Category Archives: Flying

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

More Restrictions on Using Our Land

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More bull from our lawmakers.

This country — especially this part of this country (the American Southwest) has an abundance of public land. It comes in the form of state parks and forests, state trust land, national forests, BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land, and National Parks. It’s basically safe to say that if the land isn’t owned by a specific person or indian tribe, it falls into one of these categories of public land.

Public land belongs to the public. That’s you and me. Or at least every American citizen. But don’t think that you can use public land the same way you use your backyard. There are rules. And some of the rules are not only very restrictive but they’re downright stupid.

The main thing the government seems to be worried about is that someone will make money on public land without the government getting a piece of the pie. With state and national parks, that’s pretty understandable. These are normally above-average pieces of land that are heavily managed and have a great deal of costs associated with them. If a person or company is going to make money using these lands, they probably should pay a portion of the costs.

They way they collect these costs is through a permit system. You apply for a permit, sending all the required paperwork to the proper office with a non-refundable application fee. Then you wait. And wait. And wait. Eventually, after enough follow-up calls, you get a request for more info. You provide and and wait some more. Then, maybe if you’re lucky and the stars are aligned just right, you get a call telling you you’re going to be approved and how much each operation will cost you. You wait some more until the final paperwork — the permit you wanted — is sent to you. Now you’re good to go.

Swansea Town SiteI went through this for a permit to take passengers in my helicopter to the Swansea Town Site. It’s a ghost town in western Arizona, that’s pretty close to the middle of nowhere. A 4-hour drive from Wickenburg, you can get there in 40 minutes by helicopter. While I can land there all I want by myself or with people who aren’t paying me, as soon as I collect a penny from a passenger, it becomes a commercial flight and I need a permit. I coughed up the $90 application fee and waited 18 months to get the permit. I have to pay 3% (I think) of the gross revenues for these trips with a minimum of $90 per year. Of course, I got the permit right before my season ended, when it started getting too hot for desert day trips. So although I’ve had the permit for more than 6 months now, I haven’t taken a single passenger.

What bothered me most about the whole process is that they said they needed to do an environmental impact study before they could give me the permit. If I paid for the study, the process would go faster. This pissed me off because the site is a common destination for people on quads with gnarly tires that eat up the terrain. My helicopter touches the ground in only two places on each visit: two eight-foot by 3-inch strips under my skids. Environmental impact? What environmental impact? I didn’t pay for the study and waited 18 months.

Now I have a new gripe. It concerns taking photos on National Forest land.

I’m in the process of putting together a promotional DVD for Flying M Air to advertise its Southwest Circle Helicopter Adventure. I’m going out with a professional photographer next week to trace the steps of our passengers on all of their tours. We’ll take photos along the way to use in promotional material or for the photographer to sell as stock photography.

The problem began in Sedona. The Jeep tour company (which will main nameless) told me we couldn’t take pictures for commercial use while on National Forest land. The man I spoke to was rather insistent and told me that if we did, his company could lose its permit. He was willing to give (or possibly sell?) me some stock footage. But I wasn’t interested in that. I wanted to show potential passengers exactly what they would see then they took the tour.

So I called up the National Forest ranger district office. Of course, they were unable to connect me to anyone who knew what I needed to know. They were all out in the field doing what it is that rangers do when they’re not in the office. The last person I spoke to was married to the person I needed to speak to. He assured me that she’d call me back and let me know if I needed a permit.

In the meantime, I got on the Web and did some research. I wound up downloading a 22-page PDF from the Federal Register that covered the government’s policy on photography in National Forests. And what I learned that you can take still photos in national forest land without a permit as long as the job does not:

  • Use models, sets or props that are not part of the site’s natural or cultural resources or administrative facilities;
  • Take place where members of the public are generally not allowed; or
  • Take place at a location where additional administrative costs are likely.

Well our photography shoot met these requirements, so we are indeed allowed to take photos on national forest land. We just can’t take any photos of the Jeep or driver or either one of us (props and models) once we cross over into national forest land. So we’ll stop the Jeep just before we get into the land and take the photo there.

Take a picture of the Jeep here, you’re breaking the rules. Take the picture 12 feet to the west and you’re fine.

Does that sound as stupid to you as it does to me?

I canceled my Jeep tour with that company and booked with another company. I like to work with people who know what they’re talking about. And I don’t like people who insist on rules without really knowing what the rules are.

Now oddly enough, the rules governing video or film photography (moving images) are different. From the document:

A permit is required for all commercial filming activities on public lands. Commercial filming is defined as the use of motion picture, videotaping, sound recording, or other moving image or audio recording equipment on public lands that involves the advertisement of a product or service, the creation of a product for sale, or the use of actors, models, sets, or props, but not including activities associated with broadcasts for news programs. For purposes of this definition, creation of a product for sale includes a film, videotape, television broadcast, or documentary of participants in commercial sporting or recreation event created for the purpose of generating income.

Well, although I am not creating a product for sale, I am creating a product to advertise my service. Thus, I’d need a permit to videotape on public land.

This is not a major setback, although I admit that it is (1) a disappointment and (2) just plain stupid. You can take photos of the land, but you can’t take videos? What the hell is the difference?

So for my DVD, I’ll create moving images from the still images using the “Ken Burns Effect” built into iMovie HD. Since the rocks and trees don’t really move anyway, there really won’t be a difference between simulated motion (by panning a still image) and moving a video camera to pan over the terrain.

Which makes me say again, what the hell is the difference?

The rules actually make my job easier. Working with video is a pain.

And since they don’t have any rules about photographing public land from an aircraft — at least I couldn’t find any — we can still take photos and videos as we fly over or past stuff that’s scenic enough to photograph.

Of course things got weirder when dealing with the Navajo Nation for photography in Monument Valley. This was an ordeal. But I can understand it better. The Navajo Nation is a nation — a separate country within our country. They own the land. I am a foreigner passing through. They have the right to make the rules over the land. I don’t own any part of it and my tax dollars don’t pay to maintain it. So I can understand them wanting to get as much money as they can from anyone they can get it from.

Monument ValleyI had to work with the Navajo Nation Film Commission. I had to write a letter and fill out forms. I had to answer questions over the phone. I was told that I’d have to get permits from them and from the Monument Valley Tribal Park people. And the cost of the Film Commission’s permit was simply over my budget. I told the person who gave me this bad news that we’d just cancel our trip to Monument Valley. Canceling would save me about $2,000, including the cost of the permit, lodging, meals, and transportation costs for the overnight stay and half-day photo shoot. She told me she’d talk to her boss again. When she called back, the price had gone down, but we weren’t allowed to use the photos for stock photography. Sheesh. I wrote a check, faxed a copy of it to prove that it existed, and mailed it later in the day.

What’s weird about all this is that I can include the photo shown here in my blog — see? — but not on my Flying M Air Web site or brochure. More people are likely to see it here — after all, this site gets way more hits than Flying M Air’s site — but because this picture is not for sale and not trying to sell anything, I don’t need a permit to take it or show it.

Go figure, huh.

Searching for a Stolen Truck

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We don’t find the truck, but we do find two cars and a motorcycle.

I was hard at work on my Excel Visual QuickProject Guide (really, Nancy!) when my office phone rang. It was my friend Tammy. She told me that a white dualie pickup truck had been stolen from in front of a house in Wickenburg. It had some unusual cargo, which I prefer not to discuss, in the back that made its recovery rather urgent. If I was out and about in the helicopter, could I look for it?

I did better than that. I offered to take her and one of our local police officers on a flight to find it.

(If you’re from the east coast or a metro area and don’t know what a dualie is, it’s a pickup truck with four back wheels. It’s better for towing but also sucks more gas. I suspect that many dualie owners buy them because they think dualies are cool. Until they have to replace the first set of six tires.)

We met at the airport. The officer, decked out in his dark uniform and looking bulky with his flack vest on, climbed in. His gun hung right over my collective. He later told me that his utility belt weighted about 27 lbs. Tammy rode in the back. I had our three doors off.

If this was a typical stolen vehicle, it would be stripped of anything easily strippable and ditched somewhere out in the desert. There were a number of usual places to look. So that’s where we started.

We flew around the outskirts of town, up and down washes and dirt roads. We didn’t see the truck, but we did see some cows, a tent pitched right off Constellation Road, lots of shiny windmills, and more dumped junk than you could imagine. We headed south toward Wittman, passing over the concentric circles of Circle City.

We crossed the Hassayampa River way down south and flew over Whispering Ranch, a rather notorious collection of off-the-grid ranches south of Vulture Peak. It was there that we saw a two cars and a motorcycle hidden under trees in a wash. I used my GPS to set a waypoint so I could give the police the GPS coordinates to investigate later. (There are no street signs down there.)

Then Vulture Mine to Vulture Mine Road to Vulture Peak Road. Then around Constellation Road and across to Moreton Airpark. Then south to Route 60 west of the airport, skirting around the hills out there.

The dualie was not in sight.

If this was not a typical stolen vehicle, it could be in a Phoenix chop shop. Or down on the Mexican border, getting ready to pick up Mexicans crossing over into the remote parts of the southern Arizona desert.

Or if someone stole it for its cargo, it could be anywhere.

We came back to the airport. It wasn’t a total loss. The police officer now had a whole different perspective of Wickenburg, along with GPS coordinates for three potentially stolen vehicles that he could hand off to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. Tammy had gotten a second chance to see Wickenburg — and a whole lot more — from a helicopter. I’d gotten a chance to fly about an hour and a half and provide a service for Wickenburg.

It’s true: I didn’t get paid. But the Town of Wickenburg did pick up my fuel tab.

Update, October 1: I tried to keep the cargo a secret, but KTAR didn’t.

Helicopter Rides at the Mohave County Fair

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Our second try at this venue is a success.

This past weekend, we headed up to the Mohave County Fair in Kingman, AZ, to sell helicopter rides. It was the second time we’d participated at the fair, and although we didn’t take as many passengers as last year, we did do better financially.

This was a “trial” event in several respects.

First, I’d bought a 21-foot travel trailer specifically for events like this one. This was a three-day event (at least for us) and there were four of us. Two hotel rooms for two nights plus three meals a day would have cost a fortune, eating into our profits. And Mike had to drive up to Kingman anyway — we had a lot of gear to bring with us and I wouldn’t be able to take four people plus luggage plus gear in the helicopter. So he pulled the trailer up and we parked it, like last year, at the edge of our landing zone. It comfortably fit all four of us for the weekend and allowed me to stock up on breakfast and lunch foods so we wouldn’t have to go out to eat every meal.

Some minor problems we noticed with the camper setup: if one or more of the crew doesn’t understand the importance of water conservation, a single shower can wipe out the contents of the freshwater tank — and fill the graywater tank. This happened on two occasions; one of the crewmembers liked long showers. In the future, we need to brief the crew about this. While we had access to fresh water at this venue, it’s unlikely that we’ll have access to water at every venue. That means 40 gallons has to last the whole stay. Also, if the location is cold at night, we’ll need more blankets or have to run the heater overnight. The tent-like bed covers don’t do a good job of keeping out the cold. (In fact, my tent does a better job.) So climbing into bed and closing the privacy curtain on a cold night is a very bad idea. And the tent areas certainly didn’t keep the outdoor sounds outdoors. The worst was from a carnival ride nearby called Crazy Loops (or something like that). It was a vertical circle with a roller-coaster-like track running on the inside. They’d load up the people and then rock the cars back and forth on the circle until they finally reached the top. Then the operator would stop the cars, inverted, giving all the passengers a good chance to scream their brains out. He’d release the cars and they’d do a loop or two, complete with more screams, before he let them come to a stop at the bottom. Inside, at 10 PM when we were trying to sleep, we’d hear the screams and the loud rushing sound of the cars as they moved on the tracks. We also heard the rock music from another nearby ride, which seemed to get louder at night. We’ll be stocking earplugs for the next gig.

Otherwise, the camper was perfect. Small, easy to tow and park, lightweight so it doesn’t suck fuel out of the truck. Mike only burned 1/2 tank of fuel on the 130 mile drive — and I guarantee that he wasn’t driving at fuel conservation speeds. The fridge held all the food we needed and more. There was plenty of storage space for each person’s clothing and toiletries. The dining area and sofa made two separate hanging out places. Comfy for four people, a dog, and a bird.

Another trial was our use of complete strangers for ground crew. I’d found a helicopter student pilot at a Phoenix-area flight school and asked him to bring his wife. I needed two people: one to help Mike load and the other to take the money. But I was hoping to do this without having to convert the sofa into a bed at night. The solution: invite another couple.

They did their jobs okay — we kept track of all the money and maintained a safe landing zone. But they were a bit too meek to really sell the rides. You see, when a person is sitting on the fence (so to speak) about taking a ride, the person at the counter has to go into hard sell mode and make them want it. These folks couldn’t do it. Mike and I, when we were near the sell table, had no trouble convincing visitors to the table to fly. But more than once, while sitting in the helicopter waiting, I saw people approach the table, talk to my ground crew, and then walk off. While I’m not saying they should be able to sell to everyone who comes by, I think that a more aggressive or less laid back sales person would have gotten us more business. It might have something to do with age — they were in their early twenties. I think some young people just lack the confidence or courage to step up and play the ball hard.

Ah, if only I could import a few New Yorkers for the job.

But they were certainly pleasant and easy to live with for a few days. And that’s important, too. Who wants to be stuck at a fairgrounds with people they can’t stand?

This also turned out to be a trial for a new pricing structure. Last year, we did the rides at $25 per person and barely broke even. This year, I was offering the same ride (well, maybe a tiny bit shorter) for $35 per person, with a reduction to $30 per person if there were three people on board. I had banners hung on the fence with this pricing information. Friday was a bust because high winds kept me from flying. (I don’t like to do rides with winds 25 knots gusting to 35 knots. Oddly enough, my passengers don’t like it either.) But on Saturday, things were slow to pick up. I’d hired two people to help out and all I could imagine was the tiny revenue stream going into their pockets while I took a loss. So I introduced another pricing scheme, a “Show Special.” We’d do rides just around the fairgrounds for $15 per person. We took down the other pricing banners and my ground crew started selling rides.

Mind you, I felt terribly guilty about selling these rides. They were about 3-1/2 minutes long — that’s all! — but people we lining up to get on board. And no one was disappointed. We still sold a bunch of “extended rides” at the old pricing. So I kept flying and the money kept coming in. We did the same on Sunday, too. I don’t know how many people I flew — I didn’t keep count and my ground crew weren’t using the tickets I’d bought for the event consistently. But I figure I must have flown at least 120 people.

Doing helicopter rides at a fair or any other event is hard work. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. And this venue was very difficult. Although the landing zone was nice and big, it was bordered on one side (closeby) with a 6-foot chainlink fence, on another side with parked cars, and another side with our camper and the carnival beyond it. Overflying the carnival or the cars was not an option. That left the fence or the empty part of the parking lot, which had wires at the far end and I-40 beyond it. The wind was blowing from that direction, making it great for taking off but really crappy (and very tricky) for landing. And since the area wasn’t paved, I created huge dust clouds every time I landed. The dust would blow right into the carnival area, making a few of the ride operators pretty pissed off. (Last year, the wind was blowing the opposite direction, keeping dust out of the carnival but giving me a tailwind for takeoffs. I prefer that. If you can take off with a tailwind, you know you can land with a headwind.)

Of course, we did have water and a sprinkler to try to keep the dust down. It worked reasonably well, especially when I was doing longer rides. Mike had the sprinkler set up in the landing zone and would turn it on while I was flying. As I came in for landing, he’d turn it off. When I was out for 8 minutes at a stretch, the ground got good and soaked. But when I was out for 3-1/2 minutes followed by 5 minutes unloading/loading, my idle downwash did more drying than the wind did. Mike managed to flag down the fair’s water truck once and that made a world of difference — for about 2 hours.

Here’s now the whole thing worked.

I’d wait at idle RPM (68% or so) in the landing zone. No dust at idle speeds. Jen and Mike and Aaron would sell tickets. Mike would give the safety briefing, using the briefing card. Then he and Aaron would walk the passengers out to the helicopter. Mike would take two to the other side while Aaron took one to my side. They’d load the people up, make sure their seat belts were fastened, give them their headsets, and secure their doors. Then they’d walk clear of the helicopter and give me a thumbs up to indicate that I was good to go.

I’d greet the passengers, soothe anyone who was nervous, throttle up to full RPM, and say “Here we go.” Then I’d check the area for stray people, lift up, turn 90 to 180 °, and take off over the fence. So yes — every takeoff was a maximum performance takeoff. And that was the first big challenge, given that today’s population is very fat so I was heavy (but not over max gross weight) for every flight. Kingman is at about 3500 feet and it was in the 80s each day. The wind helped on takeoff but could not be relied upon.

I’d climb out over an unused horse racing track and over I-40, turning left as I flew. When I got up to altitude (at least 400 feet), I’d either continue the left turn back toward the fairgrounds for the short tour or follow I-40 through the pass to downtown Kingman. I’d point out things of interest along the way, customizing my “tour” for my audience. For example, if I had a little kid on board, I point out trucks and trains (“Don’t they look small?”) and if I had adults who lived in Kingman on board, I’d point out old Route 66 and certain intersections to help them get their bearings.

I’d circle around on both flights to come up along the east side of the fairgrounds, where I’d start my descent. Then, depending on how the wind was blowing, I’d either come in over the track or circle out over I-40 again and come in from there. I always had a cross wind or, in some instances, a tail wind, so I had to be careful about descent rates. And, when the wind gusted, I had to really work the pedals to keep the helicopter steady. Didn’t want to look sloppy and scare off spectators that were potential customers. I’d approach over all that dirt and, if I didn’t get within 10 feet of the wet area, I’d send up a huge cloud that probably took a ton of paint off my rotor blades.

I’d set down and ask my passengers how they liked it. Then I’d hand out helicopter toys to kids under 12. Mike and Aaron would offload the passengers, send them back to the entrance of the landing zone, and wave the next group over.

Repeat.

We worked until it got dark on Saturday and called it quits at 3 PM on Sunday.

We packed up and flew home soon afterward. I did one last minute ride for two passengers while Mike pulled out of the fairgrounds with the camper and our two helpers waited for their ride home. Then a quick trip to the airport for fuel and off we went. We got back to Wickenburg around 5:30 PM.

In all, it was a good weekend — although I think it could have been better. I was able to pay my helpers and make some money for Flying M Air. We’ll probably do the fair again next year. But after doing some quick calculations on costs, I realized that it was unlikely that we could make money at the upcoming Graham County Fair in Safford — especially since it was so far away. I canceled our appearance yesterday.

Today, I spent a half hour vacuuming fine gravel from the floor of my helicopter and washing the dust and fingerprints off the windows. I didn’t have time to wash the whole helicopter — I’ll do that tomorrow before it gets hot.

Next big event: the Goodyear Balloon Classic and Air Show (formerly the Thunderbird Balloon Classic). That should be a good gig. Best of all, I’ll be landing on pavement and the folks who hired me will provide the ground crew.

I Work Hard…

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…in a beautiful place.

If you’ve been following this blog, you may have read about a gig I did a few months ago for a group of photographers at Lake Powell. You may also have seen the photo one of the photographers sent from our flight together.

This past weekend I did it again — in a big way. I made a total of five flights (over two days) with two or three photographers on board to photograph the lake and the surrounding area. And this time, the conditions were perfect, with constantly varying light and clouds.

It was hard work in a beautiful place.

Lake Powell
Lake Powell in the morning.

It was hard work to meet some of the photographers’ demands. I did a huge amount of out-of-ground effect hovering at altitudes as high as 7,000 feet with as many as four people on board. Although I don’t have my helicopter’s performance charts memorized, I do know approximately what’s possible when the helicopter is flown by a test pilot with thousands of hours. I am not a test pilot and I don’t have thousands of hours. So when I was able to hold those high hovers for a few minutes at a time — just long enough to take the shots — I was pretty surprised.

Rainbow Bridge
Rainbow Bridge.

I did get into settling with power conditions on three occasions. In two of them, I caught it quickly, said “Gotta go,” into the intercom, and pulled out of it before the descent rate got out of hand. But on one occasion, the descent rate got to 700 fpm before I attempted a recovery and it got all the way up to 1,500 fpm. (It was just like a training exercise, when you purposely let things get bad before you recover.) We were very high over the Colorado River at the time and there weren’t any other aircraft around, so it wasn’t a dangerous situation once I started recovery. But it was a bit unsettling, at least for me. My passengers had no clue that we were dropping out of the sky, despite those vibrations that tipped me off. On subsequent flights, I was a bit more careful not to get into that situation and I refused to hover in locations where we were too close to earth for a recovery if one was needed.

One of my passengers was extremely demanding and often required high hovers. He’d say “Stop in this place,” expecting me to somehow drop from 80 knots to a standstill 2,000 feet over the lake and turn the helicopter to the exact heading he needed to frame his shots. I say shots because this photographer liked to take multiple images that he could stitch together in his computer to make one big image. It was important that I didn’t move while he was snapping away. Unfortunately, he usually started snapping before I was at a complete stop. I’d be all set up for him to start when he was finished. Later this week, when he gets into his digital darkroom, he’ll see the movement in the shots because the stitching won’t work and he’ll blame me for moving. Go figure.

Fortunately, most of the others were satisfied with me slowing down and circling certain areas.

Reflection Canyon
Reflection Canyon on Lake Powell.

Another challenge of these flights was the tour airplane traffic. On my last gig at the lake, we’d been the only aircraft over the lake. But this time, the tour planes were flying. And they didn’t fly alone. They’d take off in packs, following a set route I didn’t know, using reporting points that were only vaguely familiar. Worst of all, they were flying right around my altitude, 5500 to 6000 feet. After my first two flights, I chatted with one of the pilots to establish things like flight altitudes, route, and reporting frequency for uplake activities. I felt better about it then. But every time a pack of them would take off from Page, I’d do my best to be out of their way.

At one point, we were at the dam taking pictures at about 5200 feet when the planes launched. The dam was the first reporting point on their route and they usually were flying at about 5,000 feet when they got there. I listened as about five of them took off. My boss passenger was fine-tuning my position in the sky over the lake near the dam and all I could think about was the planes coming my way. They would pass me on their way to Horseshoe Bend and pass me again on their way from there to the Marina. That’s ten possible conflicts. I reported my position and kept a lookout, but when one plane reported that he saw me and I saw him take what looked like evasive action to avoid me, I told my passengers we were going to get out of the way until they were gone. I dropped down to 4,500 feet, which was only about 300 feet above the river’s cliff walls, and circled as they all headed to Horseshoe bend. Then I climbed through 6500 feet, which was above their altitude in that area and we resumed work. It was weird seeing one of the planes pass directly beneath me, about 700 feet down, as I slowly circled Horseshoe Bend.

Glen Canyon Dam
Glen Canyon Dam.

All this time, my R44 Raven II performed flawlessly. I had climb rates of up to 800 fpm with four people on board. We were flying in the 5000+ feet neighborhood and it was about 80°F outside.

Each flight was about 90 minutes long. I’d load up enough fuel for a little over 2 hours to keep us as light as possible. On the one flight that I had only two passengers, I topped off the tanks. That flight went nearly 2 hours and was extremely strenuous — the boss passenger was the most demanding photographer. I didn’t realize it until after the flight, but I’d had a “death grip” around the cyclic and could barely open my hand when we landed. My whole right arm was stiff and my shoulder ached. I was so tensed up that it took a hot shower and good dose of ibuprofen to loosen me up.

San Juan River
The San Juan River near its confluence with the Colorado River on Lake Powell.

Mike, who’d accompanied me to Page for the weekend, spent the time hanging around the marina and hotel, walking around, swimming, and watching them put giant houseboats in the water. He couldn’t understand why I was so tired at the end of each pair of flights. To him, I was just flying around. But I really was working hard.

Wahweap Marina on Lake Powell
Wahweap Marina on Lake Powell.

At the end of the two days and five flights, I had over 11 hours of billable time. The resulting revenue stream is enough to cover all of Flying M Air’s fixed expenses for two months. So I’m not complaining about hard work. It was worth it and I’d certainly do it again.

But the most frustrating thing about the weekend was the missed opportunities for taking amazing photos. Although I don’t consider myself a great photographer, I don’t think I’m a bad one. But I was flying and needed both hands to do my job for most of each flight. Taking photos was out of the question. It was killing me to see all this great scenery and not be able to capture my own images.

So on Sunday morning, when we left Page, we flew uplake with Mike’s door off. He took the photos you see here in this entry. I’ll be using some of them to illustrate the area on Flying M Air’s Web site for the Southwest Circle Helicopter Adventure excursion.

I can’t wait until he gets his helicopter rating so he can fly while I snap the photos.

Summer is Ending

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At least in some parts of Arizona.

Mike and I took the helicopter up to our vacation place at Howard Mesa yesterday. I’d bought some blinds for the windows on the shed there, mostly to keep the sun and prying eyes out. We also had to caulk the windows — one of them leaks terribly when the rain is coming hard from the northwest and the floor and wall there are starting to show water damage. We wanted to bring the dog, but we had so much junk — blinds, tools, etc. — packed into the back of the helicopter that there wasn’t room for him.

We left Wickenburg in t-shirts and shorts. I was wearing a sleeveless t-shirt. It had been cooling off in Wickenburg over the past few days, but it was still in the high 90s every day. And the humidity — which was probably hovering around 30% — was glazing me. We loaded up the helicopter in Jim’s hangar. (Wickenburg airport is temporarily closed so I moved my helicopter to a friend’s home hangar so I could continue flying during the closure). Even with two helicopters in the hangar, there was enough space for Mike to back in his car, enabling us to load in the shade.

It was a nice flight from Wickenburg to Williams, AZ. We stopped there for fuel. It was “only” $3.79/gallon. That may seem high for fuel, but it’s probably one of the lowest prices for avgas in the entire state. They’re currently getting over $5/gallon in Scottsdale and Phoenix Sky Harbor for the same stuff. Sheesh.

The wind was blowing hard at Williams. At least 20 knots out of the south. And when I stepped out to fuel the helicopter, it felt very cool. Almost cold. This at 11 AM on an August morning. I started wondering if I’d need the warmer clothes I had stored in the shed.

We overflew our friends’ house on our way to our property. On the way, we also overflew Howard Lake and a bunch of cattle tanks. The tanks were all full of brown water. That means it had rained rather recently. Everything was green.

On our “helipad” (an area covered with gravel that I try to keep free of weeds), the helicopter cooled down quickly. The wind was still blowing hard and it was still cool. The elevation at our place is 6,700 feet and it’s always 10 to 20°F cooler than it is down in Wickenburg. That day was definitely at least 20° cooler.

We’d brought lunch from Wickenburg and ate it at our picnic table. The sky was full of white, puffy clouds, speeding northeast. The trees around our future homesite at the top of our property seemed to shield us from most of the wind. We weren’t quite cold — the sun is very strong in Arizona — but we certainly weren’t hot.

And that’s when it hit me: summer was over at Howard Mesa. Sure, there would be a few more hot days and, hopefully, plenty more rain. But the seasons were changing as the sun moved south, shortening the days and changing the angle of the sun at the hottest time of the day. The amount of daylight simply wasn’t enough to bake the high desert landscape. Things were cooling down because they weren’t getting enough sunlight to heat up. In another month or two, temperatures would dip below freezing at night.

I think the realization was triggered by an overall feeling I had, though. Like when I was a kid, growing up in New Jersey. School starts in early September there, on the Wednesday after Labor Day. I clearly remember the coolness of the mornings as I dressed for school. And the smell of the air. I had the same feeling at Howard Mesa yesterday as we ate our lunch.

This year, I hope to get up to Howard Mesa during the autumn and winter months. I hope to be there when there’s a snowfall. The snow falls hard and deep up there — I’ve been there twice when there was at least a foot of snow on the ground — and it’s beautiful to see. Best of all, it melts quickly with that hot sun beating down on it during the day, so it never has a chance to get dirty and ugly.

As I write this at home in Wickenburg, it’s a startling 67°F outside at 5:45 AM. That’s wonderful. Normally, in August, the nights just don’t cool down like they do the rest of the year. There’s too much humidity and often some cloud cover to keep the day’s heat close to the earth. But lately it has been cooling down. Is this just a front passing through? Or is the end of monsoon season near?

Time will tell. Summer has to end sooner or later, even in Arizona.