Planning the Long Flight Home

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I begin flight planning for the trip from Phoenix, AZ to Malaga, WA with my new helicopter.

I haven’t been blogging much about flying lately, but that’s because I haven’t been doing any lately. It took me about a month to find a good replacement for my old helicopter and, truth be told, I haven’t even gone to see it in person so I don’t have any good stories or photos to share. I’m thinking of discussing the purchase in a separate blog post and if life doesn’t stop hurling distractions at me, I might just get that done. But it’ll be a complete piece — from the start of the search to the pickup of the replacement helicopter — and since that process isn’t complete yet, I can’t very well write about it.

So instead I’ll give you an idea of what’s going through my mind this weekend and week as I plan to fly the replacement helicopter home from the Phoenix area.

Planning a Flight in the American West

The one thing that city folks — and people from areas areas that are normally or densely populated — don’t get is that out west there can be very long distances between points. And since there aren’t as many people here outside the big cities, there can be a whole lot of nothing on a long cross-country flight. Or even on a relatively short one. Heck, when I was first building time in my R22, I once flew solo in a straight line 85 miles east to west just north of the Grand Canyon’s airspace and didn’t cross over a single paved road for the entire distance. Can you do that in New York?

I used to fly between Arizona and Central Washington twice a year. From 2008 to 2013, I lived in Wickenburg, Arizona and spent 7 to 16 weeks every summer in the Wenatchee area of Washington for cherry drying. In May, I’d pack up the helicopter and fly north and in July or August, I’d pack it up again and fly south. I often had a pilot interested in building time in an R44 at the stick to help cover flying costs; once (I think) it was my future wasband, who got the flight time for free on a flight that included a good part of the Oregon coast.

There are basically four good routes — five if you count the California/Oregon coastal route — to get from the Phoenix area of Arizona to Central Washington State. Those routes are determined primarily by terrain, fuel availability, and airspace restrictions.

The Shortest Route

By far, the shortest route is through the middle of Nevada. Going north from Wickenburg (E25), it’s Mesquite, NV (67L), Elko, NV (EKO), Burns, OR (BNO), to Wenatchee, WA (EAT). Note that those legs are pretty long — 2-1/2 or more hours each. But it’s only 891 miles total and I’ve done the whole flight in a single day twice with another pilot on board.

The Shortest Route
Here’s Foreflight with the shortest route plotted in. I added a waypoint to route me around the Grand Canyon’s airspace, which I can’t fly through. There’s a whole lot of nothing on this route.

Pros:

  • Short route; it can be done in less than 10 hours without headwinds.
  • The shortest route is also the cheapest route.
  • Only three fuel stops also speeds up the trip; stopping for fuel takes at least 30 minutes.
  • Between Elko and Burns, there are many herds of wild horses.

Cons:

  • Not many options for fuel if headwinds slow you down. Rerouting along the way could make the trip a lot longer.
  • Flight crosses miles of empty desert with absolutely no sign of civilization. For example, there’s a stretch between Elko and Burns where there are no roads, buildings, or even fence lines for more than 90 minutes of flight time. So if you need to land because of a problem, you’re pretty much screwed.

The Salt Lake City Route

Salt Lake
My GoPro nosecam captured this amazing image of Salt Lake on my last flight southbound through the area in October 2016.

When I flew the late, great Zero-Mike-Lima south to get its overhaul back in 2016, I took what I call the Salt Lake City route. This route follows roads pretty much all the way. Zero-Mike-Lima’s engine was nearly 12 years old and an oil change had uncovered more than the normal amount of metal fragments in the filter. If the engine was going to give me trouble, I wanted to be able to land somewhere close to where I could get help and that meant near a road. An example of this route goes from Wickenburg (E25) to Page, AZ (PGA), Salt Lake City (Skypark), UT (BTF), Burley, ID (BUR), Pendleton, OR (PDT), and Wenatchee (EAT). This comes out to a minimum of 985 miles.

The Salt Lake City Route
This is what I call the Salt Lake City Route, IFR edition. I’ve added waypoints beyond the fuel stops listed here, to guide me around the Grand Canyon’s airspace and keep me over roads for most of the way.

Pros:

  • I can be an IFR (I Follow Roads) pilot. There are very few stretches along this route that can be considered remote.
  • There are corner-cutting opportunities to save time and fuel. For example, if I don’t mind flying over Salt Lake, I can go direct from Salt Lake City to Burley. (I really don’t like flying over water so I’ve only done that once.)
  • There are many potential fuel stops along the way. And many options for short detours to get to them.
  • The first 2 hours of this flight takes me over my old stomping grounds in northeastern Arizona, including the Navajo Reservation and Lake Powell.
  • My friend Megg lives in Salt Lake City and has, more than once, provided overnight accommodations.

Cons:

  • It’s not the shortest route. I don’t think it can be done safely by one pilot in a day.
  • It crosses over a lot of high elevation terrain. In April, that means there’s a real possibility of snow or icing conditions that I can’t fly in. Getting grounded because of weather wastes time and gets expensive.

The Western Nevada Route

Another way to go that successfully avoids the restricted airspace in Nevada is up the east side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and up into Oregon. In looking at this route, I realized that I’d never done the whole thing. Once I traced the Tonopah (southeast of Hawthorne) to Wickenburg part of this route with my wasband on board when we had to abandon the coastal route, stopped for the night at a friend’s house in Georgetown, CA, and came over Echo Pass near Lake Tahoe. We might have cut through Death Valley along the way. The route I’m looking at now is at least 942 miles: Wickenburg (E25), Jean, NV (0L7), Hawthorne, NV (HTH), Lakeview, OR (LKV), Yakima, WA (YKM), and Wenatchee (EAT).

Western Nevada Route
The western Nevada route is one I’ve never done before, but it looks like it might work out.

Pros:

  • Relatively short route.
  • Not completely familiar so I’d get to see new sights.
  • A stop at Hawthorne would mean getting to see Betty, the unofficial airport greeter there.

Cons:

  • Not completely familiar so I’d have to be even more prepared for the unexpected than usual.
  • Fuel stops are limited so monitoring fuel consumption and planning well in advance is vital, especially with headwinds.
  • There’s some remote terrain. Help might not be close in the event of a problem.
  • There’s some high elevation terrain. Winter weather could be an issue in April.
  • With restricted airspace and high mountains on either side of the Nevada portion of the route, there aren’t many opportunities to divert for fuel or overnight accommodations.

    • The Central California Route

    The longest two routes take me through California. The shorter version goes up the Central Valley of California. I basically head west through the Arizona and California deserts, then pop over the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains at Tehachapi and fly up the Central Valley. Then I continue North through Oregon on the East side of the Cascade Mountains. A flight plan might be Wickenburg (E25), Apple Valley, CA (APV), Porterville, CA (PTV), Woodland, CA (O41), Redding, CA (RDD), The Dalles, WA (DLS), and Wenatchee (EAT). That’s a minimum of 1100 miles.

    Central California Route
    The Central California route is long but very familiar. The stops shown here are just an example; there are plenty of options for fuel and overnight stay in the Central Valley.

    Pros:

    • I know this route really well. I can’t tell you (without looking in my log book) how many times I’ve flown either the entire thing or parts of it.
    • There are lots of places in California’s Central Valley for fuel and overnight stops.
    • More than half the route is through heavily populated areas. Plenty of places to get help if needed.
    • There is very little high terrain so winter weather is not likely to be an issue.
    • Weather is nearly always perfect — although it could be windy — in the desert areas.
    • I can stop along the way to pick up the cockpit cover for my old helicopter, which is somewhere in the Sacramento area of California.

    Cons:

    • The route is long. Enough said.
    • There’s a chance that you won’t be able to cross into the Central Valley at Tehachapi because of low clouds on the Central Valley side. The wind seems to funnel the weather south and when the clouds hit the mountains there, they just stop and accumulate. I’ve had this happen to me twice. The options are to wait it out or detour farther west to Grapevine.
    • Just under half the route is through sparsely populated areas.
    • There are limited fuel stops in the desert areas and in Oregon.
    • Did I mention that the route was long?

    The Coastal Route

    Bonneville Dam
    When I fly back from the coast, I usually fly along the Columbia River. Here’s a nosecam shot of the Bonneville Dam. I can’t get my hands on any of my coast photos right now.

    If you’ve never flown in a small aircraft, low and slow up the coast of California and Oregon, you have no idea what you’re missing. When the weather is good, the flight is absolutely amazing. I’m talking about tiny seaside communities, waterfalls plunging off cliffs into the Pacific Ocean, and odd rock formations just off the coast with waves crashing picturesquely against them. If time and money is no object, this is the way to go. A typical route might be Wickenburg (E25), Apple Valley, CA (APV), San Luis Obispo (SBP), Half Moon Bay, CA (HAF), Eureka, CA (EKA), North Bend, OR (OTH), Tillamook, OR (TMK), The Dalles, WA (DLS), and Wenatchee (EAT). Those aren’t all fuel stops; they’re just points along the way where fuel is available. This flight is over 1300 miles long if you follow the coast as closely as possible. It’s a lot longer if you join the coast at a point south of San Luis Obispo — for example, Santa Barbara (SBA) or Long Beach (LGB).

    The Coastal Route
    Got money to spend and time to kill and you don’t mind gambling with Mother Nature? Then do the coastal route. The extra waypoints I plotted in here are just to keep you on the coast as much as possible. You’d have to calculate and pick your fuel stops.

    Pros:

    • The scenery! There’s none better.
    • Lots of fuel stops — if you plan properly.
    • Did I mention the amazing scenery?

    Cons:

    • Weather. The chances of being able to stay on the coast for the entire distance from San Luis Obispo to Tillamook are about as close to zero as you can get without hitting zero. The marine layer is real and it will definitely force you inland for at least part of this route. That means you need to have an infinite number of Plan Bs. And there’s nothing worse than flying out of your way to get to the coast and then having to backtrack because it’s socked in with fog.
    • Possibly flying over water. I hate flying over water.
    • Some of the coastal areas are quite remote. So even if you’re flying over land, if you have a problem and need to land you might not be anywhere near help.
    • You can’t stick to the coast in certain wildlife refuge areas unless you want to climb to 2000 feet. I get nosebleeds up there.
    • The airspace gets a little crazy around San Francisco, especially if you have to come inland.
    • And seriously: 1300 miles for a trip you can do in less than 1000 miles on at least two other routes? A bit extravagant, no?

    Picking a Route

    Those are pretty much the options I’m looking at. I was leaning toward the Central California route until I started looking at the Western Nevada route in more detail. It definitely has possibilities and I shouldn’t write it off just because I haven’t done it before. If it saves me 2 hours of flight time, that’s hundreds of dollars in ferry flight costs. While I don’t think I can do it in a day, it’s definitely feasible.

    In the end, there are just two things that will help me make the decision: the weather forecast and whether I can stop in California to fetch that cockpit cover. And although my flight is scheduled to begin on Friday, April 13 — yeah, I know — it’s still to early to get a reliable forecast. I’ll likely decide by Wednesday or Thursday — and be prepared to change my mind.

    That’s how flight planning goes.

    Another (Brief) Facebook Rant

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    This might be enough to get me to completely pull the plug.

    I’ll admit it: the only reason I haven’t completely pulled the plug on my Facebook account is because I use it to promote two businesses: Flying M Air and ML Jewelry Designs.

    Flying M Air has been on my Facebook account for years. For a while, I tried hard to use Facebook to share information about what the company is doing through events, offers, galleries, and plain old posts. I was checking in daily to stay on top of messages. Flying M Air’s website has an annoying pop-up window that invites visitors to like us on Facebook. (I’m still trying to figure out how to turn that off.) The only thing I didn’t do was pay money to promote a Facebook post.

    And here’s the rub. Flying M Air’s Facebook page has over 1000 likes. That means that over 1000 Facebook users have indicated that they want to see new content. I don’t post much anymore — heck, there are only five or six new posts since July — so it isn’t as if I’m bombarding page followers with content. It doesn’t matter, though. Facebook isn’t showing this content to the people who want to see it. Indeed, one of my posts from last summer “reached” only seven people.

    Yeah. Seven out of over 1000.

    Facebook Post
    This post came out two days ago, yet was shown to only ONE person. For all I know, it could be me.

    Against my better judgement, I set ML Jewelry Designs up on Facebook, too. I figured: why not? But rather than put a lot of energy into keeping its page up-to-date with new content, I set up new posts on its WordPress-based website to automatically post to the ML Jewelry Designs page on Facebook. This means the page gets new content just about every day. (I schedule posts so no more than one new item appears each day.) Now the page is less than a month old and has only 20 followers. But I’m getting the same ridiculous low reach numbers I get with Flying M Air.

    So here’s the situation. Facebook users have indicated that they want to see the content posted on certain pages. But the Facebook algorithm has decides what they should and shouldn’t seen. My two business pages don’t pay for “promotion” so they’re pretty far down on the list of what gets shown. As a result, my content doesn’t appear for anywhere near the number of people who have indicated they want to see it.

    So why bother posting it?

    And what about the people who like a page because they want to see all of its new content? How many of them think there just isn’t anything new because it doesn’t appear in their newsfeed?

    Can you see why I’m just so done with Facebook?

    Jewelry Making: A Hobby Gone Wild

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    An update on my wire-wrapped jewelry endeavors.

    By now, the folks who know me well know that my jewelry making hobby has blown up into something resembling an addiction. Indeed, it’s difficult for me to pass up a shop or website that offers gemstone cabochons (cabs, to those of us who work with these things) for sale without taking a look — and likely buying ones within my budget. I’ve now got a collection of about 4 dozen cabs in various shapes and sizes made of a stunning selection of stones. They’re almost all polished to a reflective shine. Just gorgeous.

    The weird thing about this is that I’ve been going to Quartzsite, AZ where I bought about half the cabs I have now, for more than 20 years and saw cabs for sale every single year. It wasn’t until I realized what I could do with them that I began buying them. And when I started getting kind of good at turning them into jewelry, the draw became irresistible. I’ve since found a good supplier on Easy who sells decent quality stones at a reasonable price. I’ve bought two dozen from them in the past two weeks.

    More about Cabochons

    A cabochon, in case you’re wondering, is:

    a gemstone which has been shaped and polished as opposed to faceted. The resulting form is usually a convex (rounded) obverse with a flat reverse.

    Nevada Dendritic Sage Agate Wrapped in Silver
    Nevada Dendritic Sage Agate wrapped in sterling silver. I don’t think you can make a bad piece of jewelry out of such a nice stone — if you let the stone show.

    Lapidaries create cabs by cutting stones into slabs, then cutting those slabs into shapes and polishing them with wheels of varying grits. I’ve seen guys do this and it looks like a ton of work. A good lapidary can produce beautiful cabs by finding the best features in a slab and featuring them in a finished cab. Those are the cabs I look for when I’m shopping.

    Cabs range in size from very small — maybe 10 mm long — to quite large — over 50 mm on a side. I prefer them 30 to 45 mm long and 15 to 30 mm wide. Smaller than that and they’re tough to work with; larger and they make heavier pieces than I like.

    Although I do like working with odd-shaped pieces, it’s a bit more challenging to get them properly wrapped. My skills aren’t quite reliable enough yet to tackle them successfully. So I stick with ovals, teardrops, and elongated pieces. I’m just starting to get the hang of dealing with square corners.

    Turning Cabochons into Jewelry

    There are basically three ways to turn a cab into a piece of jewelry:

    • Drill a hole in it and use that to secure a finding or beading string. Drilling a hole in a stone basically turns it into a bead. I don’t do this. I don’t like the idea of drilling into a beautiful stone or using a hole to secure it in jewelry. That’s my opinion. I’m sure a lot of beaders would disagree. Sorry. (I should add here that when working with very small stones, I think beading is the way to go. I may use gemstone beads as accents in future pieces; I’m still thinking about it.)
    • Use wire wrapping to secure the stone into the jewelry piece. This is what I do. There are several styles of wire-wrapping; the style I use is rather intricate, although I have experimented with simpler styles. I usually use 20 to 22 gauge square or round wire wrapped with 22 gauge half-round wire to create a custom frame for a stone, build a bail, and secure the stone into the frame. Then I use the excess frame wire to create accents with loops and swirls.
    • Cut and solder metal to create jewelry mounts for stones. This is another nice way to turn a cab into jewelry — especially if the cab’s reverse side is marred or unfinished. This is both harder and easier than wire-wrapping. It’s harder because you need good metal cutting and soldering skills. But, in a way, it’s also easier because you can work with virtually any size or shape cabochon and get good results.

    I’ve begun work on a blog post providing more detail on how I make my pieces. The only thing I need to finish it are step-by-step photos. It won’t be enough to teach you how to do it, but at least you’ll see what I do. There are some good videos on YouTube to get you started if you want to try and I’ll link to the ones I think are best in that blog post.

    The Metals

    K2 Granite wrapped with Silver
    This is K2 Granite — yes, from the mountain K2 — wrapped in sterling silver. The colored specs are natural. I’d score this a 5 out of 5; it’s currently my favorite piece.

    Lately, I’ve been working almost exclusively with sterling silver, although I have worked with copper and silver plate in the past. (When getting started, it’s a good idea to work with cheaper metals.) My friend Dorothy sat down with me when we were both in Quartzsite in January and showed me how she makes her jewelry. That was the first time I worked with sterling silver. She stressed the importance of tight, even wraps and put me on the right track in a search for perfection. Every time I finish a piece, I give it an objective score of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best. I’m always shooting for 5s but am happy with 4s. I learn a lot from 3s and usually disassemble anything that scores lower than that.

    Dorothy also taught me to save every single bit of silver that gets cut away from the piece. When my little plastic container is full, I can send it back to the silver supplier for credit on the purchase of more silver. At $16.60 per ounce (today’s price), those trimmings can really add up.

    My Progress

    I’ve come a long way since I started creating wire-wrapped gemstone cabochon pendants back in January. In fact, I look at some of the pieces I created back then, remembering how proud I was of them, and cringe.

    My First Pieces
    My first pieces, prepped for sale. I’ll be selling these for just $10 each — a fraction of what I charge for my later pieces.

    Why cringe? Well, most of them are terribly crude and generally immature. All those swirls — what was I thinking? This is the kind of jewelry a teenager would wear. That’s okay, but I’m not interested in making jewelry for teenagers.

    Now compare those pieces to my most recent work here (and in closeups above):

    Recent Wire-Wrapped Jewelry Pieces
    Here are some of the pieces I created in the past week, all tagged and ready for packaging for sale. They range in price from about $40 to $50 each and are sold on a leather necklace with a hand-formed clasp.


    If you like videos, try this one. It’s a show and tell for four recent pieces. (I really need to get a better setup for future videos.)

    I think these designs are more finished looking and mature. (Maybe it’s just a matter of taste, though.) Not only am I using better cabochons, but I’m also wrapping them with sterling silver, although I haven’t completely given up on copper yet.

    And yes, I am selling them. There’s a website where new pieces appear as they are finished: www.MLJewelryDesigns.com. There are links there to an online store. Selling them makes me happy and sad. Happy because other folks value what I do but sad because I hate to see them go.

    I’ll also be at a kiosk/table at Pybus Public Market on three upcoming Saturdays, including this Saturday, March 31. I figure I’ll sit there for the day and make new pieces — maybe even some custom ones from unwrapped cabochons I’ll have on display and for sale. If you’re around, I hope you’ll stop by.

    But if you’re not in the area, please do visit my online store and treat yourself or a loved one to a unique gift. I sure could use a cash inflow to feed my hobby with stones and silver wire!

    Open Letter to My Facebook Friends

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    A version of what I posted on Facebook yesterday.

    Facebook LogoOkay, folks. Most of you should know that I’ve pretty much removed myself from Facebook, popping in now and then just to share a link to a blog post and comment on friends’ posts. I went from being on Facebook for more than an hour a day to being here less than an hour a week and I love having that time back in my life.

    I’m still on Twitter a lot and although I know a lot of you “don’t get” Twitter, I do and I really enjoy it. One reason: every tweet from every person I follow always appears in my newsfeed, in reverse chronological order. In other words, Twitter doesn’t use algorithms to decide what I should see and bury the rest.

    I’ve been wanting to delete my Facebook account for quite some time now and recent news is making me think again about how foolish it is to participate in a social network that manipulates what content appears for me and other users. I’m very upset that the manipulation has changed how some of my friends and family members think about what’s going on in the world and the amount of hate the content they share seems to generate.

    In short: I feel that Facebook and its paying advertisers are brainwashing users, making the people in the country I love ever more divided. I don’t want to be part of that in any way.

    So there’s a pretty good chance that the blog post link I share in a moment will be the last one I share here. And an equally good chance that I’ll be deleting my Facebook content and account very soon.

    That said, I’d like to keep in touch with all of you. Although I assume that Facebook’s algorithms will show this to a tiny percentage of the 300+ friends and hundreds of followers I still have here, I’m asking those of you who see this to take a moment and let me know where else I can find you online: your Twitter name, blog URL, email address, and/or cell phone number. You can put it in a private message if you like. I want to keep in touch with the folks I like, but I don’t want to do it on Facebook.

    I hope you understand.

    A Few More Thoughts about my Stupid Pilot Trick

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    A response to some of the comments I’ve been getting, along with an update.

    First of all, I want to thank the over 70 (so far) people who have taken the time to comment on my “Another Stupid Pilot Trick” post. It took me about a week to write it, mostly because I was embarrassed about what I’d allowed to happen to me, and I was feeling more than a little sensitive about that. I almost didn’t leave comments open on the post. But I’m so very glad I did. The outpouring of understanding and good wishes has been amazing. I didn’t get a single nasty or hurtful comment — which is pretty amazing given the percentage of low-life scum we all see bottom feeding on the Internet. You folks rock.

    What’s really weird to me is how many people came to read the post. Apparently, it was picked up on Facebook or somewhere else and went a little viral. For two days in a row, it got more than 10,000 hits. So a lot of the comments I got were from complete strangers, including a lot of pilots.

    The blog isn’t the only place I got feedback. I also got some on Twitter and a little on Facebook. I got a few email messages and even one phone call. Everyone was amazingly kind and made me feel good about my friends, acquaintances, and the pilot community.

    Thank you.

    Why “Stupid Pilot Trick”?

    First, an explanation.

    A friend of mine took some offense at the title of the blog post. She said:

    I have to say I don’t like the title of your blog. It made me feel like you were hot dogging or pushing the helicopter to it’s limits.

    Understandable. A lot of pilots use the phrase “stupid pilot tricks” to refer to that kind of behavior.

    But as I explained:

    “Stupid pilot trick” is the phrase I’ve always used to refer to accidents caused by pilot error. I’ve used it in discussing other accidents so I thought it appropriate to use it when discussing mine.

    She seemed satisfied with that. I hope other readers are, too.

    My Recovery

    I’ve had some more time to recover both physically and mentally.

    Windsock
    One of my home projects was to replace my old, faded windsock with a bigger, brighter one. I even installed solar spotlights to illuminate it at night.

    The bruises are almost gone — the one on my right leg, which my doctor says might take several months to disappear, is pretty much the only one left. (I’d include a photo of the way blood under my skin is now pooling on the right side of my right foot, but do we really need to see that? I don’t think so.) I had low-grade, nagging headaches for a while but they’re all gone now. I’d say I’m pretty much back to 100%, and that’s good. It’s springtime and I’ve got a ton of work to do in my garden and a long list of projects around the house to tackle.

    Mentally, things are a bit weird. I think I’m suffering a bit from survivor guilt. You see, about three weeks before my mishap, a friend of mine was in a helicopter crash in eastern Washington state. He’d been doing some animal capture work with two biologists on board his Hughes 369 helicopter. One passenger died and my friend and the other passenger were seriously injured. No one knows what happened because no one can remember. My friend was in a coma for two weeks with a 10% chance of survival. He’s a young guy, though, and he came out of it. They did reconstructive surgery on his arms and legs. His wife recently sent me a photo of him in physical therapy. He’s got a long road ahead of him.

    I didn’t want them to know about my crash mostly because I felt bad that I’d survived with very little injury and he’d very nearly died and will be working on his recovery for months (or more?) to come. But his wife found out — probably through the hoopla over the blog post. They’re okay with it — I mean, why wouldn’t they be? — and I know now that my survivor guilt is idiotic. I’m coming to terms with that slowly.

    The gaps in my memory of the event are also bothersome. I still don’t remember anything from the time the helicopter went through the trees — which was very loud and seemed to take forever — to the time I was on the ground and realized I could get out. Somewhere in there, the helicopter hit the ground at least twice and turned 180 degrees but I don’t remember it at all. And no, I didn’t pass out; I had no head injury other than getting my brain rattled around a bit. I also don’t remember using the fire extinguisher, although I apparently did. And what did I do during the 30 minutes between when I texted another pilot right after getting out of the helicopter and finally calling 911? I remember parts of two telephone conversations I had during that time, but not 30 minutes worth of anything. I’ve never experienced memory gaps like that before and it continues to bug me that that time is missing.

    I should stress that my memory beyond that is fine. My brain is back to functioning at 100% of whatever it was functioning at before the crash.

    Counseling? No Thanks.

    About two weeks after the crash, I got a letter in the mail from an organization that offers support to pilots after crashes. My response was to get angry. Very angry. So angry that I wrote an email to the guy who sent it, berating him for assuming that I needed help.

    Fortunately, I didn’t send it. I grew to realize, with the help of some of my Twitter friends, that some pilots do need help getting past a crash and that the organization would probably be very helpful to them.

    A lot of the comments I got from people about the crash assumed that I was seriously traumatized by it. But am I?

    I don’t feel that I am and I think I know why.

    You see, if you were to make a list of the traumatic things in my life and rank them by how traumatizing they were, this crash would actually appear pretty far down the list. I don’t want to share the list — jeez, why would I want to revisit all the things that have traumatized me throughout my life? — but I will offer one example: the man I lived with for 29 years, who I loved and trusted with my life, cheated on me (with a woman old enough to be my mother!), lied to me (and a judge, under oath), and then tried (and failed) to ruin me financially through a long, drawn-out divorce battle. You don’t think that’s pretty traumatizing? A helicopter crash I walked away from with just scrapes and bruises is nothing compared to that.

    (So yes, my crazy divorce prepared me for a helicopter crash. Thanks, honey!)

    It’s all relative.

    If you remember nothing else from this post, remember this: When you live life, shit happens. The more you live, the more shit happens. I’d rather deal with the shit that’s a byproduct of life than to have no life at all.

    ‘Nuff said.

    Getting Back in the Saddle

    I don’t need counseling. What I need is to fulfill my desire to get back into the cockpit and go flying.

    No, I’m not afraid to fly now — although I admit I have no interest at all in flying at night. (Other than the “Moonlight Dinner Tours” I did in Phoenix between 2005 and 2011, I never really enjoyed flying at night.) Knowing what caused the crash — distracted flying at night — and what I can do to prevent it from happening again — pay attention, idiot! — takes away any fear I might have of flying again. After all, I really am a decent pilot — a “good stick,” I’ve been told. I flew my R44 like most people drive their car — or maybe even better. (Actually, probably better considering the way some people drive.) I’ve learned my lesson and am eager to get back in the cockpit.

    Of course, that means getting another helicopter. I’m working on it. The week after the crash, I put in an offer on a helicopter in Canada, but the guy’s price, which I thought was high, was firm and he wasn’t interested in helping me get it into the U.S. And then there’s all kinds of paperwork to deal with when bringing an aircraft down and I’m simply not interested in dealing with any of that. So I’ve scratched all Canadian helicopters off my list.

    I’ve also rethought my strategy on buying a new helicopter. Rather than getting one in the same condition as the one I lost — jeez, it was just a year out of overhaul! — I figured I’d buy one that needs an overhaul in two to five years and get the overhaul done when the time came. That meant I could buy a helicopter for cash using the insurance proceeds and save up for the overhaul. Without a helicopter loan, saving up would be possible. After all, I did it in 2013-16 after paying for a divorce, buying land, and building a home. (I do make a decent living as a pilot and still earn royalties on some of my writing work.) Then, in overhaul, I could get it fixed up to be more like the one I lost.

    With that in mind, there are three candidates I’m considering. The closest is in Phoenix and I’ll likely check it out within the next week or so. I’m hoping we can go for a test flight.

    I will admit one thing here: not long after the accident, when I first started thinking about buying another helicopter, there was a fleeting moment when I considered taking the insurance money, putting it in the bank, and not buying a helicopter at all. I’m a little young for retirement — although I consider myself semi-retired since I only work half the year — but financially, I’m secure enough to call it quits now if I want to. And I could still manage my cherry drying contracts every summer for a little side income. It would be an easy way out of the inconvenient mess I put myself into. But there’s no challenge in easy and I’ve come to believe that I live for challenges.

    And I’m not ready to give up yet.

    On Bravery

    A lot of the people who commented about my blog post or contacted me other ways told me I was brave to tell my story. I’m having a little trouble wrapping my head around that.

    You see, I don’t consider telling my story about what happened “brave.” It happened because I was dumb and let it happen. It’s embarrassing, but not something I could (or should) hide.

    Last Photo of N630ML
    This is the last photo of N630ML in one piece. I was one of a team of three frost control pilots. This was shot in the hangar we were based in at Yolo County Airport.

    Like it or not, I have a bit of a public persona. Part of it dates back to my writing days when I did a lot of public appearances. Part of it is because of this blog and my general outspokenness. There was no way in hell that I could crash a helicopter and prevent people from finding out. After all, one day, I’m flying a beautiful red helicopter with my initials in the N-number and a few months later I’m flying something completely different. And it isn’t as if pilots don’t read the NTSB reports. I do.

    And why should I hide it? I did something dumb. If I could admit it and other people hear about it and that prevents them from doing the same dumb thing, I might save lives. Why wouldn’t I do that?

    It’s not bravery that has me writing about this. It’s common sense. It’s caring about the pilot community and the passengers that pilots carry. It’s wanting to use my experience as a teaching moment for others.

    And let’s face it: I’m in my mid 50s, approaching the end of my flying career. I’m self-employed and am not going to lose my job by admitting I did a dumbass thing that could have killed me and totaled my helicopter. I’m not worried about future employment because I’ve already come to terms with this fact: very few employers would consider hiring a middle aged, outspoken and set-in-her-ways woman with only 3700 hours of helicopter flight time for any flying job that would really interest me.

    So what’s so brave? I’ve got nothing to lose by speaking out.

    Dealing with the FAA and NTSB

    Some pilots reading this might want to know what it’s like to deal with the FAA and NTSB after an accident. Let me fill you in.

    First, I have to stress how lucky we all are. First, I survived with very little injury and a decent memory of what happened. I’m not in denial about what happened and why it happened. I’m not interested in hiding the facts. No one other than me was involved in the crash. There was no property damage — other than the trees I “trimmed” on my way to the “landing zone.” (Humor does help.) The crash was never even reported in the local news. The only photos that exist are the ones taken by police — I assume; I haven’t seen any — me, and my friend Sean who was there for the recovery. All this makes it a lot easier for everyone concerned.

    The NTSB was the first to get in touch. Their local guy called while I was still in the hospital. (I was in the hospital for less than 3 hours.) I think he got my number from the police. I gave him a verbal account of what I remembered over the phone. He was very kind and polite. And relieved, it seemed. By simply surviving and telling him exactly what happened I was making his job very easy. In fact, the NTSB didn’t even come out to the accident site. They got a lot of information from the police, I guess. They released the helicopter for recovery within 3 hours of the crash. It was removed by noon the same day.

    The FAA’s Sacramento office got in touch three days later. I was at Heli Expo in Las Vegas by then. I spoke for about 15 minutes on the phone with an inspector, telling him pretty much the same thing I’d told the NTSB. He asked if I’d be interested in doing a presentation at a WINGS safety seminar in my area. Sure, I told him. I want other people to know how easy it is to let complacency kill you. He recommended that I get back in the cockpit and start flying as soon as possible, perhaps with a CFI. (Another one worried about my state of mind.) He asked me to send him a summary of the crash in writing via email and I took down his email address. The next day, I sent him the same stuff I’d sent my insurance company.

    About a week after the crash, an NTSB investigator from Washington called. I gave him the same information. He said he’d send a report I needed to fill out and warned me that I’d have 10 days to complete it and send it back. It got lost in email and was resent and the 10-day clock started when I confirmed receipt. Then I forgot about it. I remembered it six days later and spent about an hour filling it out. It was pretty straightforward, asking for basic information about the aircraft and my logged flight time, as well as a narrative about the crash. There were full pages I was able to skip because there were no other aircraft involved and no other crew members or passengers.

    Along the way I had to tell my Part 135 POI that the helicopter no longer existed. He asked me to write an email officially asking to remove it from my Part 135 certificate. That was a 10-minute job.

    And that’s it, so far. Although the FAA might ask me to do a special check ride with them, no one has asked yet. I don’t think there’s any doubt that I know how to fly safely. I was very forthcoming with the dumb thing I’d done that caused the accident. I do my Part 135 check flight in June anyway and I bet it would take them that long to schedule a special flight.

    So my dealings with the FAA and NTSB have been pretty worry-free and very professional. I’m happy with the way they all actually seemed to care about me and my wellbeing. There were no accusations or unfair finger-pointing. After all, how could there be? I blamed myself because it’s my fault.

    Why Deny the Truth?

    And that’s another weird thing that I’ve realized: too many pilots won’t take blame for accidents that are their fault.

    I know a good example. A few years back a pilot was flying a Schweizer 300 on a cherry contract. He had full fuel and another pilot on board so they were pretty close to max gross weight. He came in over a cherry orchard at high speed and made an aggressive turn that involved coming to a stop and descending. The helicopter went right into the trees. He claimed that the engine lost power but the NTSB, which took the wreckage in for investigation, could find nothing wrong with the engine. Instead, they reported that the accident had been caused by the maneuver he’d used to come in over the orchard: descending at a near stop had likely caused him to settle into his own downwash. Settling with power.

    While it’s true that the pilot may really believe that the engine lost power, it’s more likely that he’s in denial of what really happened and his part in the cause of the accident. After all, when you get into settling with power, pulling pitch just makes it worse. It might seem as if there’s an engine problem. But we’re trained to avoid, recognize, and recover from settling with power and he was a flight instructor so he should understand what happened.

    I’ve met this pilot and years after the accident he was still defiant, claiming the NTSB had gotten it wrong. As if the NTSB, which exists to investigate transportation related crashes, doesn’t know what it’s doing.

    Now suppose I was in denial about my part in this accident. Suppose I claimed that the helicopter had lost power in flight and I’d found myself flying into trees. All of a sudden, the case isn’t cut-and-dry. The NTSB would have to take possession of the wreckage and perform all kinds of tests on the engine to see if it had lost power and why that might have happened — all on the taxpayer’s dime. (And yes, I’m a taxpayer and I care about how the government spends our money. Don’t get me started on $30K dining room sets, please.) Robinson would get involved. Reports would be delayed, I’d be questioned over and over. All this would still be going on now — and likely for months.

    At what benefit?

    Isn’t it better when a pilot honestly reports what happened and takes blame when he/she is to blame?

    As far as I’m concerned, this chapter in my life is nearly closed; I’m already moving forward with the things I need to do to replace the helicopter and continue my work. That wouldn’t be possible if I didn’t recognize and admit what really happened and work with the authorities to help them quickly get the facts they need to complete their investigation.

    On my Well-written Account

    A few folks have commented about how “well-written” my blog post about the accident was. I appreciate the praise but, in all honesty, this one makes me giggle.

    While lots of people know me as a helicopter pilot, what they may not know is that I became a helicopter pilot and bought a helicopter by building up a 20+ year career as a writer. Yeah — I wrote for a living. A good living. I think that says something about my writing skills. Somebody who can’t write can’t earn enough money as a writer to pay for helicopter flight training and buy a helicopter.

    I wrote boring stuff. Books about how to use computers. Step-by-step instructions with lots of screenshots and captions and sometimes even callouts. I wrote it all and I often even did the layout. I wrote for numerous publishers, some of which you may have heard of: Peachpit Press, McGraw-Hill, Macmillan, Brady, Sybex, Microsoft Press, etc, etc. Some of the later books, which I’ve self-published, are about more interesting topics. If you’re interested in numbers, the count so far is 86 books.

    I also write for magazines, both print and online. I wrote for computer magazines in the old days (pre 2012) and now write for aviation magazines. The most recent issue of Vertical included an essay I wrote, right near the beginning.

    I started this blog in 2003 as an outlet to write stuff I found interesting — mostly stuff from my life, including my flying life. I use it to record and save information I want to share or consult later, like recipes. I use it to vent when something pisses me off or heap praise when something makes me happy.

    I’ve also been working on a book about my first ten years as a helicopter pilot. It’s about halfway done. If I get a little more motivated to work on it, I hope to have it finished by this summer. (And yes, I know I’ve been promising that for a while now.) Will it include this accident? No. I’ll save that for Book II, which will cover the next 10 years.

    So to those of you who think my accident account was well written, thanks. It better be.

    That’s All for Now

    And that’s pretty much everything on my mind in response to the comments I’ve gotten on my accident blog post, in email, and by phone. Once again, I want to thank all of the folks who took the time to reach out. You really made me feel good.

    It also brings the situation up to date as far as my plans for a new helicopter and dealing with the authorities. I’m sure some of you were curious. This should satisfy that curiosity.

    Any new comments or questions? Use the comments link for this post and I’ll try my best to address them — hopefully individually this time.