Reuse, Recycle

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And I’m not talking trash.

In this day of Internet publishing, quality content is in very high demand. Freelance writers and bloggers who can create good content can often sell it to new markets. But what’s better than writing for hire is republishing the work you have all rights to on sites looking for inexpensive content.

Recently, I was approached by a publisher who was interested in having me write for their online magazine. While many publishers these days try to get something for nothing from writers, this publisher was willing to pay. And when I offered them a choice of existing content refreshed for publication and new content at twice the price, they went for the existing content.

This is great for me. I’ve been blogging for more than six years and have over 1,900 posts on a variety of topics. One topic — “adventure flying” — has interested the publisher quite a bit. They’re paying me a reasonable amount of money for each post I brush the dust off and send to them for republication. I keep copyright; they get one-time publication rights.

So I’ve gone back to the beginning of this blog and have been pulling out old posts to polish up and send out. I call this recycling and I don’t see anything wrong with it at all. After all, I’m not trying to pass it off as new material. And I can even leave it on my blog.

Today, I spent about 45 minutes on a lounge chair with my laptop next to my mom’s pool and earned an easy $300.

I guess the point I’m trying to get across here is that if you’re a writer with some existing content that you own all rights to, you may be able to find a paying market for that material. The Internet is a big place and publishing on it is cheap. With publishers looking for quality content, why not reuse and recycle some of that old material — and make a few bucks in the process?

Two Ways NOT to Ask for a [Pilot] Job

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More real stories from my e-mail in box and blog.

I was away for four days, completely off the grid. Even my cell phone didn’t work where I was. I had a lot of catching up to do when I got home Sunday night. This included my e-mail in box and comments on my blog. Both yielded fodder for this blog post.

The post is really about job hunting and two things you shouldn’t do when trying to find a job as a pilot. In this case, it’s a helicopter pilot job, but it could be any kind of pilot job. In fact, it could be just about any kind of job at all.

Fishing with Comments

The first was a comment on one of my blog posts. The post in question was from June, 2008. That’s over a year ago. I’d written about my upcoming work drying cherries in Washington State. The post had gotten a few comments — over a year ago. But this weekend’s comment came out of the blue and had very little to do with the post content:

Do you hire any pilots of have any pilots that help you out with flying?

Knowing the number of out-of-work helicopter pilots are out there, I automatically jumped to the conclusion that this person was fishing around for job openings. I wasn’t kind to him. (I really can be a bitch sometimes.) My response was:

If this is the extent of your job-hunting capabilities — posting comments on old blog posts — you may as well give up on finding any job. Sorry to be so blunt, but you asked for it.

After posting this snippy response, I considered that maybe he wasn’t looking for a job. Maybe he was just curious to know whether I hired other pilots to help me — but didn’t necessarily want to be one of those pilots.

But my first instinct was probably right.

The One-Paragraph Resume by E-Mail

The second poor job hunting attempt arrived in my Flying M Air e-mail in box. Keep in mind that unless you have my Flying M Air e-mail address, which I no longer publish anywhere, you can only e-mail me by filling in a form on Flying M Air’s Web site. The same page that includes the form also includes my phone number. Yet this person chose to use e-mail to inquire about job openings. Here’s what he wrote; I XXXed out the identifying info to protect this guy from personal ridicule:

Maria Langer/Chief Pilot:

My name is XXX and I am a commercial helicopter pilot. I am inquiring about whether there is an available pilot position within Flying M Air. I have a little over 200 hours total time, which consist of 120 hours in the R-22, R-44 pilot in command endorsement, 70(+)hours in the Hughes 300, and the Robinson safety course in 2008. In addition, I will be receiving my Associates in Applied Science degree-Flight Technology in December 2009. If you have any questions or would like to schedule an interview I can be reached at XXX-XXX-XXXX or emailed at XXX@XXX.com.

This is wrong on so many levels:

  • This guy has only 200 hours. What helicopter charter company would even consider hiring a pilot with barely enough flight time to qualify for a commercial certificate?
  • This guy has only 10 hours of time in the aircraft my company owns and operates: an R44. (Do the math.)
  • How much of this guy’s flight time is solo or other PIC? (Remember, he said total time.) I’m guessing less than 25 hours solo and only 100-125 PIC.
  • Does this guy really think that an AS degree is worth anything to an employer looking for a pilot? (Or, with apologies to those of you who place significant value on a 2-year degree, any employer?)
  • Is this the extent of this guy’s resume?
  • Does this guy really think that an employer would call him for an interview after receiving a paragraph about him via e-mail?

Although I wanted to reply with any combinations of these thoughts that ran through my mind, I didn’t. Instead, I wrote:

Sorry, we don’t have any jobs available at this time.

Good luck.

And that brings up the real problem with this lame attempt at job-hunting: my reply e-mail bounced back. He’d entered the wrong e-mail address in the form.

FAIL.

Think of What You’re Asking For

When you ask for job, you’re asking for a responsibility.

For a pilot job, you’re responsible for your employer’s paying passengers or cargo. That means other lives or possibly valuable merchandise. Do you honestly think someone would consider hiring you when the best you can do is fish for a job online via blog comments or e-mail? When the ink is barely dry on your commercial pilot certificate? When you can’t even type in the correct e-mail address to get a response from the person you’re querying?

The helicopter job market is tight — especially for low-time pilots. The economy has tourism down — and tourism jobs are the entry level jobs most pilots wind up with. The other jobs are being filled by the out-of-work tour pilots who have just enough turbine time to give them added value to an employer. Silver State and the copycat flight schools that still exist are pumping out helicopter pilots after feeding them healthy doses of optimism and lies about the job market and taking their money — much of it acquired through loans.

The truth is, I don’t know of any employer who will hire a pilot with fewer than 500 hours of flight time. If they say they will, read the fine print. Are they really hiring and paying as a pilot? Or is it just a scam for them to get free pilots while suckers build flight time?

I get at least one contact per week from a helicopter pilot looking for a job. I’m not hiring. But I know that I wouldn’t hire the vast majority of the folks who contact me. They just don’t understand what it is that employers want and what they’re asking us to give them.

Video Flight with a Tyler Mini Gyro

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New client, new equipment.

September 2010 Update:
Flying M Air is now the proud owner of a gyro-stabilized Moitek video camera mount, which is available to aerial photography clients. Learn more about this mount here.

I got the initial call about a month ago. A videographer from the east coast had to shoot aerial video footage of two properties in the Mesa/Chandler area of Arizona. Was I available?

There was more to it. The videographer was looking for someone who could fly 20 to 40 knots sideways so he could get point of view (POV) footage out one of the rear doors (which would be off, of course). He planned to use a Tyler Mini Gyro and would likely be dangling his legs out the helicopter door while shooting. He had his own harness and had worked with R44s before. This, however, was his first experience with the Tyler mount.

I met him at Falcon Field in Mesa, AZ last Tuesday. We met at the Heliponents ramp. I knew Barry from Heliponents from a shoot he’d done at Monument Valley about two years before. He’d been flying either a JetRanger or a LongRanger helicopter and they’d put a full-blown Wescam ball with counterweight on his ship. I’d been based at Monument Valley, at the Goulding’s airstrip to provide helicopter flight services for aerial photographers at the valley for a few days. We chatted briefly. I remembered him; he remembered me.

Tyler Mini Gyro

The Tyler Mini Gyro and its packing case, along with its run-up battery and the camera used with it. The mount can support much larger cameras.

Heliponents has a Tyler Mini Gyro that it leases out by the day. This $30K+ device is kind of like a monopod with a heavy duty, gyro-stabilized mount on top. There are springs in the monopod base, which is short and designed to sit on the user’s lap or between his legs in use. A large battery box provides 28 volt power. There are two adjustable handles to hold the entire thing. The camera goes on top. The two main parts — base and tripod leg– get tied off to the photographer or aircraft so it can’t fall out during flight.

I should mention here that I’ve done some work with video and gyros and wrote a lot about it here. We’d used a much smaller mount from Blue Sky Aerials called a Micro Gyro Mount. Our conclusion was that the best solution would have three gyros. This Tyler mount, although much more difficult to work with in a tight space, had three gyros. I was very interested in seeing the results.

My Client, in the helicopter

Here’s my client, posing for a photo before we started up and took off.

Barry and my client got the system set up. Barry ran up the gyros using one battery pack but planned to send us on our way with another, fully charged pack. I pulled both back doors off the helicopter. My client climbed into his harness. We brought the equipment out to the helicopter and wedged my client into the seat behind mine with it. We secured the big battery on the floor, then tied off my client and his equipment to the helicopter. He put his seatbelt on, too. I shot this photo before climbing in to start up. A while later, we were headed southeast, toward the first of two targets. I’d prepped in advance by converting the addresses to GPS coordinates using GoogleMaps, so we didn’t waste any time looking for the spot. We were on point within minutes of taking off.

The first site was difficult, with lots of high tension power lines. We needed to get footage of a golf course and two different clubhouses. My client likes sweeping, point-of-view shots, which meant I needed to do a lot of sideways flying while he shot straight out. The area was too confined to do any fast flying, but we did the best we could. One of the better series, which we repeated several times, had me flying sideways from north to south with the late afternoon sun at our tail. I’d start relatively high, off property, and come down lower as I flew in, breaking off near the clubhouse. The whole time, I was monitoring Falcon Field’s frequency, since we were right on the edge of its airspace.

We made quite a show for the folks on the ground, which is unfortunate. The video is supposed to just show the place from the air — but not with people gawking or waving (or perhaps shaking their fists?) at the camera.

For me, it was great, challenging flying. Sure, there are challenges in the other kinds of work I do, but aerial photo flying with a professional photographer who isn’t afraid to tell me exactly what he needs me to do is the most challenging of all. It forces me to really work for my money and it gets me in “the zone” — that place where I become one with the helicopter. And there’s nothing more rewarding than doing precision flying to complete a pass and having my client complement me when I’m done.

Of course, I have to admit that it was also easy. There was very little wind — less than 5 mph — and my single passenger weighed roughly what I do. The temperature was in the 80s, so density altitude was not an issue. I had no trouble flying sideways or even maintaining a lengthy, completely motionless, out-of-ground-effect hover. I couldn’t have asked for better precision flying conditions.

After spending at least 30 minutes over that property, we broke off to do the second property, which was farther south, in Phoenix Mesa Gateway (formerly Williams Gateway) airspace. As I was making contact with the controller, my client realized that the power cord had pulled out of the camera and the gyros had spun down. We flew lazy circles around the property for a good 10 minutes, giving the gyros a chance to spin up again. Then it was back to work shooting a clubhouse and some sports facilities. I think a shuffleboard competition was going on because the courts were full. The shiny court surfaces reflected the colors of the flags that flew on poles above them. And we realized that the folks waving to us from the pool might just be good footage to meet the marketing requirements of the videos.

We left Gateway’s space, then returned to our first property to redo a bunch of footage. We weren’t quite sure when the gyros got disconnected, so we redid most of it. Then we headed back to the airport. We’d flown over an hour on the mission; I’d also be billing for about a half hour or ferry time from my base in Deer Valley. (I’d like to note here that if I were still based in Wickenburg, I probably wouldn’t have gotten the job at all; no one wants to pay more for ferry time than mission flight time.)

Back at Heliponents, my client didn’t waste any time reviewing the shots he’d taken on a small video monitor he’d brought along. Most of them were great. He was very pleased. And I felt the kind of pride I usually feel when I realize that my helicopter and I form an important part of a photography client’s equipment.

As for the Tyler Mini Gyro, it costs roughly the same as the Blue Sky Aerials Micro Gyro Mount to rent (when you factor in shipping) and has the additional benefit of being available locally. I’m not sure, but it might be easier to use, too. While I think it’s overkill for my own little HD video camera, it’s a good match for the camera this client used or even larger models. I’m hoping I have an opportunity to recommend it to clients in the future.

Book on Expedia, Get Stuck in a Middle Seat

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Using Expedia may save a few bucks, but it lowers your status to one step above baggage.

Just a quick whine — and a warning for people booking flights with services such as Expedia.

I booked a round trip flight more than 10 days ago. One leg was a non-stop on Continental. The other was a flight with a plane change on American.

Although Expedia allowed me to see the available seats on my Continental flight, it would not allow me to choose one. Each time I tried, it ignored my selection and said I had to get my seat when I checked in.

This evening, I checked in. Still no seat assignment.

I called the airline. Although there had been at least 10 window seats available when I booked the flight and as recently as four days ago, I was offered a choice between two middle seats. And that’s what I’m stuck with: a middle seat.

Crap.

Airline travel already sucks. Who the hell wants to be stuck on a plane for 4-1/2 hours in a middle seat? Not me.

Lesson learned: Don’t book on Expedia. Don’t buy a ticket unless you can get your seat assignment when booking.

Facts in Fiction

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Why fiction authors should get the facts straight in their writing.

The vast majority of people who want to be writers want to write fiction. While I don’t have the statistical sources to back up that claim, I don’t think anyone can deny it. There’s something about writing fiction that really appeals to people who want to write — including me. The only reason I don’t write fiction for publication is that I found that I could make a good living writing non-fiction. Making a living as a writer is more important to me than writing fiction.

With all that said, what many fiction writers don’t understand is the importance of getting their facts straight in what they write.

How Deep is Your Fictional World?

When you write fiction, you build a fictional world. The depth of your world — how similar it is to the real world — can vary.

Suppose, for example, that you’re writing a science fiction adventure that takes place on a distant planet that isn’t even very Earth-like. You’re making up the setting and all that goes with it. Is the sky on your planet pink? Are there four suns? Do the people have eyes where our mouths are and four arms instead of two? You’re making everything up. Your world may have nothing in common with the real world. You have license to make everything up as you go along.

Now suppose you’re writing a thriller that takes place in a Wall Street banking firm (if any are left). Wall Street is a real place in a real city. You’re not making any of that up. You might make up the firm and its customers. You’ll probably make up the characters and plot. But you’re still constrained by what’s real in your world. In New York, taxis are yellow and police cars are blue and white. (At least they were the last time I was there.) Wall Street is in Lower Manhattan and it’s crossed by Broadway. If you change any of these facts — or don’t get them straight — you’re making an error. (Of course, you could cheat by setting the plot in the distant future, thus adding a SciFi element to it. But do you really want to do that if it’s not part of the story?)

In many cases, you can ensure the accuracy of the facts in a piece of fiction by a lot of Googling or perhaps even a visit to Wikipedia. Other times, you need better resources — possibly even an “expert.”

I bring this up for two reasons:

  • I was recently asked a question by a writer about how a helicopter works. He wanted to get his facts straight.
  • I am repeatedly distracted by errors in facts in novels by authors who really should have the resources to get their facts straight.

Let’s take a look at some examples.

Question from a Writer

The other day, someone posted the following comment on my post titled “How Helicopters Fly“:

I am writing a novel in which a helicopter goes out of control and starts spinning. How would a pilot pull out of a spin? Gyrating.

This is a good question — kind of. It’s good because the person who asks does not understand the technical aspects of what he wants to include as a plot point. He realizes that he lacks this knowledge and he’s actively trying to get it. Great!

Unfortunately, it’s not a question that can be easily answered — even by someone who knows what the answer might be. (And I’m really not sure why he included the single word “Gyrating” at the end of his comment. What does he mean by that?) My response to him tries to get this point across:

It really depends on how the helicopter got into that spin. Normally, the rotor pedals will stop a spin, but if the tail rotor’s gone bad (or chopped off), the pedals probably won’t help. Sometimes flying straight at a high speed can keep you from spinning with a non-functioning tail rotor.

It’s not at all like an airplane. You don’t “pull out of a spin.” You prevent yourself from getting into one; if you start to spin, you use your pedals to stop it before it gets out of control.

A better way for him to approach this problem would be to sit down with a helicopter pilot or instructor and ask him/her what might cause a helicopter to start spinning and how a pilot might recover from each cause. He can then fit one of those causes into his plot and have the pilot stop the spin.

But he shouldn’t stop there. After writing the passage concerning the spin and recovery, he should pass over those manuscript pages to a pilot and let him read them. Does it ring true? Is it feasible? Are the correct terms used? Doing this will ensure that the passage is error-free.

Errors in Best-Selling Fiction

As a writer and a helicopter pilot, I’m especially sensitive to helicopter-related errors in popular fiction. A while back, I read a Lee Child book that included scenes with a helicopter. It was full of errors. Here are two that come to mind:

  • The helicopter was in a fuel-critical situation. The author stated that it was better to be lower than higher if the helicopter ran out of fuel. (The exact opposite is true; you want to be higher if your engine quits so you have more options for autorotative landing.)
  • The helicopter pilot is killed by a character breaking his neck. The author has the helicopter pilot land on dirt before he kills him so it looks like he broke his neck when the helicopter crashed-landed when it ran out of fuel. (But the helicopter didn’t crash. It landed upright on its skids. If it had been a “crash landing” — even on its skids — the skids would have been spread and the helicopter would have had other signs of a hard landing.)

These are absolutely glaring errors to a helicopter pilot. They ruined the book for me. How could I slip into the author’s world when its connections to the real world are so screwed up? If he got this stuff so wrong, what else did he get wrong?

I found more errors like this — although admittedly not as bad — in the latest Dan Brown book, The Lost Symbol. I’ll go through them in some detail in another post.

These Are Just Examples from My Real World

These are examples from my world, which includes helicopters. Maybe your world includes flying an airliner or managing an office building or designing computer security systems. Or anything that’s a lot more complex than it seems on the surface. When you read a piece of fiction and the author includes “facts” from your world as plot points — and gets them wrong — how do you feel? Doesn’t it bug you? Perhaps ruin the book for you?

The most commonly repeated advice to writers is to “Write what you know.” Although I agree with this and believe writers should start with what they know, there are often times when they have to stretch the boundaries and write a bit about what they don’t know. I believe they should make an extra effort to get the facts straight whenever they do this. And then go the final extra step in having an “expert” review the final written passages as a fact check before the book is published.

What do you think?