Check Ride Prep Time

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I get ready for my sixth Part 135 check ride.

Some of you may know that I hold what’s called a “Single Pilot Part 135” certificate. This is an FAA certificate that allows me to perform operations that a regular Part 91 pilot can’t perform. For example, I can pick you up at Airport A and drop you off at Airport B. I can also take you for a sightseeing tour more than 25 miles from our starting point. This might not seem like a big deal, but it’s very difficult — if not downright impossible — to build a business in aviation without the capabilities offered by Part 135.

There are three kinds of Part 135 certificate: Single Pilot, Single PIC (I think that’s what it’s called), and Basic. Single Pilot means there’s just one pilot doing all the Part 135 work. I can have two pilots in my company, but only one of them — me — would be able to do Part 135 flying. The other would have Part 91 limitations. A Single PIC is for companies with aircraft that require two pilots; one is always the pilot in command, but the second officer could be any qualified pilot. A Basic Part 135 certificate is not very basic at all. It allows multiple pilots in a company to operate under Part 135. It also requires all kinds of paperwork, training programs, and personnel.

I was a Part 135 pilot when I worked at the Grand Canyon. The company I worked for did all operations under Part 135 and had a basic certificate. I took my first Part 135 check ride with their check pilot. It wasn’t a huge deal.

When I ordered my R44, I applied for a Single Pilot Part 135 certificate. In February 2005, I took my first check ride for that certificate. Since then, I’ve taken a check ride with an FAA inspector every February. My 2009 check ride is tomorrow.

The check ride is like any other commercial check ride. There’s an oral part that lasts 1-2 hours. Then there’s a flight part that lasts about an hour. I’m expected to get all the important questions right and to fly safely, to commercial helicopter pilot standards.

Every year, the flights get easier. I don’t think it’s because they’re going easy on me. I think it’s because I’m getting to be a better, more confident pilot.

In FlightI now have over 800 hours on my R44 and I’ve flown just about every one of them. There’s something magical about flying the same aircraft all the time. You get to know its little quirks. And you can fly it without thinking — it’s as if it’s an extension of my hands and feet. I climb in, strap myself in, start the engine, and fly. It does what I tell it to do without me laboring over it. That’s a really great feeling.

Anyway, one of the reasons I haven’t been blogging as regularly as I usually do lately is because I’m prepping for my check ride. Cramming. I can never remember weather minimums — we don’t have much weather here in AZ — and I have to try again to remember them for tomorrow. Not that it matters much. The rules for airplanes don’t apply the same way for helicopters. But I’ll try to remember and hopefully get it right when I’m asked.

The rest should be pretty easy.

I’ll let you know how I did tomorrow afternoon.

Chasing Race Cars

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2009 Edition.

I did another flying gig out at Parker AZ again this year. It was wicked windy on the ground when we took off — so windy, in fact, that a Bell Jet Ranger pilot refused to fly. (I didn’t think it was that bad, but then again, I’m not flying a Bell.)

About 100-200 feet up, however, it was dead calm and I was able to do just about any maneuver the camera guy needed. I had an excellent observer on board who kept an eye out for wires and other helicopters without freaking out when I intentionally got close to either one.

For the first flight, we chased the truck featured in the video below, as well as a dune buggy like car. I don’t know the technical terms for any of these things — I’m a pilot, not a dirt racer.

For the second flight, it was windy. We were videoing the guys coming into their pits and a lot of hovering was required. I could only hover when pointing into the wind, which was gusting to 28 knots. When we flew around the trucks in the “Python” area of the course, I couldn’t fly slowly enough with a wind up my tail so I did a lot of circling, keeping the target where the camera guy could keep his camera on it.

In case you’re wondering, our usual setup is to have the camera guy behind me with his door off. (If it were warmer, I probably would have had my door off, too.) This makes it easy for me to see what he sees and keep the car in sight. The observer sits up front next to me. Although I keep a good eye on what’s around me, he’s a second pair to make sure I don’t miss something important.

After the second flight, I could see that bad weather was literally minutes away. After putting the doors back on and estimating that I had enough fuel to get home, I took off. I called the airport later to pay my fuel bill and was told that the downpour started 10 minutes after I left.

I flew a total of 3.9 hours, including ferry time. Judging from the video, I think the guys got just what they wanted.

Buy on Sale

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Don’t sacrifice when you can shop smart and save.

Wow, does that tag like look like something written up by a marketing guy for a discount store or what? But that’s not what this is all about. It’s about really shopping smart and taking advantage of sales to buy the things you want and need.

Where I’m Coming From

First, I need to make something clear: I’m not a shopper. I don’t read newspaper ads, looking for the best deals on this and that. I don’t spend hours every week hopping from store to store to save a few bucks. I don’t clip coupons. I don’t have the time or patience for any of that.

And I should also point out that Mike and I are a family of two with just two pets. No kids, no huge meals. Although we might spend as much on food as a family of four, it’s because we like good food. We tend to lean toward quality and the things we really like rather than quantity and settling for second best.

We’re not broke — we’re both still gainfully employed in this f’ed up economy. But like many smart people out there, we’ve seen the writing on the wall. Who knows what could come next? Who knows whether Mike’s company can stay afloat in these troubled times? Or whether people will still be interested in treating themselves to helicopter tours. I’ve already seen a sharp drop in book sales — the real source of my income.

That said, it really irks me to pay more than I have to for the grocery items I like or need. I’m talking about everyday staples, like paper products (toilet paper, paper towels, tissues), coffee, milk, butter, etc.

What I’ve been doing for years now is buying the items I need in quantity when they’re on sale or when I find them somewhere else at a really good price. Here are some examples.

Coffee

Eight O'Clock CoffeeI like Eight O’Clock Coffee. It’s an Arabica bean with a light roast. It’s more robust than Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, which I liked before I left New Jersey and could no longer get here in Arizona. (It’s now available in Arizona; I tried it again and was disappointed.) But it’s mellower than Starbucks or any of the other boutique coffee brands — although I’ll take Starbucks Breakfast Blend in a pinch. I buy it as whole beans and grind it at home as part of my coffee-making ritual. Nothing like a good cup of coffee first thing in the morning, huh?

My local supermarket sells a 12-0z bag (whatever happened to a “pound” of coffee?) of Eight O’Clock coffee beans for $7.59. I think that’s outrageous. But every once in a while, it goes on sale for $4.99. That’s more like it. I buy enough to last until the next sale, saving about $2.60/bag or 21¢ per ounce. Not bad. But recently, they’ve been having these really kick butt sales on the coffee, selling it for $3.89 per bag. That’s about half price. Each time I find it at that price, I buy eight or ten bags.

One of the nice things about coffee is that it’s sold in the kind of airtight containers designed to keep it fresh. While coffee doesn’t have an unlimited shelf life, if stored properly, it should stay fresh for at least half a year. So why not buy it at that low price and stock up? Just make sure you rotate your stock so you’re always using up the older stuff before the new.

And while I’m talking about coffee, it also makes sense t talk about coffee filters. I make my coffee in a Black and Decker single cup coffee maker. I’m the only coffee drinker and I like my coffee brewed just before I drink it. I don’t like coffee that’s been sitting on a pot on a burner for more than maybe 5 minutes. After that, it starts getting stale and I really can’t drink it.

Gold Cone FilterMy coffee maker comes with one of those “gold” filters. It’s a washable thing that’s supposedly better for brewing coffee because it helps the oils of the beans meld together or some such bull. Whatever. What I find is that using the reusable filter guarantees bitter bean residue at the bottom of my cup. I’ll stick to paper filters. The coffee maker takes a #2 cone filter. I don’t buy Melita brand or unbleached or any such nonsense. I buy the cheapest ones I can find — they do the job perfect well. My supermarket sells them in packs of 50 or 100. At my rate of 2+ cups per day, that’s enough filters for one or two months. But over the past summer, I discovered that Wal-Mart sells off-brand paper filters like the ones I use in packs of 250 for less than what I pay for 100 at my local supermarket. So when I go to Wal-Mart — which isn’t very often, thank heaven — I buy two or three packs. Stock up and save.

Oh, and if you’re a coffee aficionado reading this and want to “educate” me about brewing and drinking coffee, save it for another blog. I’m tired of people telling me about how my coffee should be. I make it the way I like it, thank you. My point is not how I brew or drink coffee. It’s how I buy what I like and stock up when it’s at a good price.

Other Products

My husband and I don’t go grocery shopping. We go to the store when we need something and buy what we need, along with a few other things. You’ll never see us in the supermarket with a cart full of groceries. We’re usually able to check out on the 15-items-or-less line. It’s been that way for years, since the days in New Jersey when we’d walk to our local grocery store/meat market after work each day and buy dinner right before we cooked it.

You might think that this kind of shopping is less conducive to saving money. It isn’t really — at least not for us. (Again, remember that we don’t have a family to feed.) We’re still walking many of the aisles of the supermarket. And we’re still keeping an eye out for bargains. When butter goes on sale, we buy two or three pounds and freeze what we don’t immediately need. The same goes (without the freezer) for canned items such as chicken broth and soups. (We don’t eat much canned food.) Pasta, pasta sauce, salad dressing — we buy it all on sale before we need it. We pay close attention to the “Best by” dates and don’t buy anything that we don’t think we’ll use before it “expires.”

What we don’t do is buy things we don’t like or won’t need just because it’s on sale. Mike’s a good example — often, I can buy a gallon of milk for just a bit more than I’d pay for a quart. But there’s no way I’ll use a gallon of milk before it goes bad and I’m not interested in freezing it (as some people do). I also don’t believe in throwing food away. If you buy something you don’t like or don’t use, you’re throwing your money away.

The Lure of Costco and Sam’s Club

Ever notice that if you go into a Costco or Sam’s Club you’re lucky to get out of there without spending at least $200? Ever wonder about that? Ever wonder if you’re really saving money?

I’ve been avoiding these places unless I know for sure that there’s something there I need that’s cheaper there than anywhere else. I firmly believe that I can get better prices on an item in my local supermarket when it’s on sale than I can in a Costco. Best of all, I don’t have to buy a case of it.

Costco NutsMy husband — well, he’s still sucked in. He buys cases of canned corn and canned chicken broth. He buys huge plastic jars of nuts and garlic powder and peppercorns. He buys buffet plates full of smoked salmon and styrofoam trays of flank steaks. He buys a lot of junk we don’t need. He freezes things that are better not frozen. We eventually do eat or use most of what he buys, but we also throw some of it out. I don’t like that.

My thoughts on these warehouse stores is that unless you’re shopping for a large family or group — or a restaurant — you probably shouldn’t be shopping in there. Sure, the strawberries are a great price per pound, but do you really think you can eat 10 lbs of them before they go bad? What are you going to do with 12 giant fresh-baked muffins? Got room in your freezer for that 10-lb bag of flash-frozen chicken breast? Are you even going to get them home before they start defrosting? And where are you going to store those 24 rolls of toilet paper and eight boxes of Kleenex? And you do realize that even canned food doesn’t have an infinite shelf life, right?

Shop with a Calculator

Buying bigger isn’t always cheaper. Don’t get conned into buying the jumbo size just because you’re too lazy to do the math.

I know this sounds dorky, but if you have trouble comparing prices of items because they’re sold in different quantities, use a calculator. 12 ounces for $2.39 is cheaper than 20 ounces for $5.29. Most supermarkets will help you by posting the per ounce (or other unit) price for each item on the shelf.

Going back to my coffee example, my supermarket also sells Eight O’Clock coffee in a larger bag. I think it’s 2 pounds. But a comparison of the per ounce price clearly shows which bag is a better deal; when the small bags are on sale, they’re almost always cheaper per ounce.

A calculator and a cheat sheet with supermarket prices would certainly help me prove my theory about Costco. But that brings me back to my original point: I’m not a shopper. I just buy the things I want or need in reasonable quantity when I find them at a good price.

Quicksand!

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I went looking for quicksand yesterday afternoon — and found it.

Quicksand is quite common along the Hassayampa River in Wickenburg. The river runs mostly underground, in the sandy river bed. It comes to the surface in rocky areas, like around Box Canyon and south of town. It also flows on the surface when there’s a lot of water — like during or after a heavy rain.

It had rained earlier in the week and there was snow on the Bradshaw Mountains, where the Hassayampa has its source. The river was running too big to drive in. So we took Scenic Loop around to one of the few dirt roads that winds down to the river. We parked on a hill and hiked down to walk along the river’s edge.

One of the places quicksand likes to form is at the base of large rocks or cliffs that end in the water. The water flows downstream, hits these rocks, and makes a kind of eddy before it turns one way or the other and continues downstream. Where it makes the eddy, the sand gets soft. Very soft. There’s lots of water under it, so even though the sand looks firm on the surface, when you step into it, you’ll sink in.

I was exploring one of these areas on foot with my video camera on a monopod/walking stick. I was getting to the point where the sand was just a little soft and I stretched out my left foot to feel the next step ahead. It seemed firm enough, so I shifted my weight onto it. Bad move. I sunk in past my ankle. Thrown off balance, I put my walking stick down nearby. It also sunk in. Before I could fall forward into it, I threw myself backwards, landing on my butt in the soft, wet sand.

QuicksandFor a moment, I considered panicking. Then I realized how dumb that was and inched backwards on my butt, pulling my feet and walking stick with me. After a few moves, I was on firm enough sand to get back on my feet.

Right after my incident, Jack the Dog wandered into the same spot, chasing a bee. He reacted quickly and managed to get out without assistance — he’s been in quicksand before — but it was interesting to see the sand shift and recover its innocent appearance after he’d escaped.

The photo here was taken when we got home. My left foot is still wet and sandy; my right foot is dry and clean. Sorry — no photos of my sandy, wet butt.

Quicksand is a serious thing along the river and not to be taken lightly. If a vehicle drives into it, it can quickly be sucked down to the point where it can’t be pulled out.

As for the dry quicksand of television and movies — I don’t think it exists. This stuff is wet and clingy and sticks with you until you change your clothes.

Flight Time = Experience

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And that can safe your life.

After guesstimating for a while that I had about 2,000 hours of flight time, I finally got around to adding up all those columns of numbers in my log book. Although I make entries pretty regularly, the chore of adding them up is only done a few times a year. I’m prepping for a Part 135 check ride this week and figured it was about time. I discovered that I passed the 2,000 hour mark back in October — about ten years to the day after my first flight lesson.

Flight time is one of the few real gauges of experience that pilots have. While many passengers ask me how long I’ve been flying, very few ever ask the real question: how many hours have you flown? I know plenty of pilots who have been flying far longer than I have, but don’t have as many hours logged. Who is more experienced? I think hours is a better indication than years.

The more you fly, the more you really experience as a pilot. Let’s face it: shit happens. But it won’t happen to you if you’re not out there in a situation where it can happen. How can you learn how to deal with the kinds of weird things that happen to pilots if you’re not flying enough for them to happen?

You might wonder what kinds of things I’m talking about. Here are a few of them:

  • Weather is probably the most obvious — and most insidious, as anyone who has analyzed what happened to Colgan Flight 3407 near Buffalo the other day. Weather can be wind, rain, snow, hail, ice, turbulence, fog, clouds, and thunderstorms, among other conditions. The more weather a pilot has experienced, the more comfortable and knowledgeable he about flying in that weather. I’m not saying a pilot should take unnecessary risks. I’m just saying that no one can be a good, experienced pilot if he is a “fair weather” pilot who only flies in perfect conditions.
  • Aircraft capabilities can only be truly known through experience. Sure, an aircraft’s Pilot Operating Handbook (POH) will give you performance data and explain emergency procedures. And yes, you should know the contents of that book to fly the aircraft safely and legally. (This falls under FAR Part 91.103, which begins: “Each pilot in command shall, before beginning a flight, become familiar with all available information concerning that flight.”) But it’s only though experience that you can learn how an aircraft will handle in any given situation. CG a little skewed? What will that do to the controls? Landing heavy on a 95°F day at an airport at 5,000 elevation? With no wind? A crosswind? How will the aircraft perform? The more aircraft you fly and the more time you spend in each one will help you understand the different capabilities of what’s out there. It’ll also teach you “tricks” (for lack of a better word) that can help you cope in difficult situations.
  • Radio communication is another thing that smoothes out with real experience. New pilots who have 95% of their flight time in the pattern at their home airport know every controller and nearly every request they’re likely to get. But put those pilots in the busy airspace of another airport 100 miles away and they’re often completely at a loss for words. It’s even worse when that airspace is around an airport without a tower, where local general aviation (GA) pilots are getting in some Sunday flying. But the more a pilot flies and the more airspace he visits and interacts with, the better he will become as a radio jockey, communicating with Air Traffic Control (ATC) and other pilots. At some point in the experience curve, the pilot will stop reciting requests and responses by rote and begin actually communicating in a language he’s more comfortable with.

These are just a few things a pilot learns with experience. If you’re a pilot, you can probably think of others. Please share them in the comments for this post.

My point is this: don’t whine and complain when a job you want to do requires 1,000 hours of experience to get your foot in the door. The folks hiring you know the simple equation: flight time = experience. And you can never have too much experience when you’re a pilot.