Helicopter Landing at Hood River

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A video from the FlyingMAir YouTube channel.

In this video, I’m on my way from Wenatchee, WA to Hood River, OR to deliver my helicopter to my mechanic for its annual inspection. Weather prevented me from flying the direct route, which would take me between Mt. Adams and Mt. St. Helens to cross the Cascades. At this point in the flight, I’ve been dodging clouds and low weather for about a half hour and I just can’t seem to go in the direction I want to go. Hood River is nearby and I have to pee, so I make a detour and land there.

What’s really cool about this video is the clouds. Helicopter pilots seldom fly above the clouds but nearly all of this video has clouds below me. You’ll also see a rainbow over my head for a good portion of this clip and great views of Mt. Hood out ahead of me.

I hope you enjoy the flight. Keep the comments coming and please tell your friends about my channel. The more people who tune in, the more often I’ll drop these. Thanks for stopping by!

Cherry Drying: Playing the Weather Game

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Why relying on forecasts is a bad idea.

Cherry drying? What’s that?

If you don’t know what cherry drying is all about, you can learn more in some of these older posts:
• Drying Cherries with the Big Fan (2006)
• Cherry Drying 101 (2008)
• The Story Behind Walking the Orchards (2008)
• I Dry Cherries (2008)
Heck, there’s too many to list. Just check out the cherry drying tag.

If you want to see me in action, check out these two videos on YouTube:
• Helicopter Cherry Drying – A Narrated Flight
• Cherry Drying with a Helicopter – Again

I’m deep into cherry drying season here in central Washington state. I’ve built a team of five pilots (including me) to cover about 400 acres of cherry trees in this area. We’re all on standby, which means we need to be around during daylight hours, ready to fly if it rains and we need to dry an orchard.

Standby is serious business. My contract with my growers says that I will have a helicopter in the air within 15 minutes of a call. To make that possible, I have to monitor the weather closely throughout the day and evening every single day. I use apps on my phone to get current radar information and the latest forecasts from at least two reliable sources (neither of which is The Weather Channel). And whether I’m home or out running errands, I’m always scanning the sky, noticing a build up of clouds. Even when I’m flying I have the radar layer displayed in Foreflight on my iPad, tracking the directional movement of cells.

I basically live the weather for 10 weeks every summer.

I Become a Weather Source

For good or bad, my clients have come to depend on me for this.

Years ago, I got a lifelong client when I called a grower at 6 AM on a Sunday morning to report rain on his orchard. It was a tough call to make; he was a newlywed living miles away down in town. There had been no rain in the forecast but rain had woken me in the middle of the night. I’d been camped nearby and when I went into the orchard to pick a few cherries for breakfast, I saw how wet the trees were. Do I call? It’s not my job. What do I do? I called. He launched me and drove out to the orchard to take a look. I was about 15 minutes into the job when he called me in the cockpit and said, “These trees are really wet. You probably saved our crop.” His 100+ acres in three different orchards makes up a good portion of my contracted acreage every year.

Last year, I was home doing some chores when I noticed a buildup of clouds out to the northeast, over the Waterville Plateau. That area, which is full of wheat fields, is prone to nasty thunderstorms every summer. There was nothing in the forecast for the two areas we service — Wenatchee/East Wenatchee/Malaga and Quincy — but I didn’t like the way this looked. I checked the radar. Sure enough, it was a big cell and it was moving south, right toward the orchard we service in Quincy. I got on the phone and called my guy based down there to ask what it looked like. He hesitated and then admitted that he was in Leavenworth, at least an hour away. There had been nothing in the forecast so he and his family had gone out for the day. While he hustled back, I called the grower. He lives in East Wenatchee and didn’t see the cloud build up. I told him what I saw on radar, and he headed down to Quincy for a look. Meanwhile, I prepared to fly in case my guy didn’t get back on time. I watched the cell move right on down to Quincy. A while later, the grower called back. The cell had dropped some rain on the far east end of his orchard — not enough to call the pilot out. Yes, it had been a false alarm, but he was glad I’d alerted him. And I think my pilot learned a valuable lesson about trusting forecasts.

I could tell stories like this half the day — after all, this is my twelfth season as a cherry drying pilot. But you get the idea. Forecasts simply can’t be relied upon.

Today’s Forecast

When I went to bed last night, there was no rain in the forecast. It was cloudy as I fell asleep, but I just assumed all that would move off during the night. Wrong. When I woke up just before 4 AM, it was still cloudy and unusually dark for that time of morning.

I checked the radar on my iPad as I do first thing every morning. I was surprised to see some light echos on radar. I’ve learned over the years that even that isn’t an indication of actual rain. Still, it put me on alert.

Text Exchange
Here’s my early morning text exchange with a client. I really think they like getting a response within seconds when they contact me at odd hours.

So did the text I got from a client who had to leave town to manage picking at another orchard he owns 2 hours away. (Coincidentally, this is the same grower who told me I might have saved his crop a few years back.) Without someone there to check how wet his trees might get in a rain event, he was depending on adjacent growers’ decisions to launch pilots to launch me. I only had one other orchard near him that was on contract, but it was close enough to be a good indicator.

Radar this Morning
The radar image for the Wenatchee area at 5:55 AM this morning.

Around 6 AM, as I was having coffee, I was also watching the weather from my home. It’s perched up at the base of some cliffs, high up over the Wenatchee Valley and offers a 180° to 270° — depending on where you’re standing on my 10 acres — unobstructed view of the whole valley. It’s a perfect perch for someone doing what I do and makes a great base of operations for cherry drying services.

Here’s what I saw on radar and from my window.

Weather from my Deck
Here’s the view from my deck when I captured the radar image above.

I started texting my crew. Of the three guys, Trevor responded within a minute. He gets it, I reminded myself. The other two: nothing.

Then I got a text from my friend Cyndi, who lives up on Wenatchee Heights. (Cyndi’s house was my starting point in this recent video: Flying Home from Taco Night.) “It’s raining!” She said. (It’s funny how many of my friends report rain to me throughout cherry season. I definitely appreciate it.)

I put Trevor on alert but didn’t send him to his helicopter yet. I tried to get the other one in the area, Ben, on the phone. I called once and it went to voicemail. I told him that if he had Do Not Disturb turned on, he should turn it off. Then I called again. It went to voicemail again and I told him that he was in trouble. Then I texted his boss, who was in Portland. Ironically, he responded immediately. I made sure he understood that I wasn’t happy about not being able to reach the pilot I was paying him to be able to reach 24/7. On call meant on call.

Watch My Helicopter Videos on YouTube

Time for a shameless plug…

Flying M Air Logo

If you like helicopters, you’ll love the FlyingMAir YouTube Channel. Check it out for everything from time-lapse annual inspections to cockpit POV autorotation practice to a flight home from a taco dinner at a friend’s house — and more.

The rain moved through the area southeast bound. I texted two of my clients to see how much rain they had. One texted back that the rain had been light but it was very windy. The other called with the same information. Cyndi reported the same thing. It looked like we could stand down. I texted Trevor.

It rained at my house. The wind was howling so hard that only half of my deck showed drops and they dried within seconds of hitting the ground. Then it was gone and only the wind remained.

It’s an hour after I took the photo shown above. The sun is out and there’s some blue sky. Radar shows a “wintery mix” over Mission Ridge, which is south of the orchards we have on contract. Even if we did have some more rain, I’m pretty sure this wind — which has been in the forecast for the past few days — would dry the trees.

Clearing Weather
It’s an hour later and the weather is clearing out.

This is what I do for 10 weeks every summer: play the weather game.

Beyond Meat

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I try some meat substitutes and come away unimpressed.

I first heard of the Impossible Burger on NPR, which I listen to quite regularly. It was mentioned in a piece on one show and then, a few days later, on another. The folks talking about it seemed quite impressed claiming that they’d finally nailed a plant-based burger.

Of course, I wanted to try one. I like trying new foods. So I did some research and learned that the local Red Robin burger joint sold them. As much as I dislike Red Robin — I’m not a fan of chain restaurants and I’d had a very unsatisfactory experience at the local one — I went to give it a try.

Impossible Cheese Burger
From the Red Robin website: the Impossible Burger.

They had different versions on the menu. I ordered some sort of cheeseburger. When it arrived I realized that I’d forgotten to tell them not to fill the bun with sauces and lettuce and tomato and whatever else they stuffed in there. It was a mess. I ate it. It was tasty, but I can’t say I tasted anything resembling beef.

I tried again a few weeks later. This time I told them I wanted it plain: the burger and the cheese on the bun. Nothing else. Now I could actually taste what I’d come to taste. And I was not impressed. If people thought this tasted like beef, I had to wonder what kind of beef they were eating.

Beyond Sausage Package
Beyond Sausage packaging.

Fast forward a few weeks. I was in my local Fred Meyer supermarket shopping the meat department and I saw Beyond Meat burgers. Beyond Meat is an Impossible Foods competitor. On a whim — remember, I like to try new foods — I bought a pack of two burgers. A while later, while chatting with the butcher there, he mentioned that the sausage was really good. I figured, why not? I bought them, too.

I got home and took a closer look at the package. I was interested in calorie count. And that’s when I got my first shock: 190 calories for one sausage.

Beyond Sausage Nutrition Facts
The nutrition facts and cooking instructions for Beyond Sausage. One sausage gives you 25% and 21% of your daily requirements of fat and sodium, respectively.

How could that be? It was made from vegetables. A closer look at the ingredients explained all. The first four ingredients, in order, were water, pea protein, coconut oil, and sunflower oil. Oil. I’d bought a mixture of peas, water, and oil. And this was supposed to replace sausage?

Burned Sausage
I guess when one of your primary ingredients is oil, you’ll burn pretty quickly.

I heated up my propane grill, lowered the flame, and closed the lid. I hadn’t looked at the cooking instructions yet. I figured I’d cook it like I cooked a sausage. I went back outside a few minutes later to turn them. The grill temperature gauge said 350°F and smoke was billowing out. I lifted the lid in time to see the sausage on fire. I pulled it aside with a fork. Shit. Definitely not edible.

One down, three to go.

I decided to look at the cooking instructions. It said to heat the grill to 500°F (!), brush the sausage with oil (!), and grill 6 minutes per side. If I’d followed those instructions, I likely would have set my neighborhood on fire.

I lowered the flame and tried again. It cooked more slowly. Too slowly. I raised it. Now it was cooking too fast. I found myself standing by the grill, watching it cook so I wouldn’t destroy another one.

Penny Says No
Penny can tell the difference between food and nonfood.

Meanwhile, I cut off an unburned piece of the first one and offered it to Penny. She sniffed it and looked up at me as if to say, “Am I supposed to eat this?” I wound up throwing it away.

When the one on the grill was done, I put it on a plate beside the salad I’d prepared for my “healthy” meal. I wanted to pretend it was normal food.

I tasted it. The flavor was good — it tasted like some version of a sausage. It’s amazing what seasonings can do.

But the texture was all wrong. It was spongy with a uniform texture not like any real meat. It was a lot like the frozen chicken meatballs I keep in the freezer for a last minute pot luck contribution — bake them with homemade honey barbecue sauce and they’re tasty. But spongy. Even real meat, when processed enough with additives, ceased to be realistic. These sausages never had a chance.

So no, I wasn’t impressed. I won’t buy them again.

Oddly, I did have two left and was determined to eat them. So one afternoon, for lunch, I cut one up into small pieces and threw it in a frying pan with some chopped onions and broccoli. When it was mostly cooked up, I dropped an egg on top, covered the pan, and let the egg cook until the white was set and white. This is a typical meal for me — I have chickens, after all, and no shortage of eggs — although I usually use bacon, real sausage, or ham as the meat protein. To my surprise, it was actually quite tasty. The sponginess wasn’t that noticeable in such small pieces.

But no, I’m not sold enough to buy it again.

The way I see it is this: there is no flavor, nutrition, or financial benefit to buying Beyond Meat sausage (and likely burgers, although I admit I haven’t tried them yet). They don’t taste any better than real meat alternatives. They’re not, by any stretch of the imagination, a healthy food. And they’re not cheap. I’m not sure why anyone other than a strict vegetarian or vegan would buy these.

Flying Home from Taco Night

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A video from the FlyingMAir YouTube channel.

I took my friend Cyndi and her husband Matt on a helicopter ride and they invited me over for dinner afterwards. It was taco night at her house. So I parked the helicopter in her side yard, went in with Penny for dinner, and flew home afterwards. Here’s that short flight.

I narrated this video because I was really tired from a lot of flying on a hot day and really didn’t say much during the flight. So rather than listen to a lot of silence, I thought I’d use the narration feature of my video editing software to say what I should have said during the flight. Let me know what you think. Rest assured that if the in-flight audio is interesting, I’d much rather use that.

A(nother) Short Story about the State of US Healthcare

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Who wants a “pre-existing condition” these days?

I thought I’d take a moment to share a few recent thoughts related to the healthcare situation in the United States.

I’m in my late 50s now and have, for the first time, begun spending a lot of time doing close work with my hands. Making jewelry with fine wire and small tools doesn’t put a lot of strain on my hands, but it apparently does work the muscles and joints more than I’m accustomed to.

Arthritis runs in my family. I clearly remember my grandmother on my mother’s side, who lived to be about 90, complaining about it once in a while. She had typical “old lady hands,” that included thick knuckles and crooked joints under wrinkled skin. She’d spent nearly a lifetime doing close work with her hands in a garment factory, starting work when she was as young as 13 and working until many years later when my grandfather had a stroke and she had to stay home to care for him.

I’ve had knee problems on and off throughout my life. They always got worse when I was heavier and disappeared when I lost a lot of weight back in 2012. But before they disappeared — back when I had a lot of disposable income and a decent health care plan — I went to a doctor about it. Arthritis, he said, pointing at the x-rays.

Handxray
X-ray of a hand from Wikipedia. I’ve got my own x-rays around here somewhere.

More recently, a fall off the back of my truck that sprained an ankle apparently fractured some bones in my left wrist, which I’d landed on. While trying to diagnose the occasional swelling and severe pain (caused by “floating bodies,” we later discovered during arthroscopic surgery that removed most of them), the doctor took x-rays. He pointed out the early signs of arthritis in my wrists and hands.

So yeah. I have arthritis.

It’s gotten to the point that it’s starting to bother me enough to seek medical solutions that don’t necessarily include painkillers. (I can take Vitamin I (ibuprofen) without a doctor telling me to, and I’m not interested in anything stronger.) Would exercises help? CBD creams (as everyone keeps telling me)? Heat or ice therapy? Vitamin supplements? I’m not interested in querying Dr. Google because we all know that there’s enough bad advice there to drown out the good advice. I want to visit a doctor, have her take new x-rays, and tell me what I can do to slow the progression of this very common problem.

And here’s the rub.

If I go to an arthritis specialist — provided I can get an appointment with one — I’m making a very public (on my medical records) statement that I have a medical problem bad enough to seek medical help. In other words, I’m admitting I have a condition that, once admitted, becomes a “pre-existing” condition for future health care coverage.

Now, under the Affordable Care Act (ACA, AKA “Obamacare”), as it was passed by the government and enacted into law, pre-existing conditions didn’t matter. But things are different now.

Let me tell you another story about pre-existing conditions prior to the ACA.

Years ago, when I was very heavy, I was having digestive issues that included GERD, heartburn, acid reflux, and vomiting. To this day, I think it was a hiatal hernia but at the time I was unable to find a doctor to offer any advice beyond “take Pepcid AC.” Back in those days, I made the fatal error of mentioning “chest pain” as a symptom. As you might imagine, that triggered a flurry of heart tests, all of which came back negative. I did not have a heart problem, I had a digestive problem. I blogged about this in detail way back in 2010.

This profit-driven nonsense established me in medical records with a “pre-existing heart condition” that didn’t exist. All of the tests came back negative! So when my idiot wasband lost his job (again), made a late COBRA payment, and got our health insurance canceled, the insurance company refused to cover me when they started the insurance back up. I had a “pre-existing heart condition,” they said.

For six of the scariest months of my life, I had no health insurance because a couple of greedy doctors put me through a battery of unnecessary heart tests and an idiot couldn’t manage his money properly. It wasn’t scary because of my health. It was scary because if, during the time I was uninsured, I got some kind of real negative health diagnosis (think cancer) or had an accident at home (think falling down the stairs) that put me into the hospital or long term treatment, I could lose everything I owned. Medical bankruptcy is a real thing here in the United States and I was set up to become a victim.

I got limited insurance coverage back and later got my own damn insurance again so I didn’t have to worry about an idiot screwing things up for me. The ACA really helped things; it was as if those old medical issues simply didn’t exist. And, so far, I haven’t had insurance denied because of these things — although the rate has gone up dramatically since Trump took office. Next year, who knows?

So here I am in 2019. I have arthritis in my hands and want help to prevent it from getting worse quickly. But I’m afraid to make an appointment with a specialist because I’m afraid to get the condition on my medical records. So instead, I’ll keep waiting, letting the condition likely get worse. All because I don’t want to be denied insurance coverage in the future.

Is it right? Does it makes sense? No and no. But there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it other than emigrate to a country with decent health care for all. And believe me, I’ve been thinking about it.

So that’s my situation as I type this.

At least the CBD cream smells nice.