Category Archives: Flying

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

Through the Magic of Photoshop…

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I get a photographic image of a helicopter that hasn’t been built yet.

Three-Niner-Lima in FlightMarketing is an important part of any business. And the most effective marketing includes visuals. Take, for example, my slides at the movie theater. There are a few aerial shots of the town and some cattle tanks, giving people an idea of what they can see from the air. But there’s also an excellent air-to-air photo of my old helicopter, Three-Niner-Lima. In the photo, I’m flying past Vulture Peak, just like I do on my Grand Tour of Wickenburg. It’s a real photo that Mike took from the passenger seat of a Piper Cub years ago, when we were flying in formation just to take the photos. I have several of these shots. One — the one you can clearly see me in the cockpit, looking at the camera — is on my business card. These photos look so good that I’ve been accused of cooking them up in Photoshop. But I didn’t. They’re real.

Three-Niner-Lima is gone now and I’m in a transition phase as far as the helicopter tour business goes. I’ve been getting calls for rides, but I have to tell callers that there won’t be any rides until mid-December, when the new helicopter arrives. In the meantime, I need to warm up my marketing machine. Christmas is coming and I usually do a nice business with gift certificates. I want to sell a bunch of rides now, so I have plenty to do when Zero-Mike-Lima arrives in town. I also want everyone to see what the new helicopter will look like. Lots of people thought Three-Niner-Lima was a kit helicopter because it was so small. They won’t think that they they see Zero-Mike-Lima. It’ll be considerably larger and more impressive.

The trouble is, Zero-Mike-Lima hasn’t been built yet. Just this week, it should have taken its place on the factory’s assembly line. But there certainly isn’t anything to take a picture of yet.

And I won’t have my hot little hands on its controls until December 8 at the earliest. That’s a bit too late for Christmas marketing.

So what was I to do? I thought about John Stonecipher. He runs Guidance Helicopters in Prescott, AZ, a flight school that also does tours and charter work. His R44 looks very much like mine would. Did he have some air-to-air photos I could use? I could use Photoshop to remove the N-Number (if visible) so it couldn’t be identified as his. I asked him and he said he did have some photos. He said he’d send them. I waited. And waited. And nagged. And waited. Finally, he sent a CD-ROM disc, probably just to get me to stop nagging him. There were three photos on it. None of them were suitable — they were blurry and the helicopter was too far away. I think when I do get my ship I should go up there and help him take some decent air-to-air photos of his.

So I wasted a month waiting for photos that wouldn’t do the job for me. Back to square one.

N45PG in FlightMeanwhile, I had a number of air-to-air photos of my friend Tristan’s R44 taken here in Wickenburg. I leased Tristan’s ship last year for the season and did relatively well with it. That’s what convinced me that I could build the business much better with a 4-seat helicopter. We’d taken the pictures for last year’s ad campaign: “Share the view with a friend or two!” Trouble is, Tristan’s ship is metallic gray with a dark blue stripe. My ship will be Ferrari red with no stripe.

Now I know that a knowledgeable person can work miracles with Photoshop. One of the things you can do is change the color of something. Unfortunately, I’m not a knowledgeable person. I use Photoshop to fine-tune the screenshots for my computer books, prepare photos and other images for the Web, and turn photographic images into computer-generated paintings for greeting cards. But I do know a Photoshop whiz. It was time to bother him.

Bert Monroy is another Peachpit author. He’s an artist and his specialty is Photoshop. He’s amazing — he can create, from scratch, photorealistic images. I have seen him do this at presentation. He blows me away.

N630ML NOTSo I sent Bert an e-mail with a thumbnail image of the photo I wanted him to convert and brief instructions. He said he’d do it, that I should just send him a bigger image. I sent the image with more complete instructions. I asked him to remove Tristan’s N-Number. I told him that if he wanted to get really fancy, he could add mine. The next day, the fruits of his labor arrived in my e-mail inbox. It was a photo of Tristan flying a helicopter that hadn’t been built yet.

I was incredibly excited. I couldn’t believe how good it looked. It looked real because it was real. The only thing he’d done is given Tristan’s helicopter a paint job and changed the N-Number.

I immediately started building my marketing materials.

Slide 1
Slide 2
Slide 3

First was the series of slides for the local theater. The slides would be released one at a time, about 2-3 weeks apart. The last slide would take its place in the carrousel when the helicopter arrived in Wickenburg, before I had a chance to take new photos. I e-mailed the PowerPoint slide file to ColorMark (in Phoenix) and got their assurance that I could pick up the slides on Monday morning. (I have a meeting down in Scottsdale with the FAA that day.) The first of the new slides should make it into the carrousel on Friday. The next marketing item was a 4×6 postcard that would serve as a rack card until I could take new photos for a real rack card. It would also make a good insert for the WE event scheduled for November 19. I laid out the postcard in InDesign, then FTPed all of its files to SimplyPostcards.com, which prints 4-color postcards at a very reasonable price. I’m hoping to get those back within a week or so. Then I’ll be leaving them all over town.

On Monday, when I get back to the office, I’ll use Bert’s creation to modify a few of the photos on the Flying M Air Web site. And I’ll probably show it off on my own Web site, too.

After all, how often do you get a photo of something you’ve bought before it’s even built?

Three-Niner-Lima is Gone

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I deliver my old helicopter to its new owner with one last scenic flight.

On Monday, I delivered N7139L to its new owner, John, in Mesa, AZ.

Normally, it’s about a 50-60 minute flight to Falcon Field. With the high winds from the north that day, I probably could have made it in 45 minutes. But I admit I didn’t take the fastest route to Falcon Field. Instead, I decided to visit a few of the GPS waypoints I’d accumulated during the four years Three-Niner-Lima was in my possession.

The first waypoint I visited was added just this year. It’s an abandoned, partially constructed house north of Lake Pleasant. Jim Wurth had taken me to see it a few months ago. It was quite amazing. On Monday, I simply flew over. No time to stop.

From there, I visited one of my favorite destinations, the landing strip at Red Creek and the Verde River. We’d done a heli group outing there a few years ago on New Year’s Day. There were four helicopters that day and I’m sure I’ve shown off the photos somewhere in the Web. On Monday, I flew over, then dropped down into the Verde Valley. I followed the Verde River south, crossing over marshes, lakes, and dams along the way.

When I got to the Verde’s confluence with the Salt, I went up the Salt River just a little bit, then crossed some mountains east of Falcon Field and approached from the southeast. The wind was howling when I set Three-Niner-Lima down for the last time in a big open taxiway area south of Falcon’s tower. John drove up just as I was cooling down the engine.

We wheeled Three-Niner-Lima to its new home, a T-hangar among the hundreds there. I showed John everything I’d brought for him. I told him about a few of Three-Niner-Lima’s quirks. I watched him slide the hangar door shut, hiding Three-Niner-Lima from view. I remained dry-eyed, despite the fact that I was leaving a good friend.

The money and title changed hands. John drove me up to the shopping center at 74 and I-17. Keri picked me up at the McDonald’s there. We went for lunch at a sports bar in the shopping center, then came back to Wickenburg.

Three-Niner-Lima’s parking space in my hangar is empty. But in about a month, it should be occupied again.

BFR Blues

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I go for my R22 and R44 biennial flight reviews and come away feeling as if I should have done better.

If you’re a pilot, you know that in order to stay current (that is, legal to fly), you must take a flight review with a flight instructor every two years. This review is referred to as a biennial flight review (not bi-annual flight review, as many pilots call it), or simply BFR.

I took two BFRs yesterday down at Scottdale. I flew with George McNeil, one of the owners of Universal Helicopters. Universal has four locations: Scottsdale, Provo UT, Long Beach CA, and somewhere else in the southwest. (Heck, I can’t know everything.) Universal’s Scottsdale students often come up to Wickenburg for their cross-country flights. Their blue and yellow helicopters are easily recognized, and easy to spot in the air.

I had to take two BFRs because I currently fly two kinds of helicopters: the Robinson R22 Beta II I currently own (which is for sale) and the Robinson R44 Raven II I will soon own (which should be emerging from the factory in mid-December). These two helicopters are so similar that if you can fly one, you can pretty much fly the other. The only differences are size (the R44 is bigger), hydraulic flight controls (the R44 has them; the R22 does not), and fuel injection (the R44 Raven II has it; the R22 does not). So starting the two helicopters is a bit different because of the fuel injection and they feel a tiny bit different in flight because of the hydraulics. Frankly, flying an R44 is a lot like flying a Bell 206L Long Ranger; they have very much the same feel.

I didn’t have to take a BFR for Bell Long Rangers, which I can also fly because 1) I don’t foresee myself flying one in the near future and 2) the Part 135 check ride I took back in April or May covers me for that type of helicopter until April or May of 2006. That’s a good thing, because getting an hour of flight time in the R44 was expensive enough. I can’t imagine what it would have cost in a Long Ranger.

A BFR consists of an hour of ground review followed by an hour of flight time. I was able to do the R22 and R44 ground review together, saving time and money, but the flight time had to be done in each ship. I brought my R22 to save me some money and it did.

The ground part of the review went well. As with any good BFR, the pilot should learn something new from the instructor. I did. George gave me a good rule of thumb for operating at high density altitudes. It requires you to compare two power settings, get the difference, and use that difference to decide whether the landing can be to a hover, straight to the ground, or run-on. We also reviewed the usual things I always forget: light signals at airports (in case the radio goes out), weather minimums (the weather in AZ seldom goes below minimums), etc. I also proved that I knew a few of the weird little things R22 pilots know; for example, the minimum rotor RPM for flight: 80% + 1% for each 1,000 feet of density altitude.

The ground part done, we went out to fly. We flew one of Universal’s R44s first (see photo; no, that’s not me flying). I did a complete preflight. I needed George to remind me where few things were, since it had been about 6 months since I’d flown an R44. I used a ladder for the preflight; Universal doesn’t like students climbing on the helicopters. Of course, I don’t like climbing ladders. Doing this preflight reminded me just how much bigger an R44 is. I’d better get used to heights, since the main rotor hub is about 12 feet off the ground.

PhotoI’d had trouble starting the last Raven II I’d flown (about 14 months ago, in St. George, UT), so I was very surprised when this one started right up for me. We went through all the checks and I brought it into a hover without really thinking much about it. It did feel a lot like the Long Ranger and it had been less than a month since I’d flown one of those. We went out to Deer Valley where I did some maneuvers; steep approach, normal approach, maximum performance takeoff, normal takeoff, hovering autorotation, straight in autorotation. Along the way, I got a throttle chop (simulated engine failure), which I handled pretty well. (I have pretty good reaction time.) But I did have a bit of trouble with the steep approach when the governor was disabled — kept chasing the RPM with the throttle. And my autorotations, although “survivable,” were not very pretty. Afterward, we went over to the Cave Creek Dam (the earth dam) for a pinnacle/confined space landing. Although I did a perfectly fine landing, George said he wanted to hear more from me as I did my reconnaissance. That’s a problem I have, though. I don’t vocalize what I’m thinking and seeing when I fly. Unfortunately, flight instructors expect to hear their students vocalize. So although I’d seen and considered most of the things he listed, I hadn’t vocalized them, leading him to believe I hadn’t even thought about them. Interesting, I think, that someone who talks and writes as much as I do would keep quiet when expected to talk.

We went back to Scottsdale, shut down, and climbed into my R22. Then we did most of the same things in my helicopter back at Deer Valley. I was absolutely horrible when it came to doing a steep approach with the governor off. It was really pissing me off that I couldn’t get it right, too. George said it was because the R22 was so much more sensitive than the R44. But I’ve put close to 1,000 hours on that R22 and should be able to get it to do anything I want. My autos weren’t pretty either. I think that had something to do with coming from an R44, which is easy to do an autorotation in, and going into an R22, which is not. We did some 180 autorotations, too, and I just wasn’t making my turns the way George wanted. But I know the reason for that. There was a big airplane parked on one end of the practice area we were using and I kept trying to go around its front end when George expected me to go around the back. When he made that clear, I did much better.

I did a fine demonstration of settling with power, which I really hate doing. To demonstrate this maneuver, you climb to about 1500 to 2000 feet above the ground, point the helicopter into the wind, and bring it into a hover. It’s the hover part I have trouble with. In flight, the helicopter sort of leans forward as it moves through the air. To bring it into a high hover, you have to pull the cyclic back, thus putting the nose up. Trouble is, when you get to the zero airspeed you’re looking for, it feels as if you’re leaning (and moving and falling) backward. I don’t like the sensation. So I got the maneuver over with as quickly as possible. The idea is to lower the collective and establish a descent rate in which you’re descending into your own rotorwash. The controls get mushy and pulling up the collective does not stop the descent. The only thing that will stop the descent is lowering the collective and moving in some direction — forward is always a nice idea. Because you need to get good 500-800 foot per minute straight down descent rate going, you always practice this maneuver well above the ground. After all, you don’t want to run out of space before you recover. And in case you’re wondering, the purpose of this exercise is not to learn how to enter settling with power. The idea is to learn how to get out of it if you stumble in. They also teach us how to avoid it and that’s what I normally do.

Anyway, when we finished playing around with the R22, we went back to Scottsdale where I ordered some fuel and settled my bill with Universal. Flying the R44 had been extremely expensive. I’m glad I’m buying one so I don’t have to pay to rent one ever again. By the time I fired Three-Niner-Lima back up for the return flight to Wickenburg, the sun was setting. It was technically night when I landed.

On Close Calls

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Why a control tower clearance is something to be taken with a grain of salt.

When you fly in airspace controlled by a control tower, you’d think that a controller clearance would be a green light to do what you were cleared to do. Unfortunately, controllers can give a green light to other traffic that might just conflict with you. I’ve had this happen four times in the past six months.

The first three times were at Grand Canyon airport (GCN) while I worked for Papillon. Papillon has a heliport with eleven helipads. The area behind the pads, which is known as “the meadow,” is our departure and landing point. To depart, we back off a pad, maneuver to the meadow, contact the tower, get a clearance, and depart using either north or south traffic, whichever is on the ATIS. On average, Papillon operates about nine helicopters during the busy summer season.

There are two other helicopter operators at the canyon. Both have considerably smaller heliports south of Papillon’s. Grand Canyon Helicopters operates three helicopters from its location. AirStar operates four helicopters at its location. So you have about 16 helicopters operating on an average busy day, all out of the same general area of the airport: the northeast corner.

Close CallNow look at the picture here. In the first two close call incidents, I was the red line, which got clearance to depart to the southeast. In one incident, the blue line (Grand Canyon Helicopters) got a clearance right after me to depart to the west. In another incident, the green line (AirStar) got a clearance right after me to depart to the west. In both cases, I had to alert the departing pilots — on the tower frequency — that I was in their departure path. In one case, I actually began evasive maneuvers when the pilot didn’t appear to hear me. Mind you, the tower had given all of us clearance so we were all “cleared” to depart. Scary, no?

Close CallLet’s look at another close call. In the picture to the right, I was the red line with a clearance to depart to the northeast. The blue line had just gotten a clearance to depart to the northwest. Because he took off before me, we were on a collision course. But I’d been listening and I heard him get the clearance. So when I took off, I kept an eye out for him and made sure I passed behind him.

I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble here. Believe me, in the first two incidents I made quite a bit of noise on the radio to the tower for handing out two conflicting clearances. Unfortunately, they did it to a few other pilots before one of them got on the phone and made some noise. Near the end of the season, the tower was very good about alerting us to possible conflicting helicopter traffic, even when the possibility of a conflict was minor.

Close Call 2 IllustrationMy most recent controlled close call incident was two days ago. I’d gone down to Chandler to meet a friend for lunch. I landed at the Quantum ramp at Chandler Airport (CHD). We had lunch and returned at close to 1 PM — just when Quantum’s training ships were returning. I asked for and got clearance to hover-taxi to the heliport’s landing pad. I then asked for and got an Alpha departure clearance. This requires me to take off from the helipad and follow a canal that runs beside the airport (and helipad) to the north (the red line). When I got my clearance, the tower alerted me to an inbound helicopter that was crossing over the field. I did not hear that helicopter get a landing clearance, but he may have gotten it from Chandler’s south frequency, which I was not monitoring (because I could not). I took off along the canal just as the other helicopter (the purple line) turned left to follow the canal in. We were definitely on a head-on collision course. I saw this unfolding and diverted to the west, just as the tower said something silly like, “Use caution for landing helicopter.” Duh. I told the tower I was moving out of the way to the west. There was no problem. But I wonder what that student pilot thought. Or what Neil, owner of the company, thought as he hovered near the landing pads in an R44, watching us converge.

The point of all this is, when you get a tower clearance, that doesn’t mean you can stop scanning for traffic. That should never stop. Controllers are human and they can make mistakes. And frankly, I believe that they are so concerned with airplane traffic that they tend to get a bit complacent when it comes to dealing with helicopters.

Consider Grand Canyon tower. With 16 helicopters operating in and out of the airport all day long, all on predefined arrival and departure routes, things get pretty routine. The pilots all know what they’re doing. The tower knows the pilots will do the same thing each time they get a clearance. There’s no chance of misunderstanding an instruction because the instructions are part of pilot training and an average pilot will fly ten or more flights per day when working. It’s like a well-oiled machine. The problem arises when the controller gives clearances for departure paths that will cross in flight. Although the controller should not do this (my opinion), it happens. It’s then up to the pilot to listen for all clearances and spot other aircraft that might conflict.

Chandler tower deals with helicopter traffic from Quantum and Rotorway. Again, these pilots know the arrival and departure paths. And, in most cases, there’s a CFI on board, someone who has been flying out of Chandler for at least a year. The tower probably hands out clearances without thinking too much about them. After all, the helicopters will remain clear of the fixed wing traffic, and that’s their primary concern.

As a helicopter pilot, I’ve come to understand all this. And although I wish controllers would be a little more cautious when issuing clearances, I’m not too concerned about me hitting someone else. I use my eyes and my ears to monitor my surroundings. I can slow down — or even stop in midair! — to avoid a collision. I can also descend very rapidly and, if I’m not too heavy, climb pretty rapidly, too. I can also make very sharp turns. In short, my ability to avoid a collision is much better than the average fixed wing pilot’s.

What does worry me, however, is the possibility of a less experienced or less familiar pilot acting on a clearance that puts him on a collision course with me in a position where I can’t see him. Suppose I’d taken off on an Alpha departure at Chandler and had gained some altitude. Suppose the other helicopter was not in front of me, but coming up on my right side, slightly behind me with a solo student pilot at the controls. That pilot could have still been tuned into the south tower frequency. So even if the north controller had issued his “use caution” warning, the student pilot would not have heard him. I wouldn’t have seen him. He could have hit me. Scary thought.

Of course, you can play what if all day long. If you come up with enough scary scenarios, you’ll park your aircraft in the hangar and leave it there. That’s not me. I’ll keep flying.

And keep looking.

First Annual Labor Day Heli Fly In and Pot Luck Picnic

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An event to kick off Arizona’s flying season.

If you’re a helicopter pilot, you are cordially invited to attend our first annual Labor Day Heli Fly In and Pot Luck picnic.

Some Background

As you may know, I’m part of a group of helicopter pilots who occasionally gathers for outings. I call our group the “Heli Group.” Not very creative, but simple.

In the summer, in central and southern Arizona, its simply too darn hot to fly during the day. Or get out of the helicopter at an off-airport destination. So we don’t have many trips in the summer.

But in the autumn, things start cooling down a bit. That’s when it’s time to ramp up for the flying season.

Our group has done a few trips in the past. Our first trip was to Red Creek, a dirt strip near the Verde River, north of Phoenix. We had a picnic lunch, then went our separate ways. The next trip was to The Francisco Grande hotel near Casa Grande. We landed near the driving range and went in for a nice lunch. Another more recent trip was to the Wayside Inn, a restaurant not far from Alamo Lake. We had a good turnout at that one and seeing all those helicopters parked outside the restaurant soon filled the restaurant with other customers. We followed up lunch with a trip to the Swansea ghost town.

This season, I’m trying to get us started for a bunch of flights by starting early with this event.

The Invitation Details

This invitation is open to helicopter pilots with access to a helicopter. You must RSVP to get the GPS coordinates for the landing zone.

My significant other and I own 40 acres of land north of Williams, AZ. The property sits at 6700 feet MSL. There is a large, flat area that could comfortably fit at least 10 helicopters. There is also a new, bright orange wind sock near the landing zone. The wind is normally from the west, making the usual approach over uninhabited state land. There are few houses in the area and no full-time residents nearby, so it is unlikely that the event will bother anyone with noise.

We’re planning a pot luck — in other words, bring something to eat! — picnic. The camper currently at the property has a small stove and small refrigerator, as well as a bathroom. There’s plenty of water but limited electricity; we’re running off a tiny solar system. We also have a gas grill and a firepit, so you can bring something that can be grilled on the premises. There’s no oven so don’t bring something that needs reheating in the oven.

We’ll provide the non-alcoholic beverages, plates, napkins, etc. You can bring whatever you want to drink for the members of your party. Keep in mind, however, that any pilot who has flown in who drinks alcohol will not be allowed to fly out. I don’t want our event to be in the newspapers.

I figure we’d start gathering around 10:00 AM and have lunch around 12:00 noon. You’re free to come early and stay as long as you like, but do keep in mind that the chance of isolated T-Storms increases at the day progresses. The property has 360 degree views of the area, so you can clearly see storms coming hours before they arrive.

If you’re interested in camping out, no problem. I’ll be arriving the day before (Sunday, September 5) and will be staying up there for the entire week. The camper has limited sleeping accommodations, however, so I do recommend you bring a tent and sleeping bag. We have a pop-up camper that can be used in a pinch, but it has some mouse damage and I’m not sure whether I’d recommend it.

More about the Landing Zone

The landing zone is covered with small rocks and some grass and small tumbleweed. There are small pinon and juniper pine trees in the area, but plenty of space to park between them. Care must be used when landing a helicopter with a low slung tail. Some dust might kick up on landing and take-off. The landing zone is level. Anyone landing at the landing zone does so at his own risk. Although I consider the landing zone to be easy — I do it in my R22 all the time — the pilot in command is ultimately responsible for making a landing decision.

In making a landing decision, you must consider high density altitude. The elevation is 6700 feet. Daytime temperatures that time of year are in the 75-85 degree range. Wind is usually light, but can be brisk, depending on weather conditions.

If you have never done an off-airport landing at high altitude, please do not make this trip your first time, especially if you are near max gross weight.

100LL fuel is available by self-serve in Williams, AZ, about 15 miles south, and Valle, AZ, about 9 miles north. JetA is available at Grand Canyon airport, which is about 30 NM north and Prescott, AZ, which is about 40 (?) miles south.

Questions? E-mail me. Don’t use the Comment link here to ask a question; I probably won’t see it in time to answer.

How to RSVP

If you’re seriously interested in attending and want to fly in, please click this link to RSVP. Tell me about your helicopter, your flying experience, and the number of people you plan to bring. Also, tell me whether you’d like to camp out before or after the event. If I think you’re up to the challenge of the landing (and sorry, but I do need to be careful about this), I’ll provide you with the GPS coordinates and a “map” of the landing zone. On the day of the party, I’ll be monitoring the Williams/Valle UNICOM frequencies to provide wind and conditions information to arriving pilots.

If you think you might want to drive up, just to join the fun and meet the members of our group, click this link to RSVP. Keep in mind that the location is 5 miles down a relatively rugged dirt road. If it has rained within the past 24 hours, you’ll need 4 wheel drive and some off-road driving skills. But if it is dry, you should be able to make it with a normal car or truck. Keep your sports car in the garage for this one.