Looking back 5 years.
January 7 marked the 5 year anniversary of the day I brought my new Robinson R44 Raven II helicopter home from the Torrance, CA factory. I blogged extensively about the experience and the days leading up to it. I put this post together to help me remember it all. It’s full of links that you can follow to read the details behind the summary.
The Backstory
On June 30, 2004, I was working as a pilot for a Grand Canyon helicopter tour operator. I’d aspired to the job since I realized four years earlier that I wanted to fly helicopters commercially. When I was hired in March of 2004, I was thrilled.
An air-to-air shot of me at the controls of my R22 back in 2002.
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, and 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 writing on my days off 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 maintain my standard of living if I got a full-time job as a pilot for someone else; without time to write, my income simply wouldn’t be sufficient to cover my living expenses. 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.
So, 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 and I was more than a little sad.
In late 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 month-end, 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 flying.
Photoshop guru Bert Monroy gave my friend Tristan’s helicopter a paint job to illustrate what mine would look like in flight.
A friend of mine used Photoshop to doctor up a photo of another friend’s R44 flying near my home, applying my aircraft’s color scheme. It was an 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.
They put SN 10603 on the line the day I visited the factory.
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 realize 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.
Then, on Wednesday, January 6, the wait was suddenly over. You can pick up the details of the rest of the story here.
We made a sharp left to continue along Rincon Road. It climbs out of the river area into the low mountains northwest of town. At an obvious intersection, we made a right to continue on Rincon. This short piece of road is extremely rough but offers outstanding views back toward Wickenburg, as well as lots of typical Sonoran desert vegetation. And rocks — did I mention the rocks?
There were some exceptions, of course. One was Sand Mill, site of windmill, cattle tanks, and corral. I have a thing about windmills and did my usual study of this one. Unfortunately, it was broken, although I do think it could be repaired. What I found more interesting was the welded iron water tank behind it and the fencing around the corral — which was in unusually good shape. There had been two cows standing in the area when we drove up, but they ran off when we stopped. Cows out in the open range are funny like that. No matter how hard you try to not spook them, they get spooked anyway.
Later on, near a place called Brick Tank, I managed to get this shot of two cows. They stood there for about two minutes just staring at us as I rolled the Jeep into position and framed this shot. Then, just as I pushed down on the shutter, the smaller one (on the left) turned her head and ran off. The other followed, of course.
We also passed a herd of about eight mule deer along the way. I stopped while Mike tried to get some photos. They weren’t quite close enough for our lenses — we hadn’t brought along my 70-300mm zoom. Here’s my only shot, which I admit isn’t very good. I cropped it here.
We drove across Antelope Creek, which still running as a small stream with a mix of spring water and runoff from snow and rain at higher elevations the previous week. I threw the Jeep into 4WD and powered up a steep, narrow Jeep trail with lots of loose rock. When I leveled out and could see the road beyond, I realized that I just wasn’t prepared to go any farther. The road was very narrow, very steep, and covered with very loose rock. I was tired from almost 2 hours of driving on back roads. I’d had enough rough road exploring.
We got out for a while to take photographs in the area. There was a lot of slate-like rock, standing straight up. Much of the rock was covered with orange and yellow lichen. It made an interesting contrast to the green and brown of the desert, the blue of the sky, and the deep shadows cast by late afternoon sun. The light hadn’t gotten “good” yet, but it wasn’t bad — probably because of its low winter angle.
We also walked down to Antelope Creek. It was great to see so much water flowing in the desert. I knew that downstream, the flow dried up before it even reached Stanton. I tried to get some photos that showed reflections in pools of relatively smooth water. The water, in some places, was about two feet deep. Although Jack the Dog drank some of it without side effect, I wouldn’t think of drinking it without treating it first; just too much open range and wildlife in the area. (That’s why its best to bring your own water, even if you know you might find some along the way.)
But first, we stopped at one of the few buildings that remain at Octave, another ghost town. The afternoon sun had drifted down quite low when we arrived and I think I got some of my best photos of the day. I have a thing about photographing abandoned buildings, and even though this was a small one, it kept me busy for a good 20 minutes. This is one of my favorite shots.
We also stopped alongside the road where the boulder-and-saguaro-strewn side of Rich Hill was illuminated by the low-lying sun. As you look at this photo, remember that each cactus stands at least 15 feet tall. Really gives you an idea of how big the boulders are, no? The horizontal version of this photo will be my desktop pattern.
If you’re interested in following our route, I offer 
If you saw my office, you’d never believe that I truly like to be organized. I hate clutter, I hate piles of junk lying around, I hate not being able to find things.