HAI — and General Aviation Pilots Nationwide — Need Your Help!

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A call for help from Helicopter Association International.

As most pilots should know, the U.S. government is attempting to pass legislation which would, in effect, fund the repeated airline financial bailouts with money collect from general aviation pilots and operators. This will directly affect my business, as well as other small aviation operators. It will also raise the costs on many general aviation services, including, as HAI points out, EMS helicopter transportation and firefighting. These are the services that rush people outside of big cities to hospitals when they have heart attacks or serious car accidents and protect our homes from forest and brush fires.

Here’s an e-mail I just got from HAI. It not only explains the problem, but offers a toll-free number you can use to call your Senators and voice your opposition to user fees.

Congress has reached a critical stage in drafting a bill to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). U.S. Senate draft bill, S. 1300, establishes a new $25 per-flight “user fee” for all turbine powered planes as well as more stringent requirements for Emergency Medical Services (EMS) operators. The way the current draft is written, helicopters would not be exempt from this “surcharge”. This legislation will be considered and voted upon by the Senate Commerce Committee THIS WEDNESDAY May 16. It is critically important that you contact your Senator TODAY to tell them to support an Amendment to the Senate Commerce FAA bill to remove “user fees” from S. 1300.

Every voice counts, and your voice needs to be heard in Washington. You joined Helicopter Association International (HAI) for a reason. Helping you to sustain your operations and keeping you abreast of important legislative and regulatory changes is one of the most important jobs HAI performs as your advocate before Congress.

If you have never picked up the phone to make a call on an important issue, now is the time for you to start. HAI has partnered with the Alliance for Aviation Across America, and we’ve made it easier than ever to contact your Senator. The message you need to send to your Senator: ask them to support an amendment to the Senate Commerce FAA bill to remove “user fees” and “surcharges” from S. 1300. Tell your Senator you oppose a federal fuel tax increase for helicopters. Existing helicopter fuel fax exemptions for logging, firefighting, EMS, as well as offshore oil and gas exploration should be preserved.

Please call toll-free 1-866-908-5898 to be automatically connected to your Senator’s office. You may hear a few seconds of dead air while you are being connected. Keep calling. Tell your friends and business associates to call too. Senator David Vitter (R-Louisiana) serves on the Commerce Committee and it is especially important that he hear directly from HAI members and the families behind the 650+ helicopters in the Gulf.

There is still time for Senators to stand up for small businesses, small towns, and general aviation by sponsoring this important amendment and listening to the voices of their constituents and the helicopter operators affected by requirements contained in S. 1300. Every vote on our side at the May 16 Commerce Committee hearing brings general aviation that much closer to defeating this legislation. The big airlines’ lobbyists will succeed in pushing their costs on general aviation unless our industry acts.

Be informed. Check HAI’s website, www.rotor.com for important updates on the EMS requirements. HAI is working for you on issues of importance to our industry. Make that call today!

Personally, I can’t understand why the U.S. government continues to subsidize airlines that cannot remain profitable. Why is it that some airlines are able to be profitable and others can’t be? Could it be the top-heavy management and huge compensation packages? And why should U.S. citizens subsidize bad financial management with tax dollars?

It is unfair for the government to shift the burden of commercial aviation bailouts to small aviation operators and private pilots. Please — even if you don’t fly or know a pilot — please call or write your Senator to tell him/her that you oppose general aviation user fees and tax hikes.

We Need Alaska Tour Advice

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What can you recommend?

After talking about it for several years, my husband and I have finally booked a vacation in Alaska. We’re going for two weeks in the beginning of June.

Our Trip

Our 2-week trip will have three parts:

  • Five days on land, starting and ending in Anchorage. We’ll be spending two nights in Anchorage with some friends before taking the train to Denali. We have two nights there in the park before returning to Anchorage.
  • One week on Radiance of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean cruise ship (ironically, the only one we’ve ever been on) with a southbound cruise to Vancouver, BC. The itinerary includes Seward (our starting port), Hubbard Glacier (cruising), Juneau, Skagway, Icy Strait Point, Ketchikan, Inside Passage (cruising), and Vancouver (our ending port).
  • Three days in Seattle, visiting with Mike’s cousin.

What Should We Do Each Day?

I’d like to hear from experienced Alaska travelers (or residents) about the kinds of day trips, activities, and/or tours they recommend — or think we should steer clear of.

Mike and I are relatively active people who prefer activities that require us to get out and move around. We don’t want to sit on a motorcoach (i.e., a bus) for more than 30 minutes and will do it only if there’s no other way to get where we need to go. We don’t like events that are orchestrated, like lumberjack shows and indian village dance revues. We prefer activities that don’t attract a lot of families with small kids or less active participants. While we understand the importance of scheduling, we don’t like tours that rush us around from one place to another or tours that expect you to sit around waiting for an activity to begin.

I want to enjoy one or two or three activities each day and get back to the hotel or boat feeling exhausted and as if I’ve seen more than I can comprehend.

We are on a budget, so we can’t afford to drop $500 per person each day on entertainment. (I’ve seen some of the pricing for package tours and it’s scary.) Although we don’t mind dropping a bunch of money on a really special trip, we can’t do it more than once or maybe twice. And it would have to be very special.

I prefer working with small tour operators rather than the big ones that the cruise ship companies use. They usually offer more personalized service and, because they don’t have to cut in the cruise lines, they’re more affordable. (In Sedona, for example, I always put my passengers on a Jeep with Earth Wisdom instead of Pink Jeep Tours because I don’t like my passengers to feel “processed.” Ditto for Maverick instead of Papillon at the Grand Canyon.) That’s not to say that I won’t work with a bigger tour operator, but I certainly don’t want to be “one of hundreds” on a tour.

Some of the things we’re interested in include:

  • Salmon fishing (if we can bring our catch home)
  • Air tours (helicopter and/or seaplane) if they include ground activities.
  • Whale watching (although I think we’ll get enough of that from the ship).
  • Hiking or biking if not too strenuous. (I’m active but still out of shape.)
  • Nature observation and photography.

If You Have Suggestions, Please Help!

Although I can wade through a pile of tourist literature both in brochures and on the Web, I was hoping for activities that the average tourist doesn’t participate in. That means I need suggestions.

What have you done on an Alaska vacation? What do you think we might like? Don’t keep it a secret! Use the Comment link or form to share it with us. I need your help!

Flying "Into" the Grand Canyon

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A dialog about the idiosyncrasies of flying helicopters in certain parts of Arizona.

I just spent the last 30 minutes or so cleaning up my e-mail in box. I have the nasty habit of not filing or discarding messages as quickly as they come in, so there were over 300 messages to wade through. I’d read all of them and flagged some. I wound up deleting about 1/3 of them, filing another 1/3 of them, and leaving the rest for another day.

Among the e-mail messages I found was a dialog between me and another pilot, Robert Mark of JetWhine. He’d e-mailed me to ask a question and although I normally don’t answer questions sent to me by e-mail — I prefer using the Comments feature on this site so the exchange of information can involve and possibly benefit others — I did answer his. Although I’d like to get the exchange out of my e-mail in box, I want to share it with readers, since I think it has some interesting information.

So here’s the exchange. I’ve mixed Robert’s questions with my answers to make the exchange easier to follow.

Robert:

As a helicopter pilot out west, I wondered if you might be familiar with this Grand Canyon topic.

Do you know if it is correct that tour copters operated through the tribal reservation run to different standards than those that are based elsewhere?

The Chicago Tribune ran a story about the Canyon Sunday and claimed the tribal-operated copters can dip well below the edge of the cayone on a tour where others can not.

It sounded pretty odd to me.

Me:

Helicopters operating on tribal lands with appropriate permits can actually LAND at the bottom of the canyon. This, of course, is on tribal land belonging to the Hualapai and Havasupai tribes in the western part of the canyon — not in the main National Park area.

Please send me a link to that article if it is online. I’d like to read it.

Robert:

Just happen to have that link to the Tribune handy.

So then as a tribal copter, do their pilots train to different standards if they only fly there?

Me:

No, they’re not owned by the tribes. They’re owned/operated by other companies, like Papillon and Maverick, both of which operate in Vegas and at the Grand Canyon.

I worked for Papillon at the Grand Canyon. Training for GCW (Grand Canyon West) consists of spending a day or so with another pilot, learning the route and getting the feel for the density altitude situation. It’s hotter than hell down there in midsummer. Anyone can do it, but they don’t normally train women because of limited housing out there. That’s one reason why I never learned.

Don’t think it’s a big deal. It’s not. Each flight is about 6 minutes long and you’re doing ups and downs all day. The canyon isn’t as deep there as elsewhere in the park. And it isn’t as if you’re cruising up and down the canyon all day. You’re not. Just ups and downs on a preset route. Tedious stuff. Flying the South Rim is far more rewarding.

Thanks for the article link. I’ve flown out there in my old R22. The article describes the place pretty well. It’s unfortunate that many Vegas tourists think GCW is “The Grand Canyon.” It’s just a tiny part of it — and not even the good part.

Robert:

Sorry, but I’m kind of dumb on Native American issues.

Me:

Don’t feel bad. A lot of people are.

The reservations are self-governing bodies within the U.S. In a way, they’re like they’re own countries. They make their own rules, but do have to answer to the U.S. government for some things.

Robert:

So these are regular helicopter tour operators that ALL get a special exemption to do whatever this writer was talking about then? And that comes from FAA or is FAA essentially not involved because it is tribal land?

Me:

Yes, the helicopter operators get permits from the tribes. When I say operators, I mean the companies, not the pilots. They pay a fee to the tribes that’s based on operations (takeoffs/landings), facilities (like landing zones next to the river), and other stuff. Theoretically, my company could apply for (and get and pay for) a permit to do the same thing Papillon is doing. But since GCW is a 2-hour flight from where I’m based, I haven’t tried.

Closing Note:

Since the opening of the Skywalk at Grand Canyon West, I’ve gotten a number of calls from people interested in flying out there. It’s a two-hour flight from the Phoenix area and I’d have to charge about $2K round trip (for up to 3 people; not per person). But the alternative is a 5-1/2 hour (each way) drive. For folks with money to spend, I can turn a two-day excursion to the middle of nowhere into a pleasant day trip. Still, I don’t expect many takers. Not many people are willing to blow $2K+ on a single day of fun.

Araucana Rooster Seeks New Coop

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Kicked out for pestering the hens.

Araucana RoosterMr. Rooster (that’s the name I give all my roosters) has been kicked out of the chicken coop. One of two roosters in my flock, the girls prefer his rival, the other Mr. Rooster. They’re particularly upset by exiled Mr. Rooster chasing them out of their nests while they’re trying to lay eggs. (It’s quite obvious he isn’t “getting enough.” Wink-wink, nod-nod, say no more.)

Mr. Rooster is an Araucana, an Easter Egg chicken. He’s about 16 months old. Araucanas lay colored eggs. In my flock, they’re mostly green, but one of the hens lays brown eggs. Mr. Rooster, of course, does not lay eggs. But if he’s in with your hens, you can bet those eggs will be fertilized daily.

We kicked him out of the coop so he’d stop bothering the girls. It was my hope that a coyote would have him for dinner one night, but it’s been two weeks and he’s still hanging around outside the coop. We give him food and water and he’s gotten quite friendly. But he’s not getting back in with the girls.

So I’m hoping someone who either needs a rooster to complete a flock or a chicken to have for dinner will come claim him and take him off my hands. You bring the box with the air holes in it and I’ll catch him and get him in the box. Do what you like with him, but if it involves axes or Mexicans, I don’t want to know about it.

Seriously interested? Use the Contact link. And no, I won’t ship or deliver him. You’ll have to come to Wickenburg to pick him up.

But hurry. He can only hide from the coyotes for so long.

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June 21, 2015 Update: Because someone actually emailed me today to ask whether the rooster I wrote about eight years ago was still available, let me make it clear: it’s not.

Four Steps to Get the Most Out of Twitter

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Some tips for taking the “yuk” out.

I first heard about Twitter a few months ago on either the MacBreak Weekly or TWiT (This Week in Tech) podcast. (Both highly recommended, by the way.) I immediately checked it out. At first, I thought it was kind of cool, but then I realized that it was nothing more than a gigantic, worldwide chat room. Everyone talking, few people talking to a specific other person, some people even talking in languages other than English (imagine that!), few people saying anything of interest.

Twitter is a micro blogging tool. If you looked at 100 random blog posts from all over the blogoshere, how many of them do you think you’d like? This is the same. Look at 100 random tweets and you’re likely to find very few that are even worth the time it took to read them.

And they’re only up to 140 character long.

First Impressions

Miraz summed it up in a comment on yesterday’s “Reach Out and Meet Someone” post here:

I’m really interested by your previous post and comments here about Twitter. I’d noticed Twitter and found my first, and strong, reaction was Yuk!

The next time I looked was the other day when I thought I should include it in a book I’m writing for community groups. This time I looked and just felt old.

I see it as a monumental waste of time and a triviality, so I find your comments about feeling more connected to people particularly useful.

I felt exactly the same way. Yet people were talking about it and raving, in many cases. So I figured I was probably missing something and decided to give it a closer look.

You Need to Scrape Away the Bull

The main complaint about Twitter is: who really cares about what all these people are doing? What you had for breakfast isn’t very interesting. What you’re watching on TV isn’t interesting either. And why all the cryptic statements? Are you trying to be cool?

But if you could scrape away all the bull and concentrate on the content that may be of real interest to you, Twitter does have some value. I’ve gotten a glimpse of it. Not enough to convince me that it’s good, but enough to make me think that it might be.

Here’s what I did to reach this point. I recommend these steps to anyone who wants to give Twitter a real try.

Step 1: Create a Twitter Account

I’m not going to explain how to do this. You can go to Twitter and follow the instructions online to do it yourself.

I definitely recommend that you choose an appropriate image for your identity there. Something that gives people an idea of what you’re all about. For a while, mine was the same image I currently use for my Gravatar: my helicopter’s back end with hot air balloons in the background. Pretty but not very real. I’ve since switched it to my standard head shot, which I hope to get redone one of these days. Most Twitter users either use a photo or a cartoon for their images. My advice: don’t use established cartoon characters; one of these days, someone’s going to start suing.

While you’re in your account settings, be sure to create a one-line (they really mean about six-word) bio of yourself. It appears when someone goes to your Twitter page. Set your time zone, enter the full URL for your Web site or blog, and just provide the needed info. If you don’t want to be on the public timeline, there’s a box you can check. I wouldn’t check it unless you’re worried about stalkers or some other crazy thing. After all, there is a slight chance that you might impress someone reading the public timeline (whoever that might be) enough to make a new friend.

Step 2: Download and Install a Tweeting Tool

I cannot over emphasize the importance of this step. Sure, you can keep your Twitter home page open and refresh it once in a while to see what’s new. But there are better ways to get involved with Twitter.

For a while, I used a Dashboard widget to compose and send my tweets. This was convenient; press F12, fill in a form, press Return, and press F12 again to get back to work. This added my tweets to Twitter, but did not display the tweets of my friends.

TwitterificThen I discovered Twitterific. Frankly, I can’t imagine using Twitter without this little application. (Now calm down, folks. You can use the Comments link or form at the bottom of this post to tell me why your favorite Twitter tool is better.) It features a resizable window that captures and displays not only your tweets, but the tweets of all the Twitter users that you follow. There are a variety of notification options with and without sound. And, best of all, there’s a tiny form at the bottom of the window that you can use to enter your own tweets.

Twitterific has just one problem — and it doesn’t affect me at all: it requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later. Yes, it’s a Mac-only application. (I’m relying on the PC folks reading this to use the Comments link or form to tell us what they’re using. Let’s hope they don’t let us down.)

Twitter also works with instant messaging and I’m pretty sure you can use your IM client (iChat, MSN, AOL, etc.) to interact with Twitter. But since this article’s intention isn’t to explain all the different ways you can use Twitter, I’ll let you explore that option on your own.

And Twitter does work with text messaging on a cell phone. But if you enable and regularly use that feature, you really need to get a life.

Step 3: Find People to Follow

You don’t want to monitor the public timeline. Trust me: it’s a waste of time. You want to follow the tweets of a select group of people. People that you select.

There are a few ways you can find people to follow:

  • Ask your friends, family members, and work associates if they have Twitter accounts. If they don’t, use the Invite form on your Twitter account to invite them. Be sure to use the extra note field to explain what this is all about. You might want to point them to an article about Twitter (like this one?) or a favorable review. The people you invite should be people that spend a lot of time in front of a computer connected to the Internet, so tweeting will be easy and convenient for them.
  • Track down the Twitter accounts of famous people you want to follow. Believe it or not, Barack Obama has a Twitter account. (I don’t follow him.) So does Stephen Colbert. (I do follow him.) Now, obviously, these people have better things to do with their time than send tweets out into the blogosphere, so their tweets are likely composed by their staff and have some kind of marketing value. Obama’s is strictly campaign stuff. Colbert’s is a bunch of typical Colbert-style one-liners. These are just examples. I’m sure plenty of celebs have Twitter accounts, if you’re into the celeb thing.
  • Check the blogs you follow. Quite a few bloggers have Twitter accounts. If you like the blogger’s blog, then you might like his tweets. I found a number of interesting people to follow this way.

Make these people your “Friends” — that’s Twitter’s term for the people you follow. Doing that is easy; just go to their Twitter timeline and click an Add link under Actions.

If someone makes you a friend, he’ll be listed under your followers. It’s always nice to add them as friends, too. It might give you insight as to why they added you. And you can always “Leave” them if you decide you don’t like their tweets.

Which brings up the next point. Once in a while, you’ll discover that you really don’t like the tweets of one of your “friends.” (I really feel a need to put that in quotes since the people you follow might not be real friends.) Just go to your Twitter page, view your list of friends. and click a Leave link under his name/icon. I did this just the other day when I decided that one of my “friends” was getting a bit too political for my taste. (No, I don’t want to sign your online petition, thank you.) Click of a link and I don’t have to hear from him anymore.

Step 4: Post Tweets

Even if you have no followers, you should make it a habit to post tweets on a somewhat regular basis. I’m not saying you need to do it daily or hourly or weekly or every ten minutes. I’m saying you should do it at least occasionally, when you have something to say.

I tend to tweet when I sit down to start a project or finish one up. This morning, I tweeted about going down to feed my horses and about a new article posted on my site. When this article is finished and posted, I’ll tweet about it and provide a link.

Be particular about the content of your tweets. Try to limit yourself to tweets that people might actually be interested in. Okay, you had eggs for breakfast. But don’t tweet about it unless you fetched those eggs out of a henhouse and the rooster tried to kill you or you cooked them in a microwave, causing them to explode all over the inside and start a fire. Okay, so that’s an exaggeration. But you know what I mean. Something interesting.

You can make all your tweets self-promotional, but I assure you that you’ll have very few followers — unless, of course, you’re famous and people want to read about your latest book, movie, radio show, interview, podcast, etc. I admit that my tweeting about articles as they are released has an element of self-promotion to it, but I’d like to think that some people might want to check out some of what I’m writing about. After all, if you were using Twitter, wouldn’t you be slightly interested in an article about it?

Remember, Twitter limits you to 140 characters per tweet. Don’t feel as if you have to fill them. It automatically converts long URLs to short ones (using tinyurl), so don’t worry about URLs taking up all your characters. Just keep it short and sweet.

As for writing style, Grammar Girl wrote an excellent style guide for tweets, “Grammar Girl’s Strunk & Twite: An Unofficial Twitter Style Guide.” Read it and use it. Please.

The Twitter Virus

I first read the phrase Twitter virus yesterday. At first, I thought it was some kind of real computer virus. But apparently, it refers to a person’s active involvement in Twitter — in other words, tweeting the moments of your day all day every day.

A certain amount of Twitter virus is vital to using Twitter and attracting and keeping followers. But if you’ve got it too bad — like a certain person I follow who tweeted from his cell phone about being stuck in traffic waiting at a railroad crossing this morning — you probably want to take a step back and think hard about your involvement.

While a tool like Twitterific makes participating in Twitter extremely easy, don’t get carried away. The people who follow you don’t need (or probably want) every detail of your life.

Try It

Twitter is also a social networking tool. I participate because I find it interesting to see what other people do and think throughout their day. I leave the Twitterific window open — I have a 20″ monitor, so there’s enough real estate for it — and peek at it once in a while. And then I tweet when I have something to say. It’s pretty effortless and it certainly doesn’t take much out of my day.

Now you know what I do with Twitter and how you can make it a worthwhile experiment. Don’t be shy. Try it. It’s all free and, if you don’t catch the virus, you can quit it at any time.