Tag Archives: airplanes

Note to Self: Not Everyone Flies

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I have to keep reminding myself because I do forget.

Yesterday afternoon, I sat down with the September 2009 issue of Flight Training magazine (because “a good pilot is always learning”), prepared to page through the mostly airplane-specific content for a few good tidbits that also applied to flying helicopters. I started with the “President’s Perspective” by new AOPA president Craig Fuller.

The fourth paragraph nearly knocked me off my seat:

Over the Independence Day holiday, I urged everyone to celebrate their freedom to fly by getting out and into the air, whether for a family vacation or a quick sightseeing expedition. I also urged certificated pilots to take a nonpilot for a ride to let them experience a new perspective on general aviation. There’s no better way to make sure that GA remains relevant and vibrant than to get out in the sky and do it! Taking nonfliers along for the ride can introduce them to a new world, and might even be the key to bringing the next generation of pilots into the cockpit.

I added the emphasis here; these are the phrases that woke me up from my afternoon burn out.

These phrases reminded me that as a pilot, I’m a member of a tiny community of folks who can just get out and fly. Very few people are as fortunate as we pilots are in this respect.

It’s a Natural Part of My Life

Oddly, flying has become such a part of my life that I don’t think twice about doing it. Here’s a good example from this week.

I need to reposition my “redneck truck” to Grand Canyon Airport (GCN) before next Thursday. The truck is one of the few vehicles I own that can seat three people comfortably. Ground transportation from GCN into the park sucks — the shuttle service is inconsistent and a huge time suck and there are no rental cars (what’s that about?) — and I’ll be there by helicopter at least three times within the next three months with at least two passengers each time. I need to get my people into the park quickly and comfortably — they’re not paying all that money to sit around waiting for a shuttle van. Since I can’t rent a car and I happen to have a spare truck, I figured I’d just put my own transportation there for the season.

I have to drive the truck up there. No getting around that. It’s a 2-1/2 to 3 hour drive. But I didn’t even think about getting someone to drive me back. Instead, I figured I’d ask a friend to fly up and fetch me in return for a fuel top-off. I sent out an e-mail to a friend with a Mooney who is always looking for an excuse to fly, we picked a date and time, and we’re good to go. If he didn’t want to do it, I could think of at least four other people — including my husband, who is half-owner in a Grumman Tiger — who might do it. The idea of driving back never even entered my mind.

Until I read Fuller’s comments and realized that just about everyone else in the world would plan to drive back. The idea of flying back would never even enter their minds.

What It Means to Me

It’s hard to explain to a nonflier what flying means to me. Part of that is because I can no longer imagine things from their perspectives — not being able to just get out and fly. But the other part is their sheer lack of understanding of what it’s like to be airborne. Yes, I know what my town, a good portion of Arizona, and lots of the western states look like from 500 or 1000 feet above the ground. I know how the air will behave as I cross over a dark green alfalfa field on a sunny day or slip into the shade of a cumulous cloud just starting to get heavy with precipitation. I know what it’s like to fly over or past or under a large bird, to cross over the top of an airport with a plane just touching down on the runway beneath me, to slip 1,500 feet below a 747 landing at Sky Harbor Airport (PHX). I know what it’s like to fly up a twisting canyon, level with the tops of the canyon walls, and how it feels to zip low over the surface of a lake or desert plain. I know the feel of the aircraft around me, responding to inputs that my hands and feet automatically feed into it at the whim of my brain — to be one with a vehicle that can move freely in three dimensions, against the pull of gravity.

North to the Future

When I started up my laptop to write this, this is the photo that popped up as my random desktop picture. The world is wide open to a pilot.

I’m not the only one around here who can say all of these things. Once I learned to fly and began spending more and more time at airports, it was only natural to meet and become friends with other pilots. Whether they’re helicopter pilots like me, owners of well kept classic airplanes like my friend’s Mooney, or tinkerers who built their aircraft with their own two hands, they’ve all tasted and perhaps feasted on the freedom of flight. From the guys who put fat tires on their taildraggers so they can land in dry riverbeds to the folks flying big twins and small jets to places like Washington, Idaho, or Colorado, they’re all the same. They’re pilots.

Get on Out There and Fly!

It’s strange that I can no longer see the other person’s point of view — strange because of the number of nonfliers I take flying routinely for my flying business. Perhaps that’s because I fly helicopters. I take it for granted that most people don’t fly in helicopters. But the reality is that most people don’t fly in small aircraft at all.

So here’s my request to all the readers of this post:

If you’re a pilot, take someone who’s never been in a small aircraft flying with you sometime between now and the end of the year. Let them experience the wonder of flight; give them the “new perspective” Craig Fuller wrote about.
If you’re not a pilot, grab a friend and go flying. Take a flight at your local airport or the next time you have a chance to take a tour where aerial tours are offered. Do it before the end of the year.

And then think about it — from all perspectives — and feel fortunate that such an activity is within your grasp.

Photos from the Museum of Flight

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Snapshots from our road trip.

As some of you may know, I just finished up a lengthy trip to the Pacific Northwest, ending it with a 2-1/2 week road trip back to Arizona by way of four national parks with my husband, dog, and parrot. I took over 1600 photos over the past three months, with about 800 of them snapped over the past three weeks.

That’s a lot of photos.

I shared some of them earlier in the summer, but soon got behind in reviewing and processing the shots from my Nikon. I also shared a bunch of cell phone photos taken with my BlackBerry, on Twitter via TwitPic and ÜberTwitter. I hope to share a few more of the interesting ones over the next few months here.

That said, here are some from the start of our road trip. My husband and dog arrived on an Alaska Air flight in Seattle on August 13. I drove from Wenatchee, where I was staying, to Seattle to pick them up. Since we had some time to kill, we visited the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field.

If you’re at all interested in aviation and have a chance to visit Seattle, don’t miss the Museum of Flight. I can’t imagine any museum with Aviation exhibits to be more exhaustive than this one — except possibly the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington.

And now, the photos. Sorry about the obnoxious copyright notice, but I don’t want my work circulated all over the ‘Net without permission or credit. If you want to share any of these shots to friends, link to this page.

The Main Gallery

I made this photo with my fisheye lens from the balcony of the main gallery. Those are real, full-sized airplanes on display — some hanging from the ceiling! It’s a great sight to behold.

At the Museum of Flight

Photo Info:
Camera: Nikon D80
Aperture: f/4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/80
Focal Length: 10.5mm

SR-71 Blackbird

This is the second time I’ve been able to get up close and personal with an SR-71 Blackbird. (The first was at the Pima Air Museum in Tucson, where one is parked outdoors under a shade.) If you want to learn more about this incredible plane, read its Wikipedia entry.

This particular plane has an unusual feature that it shared with only one other SR-71. Can you spot it?

SR-71 Blackbird

Photo Info:
Camera: Nikon D80
Aperture: f/4.2
Shutter Speed: 1/50
Focal Length: 26mm

Jet Engine Detail

This is a closeup shot of some of the tubing on one side of the SR-71 engine on display. You can see the display in the above photo, on the right side of the plane, just inside the white barricades.

I don’t know much about this, but I like the way the tubes look.

Jet Engine Detail

Photo Info:
Camera: Nikon D80
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/30
Focal Length: 85mm

Concorde Cockpit

One of the highlights of the museum was the outdoor displays, which included a British Airways Concorde jet. Our walk through was the closest either one of us will get to supersonic fight — and the plane was permanently parked.

A plexiglas panel separated the tourists from the cockpit instuments. But if you put the lens right up against the Plexiglass and hold the camera very still, you might get a shot like this one:

Concorde Cockpit

Photo Info:
Camera: Nikon D80
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/30
Focal Length: 85mm

Air Force One Cockpit

The plane that served as Air Force One from the Eisenhower through Nixon administrations was also on display outdoors. Again, the cockpit was on display, protected by a piece of Plexiglas.

There’s nothing like a fisheye lens to get the details in tight spaces.

Air Force One Cockpit

Photo Info:
Camera: Nikon D80
Aperture: f/3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/50
Focal Length: 10.5mm

That’s all for this part of the trip. I hope to have some more interesting shots online soon.

Airplanes and Helicopters Don’t Mix

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Accidents happen.

As the New York Times reports in  “Tourist Helicopter and Small Plane Collide Over Hudson River“:

A small private plane carrying three people and a New York tourist helicopter carrying six collided in midair and plunged into the Hudson River off the West Side of Manhattan just after noon on Saturday. At least two people were confirmed dead, the authorities said, and a search was on for the others.

One of the reasons helicopters tend to fly lower than airplanes is to do something that’s drummed into our heads: avoid the flow of fixed wing traffic. This accident is tragic on so many levels, but it would not have occurred if the plane was flying at the altitude it should have been at.

Indeed, this isn’t the first time an airplane and helicopter have collided. On June 18, 1986, a DeHaviland DHC-6 collided with a Bell 206B helicopter over the Grand Canyon, killing 25 people. Both aircraft were conducting tours over the canyon. As a result of this accident, tour routes were established with separate altitudes for airplanes (8,000 feet MSL) and helicopters (7,500 feet MSL) over the Grand Canyon.

There’s some talk that the airplane in the New York City accident today might have been in some distress and perhaps it was losing altitude. Hopefully, investigators will gather information about how it happened. I can understand how the helicopter pilot may not have seen the airplane at his altitude, especially if he had just taken off and was still at low level, just climbing out. A helicopter pilot doesn’t expect to see airplanes at low level. But that’s no excuse to see and avoid other traffic.

Parked at the Flying Service

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Neighborly flying service folks let me park my helicopter on one of their tie-down spots.

Last year, when I was in Quincy for cherry drying season, I was fortunate enough to get a hangar for two months. Having a hangar can be a pain in the butt when you have a helicopter, but I was prepared and had my tow bar handy. Weather was [too] good and I didn’t fly much. It was nice to keep the helicopter out of the sun.

This year, I didn’t bother trying to find out if the hangar was still available. I doubt it is — someone else was moving in the day I moved out. And since I don’t have my tow bar with me, moving the helicopter in and out would be nearly impossible by myself anyway.

Quincy airport is about 4-1/2 miles from my living space at the Quincy Golf Course. That isn’t very far. But there were other, closer options for parking the helicopter. One was the Ferguson Flying Service right across the street from the golf course. I stopped by there on Monday, before bringing the helicopter in from Seattle, to see if I could park there. They very graciously said that I could.

Helicopter at Ferguson's

My parking space at Ferguson’s Flying Service in Quincy, WA.

So I’m parked on one of the concrete tie-down pads they used to use for their crop dusters.

For those readers who are not familiar with agricultural aviation, i should probably explain what a flying service is. A flying service is a company that provides crop dusters and related agricultural aviation services for farmers and growers. Quincy is farm country, full of wheat, corn, alfalfa, potato, and other crop fields, as well as fruit trees and even some grape vines. There are at least two flying services in the area. Each has its own scrawny paved runway and a small handful of crop dusters.

Helicopter at Ferguson's

Another view of my parking spot and the plane beside me.

Now, if you look closely at the biplane in these photos, you’ll probably notice that it doesn’t look “airworthy.” It’s not. For one thing, it’s missing it’s tail — or “tail feathers” as one of the local pilots referred to it. Its big radial engine also needs some work. It’s apparently bled out, too — the engine needs some serious TLC.

But Ferguson’s has other airplanes it flies. This one is parked until it’s repaired and ready to fly.

I want to thank the folks at Ferguson’s Flying Service for allowing me to park at their facility. It’s great to have the helicopter so close and it’s great to chat with the guys when I go over to check on it or prepare for a flight.

On Bird Strikes

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Not nearly as rare — or as dangerous — as you think.

Yesterday’s dramatic landing of an Airbus plane in the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey has put the topic of bird strikes on everyone’s mind. As usual, the media is spinning stories about it, apparently to generate the fear that sells newspapers, gets listeners, and keeps viewers glued to the television set.

Pilots — the people who know aviation a lot better than the average news reporter — also know a bit about bird strikes.

Bird Strikes are Not That Rare

The truth of the matter is that bird strikes aren’t nearly as rare as many people think. I can think of five bird strike incidents that touched my life:

  • Years ago, on a Southwest Airlines flight taking off from Burbank, our plane flew through a flock of white birds. It was nighttime and I don’t know what the birds were — seagulls? — but I clearly saw them in the glow of the plane’s lights, flying past the wings as we climbed out. When we landed in Phoenix and I left the plane, I glanced through the open cockpit door and saw the blood on the outside of the windscreen. Bird strike.
  • On my first day of work as a pilot at the Grand Canyon, one of the other pilots had a bird strike during a tour. The bird had passed through the lower cockpit bubble and landed in a bloody heap on the pilot’s lap. He flew back with the bird there and a very distraught front seat passenger beside him. The cockpit bubble needed replacement, of course.
  • While waiting at the Grand Canyon for my charter passengers to complete an air tour with one of the helicopter operators there, the helicopter my passengers was on suffered a bird strike. The pilot calmly reported it as she flew in. When she landed, there was bird guts and blood at the top center of the helicopter’s bubble. She’d been lucky. The helicopter, an EC130, has a central intake for the turbine engine and the bird hadn’t been sucked in.
  • On my very first rides gig with my R44 helicopter, I was taking a group of three passengers for an 8-minute tour around a mountain near Aguila, AZ when I heard a loud clang. Instruments okay, controls felt fine, passengers weren’t reacting. I didn’t know what it was until I landed. That’s when one of my ground crew pointed out the dent in my landing gear’s fairing. My first (and hopefully, only) bird strike had been a non-event for me, but likely a lot more serious for the bird. (Of course, I wasn’t very happy to get a dent on an aircraft only 11 hours old.
  • When a friend of mine took me up in her Decathalon airplane for a little aerobatic demonstration, we hit a bird on takeoff. It went right into the engine at the base of the prop and we instantly smelled cooking bird. My friend climbed enough to circle back and land safefly at the airport. She shut down the engine and climbed out. I watched from the passenger seat as she pulled the remains of a relatively small bird out of the cooling fin area of the engine. After discarding the bird bits, she climbed back in, started up, and we took off again.

That’s five examples of bird strikes I had firsthand knowledge of. In three of those instances, I was on board an aircraft that struck one or more birds. So when people seem amazed that an airliner hit a bird or two, I’m not amazed at all.

According to Wikipedia’s Bird Strike entry:

The first reported bird strike was by Orville Wright in 1905, and according to their diaries Orville “…flew 4,751 meters in 4 minutes 45 seconds, four complete circles. Twice passed over fence into Beard’s cornfield. Chased flock of birds for two rounds and killed one which fell on top of the upper surface and after a time fell off when swinging a sharp curve.”

I’d venture to guess that it happens to at least one airliner every single day.

Bird Strikes Rarely Cause Crashes

The media would like you to think that bird strikes cause crashes. They can, of course — yesterday’s Airbus ditching proved that. They can even cause fiery crashes with deaths. The media wants you to be afraid — very afraid.

But as my above-listed examples also prove, bird strikes can be non-events, often without causing any damage at all to the aircraft.

So what’s an air traveler to do? Worry that his next flight might end with a swim in an icy river or a fireball death? Or stop worrying about it?

What do you think?

On a more personal note: I’m glad the pilot of US Airways Flight 1549 didn’t attempt a landing at Teterboro. My sister lives in an apartment building on the approach end of one of the runways there. A crash there wouldn’t have had a happy ending.