Highest Duty

Posted on May 25, 2010 by Maria Langer

A book review.

Last night, I stayed up late to finish reading Highest Duty by US Airways pilot Chelsey B. “Sully” Sullenberger. Captain Sullenberger was the pilot in command of US Airways Flight 1549, which landed with no loss of life in the Hudson River on January 15, 2009.

I’d been wanting to read the book for a while but I kept putting it off. I wanted it to be my first purchased ebook experience. I was supposed to get a Nook for Christmas, but the idiots at Barnes & Noble were completely clueless about customer service and timely order fulfillment, so I canceled the order. I wound up with an iPad in April. After weighing the benefits and drawbacks of ebook reader software — iBooks, Kindle Reader, and B&N Reader — I decided to go with the Kindle software and ordered the Kindle edition of the book from Amazon.com. From what I hear from Twitter friends, the iPad makes a better “Kindle” than Amazon’s Kindle.

On Heroes

I’ve always been intrigued by Captain Sullenberger’s modesty and apparent reluctance to bask in the limelight of his extraordinary experience. People call him a hero but he [rightly] refuses that title. He quotes from a letter he received after his Hudson River landing: “I see a hero as electing to enter a dangerous situation for a higher purpose, and you were not given a choice.”

I agree with this definition of a hero. Captain Sullenberger did what he had to do and was fortunate enough to have the knowledge, experience, demeanor, and team to carry it off successfully. His love and respect of life — including, of course, his own — is what motivated him to do everything he could to succeed.

In many ways, that’s better than being a hero. When a terrible situation was thrust upon him by circumstances he could not change, he rose to the occasion and emerged victorious, saving the lives of 105 people. Along the way, he gave the rest of us hope — after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, in the midst of a serious economic recession, with wars going on in the Mideast — he showed us what people can accomplish when put to the test. He gave us the happy ending we all needed.

It Wasn’t a “Miracle”

Another thing that intrigued — and, I’ll admit, pleased — me about Captain Sullenberger was his failure to credit his success to the intervention of some supernatural being. I’m talking about God.

I can’t tell you how sick I am of seeing famous athletes and celebrities and just plain people thank God for something good happening to them. Scored a record number of goals in a basketball game? Thank God! Won a Grammy? Praise Jesus! Tornado took out the house next to yours but left yours unscathed? God was watching out for you!

It makes me sick. People don’t want to give themselves credit where credit is due. They work hard, they train, they practice, but they give God credit for getting the ball through the hoop. They learn music, they practice singing, they get a great producer who helps package their material, but they give Jesus credit for winning that Grammy. They don’t want to admit that luck has a place in our lives — good luck preserves one house while bad luck takes the one next door away. What of the people who lost the basketball game or the Grammy or their home? Did God simply not like them as much? And what about when these winners get their own dose of bad luck — injury, illness, scandal, death? Did God change his mind about them?

Captain Sullenberger, however, did not thank God or any other supernatural being for the positive outcome of his Hudson landing. At least I didn’t hear him do so in any article, interview, or elsewhere. I wanted to read the book to be sure that he didn’t thank God within its pages. He didn’t.

And that just makes me respect him even more.

The Story

The book mingles autobiographical material with events from the day of the landing. The autobiographical material was presented in a roughly chronological order, but did bounce around a lot with side stories, including references to the Hudson landing. I’m not sure that was the best approach, but it did keep me reading.

Captain Sullenberger is clearly a true pilot. He entered aviation because of his love of flying. From his start as a teen, he took aviation seriously, learning what he could to be a better, safer pilot. He understands the importance of knowing an aircraft’s systems inside and out. He understands the value of studying past accidents to prevent future ones. He also understands that all the things that happen in our lives define who we are and how we will react in a given situation.

This iconic photo of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River by GregL originally uploaded to Flickr can be found on Wikipedia under a Creative Commons 2.0 license.

A detailed discussion of the events of January 15, 2009 begin about 60% through the book. The story is riveting. He combines his narrative of what happened with references to his past that he believes influenced him to make certain decisions. For example, his knowledge of research into why military pilots sometimes ejected too late is part of why he decided not to worry about saving the airplane by attempting an airport landing and instead concentrate on saving the people by landing in the river. (There’s a lot more to his decision than that; this is just part of what went into it.)

Throughout this part of the book are bits and pieces of the cockpit transcript, recorded by microphones during the flight — the so-called “black box” data. Even though I knew how it would end — don’t we all? — I found the details fascinating. It was a great example of teamwork between Captain Sullenberger and his first officer, Jeff Skiles. Later in the narrative, it was clear that the flight attendants were also part of the team, helping passengers off the plane in as orderly a manner as possible.

The aftermath of the experience also made interesting reading. Getting an inside look at the mail Captain Sullenberger received from people on the plane — as well as many people who had no direct connection to the flight or its passengers at all — revealed the psychology of people. I’m not the only one who appreciated the happy ending to that seemingly doomed flight.

The Soapbox

One of the complaints people have had about the book is the soapbox aspect. Captain Sullenberger believes that airline pilots are not treated as well as they should be by their employers considering the hours and responsibilities of their work. He believes that pay cuts and pension cuts are making it ever more difficult to attract and retain quality pilots who actually care about their work. He suggests that airline pilots are like bus drivers of the sky.

Although I don’t have intimate knowledge of the airline industry, as a professional pilot who has worked for a large tour operator, I know exactly what he means. Aviation employers don’t care how good a pilot is. As long as the pilot meets insurance requirements and can do the job, all that matters is how much that pilot costs. In my experience, many employers would rather hire a cheap, entry level pilot than a seasoned professional who costs more. They don’t see the benefit of the experience. They’re gambling, of course, on the equipment and circumstances of flight — when something goes wrong, will the entry level pilot have the experience and knowledge to bring the aircraft and passengers back safely?

In the airline industry, pilots are locked into their employers for seniority. If they leave one airline, they lose all seniority and start at the bottom at their new employer. This prevents experienced pilots from looking for better jobs. It stagnates the employee pool. And although Captain Sullenberger didn’t mention this, it prevents good ideas from one airline from migrating to another.

Captain Sullenberger does discuss how many airline employees have simply stopped caring about anything other than what’s in their job description. As budget cuts reduce non-essential staff, customer service suffers. Captain Sullenberger talks about his personal experiences going the “extra mile” to help passengers who can’t get the help they need from other airline employees. He talks about how most airline employees are simply tired of doing other people’s jobs. He doesn’t blame them — he hints that they’re underpaid for what they’re supposed to do — but he does decry the system that results in this poor attitude.

He also believes that budget cuts have the potential to reduce safety. A good example of this is the emergency procedures book that his first officer needed to consult on the loss of both engines. In the past, the book had numbered tabs that made it easier to find content. The airline, in a cost-cutting measure, had stopped including the tabs, making it necessary to thumb through the book and look at individual page headings to find content. In the slightly more than three minutes the cockpit crew had to land the plane without engines, every second was valuable. Yes, this flight had a happy ending — but could other flights be lost due to cost cutting measures like this? It certainly makes you wonder.

My feelings about Captain Sullenberger’s soapbox are mixed. I didn’t like reading his complaints, but, at the same time, I knew they were valid. And I know that his experience and the interviews, articles, and books that come from it are the perfect way to get the message out.

While Captain Sullenberger was careful not to criticize his airline, it’s clear that US Airways is just as bad as the others when it comes to matters of pilot compensation and cost-cutting. Perhaps his insight will help make the situation better?

Sadly, it probably won’t.

Thumbs Up

In all, I give the book two thumbs up. While it’s especially good reading for pilots and others interested in aviation, I also think it makes a good guide for young people who want to make something of their lives. And for the rest of the world, it’s a great look at one of the most amazing emergency landings we’ll likely ever see.

Wickenburg to Seattle by Helicopter: Day 3 AM

Posted on May 22, 2010 by Maria Langer

Bryce Canyon to Salt Lake City, UT.

Read about the rest of this trip:
– Day 1: Wickenburg to Page, AZ
– Day 2: Page, AZ to Bryce Canyon, UT
– Day 3 AM: Bryce Canyon to Salt Lake City, UT

I woke to a beautiful day at Bryce Canyon. Of course, I didn’t know it at the time. It was still dark. The weather forecast had called for overcast, so when I looked out into the predawn sky and saw only grayness, I assumed the area was clouded over. But as the day brightened, I realized that it had been just a thin cloud that hid the stars from view. It cleared out to reveal a blue sky.

I grabbed my camera and walked from my cabin to the rim trail. A bunch of folks were there in bunches at viewpoints. Shivering against the cold, I joined a pair of Canadians with the same idea I had: shooting the rock formations in the early morning light. I spent the next hour walking the rim, photographing the view. I’ll share some of those photos in another blog post.

Knowing from the previous day’s experience that I wasn’t likely to get a good meal at the lodge’s restaurant, I went back to my cabin, packed up, and checked out. A while later, I was leaving the park and pulling into the parking lot at Ruby’s Inn.

Ruby’s is a tourist trap. I can’t say it any other way. Every little town outside a National Park is full of them. Ruby’s, like so many of the good ones, has it down to a science. Buffet breakfast designed to satisfy the Americans and awe the Europeans and Asians. Clean comfortable seating. Huge gift shop. WiFi. I settled down in a booth, got tired of waiting for a server, and just served myself from the buffet. The price was far above average so, in true American fashion, I ate a lot more than I should have to get my money’s worth. Sometimes, I’m a real idiot.

After topping off the rental car’s fuel tank, I drove to the airport. By that time, the morning was truly beautiful, with clear skies and light winds. To the north, I could see a hint of some clouds. The weather in Salt Lake City — which I’d checked while at Ruby’s on my iPad — was overcast with showers. I wondered how long I’d be flying before I reached the southern edge of the weather.

I settled my bill with the FBO, left them the car keys, and went out to the helicopter. After a preflight that included checking for ice on the blades (some frost, but it was melting fast in the sun), I climbed aboard and started up. It took a good ten minutes to warm the engine. Then I was lifting off, heading northwest toward Panguitch.

I’d planned this leg of the flight days before and had repeatedly wondered whether It was a good route. Sometimes I do that. I decide on one thing and repeatedly have second thoughts about my decision. Is that a woman thing? I don’t know. But this time, I stuck with it.

An example of one of the red rock canyons northwest of Bryce, as seen from the air.

The landscape was immediately amazing. I was coming off the plateau on which Bryce “Canyon” sits. Bryce is not really a canyon at all. It’s more like a mesa with incredible red rock formations around much of its exposed sides. Coming down off the northwest side, I passed over and near dozens of red rock canyons, many of them deep and narrow slot canyons. It would have been interesting to explore, but I was on a schedule and didn’t have time. So I continued on.

I descended at least a thousand feet off the plateau into the valley in which Panguitch and its small airport (U55) sits. The town looked tiny from my perspective. I didn’t overfly it. Instead, I turned north to join up with Highway 89. I’d follow that at least halfway to Salt Lake City.

Canyon between Panguitch and Circleville, UT over Highway 89.

The flight took me along the Sevier River, through a narrow canyon and into a wider valley beyond. The towns along here were few and far between: Circleville, Junction, Marysvale. At Marysvale, my chart advised me that there was a Letter M visible from the sky. Sure enough, it was there, bigger than life. I wondered about the pilots who used such landmarks as navigation tools. I also thought it might be cool to display the chart and photo of this landmark side by side in a blog post, so I snapped a photo. (Sorry about the glare. And yes, I really did think about this while I was flying.)

Marysvale on the Chart Letter M

How does this happen?

I went through another canyon. This one had some great color on one rock wall. Really pretty. I’m not sure how color like this happens, but I’m willing to bet that a geologist would really enjoy flying low-level in a helicopter through an area like this. The earth’s geology is laid bare for all to see.

I should mention here that the whole time I was flying, I was in a valley between mountains 10,000 feet and taller. There was plenty of snow atop those mountains. And the clouds were beginning to gather not far above them, thickening with every mile north that I traveled. They were friendly, white, puffy clouds, the kind that get nasty on summer days when convective activity builds them taller and taller.

Reflections in a glassy calm lake.

I flew by a number of small lakes. The wind was perfectly calm down there — it was easy to see from the quality of the reflections of the mountains and sky. I got a few shots through the bubble. This is the best of the bunch.

Not long afterward, the weather closed in. The clouds thickened and blotted out the sun and sky. They also started to drop, getting ever closer to where I was flying. By the time I got to Provo (KPVU), it was raining and I was flying only a few hundred feet below the clouds. I called the Provo tower and asked to transition along I-15. The controller cleared me for the transition and the radio settled back into unbroken silence until I reported I was clear to the north.

See what I mean about low clouds in this video.

I shot a video in this area using my Flip video camera. It’s crappy — hell, it isn’t easy to take any photos while flying a helicopter so cut me some slack here. It does give you a pretty good idea of what the weather was like. The video sweeps from left to right across the cockpit, ending at my right shoulder. The weather improved somewhat as I closed in on Salt Lake City airport.

I called into Salt Lake City when I was about 11 miles out. The controller told me to call Salt Lake City approach. So I switched frequencies and repeated my call. I was told to proceed along I-15. Three minutes later, they told me to contact the tower on yet another frequency. I dialed in and wound up speaking with the original controller. “Welcome back,” she said.

Salt Lake City Airport Diagram I told her I was unfamiliar but had a good airport diagram. I told her I was going to the Million Air FBO and had a pretty good idea of where it was. She cleared me to land when I was still a few miles out.

Salt Lake City is like two airports in one. There are two big runways for commercial airliners on the west side. And then there are two smaller runways for general aviation on the east side. My destination on the airport was on the southeast corner. I came in right of the taxiway parallel to runway 35. I weaved my way around some parked planes and came in for a landing on the ramp. A line guy came out and guided me to a spot 10 feet away from where I’d touched down. Whatever.

I’d been in the air for a full hour.

I shut down as the pilot I was meeting at Salt Lake stepped out of the FBO into the rain. A while later, we’d be starting a long flight to Seattle together.

But that’s another story.

What It’s Like to Tow a 15,000-lb Fifth Wheel Trailer 1,500 miles

Posted on May 20, 2010 by Maria Langer

Or why I’ll never be a long-haul trucker.

I’m writing this from the relative comfort of the desk in my RV. I just completed a 3-1/2 day drive from Arizona to Washington State and am parked alongside a very large garage adjacent to a private heliport at a friend’s house in Auburn.

I’m resting.

The drive was a lot more difficult than I imagined. Difficult enough for me to blog about it. In detail.

No, I’m not going to give you turn-by-turn driving instructions and list the sights I saw along the way. No one really wants to read stuff like that. If you’re at all interested, you can read about the first two days of the drive here. I wrote that two days ago when I was still relatively fresh.

Instead, I’ll tell you why I’m exhausted and why I’m glad I don’t have to drive again tomorrow.

Towing: the Basics

My RV is a 36-foot long Montana Mountaineer fifth wheel. Because our 2001 Chevy Silverado 3/4 ton pickup already had a gooseneck hitch receptor on it, I converted the RV’s hitch to a gooseneck. Well, I didn’t do it. The folks I bought the RV from did it. It makes it a bit tricky to hook up — still not sure how I’m going to line it up when I need to hitch it alone — but it does keep the pickup’s bed free of a bunch of extra hardware.

The trailer is 15,000 pounds max gross weight. I didn’t weigh it before this trip — I wanted to, but didn’t get around to it. (There’s a scale at the local dump in Wickenburg, so it wouldn’t have been so tough. Weigh the truck alone, then weigh the truck with the trailer and do the math.) I don’t think it’s fully loaded, but I bet it still close enough to 15,000 pounds to make the weight debate moot.

The truck can pull the weight. Its manual says it can and it can. I push a button on the gear shift lever to turn on the towing package feature and the Duramax diesel and Allison transmission do the rest. It stays in a lower gear so I can get it up to highway speed and then shifts back down into a lower gear when I brake for engine braking.

It takes a while for the truck to get up to highway speed. Normally, the truck is remarkably peppy for a diesel. That’s one of the things I like about it. But add 15,000 pounds and it’s working hard. 0 to 60 takes about 30 seconds. If I’m on flat road. Add an uphill climb and I might not even get it up to 60.

Add a downhill coast and I’ll have trouble keeping it below 60. And that’s the problem.

The Trick is to Avoid Using the Brakes

Imagine a freight train barreling along at 50 miles an hour. Now imagine some idiot stalled at a crossing on the tracks. He’d better get his ass out of the car and hope his insurance is up-to-date.

I once spoke to a train engineer for Conrail in New Jersey. He told me that if there’s something on the tracks, they don’t even bother trying to stop. Why? Because they won’t be able to stop in time anyway. It could take over a mile for a freight train moving at cruising speed to come to a complete stop. Why? Because of the inertia of all that weight moving at cruise speed.

As I gained experience at the helm of my own personal freight train, I quickly learned that my main goal should be to drive in such a way that I minimized the use of the brakes. There are three reasons for this:

It takes a long time to stop — or even to slow down. The less often you need to stop or slow down, the better off you are.
Using the brakes wastes fuel. Look at it this way: you pump a lot of fuel through the engine at high RPMs in a lower gear to get the damn thing moving. If you hit the brakes, not only are you throwing away all the stored energy in your weight and speed, but the engine is going to downshift again and use more fuel at high RPMs to slow you back down. May as well punch a hole in the fuel tank and let it drain out.
Using the brakes wears down the brakes and works the engine. You have to press harder on the brakes to get a reaction out of them. That means you’re wearing them down more. And with engine braking, the poor engine is working hard even when you’re slowing down. Is that fair?

It’s the Stress that Exhausted Me

The difficulty in slowing down or stopping is where all the stress comes in.

The entire time I was driving, I was on alert. I needed to know that I had to stop or slow down before I had to stop or slow down. So I looked at every other vehicle around me — as well as traffic lights and stop signs when I wasn’t on the freeway — with a critical eye. Is that guy in front of me going to hit his brakes? Is the idiot next to him going to cut me off? Is that traffic light up ahead going to turn yellow before I get to it? Is that school bus up ahead going to stop?

Even when I was on straight, flat freeway with no other vehicles around me, I couldn’t relax. At one point, a dog ran into the freeway in front of me. A dog! Like that freight train engineer, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop in time. If he didn’t get out of the road, I’d run right over him, just like a freight train. There’s no way I’d try to swerve at 60 MPH with all that weight behind me. I leaned on the truck’s horn. Fortunately for the dog, he ran back where he came from without becoming my victim.

So all day long, hour after hour, I was tensed up, fully alert and ready to react before I needed to. It exhausted me.

Now Add Some Mountains

The route I chose was mountainous. In Death Valley, I was 230 feet below sea level. Near Mammoth Lakes, CA, I was at over 8,000 feet above sea level. For three days, it seemed like all I did was climb up and down mountains.

Up wasn’t a big deal. Press the pedal and burn fuel in second or third gear, trying to maintain a decent speed so as not to annoy the people behind me. It didn’t matter if there was a curve up ahead — I probably wasn’t going fast enough to make negotiating it a problem.

But down…well, that’s another story entirely. The Chevy has never been a good coaster — my 1994 Ford F150 is far better at that — but add 15,000 pounds and gravity can turn anything into a coaster. I had to use the brakes going downhill just to prevent the speed from climbing higher than I could handle. The transmission did its part, of course, but that wasn’t enough on the 9% grade (not a typo) coming down into the Panamint Valley in Death Valley National Park. In second gear, with the engine red-lining, I was still pumping the brakes to keep the speed below 50 miles per hour as I negotiated curves on a two-lane road that hugged the side of a cliff.

You want to talk stress? I can’t imagine anything more stressful than that.

Add Rain

Actually, I can: wet pavement on those curvy downhill stretches.

The rain started on Day 3 and haunted me for the whole day. That’s the day I descended from the mountains in Northern California into southern Oregon. There was this one stretch just south of Ashland on I-5…a lengthy downhill ride hugging the side of a mountain with curves marked for 50 mph. Bad enough dry, but nightmarish when wet and surrounded by tractor-trailer trucks. Who the hell designs highways like that?

I’m an Arizonan. I don’t drive in rain because it doesn’t rain. When it does rain, the roads are slick because of oil accumulation. It’s terrifying. How slick were these roads? I didn’t know and I didn’t want to find out. I just struggled to keep my speed down, imagining the horrific crash if the trailer decided to slide a different direction than the truck was going.

Overreacting? Perhaps.

Reading this, you probably think I’m a sissy. But I have a lot of miles under my belt — I’ve driven clear across the country more times than I can count and have made 3-1/2 round trips from Arizona to Washington since 2005. I’ve driven everything from motorcycles to this rig, including hundreds of different rental cars.

But driving this rig was unlike anything else I’d ever driven. It wasn’t like my Ducati, which I could whip around curves by tossing my weight around. It wasn’t like my Honda S2000, which red-lines at 9,000 RPM and has just the tiniest bit of body roll in curves. It wasn’t even like the Chevy without its load, able to accelerate or stop quicker than you’d think a truck should.

Just the knowledge that slowing down or stopping was going to be so tough had me on edge the entire time.

And that’s what kept me safe.

But when it’s time to return to Arizona, I know one thing for sure: I’ll be planning the route with the straightest, flattest roads I can find.

Congratulations! You’ve made it to the end of yet another lengthy blog post here on An Eclectic Mind. If you got this far, you must have gotten something out of what you read. And isn’t it nice to read Web content that isn’t full of annoying ads?

How about doing something to show your appreciation? I’d love it if you’d add a comment at the end of this post to share your feedback with me and others. But I’d really love it if you’d visit my Support page and chip in a few dollars to help cover the cost of hosting this blog and motivate me to keep writing new, interesting content. It’ll only take a moment and I really would appreciate it!

On the Road Again

Posted on May 19, 2010 by Maria Langer

Comment

Notes from halfway down the long drive from Wickenburg to Seattle.

I’m writing this from a Walmart parking lot. I’m propped up in a queen sized bed with three pillows behind my back and my laptop on my lap. It’s 3:30 in the morning and I’m pretty much wide awake after just over five hours of sleep. It isn’t noise that woke me — this Susanville, CA parking lot is remarkably quiet. I guess I’m just done sleeping for the night. But it’s too early to continue my travels along winding mountain roads, so I figured I’d share an update on my blog.

This isn’t a pleasure trip — although parts of it have been very pleasant. It’s for work; I’m repositioning a truck and my new RV from Arizona to Washington State for the summer. The RV will be my home away from home as I work on cherry drying contracts for central Washington growers. The truck is needed not only to pull this massive fifth wheel trailer but to carry the refueling system I need to meet my contractual obligations.

The Truck

I’ve written about my new RV elsewhere in this blog, so I won’t repeat that here. But I’ve probably neglected the truck. It’s my husband’s truck: a 2001 Chevy Silverado 3/4 ton pickup. It has a Duramax Diesel engine with towing package and an Allison transmission. A “man’s” truck, capable of towing more than 15,000 pounds. (We bought it new in 2001 to tow a horse trailer with living quarters that I’ve since sold.) Inside, it has many creature comforts, including heated leather seats, power windows, and stereo system with iPod connection. The truck runs well and is up to the task of towing my home away from home over 1,000 miles.

I’ve mounted my old Garmin 60c GPS over the dash and have it wired into one of the DC power outlets. I’d loaded in topo maps (my preferred map type) for my entire route and then some. I’m using it mostly as a trip computer, to calculate distance driven, average speed, etc. I’m keeping close track of fuel consumption so I can calculate burn rates.

I’ve also clipped my cell phone case to the visor and connected it to another DC outlet. I’m wearing my Bluetooth earpiece for most of the trip for safer hands-free communication — when I can get a signal. Verizon has the best network — which is why I use it — but even Verizon doesn’t cover some of the places I’ve driven through on this trip. I can hear the signal fade in and out with beeps in my right ear as I drive.

The Route and Stops

Track Me!
If I’m traveling — whether by helicopter or on a long drive — you can usually follow my SPOT Messenger track online at tinyurl.com/FindMaria

Every year I choose a different route for this drive, shunning freeways as much as possible. This year, the route included stops to visit with friends in Las Vegas and Reno, NV, and Ashland, OR. The route began in Wickenburg, AZ and headed west on route 60. What followed was a numeric alphabet soup of route numbers: 72 and 95 to Parker, 62 and 95 to Needles, 40 and 95 to Boulder City, 95 and 215 to Las Vegas, etc. You get the idea.

In Vegas, I visited with my friends Jim and Judith. Jim is a helicopter pilot who flies a Hughes 500c. He and his wife, Judith, lived in Wickenburg for quite a while but, like most of our other friends, bailed out when the saw the reality of the situation there. They moved to the San Diego area for a while, then various places in California, and finally in Las Vegas.

Jim, an airline pilot who took early retirement years ago — luckily, before the airline went belly up — is an inventor. He designs, manufactures, and sells power external aircraft power units called StartPacs. They’re used primarily for starting turbine engines, although he has a whole range of power products now, from power sources a pilot can use while fiddling with his avionics on the ground to big, self-propelled APUs for bizjets. When they left Wickenburg, they took their business with them. They now employ a handful of people in their Las Vegas office and manufacturing facility. Jim gave me a tour after lunch on Monday and showed me some of the new designs he’s gotten patents for.

I left Vegas and headed west and then north through Pahrump. Another road took me west again. By 4 PM, I was in Death Valley. Although the temperatures should have been topping 100°F there this time of year, it was unseasonably cool, in the high 80s, with plenty of cloud cover. There were also signs of rain coming from the clouds, but the ranger at the Visitor Center assured me that it was unlikely for any drops to reach the ground.

On one ranger’s suggestion, I made my way to Panamint Springs. After a long, slow climb up over the mountains, I experienced a harrowing descent down a 9% grade. The truck’s tow package really helped out, downshifting to 2nd gear automatically to reduce my need to ride the brakes. Note to self: avoid Route 190 between Stovepipe Wells and Panamint Springs when towing a 36-foot RV.

Panamint Springs is still inside Death Valley National Park, but it overlooks the Panamint Valley, which is one valley west. It consists of a motel-like lodge, restaurant, and dirt lot dressed up as a campground. I paid $15 for a water-only hookup for my RV for the night. (I didn’t bother hooking up; I didn’t need water.) I had a heck of a time getting the RV into its pull-through spot. Although it was plenty long enough, the campground designers had placed large boulders at either side of the driveway. Making the turn without damaging the RV’s underside was tough. But I eventually managed and Alex the Bird and I settled in for the evening. I watched the changing light on the mountainsides from a patio table at the restaurant. At night, it was dead quiet and very dark. I stepped outside to admire a sky full of stars with a crescent moon before turning in for the night.

The next morning, I was on the road at 7 AM, continuing west on Route 190. After fueling up just outside of Lone Pine, I continued north on Route 395. I didn’t realize that route was so mountainous. After leaving Bishop, the truck did a lot of climbing, eventually reaching over 8,000 feet elevation. (This was the day after descending to -230 feet in Death Valley.)

On the urging of my friend, Rod, I detoured to the Ghost Town of Bodie. That required me to negotiate 14 miles of narrow, windy road, the last three of which were unpaved. I was extremely pleased to see that the parking area was large enough to make a U-turn in without having to back up. I put Alex in the camper while I went to explore the townsite on foot with my camera. I’ll likely write about that in another blog post, when I get the photos off my camera.

I met Rod for lunch in the Reno area, not far from where route 395 intersects with I-80. Rod lives in Georgetown, CA; I’d visited him and his wife, Liz, there by helicopter several times in the past. This time, I was on the other side of the Sierra Nevada mountains and wasn’t planning on crossing. But Rod made the 2+ hour drive from Georgetown to Reno to meet with me. Rod’s also a helicopter pilot — he flies fires in twin-engine helicopters like Hueys — in the summer. The rest of the year, he does odd jobs around home. We had a very late lunch in a Chinese restaurant in Sparks, NV.

Then I continued my drive north on route 395, ending up here in Susanville.

Highlights of the Trip

I’ve driven through some beautiful scenery over the past two days. Snow-capped mountains, sheer granite cliffs, dry lake beds, sand dunes, layered rock thrust up on an angle and eroded to expose lines of color. Blue lakes, rushing rivers, puffy white clouds in otherwise clear blue skies. Herds of wild burros, pastures full of horses and cattle, deer. The ruins of a town in the middle of nowhere that once was home to over 10,000 people.

It’s all a blur. A trip like this on a route like this shouldn’t be crammed into a few days. It should be slowed down and savored, with stops here and there to take in the sights and sounds and smells. This isn’t quality sightseeing — it’s motoring. I may as well be on a freeway.

Later today, I’ll drop down from the mountains to I-5 near the Oregon border. From there, I’ll follow the Interstate north into Oregon. After another lunch with another helicopter pilot friend, I’ll make my way north to the Seattle area. I’ll camp out in yet another helicopter pilot friend’s yard. Whether I can get there today depends on how twisty and mountainous the roads between Susanville and I-5 are; I’ll know by lunchtime.

E25 to BFI by Helicopter on Google Earth

Posted on May 14, 2010 by Maria Langer

My four-day trip, plotted.

I’m a geek. Everyone should know that. This just proves it again.

I use a gps logger to track my GPS coordinates when I’m out and about taking photos, mostly so I can geotag my photos. But on long flights, I often turn the GPS logger on and let it collect my coordinates as I fly. The logger I use has a huge memory and was actually able to accumulate GPS coordinates for my entire helicopter flight from Wickenburg, AZ to Seattle, WA.

Helicopter Flight on Google Earth The image shown here shows the four days of my flight. Day 1 was Wickenburg to Page, AZ. Day 2 was a photo flight on Lake Powell followed by a flight from Page, AZ to Bryce Canyon, UT. Day 3 was Bryce Canyon, UT to Salt Lake City, UT and then on to Yakima, WA. Day 4 was a bit of scud running to get to the other side of the Cascade Mountains, from Yakima to Seattle, WA.

If you’d like to look at the track points in detail on your copy of Google Earth, you can download them. They show altitude, too, so you can get an idea of how high or low we were for various stages of the flight. You can probably even do some kind of flyby if you have the right software.

Pretty cool, no?