Category Archives: Flying

Stories about flying — for pleasure or for hire — and the things I’ve learned.

Why I Do Helicopter Rides

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How can anyone resist a happy, smiling face?

At a recent aerial photography gig, while waiting for the film crew to get their act together, I took a few people up for rides and use the flight time to inspect the obstacles I might have to face while doing the job. When I landed, and found that I still had to wait, I called the guy who’d hired me over for a ride.

Smiling PassengerMike took a series of photos of our departure and return, including this one. Can you see the smile on my passenger’s face? Is he a happy guy, or what?

And yes, this is the real departure angle on a typical helicopter flight. Push the cyclic forward to gain forward airspeed and climb out. It doesn’t feel this extreme on the inside.

At least not to me.

But then again, maybe that’s why this guy’s smiling.

Flying with Cars, Take 2

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Another gig at the Proving Grounds.

I spent yesterday afternoon sweating my brains out, flying in formation with cars.

I’d been hired once again to take a film crew around a proving ground tracks to get some footage for a internal marketing video. Last time, there had been one car. This time there were two. Last time it had been in September. This time, it was July.

The Flight Down

Mike came with me from Wickenburg. We topped off the tanks at the local airport here and took all four doors off. We’d filled a cooler with ice and bottled water and Gatorade to bring along. I also had a hand-held radio for Mike so he could listen in while we were flying. The flight from Wickenburg took about 50 minutes. It was hot — about 110°F/42°C — and even the wind through the open doorways did nothing to cool us. I had a small spray bottle and would douse my loose-fitting cotton shirt down with water as I flew. 2 minutes later, it would be completely dry again.

It was also bumpy. The desert, baked throughout the day by the broiling sun was sending waves of thermals straight up. But a 10 to 20 knot wind from the southwest was breaking all that up. As a result, the flight was like riding on a poorly maintained road with big, fat, soft tires. Bumpy but seldom jarringly so. Someone prone to motion sickness probably would have puked.

There were also dust devils: towering updrafts of swirling dust blown laterally across the desert floor. At any one time, looking out at the open desert, we could see at least two dozen of the damn things, some of them at least 500 feet tall. We were flying at about 500 feet above the ground, so dodging them became part of our flight path. If it looked like we’d hit one, I’d alter course to pass to the west behind it. This probably added a few minutes to the flight, but I wasn’t the least bit interested in getting very close to any of them.

By the time we got to the proving ground and landed on a piece of road where everyone waited, I was tired and red hot — literally! — my face was completely flushed — and partially dehydrated. It was a good thing we had an hour to kill before the film crew would be ready. I spent it drinking water and Gatorade in the air conditioned comfort of the facility’s lunch room.

The Film Crew

The film crew consisted of the same director and photographer as last time. The photographer had a big, professional video camera that he sat on his shoulder as he taped the action. The camera was attached by a cable to a small monitor that the director could hold in his hands during the flight.

The photographer was strapped in not only with a seat belt by with a rope that tied the harness he wore to the bar between the two front seats in the helicopter. In addition, they rigged up a come-along strap on the helicopter’s frame between the left and right side of the helicopter and had the camera attached to that by two separate straps. We clearly would not be dropping either the photographer or camera out of the helicopter.

Everyone on the film crew wore black shirts. These are obviously people unaccustomed to life in the desert. It doesn’t take long for a desert dweller to realize that black might look cool but it doesn’t feel cool with the sun shining down on you and a UV index of 10. They also drank a lot of Pepsi. No matter how many of us “locals” recommended water, they’d guzzle Pepsi and some weak tea looking concoction they kept in one-gallon plastic water jugs. I didn’t ask what it was.

Throughout the flight, the director would yell commands to me and the photographer through the helicopter’s intercom system. He had to yell because the photographer was hanging out of the helicopter to get his shots and his microphone was out in the 20 to 80 knot wind (depending on our speed, of course). The director also yelled into a handheld radio that the driver was tuned into, giving him directions.

Of course, the most challenging thing about communication was not the wind noise but the language. They didn’t speak good English.

The Flying

The kind of flying this time around was mostly chasing the car around the speed track (a large paved oval with sharply banked curves) and the dirt track (a smaller oval with a dusty dirt surface). I’d fly alongside, anywhere from 10 to 100 feet off the ground, but usually around 30. Speed ranged from a hover to as fast as 80 knots.

If you’re a helicopter pilot, you know that this kind of operation puts me in the shaded area of the height-velocity diagram or so-called “dead man’s curve.” I’m full aware of the dangers of this kind of flying and communicated them to my passengers.

But frankly, my willingness to do this kind of flying is what got me the job two years ago. They’d asked two other local operators to do it and they both said no. I think that the fact that they were flight schools played heavily into the decision. Wouldn’t be a good example to set for newly minted CFIs. Besides, I really think that this kind of “extreme” flying is best done by experienced pilots. Although I only have about 1,800 hours right now, that’s a heck of a lot more than the typical 400-hour flight school CFI.

The challenging parts:

  • Going from a near hover to highway speed in a very short time.
  • Keeping an eye on the car and the obstacles around the track, including poles with wires, antenna towers, tents used to hide cars from passing aircraft (believe it or not), and road signs.
  • Flying alongside the car at 20 feet above the ground, making smooth “hops” over lower obstructions (signs, tents, etc.) as necessary,
  • Swooping past the front of the car and turning so the camera didn’t lose sight of the car until it was past us.
  • Getting back into shooting position quickly after a technical shot so the photographer could maximize his video time.
  • Understanding what my passengers wanted me to do, especially on those occasions when they couldn’t agree and gave conflicting commands.

The best shots probably came close to sunset, when we were working with one of the cars on the dirt track. The clear sky, low sun, and dust combine to make magical scenes. Most of the shots used in the video from last time were ones from the dirt track. My job was to keep the setting sun, car, and helicopter in a line so the photographer could get sunset footage.

The Machine

I really enjoy this kind of work. Flying a helicopter from point A to point B is mildly interesting, but doing the kind of flying needed to photograph moving cars (or boats, for that matter), is extremely challenging. It takes all of my concentration to deliver what the photographer and director want.

But what’s probably best about it is the way my arms and legs go into a certain autopilot mode. I think of what I want and my body reacts to make the helicopter do what needs to be done. There’s very little thought involved. I’m just part of the machine — the brain, so to speak. And when flying — or doing anything with a piece of equipment, I imagine — becomes so automatic and thought-free, that’s magic.

The Trip Home

We finished up just after sunset. Rather than shut down and go inside for some refreshments, I decided to keep it running and head home. I wanted to get home before it was too dark. I was exhausted — I’d flown over 4 hours that day, including a flight from Howard Mesa and the ferry flight to the track — and was depending on the last vestiges of adrenaline to power me home. So the film crew got all their straps and cables out, Mike got in, and we took off.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that the Low Fuel light was flickering 2 miles from the nearest airport. Another plane was on final when I came in for my approach. I meekly asked him if I could land first because of my fuel situation. He gracefully pulled his twin engine airplane into a 360 turn to the right to give me additional room. By the time I set down at the self-serve pump, the fuel light was shining brightly. I thanked the pilot of the plane again after he rolled out from his landing.

It was still 104°F/40°C most of the way home — an hour-long flight in growing darkness. I’m accustomed to flying at night — I think every pilot should be comfortable with that skill — so it wasn’t a big deal. It was also very smooth; hardly any wind until we neared Wickenburg.

The only problem was the dust that had evidently gotten into my eyes during the last bit of shooting. It really messed up my contact lenses.

Taking care of business…

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…by helicopter.

A bunch of things are going on in my life right now and I chose yesterday to take care of related errands.

Some Facts about Aircraft Inspections

First, my helicopter is coming up on 500 hours of flight time. It’s about 2-1/2 years old and I fly about 200 hours a year, so this makes sense — I took delivery in January 2005.

Aircraft — all aircraft — are required to have certain periodic inspections to keep them airworthy in the eyes of the FAA. One inspection is called an “annual” because, as you might imagine, it’s done annually. Then there are others, depending on the type of aircraft and the amount of time on it.

Because I’m a commercial operator, I’m also required to get inspections every 100 hours. (Yes, they’re called “hundred hours.”) A hundred hour inspection is very much like an annual on my helicopter — the main difference is the signoff.

Of course, having a calendar-based inspection (annual) and a time-based inspection (hundred hour) could make things sticky at year-end. You seen, the goal of any operator with an eye on the bottom line is to maximize hours flow between each inspection. So say that my annual is due each January, by the end of the month. And say that I had a hundred hour done in June. Now say that between June and January, I only flew 80 hours. I’d still have to get an annual inspection — which is very much like a hundred hour inspection — in January, even if I still had 20 hours before the next hundred hour. I’d do the annual in January, and since that counts as a hundred hour, the clock would be reset. But I’d also miss out on 20 hours of flying between inspections.

So I’ve pretty much decided that until I fly considerably more than 200 hours a year, I’ll get annual inspections instead of hundred hours. It’ll cost me $100 to $200 more, but I won’t have to worry about calendar-based inspections quite as much.

This doesn’t mean I can skip other time-based inspections. My oil changes are still due at 50 hours (or three months, whichever comes first. 50 hours usually comes first, but I don’t wait that long. When the oil starts getting really black, I have it changed — usually at about 35-40 hours. I want my engine to last until overhaul and I do what I can to take good care of it.

This time around, I have some additional maintenance to get done for 500 hours of flight time. I can’t remember all of it, but I think my magnetos need some maintenance and I’m pretty sure the gearboxes need to be drained and refilled. The mechanic knows all this and will take care of it for me as part of the job.

Other Helicopter Stuff

I had two other little things to take care of for my helicopter.

A while back, my primary aviation radio decided that it was going to stop working reliably. I went to Flight Trails, an avionics shop at Falcon Field in Mesa, AZ. After a bunch of testing, they determined that it really was broken and set about repairing it. They loaned me a nearly identical radio to fill the hole in my panel where the bad radio usually sat.

Time passed. Lots of time. Four months. And the other day, Tim from Flight Trails called to tell me they’d found the problem and fixed it. I needed to fly down there so he could swap out the radio and test the repaired one.

The other little thing had to do with the reopening of the helipad on the roof of the Terminal 3 parking structure. Landing at this pad to pick up and discharge passengers would be a great convenience for my passengers. Normally, I land at the Cutter ramp on the south side of the airport and my passengers have to take a free shuttle bus to get to or from the terminal. This would save them a bus ride. And it would save me a few bucks, since Cutter sometimes charges a landing fee and a ramp fee when I come in.

A landing pad on top of a building isn’t the easiest place to land — especially when you have to cross an active runway at a Class Bravo airport to get to it. So I wanted to try flying in with someone else who had done it before I went in with passengers. That was on my to do list, too.

Finally, a Real Vacation

I’m also going on vacation. It’s a two-week trip to Alaska that Mike planned out for us. We leave very early tomorrow (Sunday) and return on June 17. I’m excited about the trip, mostly because I’m eager to visit a new place. And since I’m hoping to get a job in Alaska next summer, this will be a good opportunity to see what it’s like.

Of course, with vacation comes the doling out of responsibilities at home. Two weeks ago, we were in California for a week on a business/pleasure trip and, before we left, we had the task of distributing the members of our menagerie to caretakers. Alex the Bird (a parrot) to Sharon and Lee, Jack the Dog to Ed and Judy, Jake and Cherokee (horses) to Polly’s horse boarding business.

This time we got lucky. Mike’s brother, Paul, was thinking of a vacation away from New York. He volunteered to house-and-animal sit for us in return for airfare. What a deal!

The big job for this trip will be packing. Fifteen days and fourteen nights is a long time to be away from home. And Alaska isn’t the kind of place you can get away with a few pairs of shorts, some t-shirts, and a bathing suit. We have to pack and the clothes we pack will be bulky. With only one shot at a laundromat five days into the trip, we’ll need at least two big suitcases.

A Camera Worthy of Alaska’s Scenery

We also need our “equipment.” Cameras, video camera, laptop, GPS — all kinds of electronic gadgetry that we can’t seem to live without. The good part of this is that about half the time, we’ll be staying on a cruise ship, so lugging it all around won’t be a huge hardship.

And in thinking about where we were going, I realized that our little point-and-shoot digital cameras just weren’t going to cut it. I’ve been seriously into photography at least twice in my life, with considerable investments in quality camera equipment. But it was all film cameras. I packed them into their camera bag at the back of the closet at least three years ago. Now, with their zoom lenses and high-quality optics, they were looking better than our point-and-shoots for capturing the kind of scenery I expected to see in Alaska.

The trouble was, I didn’t feel like dealing with film. Who really does these days?

Wouldn’t it be nice, I mused, to buy a digital SLR that would work with the three auto-focus Nikon lenses I already had? Mike and I began researching. And Mike discovered the Nikon D80. He checked it out in person at Tempe Camera, which is near where he works in the Phoenix area, and came back with a thumbs up. The camera’s only problem: the price. It cost more than my two camera bodies combined — and they’re Nikons, too.

So we put off the purchase decision until Thursday evening, when it was too late to even consider mail order. And that’s when we realized that Nikon dealers didn’t normally stock this camera. I gave MIke a list of authorized dealers and asked him to track one down. I’d pay for it.

A Final Test of the Treo

If you read this blog regularly, you may recall my recent purchase of a Palm Treo to replace my 3-1/2 year old cell phone. I bought it primarily to so I could get Internet access on our off-the-grid camping shed at Howard Mesa.

But by Thursday evening, I hadn’t tested it up there yet. And if I planned to return it to exchange it for something else, I’d have to do so by June 17; the same day we were coming back from Alaska. That means I’d have to bring all the boxes and related junk with me in case I decided to return it. That just didn’t make sense.

What did make sense was going up to Howard Mesa and testing it before the trip so I could make my decision before we left.

My Friday

So that brings us to Friday morning and my list of chores for the day:

  1. Test the Treo with my PowerBook at Howard Mesa. I’d obviously have to fly up; it’s a 2-1/2 hour drive each way and I simply didn’t have 5+ hours to waste before my trip.
  2. Stop by Universal Helicopters in Scottsdale for a quick flight with a CFI for landing at Sky Harbor’s Terminal 3 helispot.
  3. Stop by Flight Trails at Falcon Field to have my radio swapped out, tested, and paid for.
  4. Bring the helicopter in to Silver State Helicopters at Williams-Gateway airport for its 500-hour/Annual inspection.
  5. Buy the Alaska-worthy camera.

And did I mention that Mike had to pick up his brother at the airport?

Internet Scam Foiled

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Another foreigner attempts to separate me from large sums of money.

It’s unfortunate but true that the Internet is being used by con artists. Here’s my most recent experience.

The Hook

It started with a query using the form on the Flying M Air web site:

My name is [omitted], I want to book for an Helicopter /flight charter for my family because,during our stays in your your state,we will be going on tours around the town.

These are information for our Booking,
Preferred Date of Tour: 10th,11th,12th, and 13th July 2007 (4days)
Time: 1hr in a day.
Passengers: 4
1. MR. MR. [omitted] ——-weigh 130pounds
2.MRS [omitted]{My Wife} weigh 120pounds
3.[omitted] 16 yrs}weigh 95pounds
4.[omitted] 13yrs } 80pounds
Mode of Payment: Credit Card(Visa Card).

I want you to give me the total expensis for the 4days tour at 1hr per day.
I hope that you accept credit card payment.

It looked legitimate enough. The English was dismal, but that’s to be expected from someone whose first language isn’t English.

I didn’t read the message very closely because my helicopter seats only 3 passengers so I couldn’t accommodate his party. (If I had read closely, I would have wondered a bit about his 16-year old son weighing only 95 lbs.)

I replied as follows:

Unfortunately, we can take a maximum of only 3 passengers. You can try the following other companies, which both have larger helicopters:

Gold Coast: 623-935-3388
WestCor: 480-991-6558

If you call either one, please tell them Maria sent you.

Good luck!

I figured that would be the end of our exchange. But I was wrong. The next day, I got this message:

I want you to indicate the price for the 3 pers. one of us will be staying back each day.

This was a bit weird, almost as if he was willing to leave a member of his family behind just to use my services. But I reasoned it out. He may have contacted the other companies (or planned to) and wanted to work up pricing to be better informed about his options.

I replied:

For flights out of the Phoenix area, our rate is $795 for the first hour and $450 for each additional hour that same day. That covers up to three people with a maximum passenger weight of 650 pounds (290 kilos). There is a one hour minimum flight time for all flights out of the Phoenix area. The Phoenix area includes departures from Scottsdale, Deer Valley, Glendale, and Sky Harbor Airports.

We can fly throughout the Phoenix area and to places like the Grand Canyon, Sedona, etc. We cannot fly OVER the Grand Canyon — we do not have a permit to do that — but we can make arrangements with a company at the Grand Canyon for you to do that flight if you like. Prices start at about $175/person for canyon overflights. There are also a few restricted areas within Arizona where we can’t fly, mostly to the south.

We need at least 48 hours advance notice for all flights booked during the summer months. We accept payment by cash, MasterCard, or Visa, but we must have a credit card deposit to book flights.

If you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

The Line

His response came almost immediately:

Thanks for your kind response, i would like to inform you that i have concluded arrangement with hotel/logistic agent that will book hotel and other take care of other service that will be requested from my family during the stay in the state.

I will send you credit card to deduct the total charges of your service and my logistic agent, because i don’t want to share the details with a third party,beside the agent runs a private and does not have a credit card facilities to runs his full payment.

So once you are in receipt of credit card,you will charge the amount of ($8000) then you deduct the cost of your service ($3180(for four days) and send the balance of ($4820) to my logistic agent whose information will be forwarded to you once you charge the credit card.

I am also aware that there will be charges for the credit card, i want you to mention the figure so that i will include it on the total amount that will be charged from my credit card.

I want you to confirm this and get back to me with your name, mobile number and address for my personal documentation.

The alarm bells went off in my head. Back in 2004, when I sold my old helicopter, someone had tried a similar scam. They’d offer to pay you more than they owed you for an item you had for sale (in my case, an R22 helicopter listed for $110,000) using a certified check. The additional amount was to be forwarded in cash to an “agent” somewhere in the U.S. (In my case, it was $12,000 for shipping fees.) Once the agent had the money, the check would somehow bounce and you’d be out the extra cash. Of course, all correspondence would be via e-mail and fax. I’m not quite sure how the cash was to be handed over because it never got that far.

In my case, I insisted on using an escrow agent, which would cost me an additional $500. (Worth every penny.) The R22 “buyer” — who was willing to pay $105K for the ship, sight unseen — kept ignoring my requests to contact the escrow agent. He finally stopped our correspondence and I knew a scam had been attempted.

Someone else I knew fell for a similar scam when selling an RV and lost $2,000.

The Sinker

I knew this was a scam. How many people tell you to charge their credit card for a trip when all you asked for was a deposit? We hadn’t booked anything, I hadn’t given him any total prices, I hadn’t even asked for a deposit. But he was telling me to charge his credit card for $8,000.

But I had to play it cool, just on the off chance that it wasn’t a scam. So I replied:

I didn’t mention anything about prepayment. All I need is a deposit. And I don’t take deposits until I have reservations booked. You did not make any reservations.

I don’t charge credit cards for more than the amount of my services. And I don’t pay “agents” from money collected by check or credit card. That’s a popular internet con that I’ve seen in the past. (I didn’t fall for it then, either.)

If you want to book a flight, let me know the details so I can draw up a contract. I will fax it to you for your signature and credit card information for the deposit. You can then mail or fax it back to me with the address I provide on the contract form.

If you have any other questions, please let me know.

And, as you can imagine, I never heard from this character again.

Don’t Be Conned

If someone contacts you via e-mail to offer you something that’s too good to be true, it just isn’t true.

And for heaven’s sake, don’t sell any large ticket item to someone you haven’t met personally without using an escrow agent.

HAI — and General Aviation Pilots Nationwide — Need Your Help!

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A call for help from Helicopter Association International.

As most pilots should know, the U.S. government is attempting to pass legislation which would, in effect, fund the repeated airline financial bailouts with money collect from general aviation pilots and operators. This will directly affect my business, as well as other small aviation operators. It will also raise the costs on many general aviation services, including, as HAI points out, EMS helicopter transportation and firefighting. These are the services that rush people outside of big cities to hospitals when they have heart attacks or serious car accidents and protect our homes from forest and brush fires.

Here’s an e-mail I just got from HAI. It not only explains the problem, but offers a toll-free number you can use to call your Senators and voice your opposition to user fees.

Congress has reached a critical stage in drafting a bill to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). U.S. Senate draft bill, S. 1300, establishes a new $25 per-flight “user fee” for all turbine powered planes as well as more stringent requirements for Emergency Medical Services (EMS) operators. The way the current draft is written, helicopters would not be exempt from this “surcharge”. This legislation will be considered and voted upon by the Senate Commerce Committee THIS WEDNESDAY May 16. It is critically important that you contact your Senator TODAY to tell them to support an Amendment to the Senate Commerce FAA bill to remove “user fees” from S. 1300.

Every voice counts, and your voice needs to be heard in Washington. You joined Helicopter Association International (HAI) for a reason. Helping you to sustain your operations and keeping you abreast of important legislative and regulatory changes is one of the most important jobs HAI performs as your advocate before Congress.

If you have never picked up the phone to make a call on an important issue, now is the time for you to start. HAI has partnered with the Alliance for Aviation Across America, and we’ve made it easier than ever to contact your Senator. The message you need to send to your Senator: ask them to support an amendment to the Senate Commerce FAA bill to remove “user fees” and “surcharges” from S. 1300. Tell your Senator you oppose a federal fuel tax increase for helicopters. Existing helicopter fuel fax exemptions for logging, firefighting, EMS, as well as offshore oil and gas exploration should be preserved.

Please call toll-free 1-866-908-5898 to be automatically connected to your Senator’s office. You may hear a few seconds of dead air while you are being connected. Keep calling. Tell your friends and business associates to call too. Senator David Vitter (R-Louisiana) serves on the Commerce Committee and it is especially important that he hear directly from HAI members and the families behind the 650+ helicopters in the Gulf.

There is still time for Senators to stand up for small businesses, small towns, and general aviation by sponsoring this important amendment and listening to the voices of their constituents and the helicopter operators affected by requirements contained in S. 1300. Every vote on our side at the May 16 Commerce Committee hearing brings general aviation that much closer to defeating this legislation. The big airlines’ lobbyists will succeed in pushing their costs on general aviation unless our industry acts.

Be informed. Check HAI’s website, www.rotor.com for important updates on the EMS requirements. HAI is working for you on issues of importance to our industry. Make that call today!

Personally, I can’t understand why the U.S. government continues to subsidize airlines that cannot remain profitable. Why is it that some airlines are able to be profitable and others can’t be? Could it be the top-heavy management and huge compensation packages? And why should U.S. citizens subsidize bad financial management with tax dollars?

It is unfair for the government to shift the burden of commercial aviation bailouts to small aviation operators and private pilots. Please — even if you don’t fly or know a pilot — please call or write your Senator to tell him/her that you oppose general aviation user fees and tax hikes.