I put my headset on, leaving my right ear uncovered. I pushed the mixture full rich. I turned on the master switch. I opened my door and called out “Clear!”, making sure it really was clear. Then I turned the key to start and started the engine. Flicked the Clutch, Strobe, and Alternator switches. Checked to make sure I had good oil pressure and that the starter light was out. The blade started turning. Then I turned on the avionics in the usual order: transponder, radio, GPS.

    “Pop!”

    The sound was new, something I’d never heard before. I distinctly remember saying to myself: “That’s odd. I wonder what that is?” Then I looked at the instrument panel and saw the puff of smoke on the passenger side, right beside the GPS.

    Smoke.

    I cut the throttle, flicked the clutch off, and pulled the mixture. The engine died. I remembered my fire emergency procedures and flicked off all switches, then turned the fuel selector to off. I opened my door and stepped outside, looking anxiously in the cabin I’d just vacated.

    Fortunately, nothing was on fire. The smoke dissipated, leaving an electrical fire smell behind.

    I waited to be sure that nothing was on fire. Then I thought about my situation. Parked out in the desert, about 20 miles from home. Furniture due to arrive in an hour. Mike would be pissed.

    But hell, my helicopter could be on fire! But it wasn’t.

    I remembered my emergency kit, which I kept under my seat. I dug it out. It has a very nice Swiss Army tool in it. With a screwdriver that I could use to open the instrument panel for a peek inside.

    I was unscrewing the panel when a man rode up on his ATV. I told him my situation as I worked. He told me he was an electrician. (How could I get so lucky?) He helped me open the panel. I swung it back and we peered inside. No trace of any problem. No trace of burning, smoke, or anything else. Surprisingly, not even much dust.

    Not satisfied, I decided to remove the panel covering my avionics. We had four screws out when we realized that there would be at least eight screws and we’d need a microscopic allen wrench to get the knob off my radio. That wasn’t a job to do out in the desert. So we closed it back up.

    He asked me if I had a fire extinguisher. I told him I didn’t. He told me he’d get me one and took off on his ATV.

    I called Mike and told him the situation. I couldn’t stand next to the helicopter while I was on the phone. The signal was bad there. I had to walk 20 feet away. I told him what had happen and what I’d done. I told him I planned to start up the ship with the circuit breakers for the avionics pulled. If that worked, I’d fly home. But I wouldn’t have any radios, so he should start making radio calls for me in about 20 minutes, warning area pilots that a helicopter without radios was on its way in.

    The man on the ATV returned with a small fire extinguisher. He told me it belonged to the people serving food and made me promise to bring it back. I promised. I also promised to give him a helicopter ride the next day. I studied the instructions on the fire extinguisher and stowed it on the passenger side floor. Then I climbed back on board and he rode away. I pulled out the Pilot Operating Handbook and read the Fire procedures in the Emergency Procedures section, just to make sure I knew them very well.

    I pulled the two avionics circuit breakers and the one for the avionics fan. I figured that if there was a fire in there, the last thing I needed was a fan blowing air on it. Then I went through my startup ritual (see above), skipping the part where I turn on the avionics. The blades were spinning when I realized that I was hearing a rhythmic clicking sound I don’t think I’d ever heard before. Although there was no smoke, the sound spooked me. I turned everything off again.

    Now I was desperate. I wasn’t sure if the helicopter was safe to fly, but I didn’t know what to do. I called Mike again and gave him an update. He started making plans for coming to pick me up. Then I told him I’d call Paul.

    Paul was my mechanic. He’s probably one of the best Robinson Helicopter mechanics out there. Unfortunately, due to a disagreement between me and the company he works for, I’m not allowed to bring my helicopter to him for servicing. I wasn’t very happy about this and neither was he. He told me that if I ever had a problem, I could call him. He even gave me his cell phone number.

    Throughout the past three years or so, I’ve called him about four times. He’s been very helpful. I called him that day. He answered. I told my story. When I got to the part about the smoke, he said what I’d been thinking at the time: “That’s not good.” I was glad we agreed on that point.

    He thought the problem might be in the strobe, which I’d turned on right before the avionics and had turned on the second time I’d started, too. The rhythmic clicking sound could correspond to the charging mechanism. He thought I might be hearing it through my headset. He suggested that I leave the strobe off and give it a try. I thanked him and hung up.

    I called Mike to give him an update. By now, it was almost 1:30. I was
going to be late — if I ever made it at all.

    I climbed aboard again and pulled two more circuit breakers: the strobe
and the intercom (what the heck; who was I going to talk to anyway?). I
started it up. The clicking was gone. There was no smoke. Everything was fine.

    Of course, a ton of stuff wasn’t even turned on.

    I took off cautiously, my eyes straying occasionally to where I’d seen the smoke and the fire extinguisher lying on the floor beyond it. I flew low for two reasons. First, without a radio, I wouldn’t be able to announce my position to anyone. I was far less likely to encounter someone at 400 feet AGL than higher. Second, I wanted to be close to the ground in case I needed to land in a hurry. Let’s face it, the closer you are to the ground, the quicker you’ll get there.

    I also decided not to take the quickest route home, which went across the mostly flat and definitely empty desert. If I had to land, I wanted to land where some people would see me and be able to help — or at least give me a ride
to civilization. So I followed Carefree Highway and, when I reached it,
Grand Avenue.

    My Bose headset, which has excellent noise cancellation features, completely stinks when it isn’t powered up. I’d unplugged it before taking off, so it offered very little sound muffling. The helicopter was very loud and I imagined that every noise was a new one, one that could mean trouble. But there was no trouble. I flew into Wickenburg, flying only about 300 feet above the ground so I’d remain clear of any traffic in the pattern or departing the area. Then I made an approach from the south to the helipad. It was 1:50 PM when I set down.

    Mike was busy fueling helicopters: a Schweitzer 300 and a Robinson R22. I wanted to look at the Schweitzer, but didn’t have time. I hopped in my Jeep and went home. The furniture guys arrived five minutes after I did. Mike arrived ten minutes later.

    On Monday, my local mechanic, Ed, took apart the instrument panel and removed the avionics. The GPS had faint singe marks on it, but when we removed it from its case, its circuits were okay. He reassembled everything and we powered up the avionics stack. No popping noises, no smoke. Everything fully functioning. I hate when that happens.

    Ed thinks there might have been a loose screw or something inside the stack. It hit the GPS case and caused a little short circuit, complete with smoke, but didn’t pop the circuit breaker. Then the helicopter’s vibrations shook the screw into a place where it couldn’t be found. A place where it wouldn’t pop again.

    I flew Three-Niner-Lima — now nicknamed “Smokey” — later that week and didn’t have any problems at all. It went to Prescott for a 100-hour inspection and Cody, the mechanic there, couldn’t find any problems either.

    Ed was probably right. I never saw smoke in the cockpit again.

But I bought Three-Niner-Lima a present from the Robinson Helicopter Company: its very own fire extinguisher.
- Maria Langer

Richard’s story emerged over lunch at a local restaurant. I don’t even know how it came up in the conversation.

Years ago, he and his stepfather had gone on a four-day hike in the desert, looking for lost treasure. They’d followed old mining roads and pack trails high up into the Weaver Mountains, following vague directions given to them by an old miner who had recently gone to that great mother lode in the sky. As days wore on, they found one landmark after another. On the third morning, they were searching for their last landmark, some cabins deep in a thickly treed canyon. Although they couldn’t see any sign of the cabins from a ridge overlooking miles of high desert terrain, later that day they stumbled upon them while following a spring-fed creek. By then, they were out of time and had to start on their way back home. They never went back.

Richard’s tale of a four-day hike in the desert, living off the land and finding old buildings hidden away in canyons, fascinated me. I’d done my share of exploring when I was in my teens and had some interesting tales to tell. But none could come close to his. I wanted to know more, to see the cabins with my own eyes. Perhaps I thought it was a way to recapture part of my youth, when the simple pleasure of discovery was all the reward I needed after a long hike on a hot day.

But although Richard wanted very much to find the site again, a work-related injury made a long hike or horseback ride impossible. And Richard was certain that there were no roads anywhere near the canyon, so a Jeep wouldn’t get us there. Besides, with thousands of acres of mountainous terrain and numerous canyons with spring-fed creeks, locating the site would be like finding a cactus spine in a patch of tumbleweed. After all, Richard’s initial visit had been long before the era of GPS and he wasn’t sure where the site was.

I can’t recall if it were Richard or me who suggested the helicopter as a means to find his hidden cabins. If Richard suggested it, I’d probably been thinking about it quietly already, so his suggestion seemed perfectly natural. If I suggested it, I don’t recall him being surprised, so he must have been thinking about it, too.

Back then, in September 2002, I owned a 1999 Robinson R22 Beta II I affectionately called simply "Three-Niner-Lima." I’d owned it since October 2000 and had done most of my flying at its controls. I learned to fly late in life, earning my private pilot helicopter rating shortly before my 39th birthday and my commercial rating a year and a half later. Three-Niner-Lima sat two, including the pilot. Although it didn’t have much power — a fact that became apparent at higher elevations, especially on warm days — it was fun and relatively inexpensive to fly.

Richard, his wife, and I met again over breakfast the next day. I brought along some topographic maps. Richard pointed out where he and his stepfather had parked the car for their hike and where he thought they’d hiked. He pointed out a few canyons with springs that could be the canyon they’d visited. I saw a number of 4WD roads and pack trails on the map and pointed them out. Richard repeated with certainty that there were no roads leading into the canyon.

There was a lot of mountainous terrain to cover. When flying helicopters, mountains mean three things: high elevation, which limits available power; unusual winds, which can make landing difficult or hazardous; and uneven terrain, which makes it hard to find an emergency landing area in the unlikely event of an engine failure. With all this in mind, I suggested that we begin our search early in the morning, before the temperature rises and the winds kick up. We agreed to meet at 6:00 AM.

One thing led to another and I was unable to keep our appointment. So we put it off a few days. Thus, it was by chance that we made our flight thirty years to the day of Richard’s original hike — a fact Richard didn’t realize until much later.

The morning of our flight was clear, cool, and calm. We took off from Wickenburg, heading north, just after sunrise. Although Three-Niner-Lima was equipped with a panel-mounted GPS, I brought along my hand-held Garmin, which has mapping capabilities, and set it up to log our route. Later, I was able to overlay the route on some topographic maps, which gave us an interesting view of our flight.

We climbed over the Weaver Mountains in the early morning light. It was slightly hazy that September morning, as if the desert were trying to send its moisture up to the sky to start monsoonal rains as early as possible. But because the summer had been so dry, the desert was a parched beige color, with dusty green patches of vegetation. Up in the Weavers, however, it was obvious where springs flowed. Dozens of canyons were green with tall cottonwoods and other water-loving trees of the desert. It was under one of those canopies of trees that we’d find the hidden cabins.

We flew a relatively standard search-and-rescue pattern, weaving back and forth over one canyon after another. For safety’s sake, I needed to remain at least 500 feet up. Since we were operating in an area of rapidly changing elevations, I kept my eyes outside the cockpit, concentrating on keeping us clear of terrain. I did my best to place the best view on the left side of the cockpit, where Richard sat, scanning the ground.

After about 40 minutes of searching, we were getting discouraged. I felt bad for Richard, who had come prepared with hiking shoes, water pack, and camera, ready to relive a thirty-year-old experience. He clearly expected us to land somewhere and it had gotten to the point where he didn’t really care where. We talked about finding a landing zone near one of the more densely vegetated canyons and I saw a spot that might work. After doing a high reconnaissance, I told him I’d try an approach, but warned that if the site didn’t look smooth or level, I’d have to break it off.

I went in cautiously, my eyes on the proposed landing zone, an arm of the mountain that seemed flat and clear. I was about 100 feet from the ground when Richard called out suddenly, “There it is!” I tore my eyes from the landing zone for a quick look and saw the weathered roof of a cabin among the trees. A moment later, I touched down on level ground on a high point near the canyon, surrounded by prickly pear cacti, agaves, and scrubby creosote bushes.

Richard and I were both excited as I cooled off the engine and shut down. I marked my helicopter’s location as a waypoint on my handheld GPS and followed Richard toward the canyon. There were some cattle trails that wound back and forth along the slope and headed into the trees. One thing I’d learned about free range cattle is that they always know where the water is. Following their trail would lead us to the creek.

Three-Niner-Lima in the landing zone, only 1/10 mile from the cabins.

We began to see signs of long-gone occupation as soon as we got into the shade of the tall trees that filled the canyon. First a thick pipe, broken here and there, which must have carried water from the spring-fed creek. Then an almost intact wagon wheel lying among the broken remains of a cart, some old tools, and saw blades. We continued down toward the creek, our feet crunching over years of fallen leaves. We walked around a thick bed of what looked like irises and then came face to face with the first cabin.

A wagon wheel and some tools were the first signs of civilization we encountered under the canopy of trees.

I don’t know who built the cabin or how long it had been standing beneath those trees, but I know it’s old — perhaps a hundred years or more. Its sides were made of crudely shaped wooden planks, which had colored with age to warm browns and dark grays. The roof was corrugated tin sheets, laid almost haphazardly to provide the best coverage. A stove pipe came though a hole in the roof and another pipe led from the ground into the wall. Two windows faced out over the stream, which gurgled softly nearby.

Richard approaches the main cabin.

A small porch and open doorway faced us and we wasted no time stepping up for a peek inside. There were two rooms, a kitchen and a bedroom. Inside the kitchen, we found the remains of a wood-burning stove and a sink with a countertop. A firewood bin had been built into the wall between them. In the bedroom, a bed frame stood neatly against the window. Although the floor looked to be in remarkably good condition, especially in the bedroom, Richard and I thought it best to stay outside, where we were less likely to damage the fragile remains.

Beyond the main cabin stood a second, smaller cabin, which had probably been used for storage. That cabin was surrounded with a dense growth of vines. Had I been properly dressed in heavy jeans and hiking shoes, I would have made my way through the growth for a closer look. But my lightweight slacks had already been torn on the 1/10 mile hike from the helicopter to the cabins and my Keds did little to protect my otherwise bare feet.

The other cabin.

Despite our find, Richard was still disappointed. He told me that the cabins he and his stepfather had found had apple trees growing in front of them. There was no sign of the trees that day — just the thick vines that covered the ground with a narrow cattle trail running through them. Although I pointed out that the trees could have died and rotted away during the past thirty years, he wasn’t convinced. He was sure we had the wrong cabins, although he thought we might be close. So we set off on a short hike down and then up the creek. Other than the cabins and some old fencing, there was no other sign of occupation.

After an hour exploring the area, it was warming up. Three-Niner-Lima sat at 5,000 feet — an elevation that would have an impact on its performance, especially on a hot day. Thermal updrafts and winds would be starting up soon, too. I was anxious to head out before performance and turbulence became an issue. As Richard and I climbed up out of the canyon and made our way back to Three-Niner-Lima, we talked about returning another day, with a better camera and the proper footwear for me. I marked the landing zone with a row of white rocks and walked around my ship to make sure stray cattle hadn’t damaged it while we were out of sight. Moments later, we were airborne, heading out over the canyon to start a spiraling climb over the mountain peaks between us and Wickenburg.

Richard, who is retired, spent the next few weeks trying to dig up some information about the cabins. He found an old man who knew about them and told him that there had indeed been apple trees. But some city slickers out camping in the wilderness had decided to cut them down for firewood. That had been years ago and no trace of the trees remained.

No trace of the people who lived there remain either. Or of visitors like us, who come to look but take pictures instead of souvenirs. Although the coordinates of the hidden cabins are safely stored in my GPS, they’ll remain hidden, too. Too many places have been destroyed by heartless vandals who take pleasure in rubbing out the traces of our state’s history. I’d rather let nature reclaim the site at its own pace than share the secret location of the hidden cabins of the Weaver Mountains.