Author Archives: Maria Langer

Back from Surgery

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What a pain!

Most folks didn’t know I had surgery scheduled for last Wednesday. Although you might think I write in this blog about every aspect of my life as it unfolds, I don’t.

I didn’t want to write about it. There were too many unknowns. The huge lump in my abdomen could have been anything from a fibrous growth to a nasty bit of cancer. Surgery could have required removal of just the growth or removal of some important stuff it might have been attached to, with all kinds of reconstruction within. I could have come out of surgery and been back to normal in a week or two or the surgery might have been the first awful step in a slow spiral down to a painful death.

So I guess you can see why I didn’t want to write about it.

Surgery was Wednesday and it was the best case scenario all around. The growth was a hefty six pounds in weight, but it wasn’t attached to anything important. They took it out and, while they were in there, they took out a bunch of female parts a 44-year-old woman doesn’t really need anymore.

I was in the hospital for two nights and three days. I shared a room with a woman who was going through pretty much the same thing I was — but worse. I think she lost more parts.

The worse thing about the experience was the pain. We’re talking pain that just won’t go away. Pain when you move. Pain when you think about moving. I was screaming when I regained consciousness in post-op. They asked me, on a scale of one to ten with ten being the worse, what was my pain? Ten! I screamed at them. It was a question I’d hear over and over during my hospital stay. The answer ranged from four to eight after that initial ten.

They had me on three different pain killers. One was a device literally stitched into my wound area. It leaked out a novacaine-like substance to deaden the pain on contact. The other was morphine attached to an IV going into the inside of my elbow. I had a pain button and when I was in pain, I’d push the button. A bit of morphine would go into the drip. Of course, this was limited to one little bit every six minutes. If I pressed it every minute, I’d still get it just every six minutes. It made a reassuring beep-beep-beep sound every time I pushed the button, whether morphine went in or not. The third painkiller was oral and although it had a different name, it was based on morphine, too.

So it’s no wonder I couldn’t keep my eyes open in the hospital. I was doped up with morphine for three days straight. I felt pretty stupid bringing an overnight bag with two books and notebook in it. I couldn’t focus my eyes on anything long enough to see it, let alone read it. I listened to podcasts for a while, but even those put me to sleep.

Days and nights blended into each other. The clock on the wall showed five minutes later every time I looked at it, no matter what time I looked at it. The night nurse must have been bored the first night because she came in to do a survey at 2 AM and tried taking me for a walk at 4 AM. (I was too nauseous for the walk.) To make matters worse, the pre-op nurse had screwed up my IV by putting it in my elbow instead of my hand and the IV machine required a reset every 2 to 45 minutes. All day and all night. Every time it needed the reset, it would emit a loud beep-beeeep. I quickly learned how to reset it myself so I wouldn’t have to wait for the nurse. Not only did it keep me up, but it kept the woman on the other side of the curtain awake, too. When the nurses caught me resetting it, they weren’t happy. But I wasn’t happy listening to that thing beep for ten minutes while I was waiting for one of them to show up. Besides, the pain button didn’t work unless the IV machine was working.

Anyway, I’m home now. I dosed up with some morphine before leaving the hospital (I’m not an idiot, you know) and spent most of the ride from Banner Good Samaritan Hospital to Wickenburg in a state of semi-consciousness where my only thought was, are we there yet? I managed to throw up nothing — it’s when you go through the motions but nothing comes out — after a nice hot shower. Safeway brand Tums and Sea-bands (which I’m still wearing) helped out there. Yesterday afternoon was a drug-induced confusion of watching television through out-of-focus eyes and drifting off to sleep. Finally, I could stand it no longer. At 8 PM, I took the heavy-duty pain killers and went to sleep. I was up again when those wore off at midnight and managed to stick it out until 2 AM before taking another dose. Then slumber until 6 AM, our normal wake up time.

This morning, my coffee wasn’t very good so I switched to tea with some lightly toasted and buttered bread. It’s my first piece of really solid food since Tuesday night. Now my job is to get into some kind of ritual that’ll let me get on with my life while I recover.

Never Have Your Dog Stuffed

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A memoir by Alan Alda.

Never Have Your Dog StuffedLately I’ve been floundering around, looking for something new and interesting to read. I heard an interview with Alan Alda on NPR a few months back. He talked about his book, Never Have Your Dog Stuffed. It sounded like something I’d enjoy, so I picked up a copy.

The book was interesting, full of stories from his childhood and his attempts to get started as an actor. His mother was mentally ill and her illness worsened as she aged. His father, Robert Alda, was an actor with humble beginnings in Vaudeville. Alda discusses his relationships with his parents throughout the book.

In reading the book, I learned that M*A*S*H was Alda’s big acting break. Although he’d appeared in a number of theater productions all over the country and a few movies, none of them had given him the boost that he needed to become a well-established actor. M*A*S*H did that for him. It also apparently helped him hone his acting skills so he could perform better and portray his characters more realistically.

If I had to rate the book on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best, I’d give the book a 3. While it was interesting, it wasn’t the “couldn’t put it down” kind of book I really like to read. In fact, I read it over the course of a few weeks, with 20 or so pages a night before going to sleep.

But if you like to read about actors and other celebrities and have an interest in Alda or his M*A*S*H character, pick up a copy and give it a try. You’re likely to enjoy it more than I did.

Racing [with] Boats

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What a rush!

My Lake Havasu job on Friday turned out to be two jobs.

I’d been hired by a man based in Oregon who had designed and built a totally custom, stainless steel speedboat. His company, Liquid Technologies, had brought the boat down to Havasu to participate in a big boating event there. It was the second time the boat was in the water and he wanted to get video of the boat out on the lake. He’d hired Todd from Joker’s Wild Promotions to do the camera work.

Todd met me at the airport at 8 AM on Friday. He decided to sit behind me in the helicopter, so we’d both have pretty much the same view. We took just that door off. It was still cool and the last thing I needed was to catch a cold. Then we put on our life jackets and climbed on board.

Todd told me the game plan as I warmed the engine. The boat would be at the cove at the Nautical Inn, just southwest of London Bridge. We’d go there and circle it as it backed out, then follow it slowly through the no wake zone to the open lake. Then the boat would cruise at about 50 knots and we’d fly with it.

He asked how low I could fly. I told him I didn’t know — I hadn’t flown with a boat before. He told me to stick with my comfort level. No problem there — I’d never do anything I wasn’t comfortable with.

We took off and got to the cove within minutes. The boat was about 45 feet long and silver, looking very sleek. It was surrounded by literally dozens of similar boats, most of which had bright paint jobs, just parked along the cove. We circled the cove three times as it backed out, getting lower with each pass. Then we followed it.

The day was perfect for flying. Little or no wind, still cool and comfortable. The lake water was almost mirror smooth. Zero-Mike-Lima seemed to have all the power in the world with just two of us on board, even with close to full tanks of fuel.

The boat had four men in it, each wearing life jackets and headsets. They did their absolute best not to look at us. That turned out to be a pain in the neck later on, when Todd wanted them to speed up and they never saw his hand signals. We followed them down the lake at a good clip and I got closer and lower in gradual steps. After a while, I was about 15 to 20 feet off the top of the lake, 30 feet from the boat, cruising along beside it at 50 to 60 knots.

Todd gave me instructions to position us in relation to the boat. In front, looking back. Behind, looking forward. Above, looking down. Low, looking straight on. I followed his instructions, keeping an eye on the boat and on the lake in front of me. There were only a few boats out there and I didn’t want to overfly any of them at low level, so once or twice I had to shift position to dodge around another boat.

What’s interesting to me about all this is that I didn’t have to give the flying much thought. Both hands and feet just did what they needed to do to get the helicopter where I wanted it to be. I’d expected the work to be challenging and to require a lot of concentration to do. But it wasn’t that difficult at all. I think it’s because of the flying conditions — which were so darn easy — and the power available to me. There’s no way I could have done the job as easily in an R22 with its limited power and two good-sized people on board.

We got down to the pumping station for one of the two reservoirs near the Parker Dam and I saw an unpleasant sight: high tension power line towers. “I think there are wires ahead,” I said to Todd.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I forgot to tell you about them.”

Great. “Well, I want to stop before we get to them,” I said.

He assured me that that’s as far as they’d go. I stopped over the water, climbed up a bit, and went into a slow circle about a half mile upriver from the wires. The boat kept going, then turned around and came back to us. Then we started up again, now going upriver. We started getting fancy, coming up behind the boat, passing it, and flying around its front end as it sped by us. A maneuver very similar to one I’d done at a carmaker’s test track for a film crew months before. Todd was very pleased.

We got back to town and they boat turned around again. Todd switched to still photos. He had a professional Canon camera capable of 6 shots per second at 8 megapixels. We followed the boat about 1/4 back down the lake. It turned and came back. More still photos, more video.

Then we were done. We headed back to the airport. The 1.2 hours of Hobbs time had gone quickly.

I asked Todd how I’d done. He said that I was now his current favorite pilot. Unfortunately, he doesn’t want to pay my ferry costs from Wickenburg (1.6 hours round trip), so I don’t know how much work he’ll give me in the future.

We shut down and I closed up the ship. Then we went into town, where he dropped off the video and still photos at his office. One of the guys who works with him, Larry, wasted no time feeding the video into a computer. I got to see some of it. The beginning wasn’t too impressive as I warmed to the task and Todd got used to a new video camera. But then there were a bunch of great sequences. He had over 45 minutes of raw video to go into a 10-minute final video. The still photos were even better. I got to see them on Todd’s computer. He promised to send me a few; maybe I’ll get to show one or more of them off here.

Larry dropped me off at the Nautical Inn, where I met with the client and presented my bill. He was a nice man, excited about the sport and his new boat. He paid me with a check and I left them to find my next client.

Todd had gotten me hooked up with the guys from Extreme Boats magazine. They wanted to get photos of some of the other speedboats as they went downlake for a “lunch run.” So I met with Casey, the magazine publisher, and hitched a ride out to the airport with him and two other guys from the magazine. The other guys left us at the helicopter and a video guy joined us a while later. I took off two doors, stowed them in the video guy’s truck, handed out life vests, and we climbed aboard. A while later, we were on our way back to the cove south of the bridge.

This flight would be significantly different. There were a bunch of boats to shoot and they were all waiting for us. A soon as they caught sight of the helicopter, they took off downlake. Although I was already moving at close to 100 knots, these guys weren’t planning on cruising at only 50. They were race boats and they wanted to race. With a helicopter.

I caught up with our first target boat and dropped down to lake level. I was flying at 90 knots, 20 feet above the water’s surface, and got a real rush out of the experience. Casey snapped away at each boat — his camera could do 8 shots per second at 8 megapixels — then instructed me to chase down the next one. I’d do what I could — some boats were just too fast and too far ahead to catch up with — and then we’d turn around and head back up the lake looking for other boats to shoot.

This was entirely different from the morning’s shoot, which I now considered a training exercise. This was closer to real life race boat photography. The only difference here is that the drivers weren’t in a real race. They wanted the helicopter to take pictures of them. So when they saw me drop back and pick up another target, some of them turned around and chased me down.

To further complicate matters and make it a bit more challenging, it was after noon and the lake was full of boats. Dodging them became a real chore, but overflying them was not an option at that altitude for safety reasons. There was a slight breeze that occasionally sent a ripple of air over the water — just enough to give the helicopter a vertical wiggle. A downdraft — even a slight one — was not something you wanted when you were only 15 feet off the water’s surface.

Meanwhile, the video guy shot some video out the bubble and through his open door. One of his targets was a boat full of girls promoting David Clark products. We were racing along beside them and he was shooting what was probably excellent video when one of the bimbos on board decided to stand up and moon us.

“What the hell is she doing?” one of the guys said.

“We’ll have to edit that out,” the other guy said.

The guys obviously weren’t amused. Sometimes women can be so stupid that I’m embarrased to be one.

We flew around the lake for about an hour, chasing boats, trying to pass them for bow shots, and sometimes succeeding. One of the boats we were supposed to shoot was having engine problems and was dead in the water. They didn’t shoot any pictures or video.

On the way back to the airport, Casey told me about how one of his photographers had taken a swim in an R22. The pilot had been flying so low along the water that he routinely dragged one or both skids along the water surface. The photographer had asked him several times to fly higher, saying that if he wanted photos from that low, he’d be in a boat. The pilot evidently hadn’t gotten the message. On one of his low dips to the water, he dug the skid in too deeply and it caught. The helicopter flipped over and sank. The pilot and photographer were okay, but I wonder whether the pilot learned his lesson.

I don’t think I’d impressed Casey as much as Todd. I like to think that isn’t my fault — that the boat driver’s desire to race with a helicopter — and beat it — had made me look bad. But my helicopter’s never exceed speed with doors off is 100 knots. How can I be expected to catch up with and pass a boat going faster than that?

I settled up with Casey and spent a half hour relaxing in the FBO while the fuel guy topped off my tanks. (There’s still a price war going on at Lake Havasu City Airport and the fuel at Sun Western Flyers is cheaper than in Wickenburg.) It was about 2 PM when I climbed on board and headed home.

Page to Havasu by Helicopter

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I fly from one gig to the next.

I had two long distance flying jobs this past week: one in Page, AZ and the the next in Lake Havasu City, AZ. Although the two cities are on the Colorado River, they’re 200 miles apart by air.

My Page job ended at around 6:30 PM on Thursday. With sunset less than an hour away and dark clouds on the southern horizon, flying home was not an option. That didn’t matter; I was prepared for an overnight stay.

The FBO guy at Classic Aviation gave me the courtesy van for the night and I drove into town. A while later, I was checked into a comfortable first-floor room at the Best Western Hotel, with a “Manager’s Special” rate of only $65. Dinner was across the street at the Lake Powell Steakhouse, one of those small-town restaurants that features a soup and salad bar no one would miss if it weren’t there. They had a wine list and I ordered a half bottle of Clois du Bois cabernet — which actually came in a little bottle with a real cork — to go with my prime rib. I couldn’t finish the wine with dinner, so I corked it back up and took it back to my room, where I finished it off out of a styrofoam coffee cup.

I watched a little television before passing out at around 9 PM. I was awake at 3 AM. I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately — have a lot on my mind. I spent some time writing about the day before. Then, at 5 AM, I washed up, dressed, and packed up. I was getting back into the van at 5:30 AM.

Sunrise over Navajo MountainI dropped off the van at the airport, leaving the keys tucked inside the van’s logbook under the seat with a $10 contribution for fuel. It took five tries to get the combination right on the locked gate to the ramp. There was no one around. I walked out to the helicopter just as the sun was rising over Tower Butte and Navajo Mountain to the east. The air, which had been completely still, now stirred to life with a gentle breeze. There was enough light for a good preflight and I took some time stowing my bags and the life jackets so I’d be organized when I arrived at Havasu.

Glen Canyon DamI started the engine and warmed it up, giving the engine plenty of time to get to temperature. (Take care of your engine and it’ll take care of you.) At exactly 6 AM — right on schedule — I raised the collective, made a radio call, and took off toward the lake. I swung over the dam for a look and a photo before heading down the Colorado River, over Glen Canyon.

I had a long flight ahead of me.

The Vermilion CliffsMy flight path would take me south along the eastern edge of the restricted Grand Canyon airspace. In a way, it was ironic — less than two years ago, I’d earned part of my living as a pilot flying over the canyon every day, but now I can’t fly past the imaginary line that separates that sacred space from the not-so-sacred space I was allowed to fly. That didn’t mean I didn’t have anything to see. As I flew past Horseshoe Bend and over the narrow canyon, I could see reflections of the canyon wall on the slow moving river below. To the west were the Vermilion Cliffs with Marble Canyon at their base.

The air was wonderfully smooth — as it usually is early in the morning. I could fly at dawn every day. It’s cool and crisp and clear. The sun hasn’t warmed the desert yet so there are no thermals to bump you around. The helicopter goes exactly where you tell it to. Sometimes, it’s like sitting on a lawn chair in an enclosed bubble, guiding yourself over the landscape with gentle pressure on the stick in your right hand. My iPod was connected and turned on with hours of classic rock music to keep me entertained while the radio remained quiet.

Navajo HomesteadsI detoured slightly to the east, keeping to the left of the green line on my GPS that marked Grand Canyon’s airspace. The red rock terrain gave way to rolling hills studded with rock outcroppings and remote Navajo homesteads. I flew low — only a few hundred feet up — enjoying the view and the feeling of speed as I zipped over the ground, steering clear of homes so as not to disturb residents. I saw cattle and horses and the remains of older homesteads that were not much more than rock foundations on the high desert landscape.

Ahead of me, past the Little Colorado River Gorge and route 64, were the cliffs that marked the southern boundary of the reservation. I’d have to climb 2,000 feet to clear them. But above them was a layer of low clouds. From my position near the ground, it almost looked like a fog bank sat on top of the higher plateau. That would be bad news and mean a course change. I started to climb, leaving the earth behind.

Once I was level with the cliff’s edge, I could see that there was some clearance between the plateau and the clouds above it. I reached the southeastern corner of Grand Canyon’s airspace and programmed my GPS for a direct course to Lake Havasu City airport. I turned to the desired course, putting the little airplane on the pink line, and crossed onto the plateau about 300 feet over the top of the cliff. The clouds closed in above me. I split the distance between them and the high desert terrain, flying at about 8,000 feet MSL.

I knew the terrain below me well. Coming from the south, the terrain rose gradually to its highest point at the edge of the cliff. Now, coming from the north, it would descend. I was moving southwest, over tall pines and meadows just like the ones I flew over when I flew at the Grand Canyon. My handheld GPS showed a maze of forest roads and I was surprised to see a handful of ranches I’d never noticed before. But I was on a different course now, not heading toward Howard Mesa or Wickenburg.

The air remained smooth, despite the clouds. The weather was worse to the south. It was cold in the cockpit — although I’d worn long pants, I’d neglected to put a sweatshirt on over my polo shirt. I pulled the heat on.

I switched to Grand Canyon airport’s ATIS frequency. It was still early and the tower hadn’t opened yet. The automated system gave me the winds (light out of the south) and altimeter setting. Then I switched to the tower frequency. I was just passing between Valle and Tusayan when I heard a Scenic Airlines plane make a CTAF radio call. I’d hear him three more times before he finally landed and I was miles away.

The cloud bank ended abruptly, leaving me in the sunshine of a beautiful day. The ponderosa pines were gone and I was flying at about 6500 feet now, over remote ranch land. I’d set my sights on a mountain in the distance to keep on course and the mountain was getting ever closer.

Mountains Near SeligmanThen there were more homes beneath me and pinon and juniper pines. Wisps of low clouds clung to the mountains at my altitude. Past the mountain I’d been aiming for was the town of Seligman on Route 66 and I-40. I crossed over with a quick radio call to the airport and kept going.

Now I was flying over completely new terrain. It was a pleasant mix of tall pines, rocky outcroppings, and rugged mountain peaks. There were a number of nice but mostly small custom homes on large lots below me. They looked, for the most part, deserted — like vacation homes. A sort of Howard Mesa where they actually cared about what people built.

I followed the pink line over a mountain range, flying at about 6,000 feet MSL. Then came a familiar valley — the one route 93 follows up to Kingman. The Big Sandy River was below me and the Hualapai Mountains were in front of me. Rather than dropping down to the valley floor, I kept high, crossing at at least 3,000 feet above the ground so I wouldn’t have to climb again to cross the mountains. At that altitude, I seemed to move at a snail’s pace, although my GPS indicated 120 knots groundspeed. I still had to climb to clear the mountains.

All the time I flew, I kept checking my clock with my GPS’s ETE. Throughout the flight, it appeared that I’d make it to Havasu with about 5 minutes to spare. My airspeed was limited by my altitude — I couldn’t pull as much power or fly as fast at 6,000 feet as I could at 3,000 feet. With that last mountain range behind me, I descended quickly toward the valley floor, bringing my airspeed up to 120 knots with only a slight reduction in power. When I was about 500 feet above the valley, I brought power back in and kept my airspeed at 120 knots.

I switched to Havasu’s frequency and heard a plane call in. I was almost there. Then I passed between two small peaks and followed a wash to the east side of the airport. After two radio calls, I crossed the runway and set down on the ramp.

It was exactly 8 AM.