Category Archives: Flying

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

Helicopter Flight: Autumn at Rock Island Creek

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A cockpit POV video from the FlyingMAir YouTube channel.

COME FLY WITH ME as I take my Robinson R44 Raven II helicopter (Mr Bleu) and Penny the Tiny Dog for a flight over the fall colors at Rock Island Creek, north of Wenatchee. This is a narrated cockpit point of view video that starts and ends at Wenatchee airport. Along the way, I’ll be cruising at about 100 knots and flying close to treetops in a deserted canyon.

This video was shot after recording some footage for other videos about helicopter flight controls, so I’ve already got the engine running as I’m sitting on the taxiway at the beginning of this video. Although audio was recorded using the camera facing me, that camera also cut off the top of my head — I think it shifted during my final adjustment — and you don’t need to see me anyway, so I didn’t include much of that video. (Except at the end, for those who watch the whole thing.) Instead, I use all footage from a single camera mounted over the passenger seat with a new camera mount. I had a little trouble with the cameras before the start of the flight so they’re not aimed quite the way I like them to be. Sorry.

About Me and the Helicopter

  • I have been flying for about 20 years. My nearly 4,000 hours of flight time is in Robinson R44, Robinson R22, and Bell 206L (Long Ranger) helicopters.
  • The helicopter is a 2005 Robinson R44 Raven II — the same one that appears in the photo at the beginning of the video. You can learn more about them here: https://robinsonheli.com/r44-specifications/ I own this helicopter. It is the third helicopter I’ve owned since 2000.
  • My helicopter has ADS-B Out and is picked up by radar facilities. You can see my track for recent flights on Flightradar24: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/n7534D This is a great site for tracking any almost any flight, including the airlines.

About the Video

  • The video was recorded with a pair of GoPro Hero 7 cameras (https://amzn.to/2Lxyzwl), one of which is connected to the helicopter’s intercom system with an NFlightCam audio cable (https://amzn.to/31syLTm). Both cameras record audio, but I dialed down the helicopter sound to about 25% of normal volume so it wouldn’t be annoying.
  • The camera mounts are new in this video. They are MyPilotPro Spider Mounts (https://amzn.to/2BnbcQv and https://amzn.to/2Muou3N) which are made specifically for aircraft operations. Utilizing 3 suction cups, they make it possible to mount cameras on rounded surfaces. You can see one of the mounts in the video near my vertical compass. For more information about camera mounting options for aircraft, visit https://mypilotpro.com/; I will be reviewing these mounts in an upcoming video.
  • The video was edited on a Macintosh using Screenflow software. Learn more about it here: https://www.telestream.net/screenflow/overview.htm
  • The intro music is by Bob Levitus, famed “Dr. Mac.” You can find him here: http://www.boblevitus.com/

I try to drop cockpit POV videos every Sunday morning and “extras” with more info about owning and operating a helicopter midweek. (Some channel members get early access to some of these videos.) I also host occasional livestreams with Q&A chats. Subscribe and turn on the notification bell so you don’t miss anything new! And tell your friends. I’m trying hard to deliver good videos and grow my subscriber base.

Any Amazon links on my channel are affiliate links (https://amzn.to/32PLHTD). If you click one of them and buy something, Amazon sends me a few pennies. Enough pennies make a dollar. Enough dollars buy new equipment. It doesn’t cost you anything so I hope you’ll shop with one of those links. Thanks.

If you’re not a subscriber, please subscribe and click to turn the notification bell on. Then share the videos you really like with your friends and family so they can enjoy them, too.

Still reading? Thanks! Maybe you’ll consider buying something from my Etsy store to help support this channel? Start here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/FlyingMAir

Or better yet, to support this channel on an ongoing basis, consider becoming a member. This link will get you started: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLGD_GbGsS6YKK_Ekx0QMqQ/join

Helicopter Flight: Fog in the Cascade Mountains

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A cockpit POV video from the FlyingMAir YouTube channel.

Sit on the nose of my old helicopter as I fly over the Cascade Mountains and its fog-filled valleys. There’s some narration in the beginning; you can apply your own music.

This “Flashback Friday” video is an 11-minute clip from about 90 minutes of footage shot from takeoff in Wenatchee Heights (WA) to landing at Hillsboro (OR) Airport in July 2012. The flight was done on one of those very rare occasions when I could fly a direct, straight line route – normally, there are low clouds in the Cascades that force me to go around them to the south. You can find a montage of clips from the entire flight in a video I released back then, “Helicopter Flight from Wenatchee to Hillsboro” at https://youtu.be/hnIbY2y69Ug.

I remember this flight like it was yesterday. I had to take the helicopter to Hillsboro for a 100-hour inspection and needed to rush back to Wenatchee to finish cherry season. In this segment, I’m flying over the Cascade Mountains and the valleys below me are full of fog. I had taken off just after dawn and the mountain ridges cast long shadows ahead of me. It was absolutely gorgeous.

Back in July 2012, my divorce had just begun and it wasn’t in its crazy ugly stage yet. At this point in the flight, I recall thinking how much my future wasband would have enjoyed the flight and I was sad about that. (Now I can’t help thinking what an idiot he is and how much better off I am without him. Oh, well. Time does heal all wounds.)

I was also a little uneasy on this part of the flight. Flying VFR on top – which means flying in visual flight rules conditions over clouds – is not something I do very often. Helicopters normally fly quite low and I’m seldom above the clouds. I remember being surprised to see the fog and then nervous with the realization that if I had to make an emergency landing I wouldn’t be able to see my landing zone as I descended. But isn’t all that fog just wonderful to behold?

This was also memorable because it was Penny the Tiny Dog’s first helicopter flight. She was about 5 months old at the time and I had no idea how she would react. I put her in the front seat on a leash that would prevent her from getting into my controls. But after I started up, she just curled up in her bed on the seat and went to sleep. She slept until I began my descent at Hillsboro.

About Me and the Helicopter

  • I have been flying for about 20 years. My nearly 4,000 hours of flight time is in Robinson R44, Robinson R22, and Bell 206L (Long Ranger) helicopters.
  • The helicopter is a 2005 Robinson R44 Raven II — the same one that appears in the photo at the beginning of the video. This was my first R44, which was lost in a crash back in 2018. You can learn more about R44s here: https://robinsonheli.com/r44-specifications/ I owned this helicopter and now own another one very much like it, but blue. I’ve owned a helicopter since 2000.

About the Video

  • This video was recorded in 2012 with a GoPro Hero 3 camera mounted on the nose of the helicopter. Audio comes from the camera’s built-in speaker and has been incorporated into this video at 20% normal volume.
  • The video was stabilized prior to editing in iMovie software. Although I don’t like to edit in iMovie, it does have decent stabilization. If you compare this video to more recent nosecam video (for example, “Helicopter Nosecam Flight: Dawn on the East Side of the Cascades #2” at https://youtu.be/HXBznbtc54U), however, you’ll see that a GoPro Hero 7 Black shoots much more stable video than a Hero3.
  • Narration was done using a Røde Podcaster microphone (https://amzn.to/2IFnbNr) connected to a Macintosh. I recorded the brief narration while I was watching the video in the editing software.
  • The video was edited on a Macintosh using Screenflow software. Learn more about it here: https://www.telestream.net/screenflow/overview.htm
  • The intro music is by Bob Levitus, famed “Dr. Mac.” You can find him here: http://www.boblevitus.com/

I try to drop cockpit POV videos every Sunday morning and “extras” with more info about owning and operating a helicopter midweek. (Some channel members get early access to some of these videos.) I also host occasional livestreams with Q&A chats. Subscribe so you don’t miss anything new! And tell your friends. The more subscribers I have, the more motivated I am to keep producing videos.

Any Amazon links on my channel are affiliate links (https://amzn.to/32PLHTD). If you click one of them and buy something, Amazon sends me a few pennies. Enough pennies make a dollar. Enough dollars buy new equipment. It doesn’t cost you anything so I hope you’ll shop with one of those links. Thanks.

Still reading? Thanks! Maybe you’ll consider buying something from my Etsy store to help support this channel? Start here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/FlyingMAir

Or better yet, to support this channel on an ongoing basis, consider becoming a member. This link will get you started: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLGD_GbGsS6YKK_Ekx0QMqQ/join

Helicopter Flight: Up the Wenatchee River

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A cockpit POV video from the FlyingMAir YouTube Channel.

COME FLY WITH ME as I celebrate the launch of channel membership with a flight up the Wenatchee River to Leavenworth and beyond. You’ll see the Columbia and Wenatchee Rivers, Malaga, Wenatchee, East Wenatchee, Monitor, Cashmere, Dryden, Peshastin, Leavenworth, and Icicle Creek with a glimpse of a waterfall in the Icicle Gorge. I make a sharp turn you can’t do in an airplane before starting back.

About Me and the Helicopter

  • I have been flying for about 20 years. My nearly 4,000 hours of flight time is in Robinson R44, Robinson R22, and Bell 206L (Long Ranger) helicopters.
  • The helicopter is a 2005 Robinson R44 Raven II — the same one that appears in the photo at the beginning of the video. You can learn more about them here: https://robinsonheli.com/r44-specifications/ I own this helicopter. It is the third helicopter I’ve owned since 2000.
  • My helicopter has ADS-B Out and is picked up by radar facilities. You can see my track for recent flights on Flightradar24: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/n7534D This is a great site for tracking any almost any flight, including the airlines.

About the Video

  • The video was recorded with a pair of GoPro Hero 7 cameras (https://amzn.to/2Lxyzwl), one of which is connected to the helicopter’s intercom system with an NFlightCam audio cable (https://amzn.to/31syLTm). Both cameras record audio, but I dialed down the helicopter sound to about 25% of normal volume so it wouldn’t be annoying. For this video, I also had a GoPro Hero 3 mounted on my Jeep to record my departure from the ground. The audio from that was dialed down to 25%, too.
  • The video was edited on a Macintosh using Screenflow software. Learn more about it here: https://www.telestream.net/screenflow/overview.htm
  • The intro music is by Bob Levitus, famed “Dr. Mac.” You can find him here: http://www.boblevitus.com/

I try to drop cockpit POV videos every Sunday morning and “extras” with more info about owning and operating a helicopter midweek. (Some channel members get early access to some of these videos.) I also host occasional livestreams with Q&A chats. Subscribe so you don’t miss anything new! And tell your friends. The more subscribers I have, the more motivated I am to keep producing videos like this one.

Any Amazon links on my channel are affiliate links (https://amzn.to/32PLHTD). If you click one of them and buy something, Amazon sends me a few pennies. Enough pennies make a dollar. Enough dollars buy new equipment. It doesn’t cost you anything so I hope you’ll shop with one of those links. Thanks.

If you’re not a subscriber, please subscribe and click to turn the notification bell on. Then share the videos you really like with your friends and family so they can enjoy them, too.

Still reading? Thanks! Maybe you’ll consider buying something from my Etsy store to help support this channel? Start here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/FlyingMAir

Or better yet, to support this channel on an ongoing basis, consider becoming a member. This link will get you started: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLGD_GbGsS6YKK_Ekx0QMqQ/join

Helicopter Flight: Central Washington Geology Tour, Part 2

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2

A cockpit POV video from the FlyingMAir YouTube Channel.

COME FLY WITH ME as I take Central Washington University geology professor and star of “Nick on the Rocks” Nick Zentner on a helicopter tour of the area between Mission Ridge in Wenatchee and Malaga, which is just down the river, with a focus on geology. Nick talks about the geology of the area and explains how the land under our local airport and my home were formed. I show him some landslides he’s never seen and give him a unique view of Saddle Rock. This is part 2 of a two-part series, cut short when one of the cameras died in flight.

Some videos referenced in this video:

Points of Interest Discussed:

About Me and the Helicopter

  • I have been flying for about 20 years. My nearly 4,000 hours of flight time is in Robinson R44, Robinson R22, and Bell 206L (Long Ranger) helicopters.
  • The helicopter is a 2005 Robinson R44 Raven II — the same one that appears in the photo at the beginning of the video. You can learn more about them here: https://robinsonheli.com/r44-specifications/ I own this helicopter. It is the third helicopter I’ve owned since 2000.
  • My helicopter has ADS-B Out and is picked up by radar facilities. You can see my track for recent flights on Flightradar24: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/n7534D This is a great site for tracking any almost any flight, including the airlines.

About Nick Zentner

  • Nick has an MS in Geology and has been teaching at Central Washington University since 1992.
  • In 2015, Nick received the prestigious James Shea Award, a national award recognizing exceptional delivery of Earth Science to the general public.

    • You can learn more about Nick on his website: http://www.nickzentner.com/

  • You can watch Nick on the Rocks episodes here:
  • https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL18y1vgsGPLbl3wrSZwUyvkAiUJHZTS5Y

About the Video

  • The video was recorded with a pair of GoPro Hero 7 cameras (https://amzn.to/2Lxyzwl), one of which is connected to the helicopter’s intercom system with an NFlightCam audio cable (https://amzn.to/31syLTm). Both cameras record audio, but I dialed down the helicopter sound to about 25% of normal volume so it wouldn’t be annoying.
  • The video was edited on a Macintosh using Screenflow software. Learn more about it here: https://www.telestream.net/screenflow/overview.htm
  • The intro music is by Bob Levitus, famed “Dr. Mac.” You can find him here: http://www.boblevitus.com/

I try to drop cockpit POV videos every Sunday morning and “extras” with more info about owning and operating a helicopter midweek. (Some channel members get early access to some of these videos.) I also host occasional livestreams with Q&A chats. Subscribe so you don’t miss anything new! And tell your friends. The more subscribers I have, the more motivated I am to keep producing videos like this one.

Any Amazon links on my channel are affiliate links (https://amzn.to/32PLHTD). If you click one of them and buy something, Amazon sends me a few pennies. Enough pennies make a dollar. Enough dollars buy new equipment. It doesn’t cost you anything so I hope you’ll shop with one of those links. Thanks.

Still reading? Thanks! Maybe you’ll consider buying something from my Etsy store to help support this channel? Start here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/FlyingMAir

Or better yet, to support this channel on an ongoing basis, consider becoming a member. This link will get you started: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLGD_GbGsS6YKK_Ekx0QMqQ/join

Helicopter Flight: Central Washington Geology Tour, Part 1

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A cockpit POV video from the FlyingMAir YouTube Channel.

COME FLY WITH ME as I take Central Washington University geology professor and star of “Nick on the Rocks” Nick Zentner on a helicopter tour of the area between his home in Ellensburg, WA and the Mission Ridge area of Wenatchee with a focus on geology. We’re just getting to know each other in this video but there’s plenty of scenery and geology to talk about. Nick talks about the geology of Naneum Canyon, which we fly along the edge of, and some basalt formations he’s never seen. He also points out the Malaga Slide, which I knew absolutely nothing about. This is part 1 of a multi-part series; I’m trying to keep them short and sweet.

By the way, my reference early in the video to Nick being a “big boy” is due to the fact that he’s 6’6″ tall (!) and weighs over 250 pounds. He barely fits in the passenger seat; his head is up in the overhead window there! I really felt the heavier weight on his side of the helicopter when I picked it up into a hover and that made me laugh.

Some videos referenced in this video:

Points of Interest Discussed:

About Me and the Helicopter

  • I have been flying for about 20 years. My nearly 4,000 hours of flight time is in Robinson R44, Robinson R22, and Bell 206L (Long Ranger) helicopters.
  • The helicopter is a 2005 Robinson R44 Raven II — the same one that appears in the photo at the beginning of the video. You can learn more about them here: https://robinsonheli.com/r44-specifications/ I own this helicopter. It is the third helicopter I’ve owned since 2000.
  • My helicopter has ADS-B Out and is picked up by radar facilities. You can see my track for recent flights on Flightradar24: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/n7534D This is a great site for tracking any almost any flight, including the airlines.

About Nick Zentner

About the Video

I try to drop cockpit POV videos every Sunday morning and “extras” with more info about owning and operating a helicopter midweek. (Some channel members get early access to some of these videos.) I also host occasional livestreams with Q&A chats. Subscribe so you don’t miss anything new! And tell your friends. The more subscribers I have, the more motivated I am to keep producing videos like this one.

Any Amazon links on my channel are affiliate links (https://amzn.to/32PLHTD). If you click one of them and buy something, Amazon sends me a few pennies. Enough pennies make a dollar. Enough dollars buy new equipment. It doesn’t cost you anything so I hope you’ll shop with one of those links. Thanks.

Still reading? Thanks! Maybe you’ll consider buying a t-shirt, hat, sticker, or other item from my Etsy store to help support this channel? Start here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/FlyingMAir

Or better yet, to support this channel on an ongoing basis, consider becoming a member. This link will get you started: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLGD_GbGsS6YKK_Ekx0QMqQ/join