Fueling a Robinson R44 Helicopter

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A video from the FlyingMAir YouTube channel.

Lots of the folks who watched the video where I flew from home to the airport noticed that I parked right in front of the fuel island at the airport and wanted me to show how the helicopter is fueled. Well, that fuel island is now out-of-order and fuel comes from a truck. The other day, when I was feeling kind of punchy after flying through a hailstorm, I took a moment to video Dana, the FBO fuel guy at Wenatchee, as he refueled my helicopter, Mr Bleu. It was raining pretty hard and I whined about that but I think the results are worth sharing. So here, by popular demand, is how to fuel an R44 helicopter. Enjoy!

Some notes to answer questions I know I’ll get:

  • Robinson R44 helicopters burn AvGas, also known as 100LL. It’s a 100 octane leaded fuel.
  • On the day this video was posted, AvGas at my airport cost $5.52 per gallon.
  • My helicopter burns between 14 and 17 gallons per hour, depending on my flight profile.
  • I don’t do “hot fueling” — in other words, fueling the helicopter while it’s running. That can be dangerous.

When you do the math, you might say, “Wow! Only $80-$90 for an hour of flight time. Operating a helicopter is a lot less than I thought. Why are tours so expensive?” But that’s not taking into consideration are the other costs of owning and operating a helicopter: regular maintenance ($3K to $10K per year) and insurance ($8K to $20K per year) are the two biggest. Robinson Helicopters also need a complete overhaul every 12 years of 2200 hours of flight time; that’ll cost me about $250K or more than $100/hour. Taking all costs into consideration, my cost to operate is well over $400 per hour. It’s one of the reasons why I and so many other pilots are offended when strangers suggest splitting the cost of fuel in exchange for a ride. It’s like “sharing the cost” of a nice meal out by just paying half the tip.

If you’re really curious about R44 operating costs, you might want to download this document from the Robinson Helicopter Company: https://robinsonheli.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/r44_2_eoc.pdf Just keep in mind that Robinson is in business to sell helicopters, so these numbers are optimistic.

And another note to answer a specific question someone asked on another video the other day. When fuel comes from a truck (as opposed to self-serve), I have to request fuel service. I can do this two ways: (1) make a radio call to the FBO (fixed base operator) or fuel provider, which is usually on the common traffic advisory frequency at small airports like Wenatchee Pangborn (KEAT), or (2) land, shut down, get out, and go into the FBO building and ask in person. I’m a regular customer at Pangborn, so I have an account there and they bill me once a month based on what I bought. At other airports, I pay either at the truck or inside with a credit card.

If you have other questions, please don’t hesitate to post them in the comments. And don’t be offended if I’ve answered them here and tell you to read the video description. Thanks!

Helicopter Flight to Crescent Bar

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A video from the FlyingMAir YouTube channel.

Join me and Penny the Tiny Dog for a flight from our cherry season base in Malaga, WA to an orchard at Crescent Bar in Quincy, WA. I’ll fly you down the river and tell you a little about what we’re flying over and past while also telling you a little about helicopter operations.

Before you ask, the blue rag over my iPad keeps the sun off it so it doesn’t overheat. (I usually use a yellow rag, which works better because it’s a lighter color.) If you ask in the comments, I’ll tell you to read this description and then you’ll feel silly. Just saying.

Answering more questions:
– This is NOT a video game. If you think it is, it’s time to shut off your gaming platform and go outside. You might need sunglasses; it could be bright out during the day. Real life is cooler than video games if you work a little to make it that way.
– The helicopter is a Robinson R44 Raven II — the same one that appears in the photo at the beginning of the video. You can learn more about them here: https://robinsonheli.com/r44-specific… I own this helicopter. It is the third one I’ve owned since 2000.
– I have been flying for about 20 years. My nearly 4,000 hours of flight time is in R44, R22, Bell 206L (Long Ranger), and Bell 47 helicopters.
– The video was recorded with a pair of GoPro cameras, one of which is connected to the helicopter’s intercom system. Both cameras record audio, but I dialed down the helicopter sound to about 25% of normal volume so it wouldn’t be annoying. I wouldn’t mind leaving it out altogether, but lots of folks seem to want it, so there it is.
– The intro music is by Bob Levitus, famed Macintosh book author. By this point, he may have written more books than me. I should ask him.
– Penny the Tiny Dog weighs 7 pounds and flies with me quite often.

My helicopter has ADS-B Out and is picked up by radar facilities. You can see my track for recent flights on Flightradar24:
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/n7534d
This is a great site for tracking any almost any flight, including the airlines.

I’m trying to drop flying videos like this one every Sunday morning and usually drop “extras” with more info about owning and operating a helicopter midweek. Subscribe so you don’t miss anything new! And tell your friends. The more subscribers I have, the more motivated I am to keep producing videos like this one.

About the Video Posts

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Why I’m posting a bunch of YouTube videos.

If you’re a regular blog reader, you may have noticed that I haven’t exactly been a regular blog writer lately. Honestly, I’ve been busy.

First there was the yard sale that took two days to set up and two days to sit through. I’m still cleaning up the remains of that. Goodwill is doing very well with my repeated truck drive throughs. Lesson learned: sell items of value on Craig’s list and throw the rest away.

Then rain. Lots of rain. And with the rain, lots of flying. One morning I started at 5 AM. Another evening, I flew over cherry trees until 9 PM, went to the airport for fuel, and didn’t get home until 9:45 PM.

Then a four-day weekend in Leavenworth selling jewelry. Those are long days. Leavenworth is 40 miles from here and I’m gone at least 12 hours each day. When I get home after a day of dealing with tourist shoppers and summer heat, the last thing I want to do is sit in front of a computer to write.

YouTube Logo

And then there’s YouTube. You might recall my post about the FlyingMAir YouTube channel in late May? That’s when I discovered that one of my videos had gone viral and I was actually earning some real money as a content producer. But as anyone in publishing can tell you, you can’t just sit back and expect things to carry on without some additional effort. So I became motivated to build up the channel and see where I can take it.

It’s been about six weeks since that post and I’ve added a lot of new videos to the channel. Some are videos I’d published on my personal channel years ago; I moved them over where they’d get more attention. Others are brand new, created with newly recorded footage.

And it’s paying off. Yesterday my subscriber count topped 50,000. That viral video now has 9.3 million views. I am routinely getting more than 2,000 views in the first 24 hours of all the new videos I publish. And it’s showing in my YouTube earnings, too. Without getting too specific, let’s just say that I have my monthly living expenses covered for a while.

So when faced with the choice of editing and publishing a video that’ll be seen by thousands (or millions?) of people and put money in my bank account or writing a blog post that might be seen by a few hundred people without adding a thing to my bottom line, you can probably figure out which is my first choice.

Sorry.

But there is a silver lining. I’ve decided to blog the videos when they are published on YouTube. Today, I’m playing catch up, adding them to my blog with a post date to match the date they were publishing on YouTube. So if you’re a blog reader who doesn’t necessarily surf YouTube, you can see them on an ongoing basis.

And yes, I promise to finish my blog post series about my spring vacation on the David B. It might just take a while.

R44 Helicopter Panel Overview

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A video from the FlyingMAir YouTube channel.

Lots of people have been asking me to give them more information about the helicopter itself, so here’s my first plain information video. In it, I give you a guided tour of my helicopter’s instrument panel, from top to bottom. Airplane pilots will recognize a bunch of the instruments, but there are also a few that are helicopter-only. Keep in mind that this is just an overview — I don’t go into deep detail about any of the instruments or knobs that I discuss. The video has two parts — I got a phone call from a client and had to fly while I was in the middle of recording it — so you get the added benefit of seeing the instruments actually reading something near the end. Can you spot the blades still spinning?

I’ve also gotten requests to show what my helicopter looks like, so I included a photo in the beginning. I should mention here that the intro music was created for me years ago by Mac author Bob Levitus; I’m only using a tiny piece of the opus he composed and recorded for me. (Maybe I’ll use the whole thing as background music for a flight in the future.)

I mention in this video that I can be tracked in flight via ADS-B. You might try https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/n7534d to see a list of my recent flights. Click Play to see my route. If I’m in flight when you look, it’ll show you my flight progress. Flightradar24 can track all kinds of airplanes — including commercial flights — and even has iOS and Android apps so you can track flights on your mobile device.

If you have any comments or requests, please put them below. I do read all the comments and use them to improve future videos. I don’t answer questions that are answered in the video description, so you may want to read these before posting questions.

If you haven’t caught on yet, I release flying videos on Sunday mornings and “extras” midweek. I hope you subscribe and tell your friends! I’m trying hard to build the channel into a library of videos folks want to watch and share and every new subscriber motivates me to make more, better videos.

Helicopter Cherry Drying Lesson

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A video from the FlyingMAir YouTube channel.

Join me and Justin for a quick look at some of the orchards we’re responsible for drying this season followed by a cherry drying lesson. This is 90% of what a helicopter pilot needs to know to be a cherry drying pilot. (Don’t try this at home, kids!)

Justin is doing most of the flying in this video. I’m sitting in the left seat, waving my hands around an awful lot and providing directions to see the orchards and then instructions as we fly low-level on a practice flight over the fruit. It’s a sunny day — I don’t teach during real-life cherry drying missions. This video is kind of long but I think it’s interesting enough to keep most folks watching.