Flying with a 1914 Curtiss Flying Boat

Posted on August 23, 2018 by Maria Langer

The challenging part of this photo flight wasn’t the photo flight.

It had been on my calendar for months: take a photographer to fly with a rebuilt 1914 Curtiss F Model Flying Boat, supposedly the only one in existence from the 300 originally built.

My friends Mark and Karen at Century Aviation had been working on it for over a year, restoring it for businessman and aviation enthusiast Bill Nutt from the few parts they had managed to acquire. I saw the start of their work at their annual hangar party in the summer of 2017. By June’s Aviation Day event at the airport, it was pretty much done and on display in one of the FedEx hangars.

The Flying Boat project in August 2017 (left) and in June 2018 (right) when it was pretty much finished. Fun fact: There are more than 8,000 tiny screws holding the wood planks in place on the plane’s hull.

The great thing about this restoration is that the owner wanted a fully functional plane. That meant it had to fly. So they scheduled a test flight for July and contacted me about taking along a photographer to document the flight. Unfortunately, some engine issues caused a postponement and they had to work around the pilot’s schedule. He was next available in mid August so that’s when we rescheduled the flight.

The folks at Century had to disassemble the plane, stow it in a custom trailer built just to transport it, and tow it down to Moses Lake, which was where they planned to fly it. The plane does not have wheels or any landing gear at all; it’s a boat and can only take off and land in water. Although the Columbia River is right here, they felt that Moses Lake, about an hour away by car, would be better. Less possibility of crowds and boat traffic and no obstructions like overhead wires, bridges, or dams. They also needed a place to reassemble and launch the plane; they arranged with some folks who lived on the north end of the lake to use their property.

They drove down on Monday morning and spent the day working on the plane. The test flight was scheduled for Tuesday with the possibility of trying again on Wednesday if necessary.

Getting There

Spoiler alert: the most challenging part of the mission for me was just getting my helicopter to Moses Lake.

We’d decided that I’d go down on Monday so I was ready first thing in the morning to fly. I packed a tent and sleeping bag, all prepared to camp out in the yard. I also brought a cooler with ice and water and a bed for Penny.

I watched the weather all day. I wasn’t worried about storms — it was visibility that was an issue. For three weeks, we’d been dealing with smoke from various fires north of here. The smoke drifted into the Wenatchee Valley and settled in, thick enough to smell. I monitor air quality via an app and website and smoke was giving us “Unhealthy” and even “Hazardous” air. Visibility at the airport just four miles away had gotten as low as 3/4 of a mile. That day, it was hovering around two miles.

Wenatchee Pangborn Memorial Airport has class E airspace. That means that when visibility drops below 3 miles, I can’t fly there without a special VFR clearance. Trouble is, there is no tower at Wenatchee so to request my clearance I need to contact Seattle Center. And the problem I encountered that afternoon, as I idled at my landing zone in a deep valley, was that I simply couldn’t reach Seattle Center on the radio.

I could reach the local Flight Service Station, however, so that’s who I called. They relayed my request to Seattle and relayed the response back to me. There was a plane on approach and I couldn’t get my clearance until he was on the ground.

So I sat there, spinning, burning fuel, grateful that the helicopter has air conditioning. I listened in on Wenatchee’s radio frequency and heard the plane call 10 miles out. That kind of pissed me off because I had a 3-minute flight ahead of me and could have done it at least twice before he even entered the airspace. But okay. Whatever. I waited.

Then he was on the ground and a helicopter made a call. Shit. How did he get clearance before me?

I called Flight Service again to remind him that I was still waiting. He mentioned the helicopter and then told me to hold. I held. Eventually, he came back and gave me my Special VFR clearance to reposition to the airport. I wasted no time climbing out and heading across the river.

It had taken me about 20 minutes from startup to landing less than four miles away.

I ordered fuel, wondering how long it would take for me to get out and on my way to Moses Lake.

Fortunately, the wait to depart was much shorter. After topping off both tanks and checking the oil — hot dip stick! — on level ground, I started back up. This time, I called Seattle Center directly. They had me hold until a cargo plane that had just departed cleared the airspace to the west and then cleared me to depart Special VFR at or below 10,000 feet. Easy enough; I had no intention of losing sight of the ground.

Instead of flying direct, I departed the airport and descended down until I was about 400 feet over the river. The problem with the direct route is that it would take me right over the top of Lower Moses Coulee, which is a relatively wide canyon east of the airport. I worried that once I left the canyon’s west rim I might lose sight of the ground below me and the opposite rim. I don’t like to lose sight of anything when I fly and I wasn’t taking any chances.

I watched my position on Foreflight’s moving map and called Seattle Center to report clear of Class Echo when I was abeam the mouth of Lower Moses Coulee. By that time, I was low enough between the cliffs on either side of the river to have garbled communications with them. I thought I heard them ask for my altitude and heading so I reported both. Then I changed frequencies, eager to silence their nearly constant communications with airliners coming and going around Seattle.

I followed the river down to Crescent Bar and then climbed up over Babcock Bench before setting course for Moses Lake. The farms and orchards of Quincy emerged below me out of what looked like a fog. Visibility was slightly better than it had been in Wenatchee. The air was smooth and I was very surprised to discover, when comparing airspeed to groundspeed, that I I had about a 15 knot headwind. No turbulence at all. I turned on my radar altimeter — the $10K piece of equipment the FAA made me buy — because I was curious about how high up I was comfortable flying in the muck. 350 to 450 feet. I soon lost sight of the hills north of Quincy and had some trouble staying on course with nothing on the horizon to aim for. The radio, tuned into Quincy’s frequency and then Moses Lake’s, was eerily quiet.

My landing zone was on a piece of land three miles west southwest of the airport, within the Class Delta airspace. That meant talking to the tower. Fortunately, visibility there was four miles so a Special VFR clearance was not necessary. I told the controller where I planned to land and he cleared me for transition. I was just setting down when I reported landing assured.

On the Ground in Moses Lake

They had a sprinkler going in an area that would have been a good landing zone, but I didn’t know if they expected me to land there so I didn’t. Instead, I landed in a spot between a small orchard and some overhead wires. There was a burn pile nearby and I was so focused on that, wondering if I’d blow it away, that I was a bit surprised when my left skid touched down before my right one. There was a little slope to my landing zone, but not enough to be an issue. I set down, reduced the throttle to cool down RPM, and opened the door. I dropped Penny out to investigate while I finished shutting down.

One of my hosts, Lois, appeared moments later. When I shut down and got out, she greeted me. She immediately offered up a bed in the house. Faced with the choice of a bedroom near a bathroom or a tent in a smoky yard, I agreed to take the bed.

The plane was parked in front of Lois and Virgil’s garage, sheltered on one side by its big transport trailer and on the upwind side by a motorhome. It was tied down firmly at four points; it would be tragic indeed if the strong wind coming out of the east blew it over.

The plane was securely tied down in the driveway, sheltered from the wind on three sides.

Then Karen, Century’s co-owner, pulled up in her car and whisked Penny and me away to a Mexican restaurant in downtown Moses Lake. The Century crew, the plane’s owner (Bill), and a bunch of friends — I think there may have been 20 of us — sat a long table. We enjoyed drinks and huge portions of Mexican food, treated by Bill.

Afterwards, Penny and I hitched a ride back to the landing zone with Bruce, who was staying in the motorhome. (The others were staying in two rented houses in town.) That’s when he told me about flying helicopters in Vietnam and gave me a firsthand account of his participation ferrying people out during the fall of Saigon. He said that they had to toss the helicopters into the water because the helicopters waiting to land were running out of fuel and ditching and the rescue crews were working nonstop to pull people out of the water. (Seriously, kids: never pass up an opportunity to talk to an older person about the amazing things they were part of in their lives.) Now he flies freight in airplanes for a living, but he wished he’d gotten his civilian helicopter rating.

Back at the landing zone, a young guy in a uniform was hanging around by a pickup truck parked near the plane. Hired security. He’d be spending the night. I thought it was completely unnecessary — heck, you couldn’t see the plane from any road or the lake — but better safe than sorry, I guess.

I chatted with my hosts for a while before turning in. I’d been up since 4 AM, which is relatively common for me, and was tired. My bedroom was small — barely big enough for the queen sized bed! — but the bed was comfortable and the place was quiet. After feeding Penny some chicken and rice from my dinner — I’d forgotten to bring dog food which she probably wouldn’t have eaten anyway — I set up her bed on the corner of mine and turned in. I slept relatively well.

Fly Day

I woke around 4:30. This is one of the reasons I hate being a houseguest. I wake up very early and then I have to stay very quiet until other people wake up. So I did what I often do: read articles on the Web, visit Twitter, complete crossword puzzles. That took me to nearly 6 AM. By that time, it was daylight and I was ready to go outside. So I dressed, washed up quietly ,cleaned up the room, gathered my belongings, and slipped outside with Penny in tow.

The plane was safe and sound in the morning. On the right side of this shot, you can see part of the trailer it travels in.

The security guy was gone. Virgil was awake, doing stuff outside. I helped him pick raspberries from his garden for breakfast. We chatted, skirting around the issue of politics. He started to say something about liberals, thought better of it, and was likely relieved that he had stopped talking when I admitted that I leaned left. I said that I wished people would gather information from reliable sources and form their own educated opinions rather than latching on to the opinions of others. And we left it there.

Back in the house, Lois was making breakfast, which consisted of a lot of fresh fruit, oatmeal (the kind you cook, which is honestly the only kind worth eating), and meatless sausage and potato patties. There was no coffee, which I (mistakenly) thought wouldn’t be a problem. Virgil said grace before we put food on our plates. He had a lot to say to the Lord that morning, from thanks for the food to requests for good weather and a successful flight.

Other people started arriving after 7 AM. Bruce came in and joined us. Then some other folks. Soon we had a bunch of cars parked haphazardly around the place and people going in and out to use the bathroom. I thanked my hosts for breakfast and went back outside, where Penny was already giving hell to the three-legged dog from next door.

The crew got right to work on the plane. They had to check all the wire fasteners for tightness, add oil and fuel, and do countless other things I have no clue about. There were ladders all over the place. I managed to get a few interesting shots of the plane and its controls while they worked.

The crew works to prepare the plane for flight while others look on. That’s the pilot, Rob, in the black shorts.

The cockpit is pretty simple. For this flight, they had the “everyday” fabric seat cushions in. The leather cushions they made will likely be installed when its on display.

Karen affixes the Experimental placard to the inside of the cockpit as required by the FAA.

A closeup of the Flying Boat’s engine with pusher prop. This is (obviously) not the original engine, but it was built specifically for this plane based on period designs. You can see Mark’s face framed by the engine supports just below the radiator.

Mark and Karen pose by the plane’s tail for an interview by NCWLife, a local television channel.

First Try

We got all the cars moved out of the way and Virgil moved the motorhome. Mark did a briefing on what would happen next and they started moving the plane, on its cart, down to the water. I had my phone out with a battery pack on it and Periscoped the whole thing. It was long and, in more than a few parts, boring. That’s because it happened at the speed of real life, which tends to be slow. Mark and Karen weren’t taking any chances rushing through things.

Of course, I wasn’t there to put the event on social media. I was there to fly a photographer in my helicopter. That means I needed to be ready to fly when they were. At first, Mark asked me to get the helicopter going just before they started the engine, but when he realized how much I wanted to hear the engine, he said to do it right after they started. So I stuck with it, narrating and answering questions along the way. There weren’t many viewers until right around the time they started the engine. So instead of shutting it down, I handed it off to one of the other bystanders. Apparently, she wasn’t as dedicated as I was and eventually put the phone down without turning off the video. If you do watch it, have patience.

I’d already briefed the photographer, Steve, and told him he could keep shooting until after I got the helicopter started. So it was running when he joined me. I helped him with his life vest — I always supply flotation devices when doing photo flights over water — and made sure he was strapped in. Then I made a radio call to Moses Lake tower, telling the controller we’d be operating over the lake. They were already briefed about what we’d be doing and I’d likely be operating below the airport field elevation anyway. For the rest of the day, all I had to do was call when I took off and call again when I landed. It was automatically assumed that the Flying Boat would be operating at the same time.

When we took off, the plane was just taxiing into the lake. I formed up immediately with it, flying on its left (port) side. Steve is a smart guy who had no problem with my request to sit behind me for the flight. Doing so made it possible for me to see exactly what he saw and put him in position to get the best shots. I’ve dealt with too many stubborn photographers who expect me to get them into position when I can’t see what they’re looking at. I now require all photographers to sit behind me for air-to-air flights.

Rob took the plane down the lake, slowly building speed. We followed off his left shoulder. At first, I was kind of high — the water was glassy smooth and I really don’t like flying low over featureless surfaces. But I worked my way down, matching the speed of the plane below me at or below 100 feet over the water.

It wasn’t very eventful. He didn’t get very far. After a while, he killed the engine and the boat drifted to a stop.

I circled a few times as a boat with some of the crew on board motored over. Of course, I didn’t know what was going on. The Flying Boat didn’t have a radio and my cell phone was with Rita. When they came out with a jet ski and started towing it back to base, I headed back in and landed.

By the time I’d shut down and returned to lakeside, the plane was back. It turned out that there were multiple problems:

Water was getting into the boat’s hull. This was probably a combination of seepage and possibly a leak or two.
The engine wasn’t getting enough power to get the plane up to speed.
There wasn’t enough rudder to steer the plane properly.

Needless to say, we were all very disappointed. As I watched them bail out the plane with a small bucket, I started wondering if the whole thing was a failure.

Second Try

It was still early in the day and the place was crawling with mechanics and engineers so there really wasn’t any reason to give up. I went with one of the guests to a sporting goods store to buy a handheld pump to make it easier to get water out of the boat. Because I had a splitting headache likely caused by caffeine withdrawal, we stopped at an espresso stand for an iced latte. (It worked! Headache was gone before we got back!) Then Home Depot to get some hose.

While we were gone, they did something with the rudder cables to improve steering. Oddly, the design they’d worked with had a wooden block back in the tail; they had no idea what it was for but included it anyway. Apparently, it was to tie the cables in such a way that they wouldn’t rub against another part when the rudder was full left or right. So they were prepared for the fix. I imagined a mechanic back in 1912 having the same problem and solving it with that little wooden block.

Meanwhile, we had lunch — sandwiches with fresh tomatoes from the garden. Penny shared some of my turkey.

Then they were ready to try again. Steve and I headed out to the helicopter. This time we were airborne before they started the engine. We got to see Mark crank it — there was no electric start — and the prop start spinning. Then Mark climbed out of the way and Rob took his seat. As we circled about 200 feet up, he headed off into the lake.

This time, Steve and I paid closer attention to the way the plane moved in the water. We realized that spray from its movement was coming up under the rear horizontal do-dad — heck, sometimes I really wish I knew airplane parts! — and spraying up against the rudder. The hull seemed to ride low in the water. Although Rob seemed to have better steering control, he still didn’t get enough speed to take off. So he killed the engine again. The boat and jet ski moved in and I went in to land.

Third Try

One of the crew bailed out the boat with the hand pump while the others talked to Rob. It seemed that the steering problem. But the water getting in the boat was weighing it down and it seemed to be too low in the back. They decided to try ballast.

They filled two big black garbage bags with gravel and weighed them. I didn’t get the weights. They took one of the bags and secured it at the very front inside the plane’s hull. They were turning the plane around to face the lake when Steve and I headed back to the helicopter.

We launched and circled as they started it back up. It headed out to the lake. The tail was definitely riding higher in the water. Rob seemed determined to get it up to speed as quickly as possible — possibly to minimize water in the hull. He took it pretty far down the lake and I really thought he might take off. But then, suddenly, he killed the engine and let it drift.

It looked for a moment as if the wind might blow it to the opposite shore of the lake, but then the jet ski came out and attached the tow rope and they were headed back. I was back on the ground looking for chocolate chip cookies before they got back.

Fourth Time is the Charm

The verdict was that the weight in the front definitely helped but they needed more. So they secured the other bag of gravel. As they turned around the plane, Steve and I headed back to the helicopter. As I lifted off and called the tower, I said “Let’s hope fourth time is the charm.”

“Good luck,” he replied.

Again, we circled the plane as they started it up and Rob taxied it out. He headed down the lake, right into the wind, picking up speed quickly. He wasn’t messing around — he clearly planned to get it off the water if possible. I had a feeling that they’d all agreed that this would be the last try.

I dropped down as low as I dared, watching the plane the whole time. It looked light on the water.

“I see light under the tail,” Steve called out.

And then it lifted off the water and into the air. It was flying.

An aerial view of the Flying Boat flying over Moses Lake for the first time on August 21, 2018.

I keyed the mic; the radio was still tuned into Moses Lake tower. “The flying boat is flying,” I told them.

“Fourth try was the charm,” the controller replied. “Congratulations.”

Meanwhile, Steve was snapping photos like crazy. The plane kept moving and I kept moving along with it. It got about 50 feet off the water. It came down for a landing, skirted along the top of the water briefly, and came back up into the air. It flew for a while longer.

We’d gone well over a mile from base and were coming up on a bend in the river with a bluff ahead of us. Our FAA authorization limited the plane to straight and level flight, so it was time to come back down. Rob landed, turned around, and started motoring back on the water, moving fast. For a moment, I thought he might try a tailwind takeoff — the wind wasn’t blowing more than 10 miles an hour — but no, he was just in a hurry. He came all the way back, past base, and turned around. I got the feeling he was going to try another takeoff where onlookers could actually see him. He sped up a bit, crossed the lake, and pointed into the wind. He started moving quickly, but then shut down. I suspect that water in the hull was weighing him down again.

And that was it. We circled around a bit while the boat and jet ski moved back into position to bring him back. I landed and Steve got out while I cooled down the engine and shut down.

Winding Down

Needless to say the entire crew — and the onlookers — were euphoric. The day had started bad but ended great. The only thing that really disappointed the onlookers is that they hadn’t been able to see the plane actually fly; it was too far down the lake for them to see.

I gave helicopter rides to my host and his grandkids. Then I watched them pull the plane out of the water and tow it back up the driveway. I said goodbye to everyone, adding congratulations to Mark, Karen, Bill, and Rob. Then I loaded the helicopter back up, gave one last helicopter ride to the folks who had let us use their boat ramp, and headed home.

Visibility was much better; I didn’t need a clearance to get back into Wenatchee airspace. Still, I followed the river from Crescent Bar. The water was smooth as ice. I was almost disappointed to set it down at the end of the flight, but I had places to go and things to do and I was already late.

Just downriver from the mouth of Lower Moses Coulee, the water was glassy smooth.

I Live for This

I realized several times during the 24 hours I was part of the Curtiss Flying Boat crew in Moses Lake just how much I enjoy things like this. I live for opportunities to be part of something amazing and this restored plane was definitely that.

It reminded me a lot of another classic airplane project I’d been involved with back in the early 2000s, when I was still flying my first helicopter, an R22. Back then, it had been a replica 1919 Vickers Vimy, the world’s largest flying biplane at the time. That project predates my blog so I don’t have any posts about it. I can’t even find any photos of it, although I’m sure I have some somewhere. My involvement was several months long but ill-fated; I have a very low tolerance for incompetence and the project was very poorly managed when I was part of it. Still, it was fun flying in formation with a giant four-engine biplane and I did very much enjoy my one and only ride.

Life is short; we need to make the most of the time we have. For eight years out of college, I worked the nine-to-five grind and I pretty much hated it. I was living inside the box that society builds for most of us, the box my family clearly expected me to stay inside as I worked my way up a corporate ladder I had no real desire to be on. Surely there was more to life than an hour-long commute to sit in a cubicle before another commute to get home, repeated daily five times a week, 50 weeks a year.

I got a glimpse of just how much more was out there when I started my second career, as a freelance writer, and got to travel, see more of the country, and speak at computer conferences in San Francisco, Boston, New York, and Toronto. Traveling from hotel to hotel, setting up classrooms for training, teaching people what I knew, getting tastes of the cities I visited. Meeting with publishers and software developers. I enjoyed my behind-the-scenes participation as a computer trainer, speaker, and author.

Later, as my helicopter career began to grow, I got a chance to be involved with the kind of flying missions that most people never even imagine: multi-day helicopter excursions, raptor surveys, pipeline patrols, Grand Canyon tours, desert racing photo flights, cherry drying, frost control, air-to-air photo flights, cattle spotting, horse herding.

I cannot imagine a life without these fascinating kinds of work. A life where every day is the same as the day before it — and the day after it. How do people do it?

And it’s not just the work — it’s the people I meet along the way. People like a businessman who pays to restore classic aircraft to share them with the world. People like the aircraft restorers who can take a pile of scrap wood and fabric and turn it into a beautiful working airplane. People like a helicopter pilot who made 15 flights to help evacuate Saigon before he helped them push his helicopter off the ship. People like an airplane pilot who has flown several airplanes dating back to the early 20th century, when aviation was in its infancy.

Watch My Helicopter Videos on YouTube

Time for a shameless plug…

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.

I have to add — because it was on my mind so many times on Tuesday — how sad I feel for my wasband, who could have been part of all of this if he hadn’t been so fearful of joining me in my life outside the box. The man I knew well — before he apparently lost his mind — would have really enjoyed the experience, even if he had been stuck on the ground for the flight attempts. He was an engineer, after all, and the plane is fascinating. I could almost imagine him talking to the mechanics, asking questions and learning about the plane’s idiosyncrasies. But I also know that if we’d stayed together, I’d likely miss out on so many of the opportunities I’ve had since our split. What’s sad for him is good for me. I’m sure he’s perfectly happy with his life inside his box. He’ll never know what he’s missing. Most people don’t.

But this is what I live for — experiences that make my life fuller and more interesting. And I’m always looking for the next opportunity.

Want More?

Watch this video produced by NCWLife:

Another Ridiculous Charter Request

Posted on August 6, 2018 by Maria Langer

Honestly, given the situation, what else would you call it?

N630ML
Here’s the late great Zero-Mike-Lima parked out in the Arizona desert in March 2007.

I moved my business from Phoenix and Wickenburg, Arizona to Washington state back in 2013. Since then, the helicopter (my old one, technically) has been back in Arizona only once: for 4 months in the winter of 2016/17 to get its overhaul. It was in pieces for most of that time. I picked it up that February, flew it locally for about a week just to revisit my old haunts and give friends rides, and then took it to California for a frost contract. From there, it went home.

(I bought my new old one in Arizona in April and flew it home the next day.)

When I moved to Washington state, I updated my company website to remove all mention of the flights I do in Arizona. Why? Because I don’t fly in Arizona anymore.

I still occasionally get calls from people wanting me to take them to the Grand Canyon or fly them around Lake Powell. They claim they found one of my brochures or saw me listed on a website for helicopter tours in the area. They didn’t bother checking the website.

Today’s email message, however, sent to me via a form on my company website, takes the cake:

I have to have surgery in Phoenix and I live in Wickenburg AZ. the doctor doesn’t want me to travel for two weeks by road back home. We have friends in PHX, but it would put a strain on our friendship, plus I have a business in my home that I need to attend to.
Would you consider flying me to Phoenix and then back to Wickenburg? And if so, how much would it cost me?

After reading it three times to see what I was missing, I composed the following response:

Sure, I’d do it. But since the helicopter and I now live in Washington State (where we’ve been since January 2013), it would cost quite a bit. It’s about a 10-hour flight just to get to Phoenix from here, an hour for your flight, and then 9 hours to get back to Washington from Wickenburg. 20 hours at $595/hour? Even if I gave you a nice discount, I couldn’t take a penny less than $10,000. You could take a nice 2 week vacation at the Biltmore in Phoenix for that.
Sorry to be such a smartass, but you contacted me via a form on my website and I’m pretty sure my website makes it clear that I no longer operate in Arizona.
Good luck finding a local ride.

No, I didn’t send it. No need to make her feel as foolish as she is. I figure she’ll either forget about me or call. But it definitely is blog-worthy.

And can someone explain to me how her doctor would approve a helicopter ride but not a car ride?

Maybe she should call LifeNet.

One Reason Independent Bookstores are Failing

Posted on August 1, 2018 by Maria Langer

A quick story about a visit to a bookstore.

Yesterday, I spent much of the afternoon in Ellensburg, WA. Although less than 30 air miles from my home, it’s a 77-mile drive that takes about 90 minutes. Needless to say, I need to have a reason to go there when I do and I want to make the most of my time while I’m there.

Yesterday’s mission was to check out a gallery where I hope to show and sell my jewelry. That part of the trip went reasonably well, despite the fact that the person I needed to see was not there. It also led to me checking out a nearby museum that might also be a good place to sell my jewelry and two shops that I didn’t think were a good match at all.

I listen to NPR (National Public Radio). Say what you will about “liberal media” but NPR’s shows are intelligent, thoughtful, and informative. The local station, which goes by the name of Northwest Public Broadcasting (NWPB), is turned on in my kitchen almost all day every day. One of its sponsors is a bookstore in Ellensburg — the town apparently has at least three — and since I’m normally a bookstore lover and want to support NPR, I thought I’d go check it out.

I first went into the wrong bookstore, which was small but neatly stocked with new books, cards, journals, and gift items of interest to readers and writers. I wound up buying a book about vegetable gardening that basically provides a calendar-based schedule for garden tasks. (I hardly ever walk out of a bookstore empty-handed.)

I was actually leaving town when I caught sight of the bookstore that actually supported NWPB. I parked and went in.

Browsing disorganized old books might be fun if you have an unlimited amount of time and the place is air conditioned. Or maybe not even then. (And no, this photo is not from the bookstore I visited. It’s a stock image from MorgueFile.)

This was not at all what I expected. The space was larger than the other shop but it was mostly full of dusty used books. I admit to flashing back to a used bookstore I used to visit in the 1980s way down near the financial district of Manhattan. That shop was smaller, more crammed, and dustier. Walking into this shop was like walking into the disorderly garage of someone who happened to collect old books. I realized immediately that there would be nothing of interest to me there, but I figured I’d give it a browse.

The guy behind the counter looked exactly like a stereotypical gamer or computer hacker. Perhaps in his 30s, he looked as if he might live in his mother’s basement, where he spent way too much time interacting with a computer screen. He asked me if I was looking for anything in particular and I told him I was just checking the place out because I’d heard about it on NPR.

“I remember when the lady from NPR came over,” he said. “The bookstore across the street used to be a sponsor. She came over here and told us he didn’t want to support the liberal media anymore. So she asked if we’d take his spot and my dad was here and said we would.”

I hadn’t seen the bookstore he referred to. The one I’d gone to was on another block.

As I looked at the old books, I got a bit of a brainstorm. Years ago, for my birthday or Christmas or some other gift-giving occasion, my wasband had bought me two Mark Twain first editions. He’d remembered me saying that I wanted to build a library of “nice quality books,” and thought (for some reason) that meant expensive first editions. So he’d gone to a bookstore probably a lot like the one I knew in lower Manhattan, and had bought two books that may have cost him hundreds of dollars. Book that looked just as old and dusty as the ones all around me that afternoon in Ellensburg, books I was afraid to open because I might damage them.

I wanted very badly to sell them but didn’t know of any bookstores that bought and sold collectors items.

This one might. So I asked if they ever bought first editions.

The shop guy seemed to search the database in his head for an answer. “Well, it depends on the topic and whether it’s in demand and — ”

“Mark Twain,” I said, trying to cut to the chase.

“You want to buy them?” he asked, obviously not understanding what I was getting at.

“No, I want to sell them.”

He looked uncomfortable.

“I don’t have them with me,” I said.

He relaxed.

“How about if I send you more information about them and you let me know. I can send titles and dates and photos of the covers and title pages. Just give me your card and an email address.”

“Okay,” he said. And he went back to his desk. I assumed he was getting a card.

I browsed. The book sections did have labels on them, but the books within each section were not in any order at all. So, for example, when I checked out the Art section, topics bounced from photography to painting to crafts to photography to architecture to painting… You get the idea.

It was taking a long time and the shop was hot. There was no air conditioning and it was nearly 100°F outside. When I left a little while later, I realized that it was cooler outside than inside.

I wandered back to the desk. He was writing something at the bottom of a sheet of notebook paper. It was taking a long time.

“All I need is your email address,” I said.

“Well, I’m just trying to redo the website right now,” he said. “I want to set it up so I can update it and it won’t cost so much money. So I’m putting in these forums and I want to use that for company communication.”

“You don’t have an email address?”

“Well, I do but on GoDaddy, I have to go through all these screens to get to it and they keep trying to sell me stuff and it takes a really long time.”

“Can’t you just set up Outlook or Apple Mail to access your email account?”

He looked up as if I’d just told him that it was possible to use a microwave to boil water right in a coffee cup. “Maybe I could,” he said slowly. I could see the dim lightbulb over his head getting slightly brighter.

Meanwhile, although I was wearing a thin cotton dress I was sweating like a pig. I wanted out of there but I didn’t want to be rude. “Just give me your website address,” I said, holding out my hand.

He went back to writing. About a minute later, he ripped off the bottom of the page and handed it to me. There were five lines: the bookstore’s name, the bookstore’s phone number, the bookstore’s complete street address (minus zip code), an email address, and the complete URL for the bookstore. He had basically hand-written a business card.

I took it, thanked him, and headed for the door otherwise empty-handed. “I just gave out my last business card,” he said to my retreating figure.

“I’ll email you with the book information,” I told him. And I walked out into the relief of a hot breeze.

Much later — this morning, in fact, as I looked over the torn-off notebook sheet I took out of my pocket — I thought about the death of bookstores. Unless this one had a solid client base, it wasn’t long for this world. How could it be? Not only did it have to compete against Amazon, the bane of all bookstores, but it had to compete against bookstores that actually had a clue about how to draw shoppers in, display a variety of interesting products, and sell things other than dusty old books.

Will I email him about my Mark Twain books? Heck, why not? You never know. I sure hope he tries Outlook for email because there’s no way in hell I’m going to participate in one of his forums.

—

Postscript: In searching the web for a public domain image I could use with this blog post, I stumbled across this article on Narratively: “Dear Dusty Old Bookstore.” If you have a greater love for old bookstores than I apparently do, you owe it to yourself to read it.

Why Flying Experience Matters

Posted on July 26, 2018 by Maria Langer

Experience helps pilots make good decisions.

I’m often amazed by pilots who seem outraged that they can’t find a decent flying job until they’ve logged 500, 1,000, or even more pilot-in-command (PIC) flight time. Too many of these people seem to think that they’re qualified to fly for hire as soon as they get their commercial rating and a few hundred hours of flight time.

How Pilots Gain Experience

Some new pilots don’t seem to understand that the best way to build time quickly is as a flight instructor (CFI) and they stubbornly try to enter the job market without sufficient experience.

I can name more than a few of these people who have been floundering around, taking odd jobs that give them a few hours of stick time here and there with little or no pay. Some even pay to work for the privilege of working for a helicopter owner. One good pilot I met managed to lock in a flying gig with decent flight time — I can’t use the word “job” because he never got paid at all — and added a few hundred hours to his logbook. Then the company’s owner disappeared, leaving the leased helicopter sitting on an airport ramp for its owner to repossess and the pilot locked out of the hangar he’d been living in because he couldn’t afford an apartment.

More than a few of these low-time pilots make their way to Washington in the summertime, with unrealistic dreams of logging hundreds of hours of flight time drying cherries. I’ve had guys offer to fly for me for free just to get the flight time. Really. (News flash: this ain’t Seattle. It’s usually dry here and the likelihood of flying even a dozen hours is slim. Don’t believe me? Ask the four pilots over the past two years who came up to fly for me who didn’t turn a blade in over four weeks.)

I didn’t come up through the ranks of a flight school to build my time, either, and it took nearly five years to get my first 1,000 hours. But it was different for me — I never intended to make flying a career. My second career put me in an excellent financial situation, one that included the ability to buy a helicopter and fly it around for fun. I put nearly 1,000 hours on my first helicopter, an R22, before selling it and buying the R44 I took delivery of in 2005. By that time, my goal was to simply earn enough with the helicopter to pay for the helicopter — a goal I achieved in 2007 when I started doing aerial survey work. That changed, and, by around 2012 (or thereabouts; I’d have to check my tax returns for an exact date), I was earning more as a pilot than as a writer and my flying career was in full swing. By then, I had more than 3,000 hours in helicopters, none of which was flying under the supervision of a flight school.

But is building time as a flight instructor the best way to get experience? I’ll always argue that it isn’t — as I did in a 2009 blog post titled “Real Pilot Experience.” In that post, I discussed the value of my experience at 2,100 hours vs. the experience of several newly minted 300-hour CFIs that I’d flown with. My experience was built flying real-life missions that required planning, decision making, and aviating while theirs was in a flight school environment, mostly with a slightly more experienced CFI sitting beside them. I thought it odd at the time — and I still do — that they were more qualified to teach people how to fly than I was.

Still, how else can a new pilot get the experience they so sorely need to be good, safe pilots on for-hire missions?

At Stehekin
I took Mr Bleu, Penny, and a friend up to Stehekin on Sunday for a nice day trip. In this shot, I’m parked next to the grass runway.

Landings and Wind

The other day, I blogged about the stress I felt at facing my 15th Part 135 check ride. In that post, I wrote a little about the decision making process on one particular maneuver. Here’s what I said:

On my check ride, I was asked to land in a confined space on a hillside. It was a relatively big area — I’ve certainly landed in a lot tighter spaces — and there were no real obstacles, although there were some open range cattle, fencing, and a water tank nearby.
I misjudged the wind. I thought it was light and inconsequential and set up my approach to give me a the best angle of approach. As I came near the landing spot, however, I saw trees blowing and felt the wind buffeting me. Left pedal kept things under control without getting too sloppy.
Still, I decided to go around and approach from a different angle. As I told the examiner as I started going around, “If the helicopter is light, performance is not an issue, and the wind isn’t too strong, I could make this work. But making a bad approach work is probably not a good idea on a check ride.” He agreed.
And that’s the difference between flying as a pilot and flying as a CFI. A pilot flies depending on her skills, the conditions, and her intimate knowledge of the aircraft. A CFI flies depending on the best scenario learned in training. We all know it’s best to land with a headwind and that’s what the CFI will always try to do. But an experienced pilot also knows that you don’t have to fly into the wind if other conditionals make a safe operation possible. In this instance, there wasn’t that much wind and we were light. I knew I could land safely with that right quartering tailwind; I’d done similar landings before. But I also knew that the FAA was more interested in a textbook approach. My going around showed good decision-making skills and the second attempt was a lot smoother with a lot less dancing on the pedals.

A Story about CFIs and Headwinds

About 10 years ago, I had to fly from Arizona to Washington State for cherry season — a 10+ hour flight. In those days, there were plenty of low-time CFIs who wanted to build time in R44 helicopters so they could meet the requirements of SFAR-73 for flight training. I think they needed a total of 25 hours. I’d let these guys, who already had their R44 endorsement, lease my helicopter with me as a passenger to bring me and the helicopter up to Washington State. They’d get cheap flight time and I’d get the helicopter moved at no cost. Win-win.

This particular flight has a lot of stories to tell, but I’ll focus on one: landing at Redding, CA. The airport is towered. We arrived late in the afternoon, light on fuel, from the south. The ATIS said the wind was about 4 knots from the south. The tower told us to land on Runway 34 — in other words, straight in with a slight tailwind. The pilot at the controls — a 300-hour CFI — acknowledged the instruction.

As we got closer to the airport, it came into view. The pilot was flying to the west of it. I assumed he didn’t see it — after all, when you fly at 500 feet AGL it’s not easy to see airports. I pointed it out to him.

“I was going to go around to the west in a downwind and turn midfield and land to the south,” he told me. For you non-pilots, that meant he was going to go around to the left and then land on the same runway but in the opposite direction.

I was floored and took a moment to figure out how to gently explain the problem with that. “Well, the tower told you to land straight in on Runway 34. So you have two options. You can either call the tower and request a landing on Runway 16 or you can land on Runway 34 as instructed.”

(Is it me, or am I correct in thinking that I shouldn’t be instructing a CFI?)

He took a moment to think about it, then changed course and landed straight in on Runway 34. Of course, he came in hot and did a quick stop so he wouldn’t overshoot the parking area. The quick stop was unexpected but well executed and he was so proud of it that he sought my approval when he touched down in our parking spot moments later.

I’m afraid I didn’t deliver. Instead, I said the first thing that came into my mind based on my experience-based knowledge of flight conditions and possibilities: “If you do that at the Grand Canyon on a 90° day with a full load of passengers, you’ll have one hell of a hard landing.” (I can be such a bitch.) Most sea level pilots are completely clueless about flying at high density altitude and I can tell stories about that, too.

In my defense for misjudging the wind, during my high reconnaissance of the landing zone, there were no wind indicators — flags, bodies of water, large trees, blowing dust, smoke, etc. — for me to get an idea of the wind. The trees down near the landing zone weren’t big — maybe 10 feet tall? — and I didn’t see any movement from above. The location we’d departed from less than five miles away had a light wind out of the west. I came in from the north, assuming the wind would be about the same. It was, but it was also a bit stiffer. A better low reconnaissance would have helped me see this, but in the grand scheme of things, it really didn’t matter.

And that’s my point. Whether the wind over my right shoulder was 4 knots or 10 knots didn’t matter. (And yes, 20 or 30 knots would have mattered and I definitely would have noted on such winds.) The helicopter, with half tanks of fuel and just two average sized people on board, was light. It was still cool out and we were operating at about 1500 feet MSL, so density altitude wasn’t an issue. The helicopter’s performance was good. I was making a relatively slow, shallow approach, so airspeed and descent rate would not have put me into a settling with power situation and the minor tailwind would not have caused me to overshoot my intended touch down spot. As I came in on my approach and felt the wind, I could easily keep the helicopter under control with the pedals. I knew from experience — over 2,000 hours flying R44s in all kinds of conditions — that I could make a safe landing.

The only reason I went around was because I was on a check ride. The FAA isn’t interested in seeing pilots who can make a bad approach work. They’re interested in pilots who can made good decisions, even if those decisions mean breaking off an approach to go around and do it differently. So going around is exactly what the examiner wanted to see. He wanted to know that I could recognize a bad approach and act accordingly.

And I need to make one thing very clear: I’ve done go arounds on bad approaches before, without an FAA examiner sitting in the seat beside me. I recall one in particular at Sedona Airport, elevation 4830, years ago. There were three of us on board with luggage and half tanks of fuel, so we were pretty heavy. It wasn’t hot, but it was windy. I made my approach to the helipad following the path I always followed — I flew in there a few times a month. But in this case, it was a little too squirrelly for me and I was dancing on the pedals a lot more than I like to dance. I broke off about 50 feet from the ground and went around. My second approach was more into the wind and a lot smoother. Could I have made the initial approach work? Maybe. But why risk it?

That’s what experience teaches you. It teaches you what works and what might not work and what definitely won’t work. It teaches you how to fix little mistakes before they become big mistakes. Or fatal mistakes.

Does it teach you everything? Apparently not, as my February incident proves. But at least that won’t happen again. I learned my lesson.

Don’t Fly Like a CFI

Before you go ape and blast me for the above heading, let me explain.

A CFI is taught to fly “by the book.” If you’re a CFI you know exactly what I mean. Or you should.

Let’s take an example: taking off. Common instructions tell you to follow these steps:

Bring the helicopter into a 3 to 5 foot hover.
Pitch forward with the cyclic to start moving forward.
Add pedal as necessary to stay in trim.
Push through ETL and pitch for 45 knots, staying within 10 feet of the ground.
At 45 knots pitch for 60 knots to climb out.
When at desired altitude, pitch for cruise speed.

Did I leave anything out? This is from memory and I never taught anyone to fly.

This is basically how low-time CFIs always take off (unless they’re in a confined space or have an obstacle) because (1) it’s how they were taught and (2) it’s how they teach their students. Do takeoffs like this for 1,000 hours and it’s pretty much engrained in you.

But is that how all helicopter pilots take off all of the time? Of course not. The situation you’re in determines how you take off.

Need to get away from the ground quickly because of the potential for dust or damaging downwash along your flight path? (I was once with a low-time CFI when he did a textbook takeoff right past an ultralight sitting idle next to his flight path. He’s lucky the owner grabbed it as we went by.) While a maximum performance takeoff (with its inherent risks) might not be needed, there is some middle ground — and yes, it might require some flight in the scary part of the height velocity diagram.

And landing. I cannot tell you how many times a low-time CFI flying with me entered a traffic pattern at an airport in the middle of nowhere, did a one-mile final approach to land on the runway numbers, and then hover-taxied on the taxiway a half mile to the midfield self-serve fuel pump. What’s that all about? If you’re flying a freaking helicopter, you don’t need a freaking runway. Landing to get fuel? Land at the pumps.

(Want a story about that? I was passenger on a flight my friend Jim did to Prescott Airport (PRC) in his Hughes 500c. We were headed for the restaurant, which was adjacent to a parking area. The tower there put him on a wide downwind for one of the runways on the other side of the airport. Jim barked into the microphone: “Negative! Helicopter One-Two-Three-Alpha-Bravo is a helicopter! We want direct to the restaurant! When the controller recovered from the shock of getting this demand after working with flight school pilots all day every day, he gave Jim exactly what he wanted. Did I mention that Jim was a retired Eastern Airlines pilot?)

About high density altitude experience

Landing or departing at high density altitude is no laughing matter, especially if your ship is heavy and your experience is limited. That’s one of the lessons learned from this doomed flight in Easton, WA about 11 years ago. That’s what I was thinking of when I departed with three passengers at near max gross weight from an off-airport landing zone on a hot day this July.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that I struggled to gain altitude without puling pitch past the redline on my manifold pressure gauge. There was hardly any wind, which didn’t help matters at all, and the air temperature was about 90°F. When you consider our landing zone elevation of about 800 feet, that put our DA at about 3200 feet. Fortunately, the area around us was clear of obstacles and we inched up into the sky.

Once on our way, everything was fine. But I knew I had two problems ahead of me: making a safe landing in a confined space landing zone at 1400 feet and then departing from that confined space when it was likely to be up to 10°F hotter. That put us at about 4500 feet DA. We would not burn enough fuel on the 20-minute flight to make a significant difference in weight.

The landing didn’t worry me that much. I have a lot of high DA experience and it really paid off. I came in smoothly and landed to a hover, then quickly but surprisingly gently put it on the ground. My passengers climbed out and went about their business. While I idled there, I looked around me at the shop buildings, wires, and mature apple trees, and decided that there was no way I’d depart from there with all of them on board. I didn’t need performance data to tell me that it wouldn’t be safe. That 2007 Easton crash was up front in my mind.

So I called my client and told her that I’d pick up the group at an airport about 5 miles away. It was only a minor inconvenience for them; they were attending a meeting at the orchard and the orchardist had a truck he could take them to the airport in. I departed the orchard landing zone and waited for them at the airport.

My OAT gauge read 103°F when they met me for departure. I loaded them up, pointed the helicopter into the wind, and did one of those textbook takeoffs over the ground and across the runway of the deserted farm country airport, pitching for a 60 knot climb before I reached the fence line. We climbed out smoothly and safely, which is what any pilot should aim for.

And here’s my argument for why experience matters: According to the accident report, the Easton accident pilot had “a total time in helicopters of 2,122 hours, 1,492 hours of instruction given in helicopters, 160 hours in the last 90 days, 24 hours in make and model…” While 2,122 hours of helicopter experience is considerable, she had just 24 hours of experience in the make and model of the crashed helicopter (an R44). She was based in Seattle and had done the vast majority of her flying at sea level. The calculated density altitude at the crash site was 6,841 and the helicopter was only 33 pounds below max gross weight. The probable cause was listed as “The pilot’s improper planning/decision in attempting a downwind takeoff under high density altitude conditions that resulted in a loss of control and impact with terrain. Contributing to the accident were the helicopter’s gross weight in excess of the maximum hover out of ground effect limit, a high density altitude, and the gusty tailwind.” I have to think that her limited experience with the helicopter and high DA conditions, combined with an understandable desire to please the client, contributed to bad decision making and execution of departure maneuvers.

Only experience can help protect you from a similar fate in a similar situation.

But what I’m trying to say here when I tell pilots not to fly like flight instructors goes beyond modifying standard procedures to fit a situation. It’s this: You will never become a better, more experienced pilot if you don’t push the edges of what’s comfortable to you.

Now I’m not saying you should go out and fly like a lunatic, pushing your skills and aircraft to their limits. That’s a good way to get yourself and possibly others on the ground hurt or killed. I’m saying that you should push gently to expand your comfort level and learn valuable lessons along the way.

Has your flight school forbidden flights when the winds exceed 15 knots? Fly when the wind is 20 knots. Then, when that’s comfortable, bump it up to flying at 25 knots. (Obviously, you should consult your pilot operating handbook to see if there are any limitations.) Don’t be like I was when I went to work at the Grand Canyon. After being taught to avoid flying in high wind situations, I was suddenly required to fly when the wind speeds were up to 50 knots. I learned to deal with high wind a little faster there than I probably should have.

Does your flight school limit flights to a handful of airports? Fly somewhere else. (Yes, get permission if necessary. Duh.) One of the best ways to get real-life flying experience is to fly to different places. It works your flight planning, navigation, and communication skills. It challenges you to think about your approach and landing rather than to do the same thing you’ve been doing for weeks or months.

If you’re a sea level pilot — I’m talking about someone who has learned to fly and usually flies mostly at or near sea level — do yourself a huge favor and fly to a destination above sea level. Someplace high enough where you can really feel the difference in the aircraft’s performance. Then take it to another destination even higher. Do you really want to get your first high density altitude experience when you get a job flying tours at the Grand Canyon, elevation 6600 feet? (And yes, I’ve done running takeoffs from Grand Canyon Airport twice: once in my R22 and once in my R44. They teach us that stuff for a reason.)

Do long cross-country flights. Solo. That’ll really test your flight planning and navigation skills — especially when unforecasted weather or other conditions force you to choose an alternate destination airport or land off-airport to wait out a storm.

I guess what I’m trying to advise is to do the things CFIs don’t generally do when they’re working as CFIs. But don’t go nuts. Build your skills and confidence levels slowly.

And shame on flight schools that don’t give their CFIs or commercial students the opportunity to do these things.

Mr Bleu and a Friend
Here’s Mr Bleu with a friend from Lake Chelan. We occasionally work together to take more than 3 passengers on charter flights. Here, we’ve landed in a soccer field beside a cherry orchard.

Passionate for a Reason

I feel very passionate about real life vs. CFI flying and even more so after my own accident.

I’m not a complete idiot. I realize that my accident was caused by two things:

Distraction in the cockpit. I was flying VFR and I should have had my eyes outside the cockpit. Instead, I allowed myself to get distracted and failed to maintain awareness of my flight path.
Lack of experience with night flight. Seriously! What was I thinking? I’ve got 3,700 hours of flight time, but less than 100 hours of that is at night. How could I possibly have allowed myself to get as complacent as I obviously was about the additional challenges of flying in the dark?

I’m lucky to be alive and I know it. And although I’m seriously embarrassed about the mistakes I made that led to my crash, I’m not too embarrassed to use my learning experience to teach others.

Throughout this blog, you’ll find lots of lectures about safety, many of which touch upon NTSB-analyzed accident reports. When reading between the lines, so many of them can be traced back to insufficient pilot experience with the situation or aircraft.

Don’t be one of those pilots. Push yourself gently to expand your skills and knowledge with real-life scenarios you can only get from non-CFI style flying. And never stop learning to be a better pilot.

A Word about Life after Stress

Posted on July 20, 2018 by Maria Langer

That whole thing about a weight being lifted off your shoulders? It’s true.

This past week, I’ve been stressed out a lot more than I occasionally get. It had gotten to the point where I felt an overall malaise that I couldn’t shake, accompanied by an overwhelming desire to give up on all the things I do that contribute to the stress that was making me feel so crappy.

And that’s never a good thing.

The Check Ride Stress

Quick Note:
I know that in the grand scheme of things — comparing my sources of stress to the sources other far less fortunate people face every day — I shouldn’t complain. And I’m not. I’ve been in far more stressful situations. The point of this post is not to complain or to gather pity. It’s to share an observation.

The main source of that stress was an upcoming FAA check ride scheduled for Thursday (yesterday). It was my first check ride in my new old helicopter, Mr. Bleu. I take a check ride for my Part 135 certificate every year, so it had been a full year since my previous one. I won’t hide the fact that the Spokane FSDO, which oversees my Part 135 certificate, has been getting under my skin with a series of what I consider to be unreasonable requirements. I’d been pushing back, which is something I’d never had to do with the more reasonable FSDOs and inspectors I’d worked with in the past. This was their big chance to “teach me a lesson.” At least’s that’s what was in the back of my mind as I prepped for the check ride.

But check rides are always stressful to me. You see, I never became a certified flight instructor (CFI) and I never spent 500 to 1000 hours sitting next to new students, teaching them about all the weird aerodynamic issues inherent in a rotary wing aircraft and doing dozens of autorotations every day. I have always lived in a place with amazing weather, operating primarily out of Class G and Class E airspace, so I have trouble remembering silly little (but important) things like weather minimums for the various classes of airspace. I know how to fly and I’ve been called a good stick. But that doesn’t mean I can necessarily meet the requirements of a Part 135 check ride, especially if the examiner is tough or wants to fail me.

Add to that that although I usually prep by flying with someone who works full-time or nearly full-time as a flight instructor, no one like that was available to me. My check ride was scheduled for Thursday but the CFI I’d hoped to fly with beforehand was gone until Friday. So I flew with my friend Woody, who has tens of thousands of hours flying Airbus airliners and a bunch of time flying mostly Schweizer helicopters. He’s a CFI and he’s taken more check rides over the years than there are long, hot rainless days in Arizona every year, but he approaches flying as a pilot instead of as a CFI. While that should be a good thing, I wasn’t convinced that it was a good thing for someone prepping for a check ride. (More on that in a sidebar.)

The stakes were relatively high. I needed to pass the check ride to continue doing charter and air taxi flights. Those account for about 10% of my flying revenue, which isn’t really that much. But a Part 135 certificate means I can say “yes” to just about any flight request, including something as simple as a tour that goes more than 25 miles from a starting point. It sucks when you have to turn down work because you lack the piece of paper that makes it legal. If I failed the check ride, I’d have to redo it. Since I was already in my grace month due to FAA scheduling limitations, that meant I could lose that piece of paper staring August 1. And I already have a flight booked for August 3. Redoing it meant more stress, too.

And did I mention the wind? Winds were forecasted to gust to 22 miles per hour on the date of my check ride. The check pilot was coming from Seattle and there was no chance that he’d reschedule after a 3-1/2 hour ride (each way). (I’d offered to meet him in Ellensburg to save him 90 minutes of that drive, but the wind was forecasted to gust to 37 there, so he agreed to come to Wenatchee.)

So although this was the 15th Part 135 check ride in my near 20 years as a pilot, it was stressing me out.

My R44 Helicopter in the Morning
My new old helicopter, Mr Bleu, parked in its landing zone.

On “making it work”

On my check ride, I was asked to land in a confined space on a hillside. It was a relatively big area — I’ve certainly landed in a lot tighter spaces — and there were no real obstacles, although there were some open range cattle, fencing, and a water tank nearby.

I misjudged the wind. I thought it was light and inconsequential and set up my approach to give me a the best angle of approach. As I came near the landing spot, however, I saw trees blowing and felt the wind buffeting me. Left pedal kept things under control without getting too sloppy.

Still, I decided to go around and approach from a different angle. As I told the examiner as I started going around, “If the helicopter is light, performance is not an issue, and the wind isn’t too strong, I could make this work. But making a bad approach work is probably not a good idea on a check ride.” He agreed.

And that’s the difference between flying as a pilot and flying as a CFI. A pilot flies depending on her skills, the conditions, and her intimate knowledge of the aircraft. A CFI flies depending on the best scenario learned in training. We all know it’s best to land with a headwind and that’s what the CFI will always try to do. But an experienced pilot also knows that you don’t have to fly into the wind if other conditionals make a safe operation possible. In this instance, there wasn’t that much wind and we were light. I knew I could land safely with that right quartering tailwind; I’d done similar landings before. But I also knew that the FAA was more interested in a textbook approach. My going around showed good decision-making skills and the second attempt was a lot smoother with a lot less dancing on the pedals.

The stress affected my ability to sleep. On Wednesday night, I was up for four hours in the middle of the night. Wide awake enough to read my helicopter’s Pilot Operating Handbook (POH) and Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) in bed (on my iPad) without them putting me to sleep. I fell back to sleep at around 3:30 AM and was up again at 5:30. So on Thursday morning, I was facing a check ride with a total of about 5 hours of sleep. Not ideal. I was a basket case by the time I got to Wenatchee Airport with my helicopter to wait for the examiner.

Fortunately, it had a happy ending. I took the check ride starting at about 10:45 AM and did surprisingly well on the oral part, which usually makes me seem like an idiot. As for the flying part, I flew fine but could have made better in-flight decisions at least once. Still, it was good enough for me to pass. So by 12:30 PM Thursday, that source of stress was gone.

The Cherry Season Stress

Another source of stress this week was cherry season. We’d gotten over the hump and it hadn’t rained in a month. (We get paid for standing by, so it isn’t as if we didn’t make any money. We did fine.) But the season was winding down and there was no rain in sight and I had to decide whether to extend the contracts for any of my crew. This came down to a basic math and probability problem: How many acres were left to cover and what were the chances of it raining on all of those acres at once?

Early in the week, I didn’t have the information I needed to make a decision. That was the source of the stress: needing to make an important decision I couldn’t make because I didn’t have the information I needed to make it.

Once my crew left, I couldn’t get them back, so I had to decide at least a few days before they planned to leave. I knew I’d only need to keep one of them around if I needed any of them and I knew which one of them it would be. And I knew he wanted to stay, although his partners back in Arizona wanted him back with the helicopter. The trouble is, if I asked him to stay, I’d have to pay him more standby money. That money was coming out of my pocket and it wasn’t chump change. So the stressful part of all of this was figuring out whether I should ask him to stay before he made unchangeable plans to leave.

Cherry season is stressful.
I should mention here that cherry season is always a very stressful time for me, starting in April, a good two months before the season starts. In April, I’m trying to secure my contracts and get acreage counts so I know how many pilots I need. In May, I’m trying to lock in pilots who are freaking out because I can’t give them exact start dates. In June and July, I’m watching the weather, trying to foresee storms and flight needs, and making sure my pilots don’t wander off. In August, I’m still watching the weather and hoping that I can cover whatever acreage is left by myself. So it’s up to five months of varying levels of stress. August 11 is my last day this year and I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to it.

I started getting acreage estimates on Tuesday. By Wednesday, I was able to do the math part with some degree of accuracy. If I let all my guys go, on the first day they were all gone, I’d be right at the limit of the number of acres I could cover alone. If it rained everywhere, I’d be stretched thin. But too thin? And what was the chance of rain?

By Thursday, I was confident that there was no chance of rain for at least three days after the last member of my crew left. By the end of those days, it didn’t matter if it rained because the number of acres left to dry — remember, they’re picking cherries every day now — would easily be within my capability to dry alone.

So the stress from that decision was gone by Thursday, too.

The Tiny Sources of Stress

I have a few other tiny sources of everyday stress in my life.

Jeep air conditioner. It’s on the fritz, making a weird sound when the fan is on medium-high or high. That’ll need to get looked at.
Business planning. Believe it or not, I’m considering starting a new business with a partner here in Wenatchee. This is a huge decision for me and there’s some stress related to the yes/no decision of starting it at all.
Responsibilities. Like most folks, I have the responsibility of owning and managing a home and doing the work I do to make a living. Sometimes it’s more stressful than other times, but if I couldn’t handle that stress, which never really goes away, I should probably sell out, retire, and live in a rest home.

In all honesty, I can’t even count these as “stress,” mostly because they come and go on a daily basis. They’re part of life.

When the Stress Is Gone

What I really wanted to write about here is how I feel this morning. In one word: great!

Yesterday, after my check ride and lunch with Woody and an appointment to get my hair tended to, I rescheduled the business planning meeting I had set for 6 PM to sometime later in the weekend. On my way home from the hairdresser, I shopped at my favorite craft cocktail place and had one of their concoctions. I normally don’t drink at all during cherry season, but with absolutely no chance of rain, I didn’t think it would hurt. And I thought it might help for what I had planned next: sleep.

I was dead asleep by 7 PM. And I stayed that way until 3:30 AM. That’s 8-1/2 hours.

Now most folks probably wouldn’t be happy waking up at 3:30 in the morning. But after a solid night’s sleep, what difference does the time make? I spent some time sitting out on in the cool air on my deck, just looking out at the lights of the Wenatchee Valley. Then, as the eastern sky started to brighten, I went in and made my coffee.

That’s when I realized how good I felt and why: the stress was gone.

And with the stress gone, so was the malaise.

How could I have even considered giving up on the things I do? Running my helicopter services business? Managing over a dozen cherry drying contracts? Caring for and improving my home? Managing Airbnb properties? Making and selling jewelry? Raising chickens for eggs? Keeping bees? Gardening? Polishing gemstones?

And why wouldn’t I dive into a new business venture with a friend?

When I was stressed out earlier in the week, that feeling of malaise was making me question why I was doing any of these things, reminding me that the people whose lives revolve around a dull job and evenings spent watching television don’t get stressed out. The stress comes, in part, from facing challenges. No challenges, no stress.

But what those people don’t realize is that without self-imposed challenges, there’s no real meaning to life. They’re missing out on the amazing feeling of success that comes when facing a hurdle and jumping it.

Because isn’t that what I’m doing?

I wouldn’t have to take that check ride if I didn’t build and maintain a Part 135 helicopter business.

I wouldn’t have to make difficult staffing decisions if I didn’t take on the challenge of managing cherry drying contracts every year.

I make my stress when I take on these endeavors. The stress is usually temporary. And getting past it is what makes me tick, the reward of success is what drives me.

And I feel great today.

An Eclectic Mind

Web site and blog for Maria Langer, writer, video producer, jewelry artist, boat captain, and helicopter pilot. Blogging since 2003.