Life in the Middle of Nowhere

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How I make the adjustment to living in a place even further from the the comforts of “civilization.”

Since my “Life on the Edge of Nowhere” blog got such widespread attention, I thought I’d update the folks who look forward to my blog entries about living conditions in the southwest with an even more extreme report.

First, some background.

In March, I accepted a job as a pilot with Papillon Grand Canyon Helicopters, the largest helicopter tour operator at the Grand Canyon’s South Rim. Papillon operates out of a very large heliport at the Grand Canyon Airport in Tusayan, AZ.

Tusayan (pronounced “Too-SAY-on”) is a true tourist town. It has a year-round population of about 400 people. Those people work for companies that cater to the millions of tourists who pass through the area annually. I’m talking about the IMAX theater, hotels/motels, fast food joints, a handful of gas stations, tour companies (like Papillon and the fixed wing operators), and gift shops. Some of the folks who live in Tusayan work in the park, but the lucky park workers have homes IN the park.

Tusayan doesn’t have much going for it as a place to live. There are a few restaurants, but none of the good ethnic food places you can find in a metropolitan area. (There are plenty of fast food joints, though: Wendy’s, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, etc.) There’s only one theater (IMAX) and it plays the same movie all the time. One of the hotels has a bowling alley in its basement (which I haven’t seen yet). There isn’t much night life, although one of the hotels (The Grand) seems to try hard with nightly specials in its bar. (Thursday is ladies night.) There’s no supermarket, but there is a grocery store where you can buy the necessities of life and not much else.

Housing is not a good thing. Most people live in trailers. Pull trailers, single-wide mobile homes, and, if they’re lucky, double-wide mobile homes. Now I don’t mean to knock mobile homes — I have a good friend who lives in a very nice double-wide — but THESE mobile homes bear little resemblance to modern ones. That’s because they’re old. Very old.

But the bigger problem with Tusayan is expense. Because tourists have money and don’t seem to mind spending it, everything in Tusayan is expensive. Expect to pay 20% to 100% more for items in Tusayan than you would in a place like Williams (60 miles south) or Phoenix (160 or so miles south). Fortunately, many of the businesses offer discounts to “locals,” realizing that the folks who work in town are paid so poorly that they can’t afford local prices.

A kind of nice thing about Tusayan is that the people who live and work there have a “we’re all in it together” attitude. When you whisper the secret password at checkout — “I’m a local” — the person at the register seems to soften a bit. Not only is she glad you speak English, but she now knows that you’re in the same boat she is: underpaid, living in questionable conditions, dealing with tourists all day long, and paying through the nose for the things you need to survive.

Now back to Papillon. Right before Papillon offered me the job, they handed me a three page summary of life in the Tusayan area. It pretty much says what I said above, but frankly, I was a lot kinder. Papillon wanted its job candidates to know in advance that living in the area would not be part of the fun. In fact, it probably wouldn’t be fun at all. They didn’t scare me off. I know how life on the edge of nowhere can be. How much worse could it be at the gateway to the Grand Canyon?Turns out, there isn’t enough housing in Tusayan for all of Papillon’s employees. With a fleet of more than a dozen helicopters, the company has well over a hundred full and part time employees — pilots, mechanics, customer service representatives, administrative staff, etc. — working at Tusayan. There just aren’t enough trailers to go around. So Papillon owns a bunch of double-wides in Valle, AZ, about 20 miles south. Employees are offered affordable housing in these units, with one person per bedroom. You have to hope you get good housemates.

Valle (pronounced “valley”) has even less going for it than Tusayan. It’s a crossroads, where the main roads from Williams (state route 64) and Flagstaff (state route 180) meet and continue together up to the Grand Canyon. There are two gas stations with outrageous fuel prices, a mini mart, a bunch of gift shops (why not?), a few motels, and two or three restaurants.

Valle does have two interesting features. The first is the Planes of Fame Museum, located on the airport. (Yes, Valle does have an airport.) This is an extremely impressive aviation museum with many aircraft and tons of aviation stuff on display. If you’re interested in aviation and are in the area, don’t miss this museum! It’s time and money well spent.

The second interesting feature is the Flintstones Bedrock City theme park and campground. Talk about weird. This holdover from the 60s or 70s features Fred’s Diner (where you can get a brontosaurus burger, which tastes remarkably like a hamburger), a gift shop (of course!), and the town of Bedrock. “Bring Your Camera!” a sign outside the place advises. If you’re into the kind of campy things you can find in tourist towns, stop in and check it out. I’ve flown over it a few times and what you can’t see from the road looks like something a Flintstones fanatic (if there is such a thing) wouldn’t want to miss.

When I came on board at Papillon, I was offered a room in a “gelco” in Tusayan. I’m not sure what a gelco is. I’m not even sure I’m spelling it right. I think it might be some kind of prefabricated housing that’s lower on the amenities scale than a 20-year-old single-wide. A friend of mine who works for Papillon lived in one for a while. He elected to live in a pull trailer in the forest beneath the helicopter flight path instead. That kind of gives me an idea of how a gelco might be.

Fortunately, I had another option. Several years ago, Mike and I had purchased 40 acres of land on top of Howard Mesa, nine miles south of Valle. Over the past few years, we’ve been improving the land. First a water tank (no wells here). Then a fence around the whole 40 acres (with thanks to Ty Grantham of Grantham Custom Fence in Wickenburg). Then a county-approved septic system. Each summer, we take our trailer up to the property, hook it up to what we’ve got, and use it as a weekend/vacation home. This year, we brought the trailer up early, in April, so I could live in it while I worked at Papillon.

Our TrailerLet me take a moment to describe this trailer. It’s a horse trailer with living quarters. For those of you who don’t know much about the kinds of things horsey people know, imagine a very long (about 35-feet), gooseneck trailer (the kind you have to pull with a pickup), with a travel area in back for horses and a living area up front for people. Our trailer is a pretty nice one, as these things go. It has space in back for three horses and a separate tack closet (where you store the saddles, bridles, etc.). Its tiny bathroom has a shower, toilet, sink, and closet. The fridge is remarkably large (for a trailer) and the freezer can get cold enough to make ice. There’s a two-burner stove, a tiny kitchen sink, some counter space, and a lot of cabinets. There’s also a sofa that converts to a 1-person-under-5’8″-tall bed and a big, queen sized bed over the gooseneck. There’s a microwave and an air conditioner, but a powerful (and noisy) generator (which we don’t have) is required to make them work. I use the microwave to store bread and crackers and the air conditioner as a place to bash my head once a week (on average) when I climb out of bed.

Our property is off the grid. That means there are no utilities at all and not much of a chance of getting any. Fortunately, the trailer has very low energy needs (unless you want to heat leftovers in the microwave). There are two batteries that power the lights, the stereo/CD player, the fan for the heater, and the water pump. A solar panel, which we added after purchasing the trailer, does an excellent job of keeping the batteries charged. (Arizona has lots of sunshine!) The fridge, hot water heater, and heater run on propane. There are two good-sized tanks for that. We have 2100 gallons of water storage on the property and the trailer is hooked up to that, along with a pump to get the water pressure we need. And the trailer is currently parked right over the septic system inlet, so all the waste water (black and gray) goes down the pipe to a tank that we’ll never be able to fill.

So here’s the big picture.

I’m living in a trailer with approximately 20 square feet of usable floor space, parked on 40 acres of high desert land. To get to my place, it’s a 5-mile ride up a dirt road that requires 4WD in wet weather. Although the closest house is only a quarter mile away, it is unoccupied; my closest full-time neighbor is about 4-1/2 miles back down that dirt road. At this point, I’ve been here for more than two weeks straight and I haven’t seen a single car drive by. Remote? I’d say so.

There’s no television, Internet, or telephone here. I have a stereo/CD player that is on during my waking hours to mask the incredible silence of where I am. I listen to a lot of NPR and know all the current events in Iraq. My cell phone gets an unreliable reception. I can make calls when I sit or stand in a certain place and switch to Analog Only mode before I make the call. I can’t get calls. To use my laptop, I need to plug it into an inverter that uses a cigarette lighter jack to connect to the trailer’s electrical system. The power outlets generously scattered throughout my living space are dead without a generator or a VERY long cord. There’s no garbage pickup. I take my trash to Papillon’s parking lot dumpster every few days.

My bed is very comfortable and the shower water is nice and hot. The stove works well, but an oven would be a nice addition. I can’t run the heater all night because of the noise it makes and my fear of carbon monoxide poisoning (yes, there is a detector, but I don’t trust it). A few nights, it got down to the low 40s inside. I was warm in bed but did need the heater to warm things up before my morning shower.

The camper has an awning with a screened-in room. When set up, it triples the floor space and doubles the living area. We had it set up when I first came. Unfortunately, high winds beat the crap out of it (sorry, but there’s no delicate way to describe the abuse it took), pulling out stakes and tearing it away from the camper regularly. The sound of the wind beating against it and the resulting shaking of the camper kept me up at night. Helicopter pilots need sleep, so I took it down. I still have a picnic table out there.

Howard MesaOutside, I have a 360° view of the area around me. To the east are the snow-capped San Francisco Peaks, the highest mountains in Arizona. To the south is Bill Williams Mountain, just south of Williams, AZ. To the west, my favorite view, is an unobstructed look at the high desert. On a clear day, when the wind hasn’t kicked up desert dust, I can see 100 miles or more, all the way out to Mount Trumbull on the Arizona-Utah border. To the north is Red Butte and, beyond it, the north rim of the Grand Canyon.

The terrain here is high desert, with long golden grass and short juniper and pinyon pine trees. It’s incredibly beautiful in the morning, when the golden early morning light first hits the gently waving grass and brings out the texture of the hills and mountains in the distance. There’s a lot of firewood — the rancher who previously owned this land thought he could grow more grass with less trees, so he bulldozed them here and there. We have a big fire pit and occasionally have campfires for cooking or camp ambiance. The wood smells terrific when burning. Unfortunately, I won’t light a fire when the winds are blowing and this spring they’re blowing almost all the time.

PhotoAlthough the property is fenced in, wildlife can still get in. There was a single deer, a doe, about 100 feet from my front door the other morning. Elk and antelope move through about once a week. Coyotes are always nearby, howling or barking or trotting past. There are some birds, but not as many as you’d expect. This is the first thing I saw when I woke up this morning. In case you’re wondering, its an elk yearling.

At night, it gets VERY dark. And I’m pretty sure that you can see more stars from here than anywhere else on the planet.

At Howard MesaThe camper is set up at the widest part of the property, which is also the highest point on the mesa. The area behind it is nice and flat and clear of trees. I have a windsock that we installed soon after buying the land. Last night, I flew my helicopter “home” from work at Papillon and landed it fifty yards from the trailer. No one complained. Who could? There’s no one here but me. Here’s Three-Niner-Lima in a typical parking spot. In the distance, you can see Mount Humphreys.

Oddly enough, I’m really enjoying the solitude up here. I spend the day flying tours over one of the seven wonders of the world, interacting with co-workers and tourists from all over. After five hours in the air and at least another two hours on the ground waiting for fuelers and loaders, I’m tired. I don’t want to interact with people anymore. I just want to relax someplace quiet. You can’t get much quieter than this.

The other day I came back to Wickenburg. Mike flew up to Grand Canyon airport in his Grumman Tiger and picked me up so I wouldn’t have to drive. We got into town and I looked around. And I realized that I really hadn’t missed it that much. After spending a hectic evening and early morning catching up on paperwork and other things, I flew my helicopter back to the Grand Canyon for a few more days of work.

And quiet solitude in the middle of nowhere.

A Job Interview

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I go on my first job interview in nearly 20 years.

I went on a job interview yesterday.

It was my first job interview since 1987. When I left the 9 to 5 world in 1990, I left the world of real employers and regular paychecks for the world of freelance work, odd hours, and irregular pay. I’m still firmly entrenched in that world, but I was ready for a new challenge. And I wanted to remember what it was like to be responsible to an employer.

So I applied for a job at Papillon Helicopters at the Grand Canyon. My interview was yesterday.
I was interviewed by a panel of three people, including the Chief Pilot, the Director of Operations, and a lead pilot. They asked me interview questions I hadn’t heard in nearly 20 years. “What do you see yourself doing in 10 years?” “What’s your idea of an ideal employer?” “How do you deal with a bothersome fellow employee?” The questions were kind of funny because although I didn’t expect them, I should have. After all, it was a job interview and that’s the kind of questions interviewers ask.

I did very well. I was nervous at first — heck, I was out of practice! — but soon relaxed. I must have told them what they wanted to hear. I know I made them smile.

I can be pretty funny when I try. And I use humor whenever possible. Life’s too short to go through it thinking everything is totally serious.

After the interview, the Chief Pilot took me flying. Yes, I got a chance to fly a Bell 206L (Long Ranger). I’d never flown one before. He took off from the helipad and headed south to a practice area near Red Butte*. He handed over the controls about a mile south of the airport. I was able to keep it in smooth flight and maintain speed, altitude, and heading. I could do turns without significant changes in altitude. I crossed over the old runway at Red Butte, read the wind sock, and entered a left traffic pattern for landing beside the sock. I made a good approach and landing. I set it down (a bit bumpy) and picked it up (smooth as silk). I did 90° pedal turns in a 10-15 knot wind. I did another pattern and landing. Then I took off for the return trip to the airport. The Chief Pilot made the radio calls. I landed at one of Papillon’s pads.

The only thing I had trouble with on the whole flight was trim. You really need hard to push on that right pedal! My set downs could use some work, too.

I obviously had very little understanding of any of the turbine engine gauges. A thousand hours in various piston helicopters doesn’t do much to prepare you for that. But I could FLY the helicopter — that is, I could make the connection between my hands and feet and the machine to control the helicopter. Enough to make a confined space landing over ponderosa pines into a relatively small heliport.

My friend Rod, who has worked for Papillon on and off for the past few years, was waiting for me when we returned. We waited in the pilot break room while the Chief Pilot went out with another candidate. The other pilots wore white shirts with epaulets on the shoulders. Like airline captains. They were eating lunch out of bags and watching a television show from Japan called Extreme Elimination (or something like that), where these people went through obstacle courses and, nine times out of ten, ended up falling painfully into water of questionable biological cleanliness. A few of the previous month’s hires were waiting with their headsets for a training flight. There was one woman (a new hire) who seemed to be a well of information about basketball. She had very small feet in white joggers. There were no other women.

A while later, the Chief Pilot returned and led me into his office. That’s where he told me they’d be honored to have me work for them. Honored. He actually said that. Wow. How could I say no?

Training starts on April 12. That gives me about two weeks to get my life in order before I’m gone for two weeks. After that, I’ll be on a 7 on 7 off schedule (at least that’s what I asked for when given the choice). This time next month, I’ll be qualified as a Grand Canyon Tour pilot.

Today, I’m canceling the rides I scheduled at Buckeye for this weekend. Time building mode is over. No need to sell myself as a pilot anymore. I’ve already got a buyer.

* For those of you unfamiliar with the Grand Canyon area, the airport is about 5-8 miles south of the Rim in a town named Tusayan. The airport has a tower, but Papillon (and probably the other operators) also have their own towers for controlling their own aircraft. The terrain there is covered with ponderosa (tall), juniper (short), and pinyon (short) pine trees. About 7 miles southeast of the airport is a volcanic rock formation called Red Butte because of its color. You can’t miss it on your way from the south to the canyon.

Truth vs. Fiction

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How I get another life experience proving that truth is stranger than fiction.

First, the background info.

My company, Flying M Air, is the Fuel Manager at Wickenburg Municipal Airport. This means that I’m required to provide warm bodies to pump fuel into aircraft, sell pilot supplies and refreshments, answer questions, and keep the terminal building presentable. They do other stuff, too, but that isn’t worth going into for the purpose of this tale.

I have a staff of three employees, all of whom are semi-retired with some kind of aviation experience. Gary is a pilot who has thousands of hours of experience in all kinds of airplanes. Jeff is a pilot who is now building his own airplane. Alta is one of only five women in the world qualified to sit in the engineer’s seat on a 747.

Unfortunately, when one or more of these people need time off, the others can’t always fill in. That means I have to work at the airport. Trouble is, when I’m working at the airport, I’m not writing books. When I’m not writing books, I’m not earning a living. So it’s my best interest to find additional warm bodies to keep on staff.

That’s half the background.

Now here’s where it starts getting weird.

Last January (that’s 2004), I get a phone call from the Wickenburg police at 1:30 AM. They tell my half-asleep brain that someone has just called them, reporting that he witnessed three men fueling and then loading C-4 explosives into a C170 (that’s a Cessna taildragger) at the airport. When asked, these three men told the witness that they were flying to Washington to blow up the White House.

I replied to the police that they really didn’t have much to worry about because it would take a Cessna a few days to reach Washington. (Yes, I really did say that. They probably have it on tape somewhere. Remember, I was half asleep.)

The officer started asking questions and I started waking up. The gravity of the situation started to sink in. After 9/11, reports like this at airports are taken very seriously. The police tell me what they’d been told. And I realize that the story didn’t match what I knew to be fact: Namely, that the plane couldn’t have fueled up at 6:30 when the witness claimed because I’d fueled the last plane at 5:30 PM and had locked up everything (including the pumps) at 6 PM when I left for the night. I suggest that perhaps the whole thing is a hoax.

Two more phone calls from the police that night before I’m finally able to get back to sleep.

A few days later, I’m at Macworld Expo in San Francisco, loitering outside the Peachpit Press booth. My cell phone vibrates. It’s the police in Wickenburg again. They tell me that the case has been resolved. That the witness has been charged with submitting a false terrorist report. They tell me the witness’s name, but it doesn’t ring a bell and doesn’t stick. They give me the report number in case I ever want to look at the report. All I hope is that I’m not called as a witness in some trial.

Time goes by. It’s now March. Two of my airport staff members are away at the same time and the third can’t work. I wind up working four days in a row at the airport while my editor anxiously awaits more chapters of my QuickBooks book. Enough is enough. Time to get more warm bodies.

I get a call from a guy named Bob Doe. (That isn’t his real name, but it’ll do.) He says he talked me to me several months ago about a job at the airport but I wasn’t hiring back then. Am I hiring now? Sure, I tell him. Go to the airport and fill out an application.

He comes by the airport while I’m working. He’s in his mid thirties. His resume shows all kinds of airport experience. But he’s working as a stocker in the supermarket. (Actually, he isn’t. But he does have an equally unrelated part-time job.) He’s very enthusiastic and I’m sucked in, desperate for more warm bodies so I can get back to work. I think I notice alcohol on his breath, but I could be imagining it. I tell him to come by the next day for training.

“So I got the job?” Bob says.

“Well, I want to see how you do at training,” I reply evasively, trying hard to convince myself that it isn’t alcohol at 11 AM.

Bob leaves and I think about it. I’m not sure about him. I voice my concerns to one of the medivac pilots stationed at the airport. He tells me to go with my gut feeling.

I call one of Bob’s references and learn that he worked there for two months. Human resources tells me they fired him for not showing up for work and not calling. I can’t track down the other recent reference because he didn’t include a phone number. I decide to put off training for another day when Mike, my significant other, will be around to help train him.

The next morning, I call him at 8 AM. I get his answering machine. I tell him not to come in until the next day. At 9 AM a taxi (yes, a taxi — the only one we have in town) rolls up and he gets out. I tell him about the message. He says he never got it. He says he must have been in the shower. I tell him I can’t train him that day. He gets a little nasty, pointing out that he’d taken a cab. I tell him I’ll pay the cab fare. He tries to get me to change my mind and let him stay. I tell him about the reference checks and tell him I need phone numbers for all of his references. I then pay the $14 round trip cab fare and send him on his way.

Bob calls later with phone numbers for two personal references. The other reference I’d tried to contact had gone out of business. (How convenient, I think.) He gives me the name of a supervisor at the other reference. After he hangs up, I leave a message on the supervisor’s voicemail.

The next day, Bob shows up in a cab again. He’s 10 minutes late. He sweeps in like he owns the place and immediately begins leaving the things he brought with him — backpack, coffee mug, etc. — around the terminal. I hand him over to Mike for training; I have a catering order to handle and two helicopter rides to give.

Later, when things calm down, I can see there’s a problem with this guy. He has a superior attitude that just doesn’t fit into our cosy little establishment. He doesn’t give a hoot for the little plane pilots and complains when the only jet we service that morning leaves without giving him a tip. (We don’t get tips in Wickenburg.) His possessions are scattered all over the terminal. And I can tell that even Mike — that deep well of patience — has had it with him.

When I leave to get lunch for Mike and me, I take Bob home (he was scheduled for training until 1 PM). On the way, he tells me how great it feels to be working at an airport again. He wants to know how many hours we’ll be giving him so he can quit one of his part time jobs. (I didn’t realize that he had two jobs.) I tell him I don’t know yet, that I’d have to let him know.

Back at the airport, Mike and I compare notes. We decide that Bob’s warm body just isn’t the right temperature for us. I get Mike to break the news to him on the phone. I write a check for $24 to cover the promised training pay and put it in the mail.

The next day, Mike is at the airport when Bob storms in, looking for me. He tells Mike that he spoke to me that morning and that I said I’d be at the airport at noon. (A blatant lie.) He tries to say that we’re not hiring him because of age discrimination. Mike points out that all of our employees are at least 20 years older than he is. Mike tells him we need someone more interested in the small plane pilots. He doesn’t get it. He keeps going on about how experienced he is dealing with jets. Mike tells him we get 50 small planes in for every jet that lands so that his experience isn’t worth much to us. Bob storms out, slamming the door behind him.

And yes, there was definitely alcohol on his breath.

Today, Mike and I are having lunch at a local restaurant. Bob comes up in conversation. Something triggers a switch in the back of my mind and I recall the January C-4 in a Cessna incident. Suddenly, Bob’s name seems more familiar than it should.

I stop at the police station on my way back to my office.

“Remember that case in January when the guy reported C-4 being loaded into a Cessna to blow up the White House?” I ask a woman behind a grill.

The woman nods with a strange smile on her face.

“Just tell me,” I say. “Was the person who reported it Bob Doe?”

She nods again.

Barnstorming in a Ghost Town

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How Mike, John, Lorna, and I are surprised by a successful desert barnstorming gig.

It started about a month ago. Janet and I had done some desert barnstorming and had ended up in Congress, across from the Congress Trading Post. We’d talked to some of the locals and they’d suggested that we go out to Stanton, a ghost town about eight miles southeast, when they were having one of their “outings.”

Stanton, AZ was a huge mining community back in the 1800s. The story goes that a group of settlers were traveling through the area, led by some Indian guides. In their travels, they crossed a mountain that came to be known as Rich Hill. In a place that came to be known as Potato Patch, they found gold nuggets the size of — you guessed it — potatoes, right on the surface. The miners came and the town sprung up in a valley just west of the mountain.

Stanton was quite a community in its day. It boasted an opera house, hotel, and stage stop. These building still stand, preserved and protected from vandals by the town’s current owners, the Lost Dutchman’s Mining Association. (I can’t make this stuff up.)

The Lost Dutchman’s Mining Association is a club of people interested in looking for gold. The club owns several properties in the southwest. If you’re a member, you can camp on any of the properties for a very reasonable daily, weekly, or monthly fee. But best of all, you can dig on the club’s mining claims, like the ones around Stanton, where they’re still occasionally finding impressive gold nuggets.

The Lost Dutchman’s Mining Association has several outings at Stanton every year. I missed the one in December, which was supposed to be the big one. (Let’s hope I don’t miss it next year.) But I did make it to the one on February 21, 2004. And I brought Mike, John, Lorna, and Tristan’s R44.

I’d made arrangements two weeks before with Linda and Larry, the town’s caretakers. The rides would be $25 per person and would go up and around Rich Hill, with views of Potato Patch. I didn’t expect to do many rides. After all, the people who go to Stanton are an older crowd and older folks tend to be afraid of helicopters. But I was wrong.

We arrived five minutes late and there were so many people waiting around my landing zone that I couldn’t land there. Instead, I had to land on a nearby road and let Mike out with instructions to shoo them away. When I repositioned, Mike, John, and Lorna went into action. They loaded my first group of passengers before I could even think of getting out. When the crowd finally faded away more than two hours later, I’d taken 26 people on rides.

The ride itself is worth mentioning in some detail. Stanton is at about 3500 feet. To view the top of Rich Hill and Potato Patch, I had to climb to 5500 feet. I took off from my LZ, climbing carefully over some power lines, then turned toward the ruined ghost town of Octave, in the next valley. I flew up that valley, climbing at 800 to 1200 feet per minute (depending on my payload). At the end of that valley, I hopped over the mountain to the valley in which Stanton lies and headed toward Stanton, which looked like oh-so-many tiny trailers off in the distance. After a quick peek at Potato Patch — which is kind of a bowl at the top of the mountain — I began a steep 1000 feet per minute descent. Of course, that’s not steep enough to be at ground level by the time I reached Stanton, so I headed out over the desert about a half mile before looping back over Stanton and then looping back again to my LZ. I did this about 10 times and really had the hang of it by the time we were done.

I took my ground crew on the same tour before heading back to Wickenburg. I was tired. I’d flown nonstop for more than two hours and I’d never even gotten out of the helicopter. When we landed in Wickenburg, I checked the hobbs meter, which only runs when the helicopter’s collective is up. Exactly 2 hours. For the first time since starting my desert barnstorming, I made some serious money.

Best of all, Mike, John, Lorna, and I had had some fun.

And the Lost Dutchmen members? They’ll be talking about it for weeks to come.

One more thing…if you should happen to be watching the Outdoor Channel and see some aerial video of the Stanton area, you know who flew the camera around.

Smoke in the Cockpit!

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How I learn the importance of having a fire extinguisher on board.

Saturday, February 7, 2004 was a typical Arizona winter day. Temperatures in the 60s, clear skies, light winds. Mike was working at the airport until 2 pm, when we expected a furniture delivery. The monthly airport barbeque was set up by 11:30 when I decided to take a trip down to the place I planned to do some desert barnstorming the following day.

A few weeks before, Janet and I had done some desert barnstorming in Tristan’s R44 helicopter, north of Carefree Highway, west of Lake Pleasant where some ATVers had gathered to ride on the trails. We didn’t do very well — we just did one ride for three people — but one of the people told us that there was a big motorcross scheduled for February 8. They told us that if we came back then, we’d be able to do lots of rides.

I decided to check things out the day before. Since my helicopter is a heck of a lot cheaper to fly than Tristan’s, I fired it up and headed east.

Things were really hopping when I got there. The place was full of trailers and dirt bikes and a huge red and white striped tent had been set up not far from a good landing zone. I set Three-Niner-Lima down and kept an eye out while I shut down. When the blades had stopped, I made my way to the big tent.

There was a lot of activity in the area. Dirt bikes rolled by, stirring up clouds of dust. Vendors selling all kinds of dirt bike paraphernalia had set up shop under canopies alongside the dirt road. There was even a food vendor with a smoker.

The huge tent was almost empty. Tables had been set up around the perimeter, but there wasn’t much going on at any of them. In the back was a table with two computers and a few guys staring at them. I walked back and introduced myself.

Oddly enough, one of the guys at the computers was one of the three people who’d flown with me a few weeks before. He remembered me and called over someone else who was a decision maker. She was thrilled to see me. She told me she was supposed to call me and had forgotten. She was glad I’d come. Of course I could do rides. She called over another boss person and told him. He was busy but seemed mildly interested. He said he’d announce the rides at the dinner that night. I offered three free rides for a raffle and promised to return the next day with my ground crew.

It was nearly 1 pm when I returned to Three-Niner-Lima. I’d promised Mike I’d be back by 1:30 so I could go home and await the furniture. I checked the oil, walked around to look for obvious tampering, and climbed aboard. Then I went through my all-too-familiar ritual of starting up.

I put my headset on, leaving my right ear uncovered. I pushed the mixture full rich. I turned on the master switch. I opened my door and called out “Clear!”, making sure it really was clear. Then I turned the key to start and started the engine. Flicked the Clutch, Strobe, and Alternator switches. Checked to make sure I had good oil pressure and that the starter light was out. The blade started turning. Then I turned on the avionics in the usual order: transponder, radio, GPS.

“Pop!”

The sound was new, something I’d never heard before. I distinctly remember saying “That’s odd,” to myself. “I wonder what that is?” Then I looked at the instrument panel and saw the puff of smoke on the passenger side, right beside the GPS.

Smoke.

I cut the throttle, flicked the clutch off, and pulled the mixture. The engine died. I remembered my fire emergency procedures and flicked off all switches, then turned the fuel selector to off. I opened my door and stepped outside, looking anxiously in the cabin I’d just vacated.

Fortunately, nothing was on fire. The smoke dissipated, leaving an electical fire smell behind.

I waited to be sure that nothing was on fire. Then I thought about my situation. Parked out in the desert, about 20 miles from home. Furniture due to arrive in an hour. Mike would be pissed.

But hell, my helicopter could be on fire!

But it wasn’t.

I remembered my emergency kit, which I kept under my seat. I dug it out. It has a very nice Swiss Army tool in it. With a screwdriver that I could use to open the instrument panel for a peek inside.

I was unscrewing the panel when a man rode up on his ATV. I told him my situation as I worked. He told me he was an electrician. (How could I get so lucky?) He helped me open the panel. I swung it back and we peered inside. No trace of any problem. No trace of burning, smoke, or anything else. Surprisingly, not even much dust.

Not satisfied, I decided to remove the panel covering my avionics. We had four screws out when we realized that there would be at least eight screws and we’d need a microscopic allen wrench to get the knob off my radio. That wasn’t a job to do out in the desert. So we closed it back up.

He asked me if I had a fire extinguisher. I told him I didn’t. He told me he’d get me one and took off on his ATV.

I called Mike and told him the situation. I couldn’t stand next to the helicopter while I was on the phone. The signal was bad there. I had to walk 20 feet away. I told him what had happen and what I’d done. I told him I planned to start up the ship with the circuit breakers for the avionics pulled. If that worked, I’d fly home. But I wouldn’t have any radios, so he should start making radio calls for me in about 20 minutes, warning area pilots that a helicopter without radios was on its way in.

The man on the ATV returned with a small fire extinguisher. He told me it belonged to the people serving food and made me promise to bring it back. I promised. I also promised to give him a helicopter ride the next day. I studied the instructions on the fire extinguisher and stowed it on the passenger side floor. Then I climbed back on board and he rode away. I pulled out the Pilot Operating Handbook and read the Fire procedures in the Emergency Procedures section, just to make sure I knew them very well.

I pulled the two avionics circuit breakers and the one for the avionics fan. I figured that if there was a fire in there, the last thing I needed was a fan blowing air on it. Then I went through my startup ritual (see above), skipping the part where I turn on the avionics. The blades were spinning when I realized that I was hearing a rhythmic clicking sound I don’t think I’d ever heard before. Although there was no smoke, the sound spooked me. I turned everything off again.

Now I was desperate. I wasn’t sure if the helicopter was safe to fly, but I didn’t know what to do. I called MIke again and gave him an update. He started making plans for coming to pick me up. Then I told him I’d call Paul Mansfield.

Paul Mansfield was my mechanic. He’s probably one of the best Robinson Helicopter mechanics out there. Unfortunately, due to a disagreement between me and the company he works for, I’m not allowed to bring my helicopter to him for servicing. I wasn’t very happy about this and neither was he. He told me that if I ever had a problem, I could call him. He even gave me his cell phone number.

Throughout the past three years or so, I’ve called him about four times. He’s been very helpful. I called him that day. He answered. I told my story. When I got to the part about the smoke, he said what I’d been thinking at the time: “That’s not good.” I was glad we agreed on that point.

He thought the problem might be in the strobe, which I’d turned on right before the avionics and had turned on the second time I’d started, too. The rhythmic clicking sound could correspond to the charging mechanism. He thought I might be hearing it through my headset. He suggested that I leave the strobe off and give it a try. I thanked him and hung up.

I called Mike to give him an update. By now, it was almost 1:30. I was going to be late — if I ever made it at all.

I climbed aboard again and pulled two more circuit breakers: the strobe and the intercom (what the heck; who was I going to talk to anyway?). I started it up. The clicking was gone. There was no smoke. Everything was fine.

Of course, a ton of stuff wasn’t even turned on.

I took off cautiously, my eyes straying occasionally to where I’d seen the smoke and the fire extinguisher lying on the floor beyond it. I flew low for two reasons. First, without a radio, I wouldn’t be able to announce my position to anyone. I was far less likely to encounter someone at 400 feet AGL than higher. Second, I wanted to be close to the ground in case I needed to land in a hurry. Let’s face it, the closer you are to the ground, the quicker you’ll get there.

I also decided not to take the quickest route home, which went across the mostly flat and definitely empty desert. If I had to land, I wanted to land where some people would see me and be able to help — or at least give me a ride to civilization. So I followed Carefree Highway and, when I reached it, Grand Avenue.

My Bose headset, which has excellent noise cancellation features, completely stinks when it isn’t powered up. I’d unplugged it before taking off, so it offered very little sound muffling. The helicopter was very loud and I imagined that every noise was a new one, one that could mean trouble. But there was no trouble. I flew into Wickenburg, flying only about 300 feet above the ground so I’d remain clear of any traffic in the pattern or departing the area. Then I made an approach from the south to the helipad. It was 1:50 PM when I set down.

Mike was busy fueling helicopters: a Schweitzer 300 and a Robinson R22. I wanted to look at the Schweitzer, but didn’t have time. I hopped in my Jeep and went home. The furniture guys arrived five minutes after I did. Mike arrived ten minutes later.

On Monday, my local mechanic, Ed, took apart the instrument panel and removed the avionics. The GPS had faint singe marks on it, but when we removed it from its case, its circuits were okay. He reassembled everything and we powered up the avionics stack. No popping noises, no smoke. Everything fully functioning.

I hate when that happens.

Ed thinks there might have been a loose screw or something inside the stack. It hit the GPS case and caused a little short circuit, complete with smoke, but didn’t pop the circuit breaker. Then the helicopter’s vibrations shook the screw into a place where it couldn’t be found. A place where it wouldn’t pop again.

I hope Ed is right and that there’s no more smoke in my cockpit.

Since then, I’ve flown more than 6 hours in Three-Niner-Lima — now nicknamed “Smokey” — and haven’t had any problems at all. It went to Prescott for a 100-hour inspection and Cody, the mechanic there, couldn’t find any problems either.

But I bought Three-Niner-Lima a present from the Robinson Helicopter Company: its very own fire extinguisher.