Tag Archives: airports

On Close Calls

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Why a control tower clearance is something to be taken with a grain of salt.

When you fly in airspace controlled by a control tower, you’d think that a controller clearance would be a green light to do what you were cleared to do. Unfortunately, controllers can give a green light to other traffic that might just conflict with you. I’ve had this happen four times in the past six months.

The first three times were at Grand Canyon airport (GCN) while I worked for Papillon. Papillon has a heliport with eleven helipads. The area behind the pads, which is known as “the meadow,” is our departure and landing point. To depart, we back off a pad, maneuver to the meadow, contact the tower, get a clearance, and depart using either north or south traffic, whichever is on the ATIS. On average, Papillon operates about nine helicopters during the busy summer season.

There are two other helicopter operators at the canyon. Both have considerably smaller heliports south of Papillon’s. Grand Canyon Helicopters operates three helicopters from its location. AirStar operates four helicopters at its location. So you have about 16 helicopters operating on an average busy day, all out of the same general area of the airport: the northeast corner.

Close CallNow look at the picture here. In the first two close call incidents, I was the red line, which got clearance to depart to the southeast. In one incident, the blue line (Grand Canyon Helicopters) got a clearance right after me to depart to the west. In another incident, the green line (AirStar) got a clearance right after me to depart to the west. In both cases, I had to alert the departing pilots — on the tower frequency — that I was in their departure path. In one case, I actually began evasive maneuvers when the pilot didn’t appear to hear me. Mind you, the tower had given all of us clearance so we were all “cleared” to depart. Scary, no?

Close CallLet’s look at another close call. In the picture to the right, I was the red line with a clearance to depart to the northeast. The blue line had just gotten a clearance to depart to the northwest. Because he took off before me, we were on a collision course. But I’d been listening and I heard him get the clearance. So when I took off, I kept an eye out for him and made sure I passed behind him.

I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble here. Believe me, in the first two incidents I made quite a bit of noise on the radio to the tower for handing out two conflicting clearances. Unfortunately, they did it to a few other pilots before one of them got on the phone and made some noise. Near the end of the season, the tower was very good about alerting us to possible conflicting helicopter traffic, even when the possibility of a conflict was minor.

Close Call 2 IllustrationMy most recent controlled close call incident was two days ago. I’d gone down to Chandler to meet a friend for lunch. I landed at the Quantum ramp at Chandler Airport (CHD). We had lunch and returned at close to 1 PM — just when Quantum’s training ships were returning. I asked for and got clearance to hover-taxi to the heliport’s landing pad. I then asked for and got an Alpha departure clearance. This requires me to take off from the helipad and follow a canal that runs beside the airport (and helipad) to the north (the red line). When I got my clearance, the tower alerted me to an inbound helicopter that was crossing over the field. I did not hear that helicopter get a landing clearance, but he may have gotten it from Chandler’s south frequency, which I was not monitoring (because I could not). I took off along the canal just as the other helicopter (the purple line) turned left to follow the canal in. We were definitely on a head-on collision course. I saw this unfolding and diverted to the west, just as the tower said something silly like, “Use caution for landing helicopter.” Duh. I told the tower I was moving out of the way to the west. There was no problem. But I wonder what that student pilot thought. Or what Neil, owner of the company, thought as he hovered near the landing pads in an R44, watching us converge.

The point of all this is, when you get a tower clearance, that doesn’t mean you can stop scanning for traffic. That should never stop. Controllers are human and they can make mistakes. And frankly, I believe that they are so concerned with airplane traffic that they tend to get a bit complacent when it comes to dealing with helicopters.

Consider Grand Canyon tower. With 16 helicopters operating in and out of the airport all day long, all on predefined arrival and departure routes, things get pretty routine. The pilots all know what they’re doing. The tower knows the pilots will do the same thing each time they get a clearance. There’s no chance of misunderstanding an instruction because the instructions are part of pilot training and an average pilot will fly ten or more flights per day when working. It’s like a well-oiled machine. The problem arises when the controller gives clearances for departure paths that will cross in flight. Although the controller should not do this (my opinion), it happens. It’s then up to the pilot to listen for all clearances and spot other aircraft that might conflict.

Chandler tower deals with helicopter traffic from Quantum and Rotorway. Again, these pilots know the arrival and departure paths. And, in most cases, there’s a CFI on board, someone who has been flying out of Chandler for at least a year. The tower probably hands out clearances without thinking too much about them. After all, the helicopters will remain clear of the fixed wing traffic, and that’s their primary concern.

As a helicopter pilot, I’ve come to understand all this. And although I wish controllers would be a little more cautious when issuing clearances, I’m not too concerned about me hitting someone else. I use my eyes and my ears to monitor my surroundings. I can slow down — or even stop in midair! — to avoid a collision. I can also descend very rapidly and, if I’m not too heavy, climb pretty rapidly, too. I can also make very sharp turns. In short, my ability to avoid a collision is much better than the average fixed wing pilot’s.

What does worry me, however, is the possibility of a less experienced or less familiar pilot acting on a clearance that puts him on a collision course with me in a position where I can’t see him. Suppose I’d taken off on an Alpha departure at Chandler and had gained some altitude. Suppose the other helicopter was not in front of me, but coming up on my right side, slightly behind me with a solo student pilot at the controls. That pilot could have still been tuned into the south tower frequency. So even if the north controller had issued his “use caution” warning, the student pilot would not have heard him. I wouldn’t have seen him. He could have hit me. Scary thought.

Of course, you can play what if all day long. If you come up with enough scary scenarios, you’ll park your aircraft in the hangar and leave it there. That’s not me. I’ll keep flying.

And keep looking.

Not Especially a Good Day

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I have a day.

Well, I shouldn’t complain. It certainly could have been worse.

Trouble began early, when I got an e-mail message from the person I thought wanted to buy the assets of my FBO at Wickenburg. He was trying to get out of the deal. He said he didn’t need me. He said my asking price was outrageous. This coming from a man who practically begged me to sell to him and didn’t even attempt to negotiate the price.

Let’s not go there.

I contacted two people at Robinson Helicopter via e-mail. The first was to try to get my local mechanic in on the September maintenance course. Fully booked, I was told. But there was no one on the waiting list for October. The second was to see if the Robinson Helipad that comes with the purchase of a new R44 would work on my property. It was designed for rooftops, I was told. It wasn’t big enough to eliminate the dust problem I had. I should consider laying down concrete.

Not what I wanted to hear.

I was so worked up over the FBO deal problems that I couldn’t think well enough to write. So instead of knocking off two chapters to my Quicken book revision, I did only one. And that was a no-brainer chapter with very few changes to the text.

That means I’ll have to work on my birthday to get the damn book done on time.

Someone kept e-mailing me all morning at the pilotcharts.com e-mail address, asking me questions about a specific product, shipping, etc. We must have exchanged a dozen messages. I warned him that if he wanted the item shipped today, he’d have to order before 2 PM. The last message from him requested a phone number. The last message from me gave him a fax number. By 2 PM, there was no fax and no order.

What a waste of my time.

My sunglasses, which I’d ordered two months ago, finally arrived. That’s a good thing. My old ones were about to fall apart.

In fact, that’s about the best thing that happened to me all day.

Mike decided to take a trip to NJ the same week I have to be up at the Grand Canyon. He fully expected me to take the dog, bird, and horses with me. The poor dog would be locked up in the trailer for 13 hours every day, six days straight. (The bird would, too, but heck, he’s used to being locked up.) For some reason, I went along with this. Until I started thinking about it. A good thing: I found a place to board the horses for only $100 for the week. A bad thing: I couldn’t find anyone to take the dog. I didn’t even try to find someone for the bird.

So I have company with me this week at Howard Mesa.

I had to drive to Howard Mesa. If you’ve been reading these blogs, you should know how spoiled I am. I usually fly up here. It’s about 1-1/2 hours by helicopter but 3 hours by car. But I couldn’t very well fit the dog, the bird, and all my gear in the helicopter. So I took Mike’s truck. Now I have three vehicles up here. (Sheesh. It’s almost embarrassing.) The good thing: Mike filled the tank with diesel. Another good thing: because I didn’t drag the horse trailer up here, I didn’t even use up a half tank of fuel. The money I saved on fuel probably paid to board the horses. Yet another good thing: if I get ambitious, I can use the truck to take my bicycle to the airport and get some exercise during lunch breaks this week.

Nah.

It was cloudy up here when I arrived. Cloudy like it might rain. Imagine that. I haven’t seen rain in Arizona in so long, I forgot what it looks like. (It was a good thing it rained in New Jersey when I was there earlier this month. Otherwise, it would have been at least three months since I’d seen rain at all.) But the moon’s out now and I think the clouds are breaking up. I don’t think it’s going to rain.

The darn bird is doing laps in his cage, climbing all over the inside. He’ll do that until I shut off the light. Sounds like a good excuse to call it a day and put this one behind me.

Call Me a Mouse Relocation Specialist

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I catch a mouse, take it for a helicopter ride, and set it free at Grand Canyon Airport.

Anyone who has been reading these blog pages carefully should have noted that my trailer at Howard Mesa has a mouse problem.

The problem started last season. The trailer is parked here from late spring to early fall. Last season, we didn’t spend much time here. On our last stay, when I opened the door I found that the fringe on the throw rugs was gone and there were tiny black mouse droppings all over the floor. No other sign of the little buggers, though.

We bought those noisemaker things that are supposed to keep rodents away. We plugged them into an inverter that we left plugged into one of the trailer’s cigarette lighter-like outlets. Then we left for a few weeks. When we returned, we found that although the batteries were still charged (thanks to the solar panel on the roof) and the inverter worked fine, the two noisemakers were dead. There were more mouse droppings on the floor. And the little buggers had begun chewing the white threads off the sofa upholstery.

We hooked up the trailer and took it home. Mike went at it with whatever mouse removal tools he wanted to use. That usually includes sticky pads and nasty, snapping traps. I don’t like those. I don’t like seeing dead animals. So I just avoided the trailer for the whole winter season. Mike assured me sometime in January that the problem had been resolved.

This spring, we took the trailer back up to our property at Howard Mesa so I could live in it while I worked at the Grand Canyon. It’s only 36 miles door to door, and it beats the trailers with housemates program Papillon makes available to its employees.

I scattered moth balls around the trailer’s tires. Someone told me that would prevent mice from climbing up the tires and into the trailer through openings we knew nothing about.

But when I returned to the trailer after being home for a week, guess what I found? More droppings, chewed up Kleenex, and less white thread on the upholstery. The mice were back.

Mike planned to come for the weekend. I asked him to bring the humane mouse trap. That’s a mouse trap that actually TRAPS the mouse. It doesn’t kill it. It holds it in a tiny metal box so you can do something humane with it. And I went to Flagstaff and bought another rodent noisemaker.

When Mike came, I gave him an assignment. I told him that the mouse nest must be under the sofa. That was the only place we hadn’t searched thoroughly. I asked him to check it while I was at work. When I returned at the end of the day, he showed me where all that white thread and throw rug fringe had gone. And he repaired the ductwork for the heater.

Had he seen a mouse? No.

We left after the weekend. Mike had set up the humane mouse traps (we had two) in the trailer. I closed them up, explaining that they wouldn’t be very humane if we caught a mouse and let it starve to death. Instead, I set up the noisemaker.

I returned to the trailer on Wednesday evening. Opened the door and looked inside. And guess what? No mouse droppings, no torn tissue, and the sofa looked just as bad as when I’d left it — not worse. The noisemaker was still making its weird noise. I unplugged it and put it away, then set up the humane mouse trap, with a dab of Skippy peanut butter as bait.

At around midnight, I was wakened by a snapping noise. And then a tiny rattling, kind of like a very small mouse trying to get out of a metal box. I’d caught a mouse!

The tiny rattling went on for a half hour and I soon realized it was likely to go on all night. I got up, fetched the trap, and put it outside on the picnic table. Then I settled back to sleep.

In the morning, after having coffee and getting dressed, I went outside to look at my prey. What a cutie! I would have been shattered to see such a cute little guy stuck to sticky paper. He looked scared. And cold. But I had no pity for him. Not after what he’d done to my sofa. In my eyes, he was lucky to be alive.

Now what to do with him? Sure, I could take him out to the road and let him go. But what if he was some kind of homing mouse, one that could easily find his way back to the trailer? I could drive him down the road and let him go. But that would take time, and I had to go to work. So I decided to take him to work with me and let him go there.

I’d flown my helicopter to the trailer the evening before and that was how I planned to get to work that morning. So I loaded the mouse trap with its prisoner into the helicopter, along with the odds and ends I was bringing to work. I started the engine, warmed it up, and took off. I’m pretty sure that was the first time mousie was ever in a helicopter.

I landed at Grand Canyon Airport and set down on one of the transient helipads. I cooled down the engine, shut down, and unloaded my stuff. I brought the mouse trap over to the grass at the side of the helipad and opened it up. I shook the mouse out. He landed at the base of a tall clump of grass and looked at me as if to say, “What now?” Then he was gone, into the grass.

I set the other trap tonight. Let’s see if I can get another one.

I Finally Got Smart

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I give up my contract at Wickenburg Airport and feel an enormous weight lifted off my shoulders.

It was driving me nuts.

I’d won the fuel manager contract in late 2002 and started with the lofty goal of turning the airport around, making it a place where pilots would want to hang out, drink coffee, and do some hangar flying. Like a clubhouse. And while they were there, they’d pull out their planes, go for a flight, and buy some fuel so the town and I could make some money.

If you compare the airport now with what it was under the previous fuel manager, you’d have to admit that I succeeded. But at what cost?

The original idea was to find a full-time guy (or gal) to manage the place for me. I’d handle the money, the manager would handle everything else. But reality set in quickly. First, I couldn’t find such a person. And then I realized that even if I did, I couldn’t afford to pay one.

So I became that person. And the nightmare began.

The job was fraught with frustration:

Frustration at dealing with the town and its slow (almost backward) speed of getting things done. I’ve been told that all small towns are like this and that I should be patient. Believe it or not, I can be VERY patient. But no one who has an interest in seeing things done can be THAT patient.

Frustration at attending airport commission meetings, which discussed the same semi-relevant topics every month. My favorite was the hangars at Forepaugh issue, which was begun by a local ultralight pilot because he supposedly couldn’t get a hangar in Wickenburg without insurance. (Untralight pilots can’t easily get insurance.) As soon as he got a hangar in Wickenburg, he stopped coming to meetings. (Has anyone checked for insurance? I doubt it.) But the topic was discussed for at least two more months, with nothing being resolved. And let’s not even talk about Forepaugh. How so many people can waste so much breath over a dirt strip in the middle of the desert absolutely amazes me.

Frustration at dealing with customers who got their kicks by complaining to ME about things I have absolutely no control over. “When is that self-serve fuel system going to be fixed, anyway?” “Why are fuel prices so high?” “Why are hangars so expensive?” “Why can’t I build my own hangar?” “How could you let so-and-so cut me off in the traffic pattern?” “Why didn’t you tell me that the windsock on the east end of the field shows different wind that the one at the west end of the field?” It never ended.

Frustration at dealing with people who weren’t customers — people who were proud of the fact that they didn’t buy a thing from me — coming in and drinking my coffee and sitting on my sofa a few times a week. Getting donut crumbs on the floor and missing the urinal when they took a leak. And talking other customers out of buying things that kept me in business.

Frustration at seeing the annual “Fly In,” which is sponsored by an organization that knows less about aviation than the Girl Scouts, turn into a poorly publicized car show with no control over aircraft or people on the ramp. Last year, when I needed to fly out during the event, I had to enlist the help of FOUR people to prevent bystanders from walking too close to my helicopter while it was preparing to depart. There were no movement/non-movement areas defined!!! No safety personnel to prevent spectators from walking into spinning props!!! Parked cars blocking the doors to many of the hangars!!! And the C-130 they finally got to appear at the event taxied down a taxiway it didn’t fit on and climbed one of its wings up on a hangar. When it put its engines in reverse, it churned up enough grass, weeds, and pebbles to shower the spectators and cover the ramp for weeks. Jeez! As fuel manager for the place, I could be held liable for damages in the event of an accident! And I could only imagine the lawsuit the town would get slapped with.

Frustration at being told that I wasn’t supposed to voice my opinions if they weren’t favorable. What kind of bullshit is THAT? Hello? Aren’t we in America? Isn’t there a document called the Constitution that grants all of us the right to voice our opinions until we’re blue in the face? Or longer?

Frustration at being an employer. What was I thinking?

If I told you what the FBO netted last year, you’d laugh at me. If I told you how much of my personal money I put into the airport building to fix minor problems that the town consistently avoided fixing and making improvements to make the terminal more appealing, you’d tell me I was nuts.

I was nuts. I know that now. I suspected it at least six months ago when I snapped at a customer, after dealing with his complaints and sexual harassment for ten months. I called him something I reserve for people who really annoy the hell out of me. (Something so foul I won’t even repeat it here. But ask me in person and I’ll tell you.) I called him that loudly and repeatedly. He tried to get me removed by the town. If only he knew what a favor he would have been doing me! Six months less of insanity.

I made my decision to quit on Thursday morning. I kept it to myself that morning. The mayor-elect was coming by to visit me at the airport with three members of the airport commission. I decided that if I thought there was ANY chance of a change, I’d reverse my decision again. But when the mayor-elect came by, I wasn’t impressed. In fact, I guess you could say I was DEpressed.

Later, I stopped by town hall to drop off some paperwork. I got called into the Airport Manager’s office. He immediately started giving me grief about a list of airport fixes that were outstanding that I had submitted to him. I broke the news to him so he could save his breath. I dropped the official letter off the next day.

Fortunately, there’s a way that I can make my exit without hurting the airport or the town. The folks at Master Aircraft (the airport paint shop) are interested in taking over. So interested, in fact, that they’re willing to buy my airport assets (just about everything in the building) and take over as my agent until my 90 termination period is up. They’ll keep the place just as nice and friendly as I did. And after watching me for 6 months, they already know what they’re in for, so they’re more likely to stick it out.

Now back to my regularly scheduled life.

Grand Canyon Airport Tower

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I make a visit to the FAA tower without any loss of life.

Grand Canyon Airport has two control towers. (Well, three, if you count the vacant one.)

One is at Papillon’s heliport. Attached to the building and accessible by its own staircase, it rises four stories above the heliport. It’s a small, simple room with enough space for two “controllers” and two or three visitors. New pilots are encouraged to visit the tower, to get a good idea of how traffic is controlled by Papillon’s tower staff. It’s amazing, really. Not only do the tower folks keep track of all us pilots as we’re flying in and out of the airport, but they manage aircraft loading, arrange flight (and break) schedules, and open and close flight plans with Prescott Flight Service Station. It’s safe to say that Papillon’s tower is the nerve center for the whole operation.

The other tower is the big, FAA tower. It’s an impressive structure, brand new and very tall. I’ve seen lot of control towers, both as a pilot and as a passenger on an airline, and this tower ranks high in the tower hierarchy. It’s at least as big as the one in Phoenix and possibly as tall, a slim white structure with a glassed-in octagon on top.

(The old, vacant tower is one of those four-story structures that were built on many Class Delta airports. Chandler has one just like it. I’ve been in Chandler’s tower and it wasn’t much more impressive than Papillon’s. Grand Canyon Tower’s staff moved out of that building to the new one a few years ago. Now they look at it across the runway and remember the roaches that infested it.)

I’d been wanting to visit the “big tower” — as I call it — for a while. Since starting at Papillon a month ago, I’ve spent at least three hours in Papillon’s tower. I go up there when I’m not schedule to fly so I can watch the wind readings and listen to the other pilots coming and going. But the big tower was different. It was the official air traffic control center for the airport, the final word, authorized by the FAA. And it was so impressive looking from the outside. What was it like inside?

Today, I finished flying early. Most of us did, in fact — the afternoon was pretty dead. Although Papillon doesn’t like to let pilots go home early, I figured I’d ask if I could visit the big tower. After all, I could be back in minutes; all it took was a call. Permission granted from Papillon’s powers-that-be, I called the big tower to see if I could visit.

After 9/11, tower security is generally very tight. In fact, I seriously doubt whether just anyone could get in. But I introduced myself by name and told them I was a Papillon pilot. I asked if I could visit, but only if they weren’t too busy. Gary, the guy on duty, put me on hold, then came back and said yes. “Drive up to the gate and we’ll buzz you in,” he advised me.

I was out in the Jeep in a flash, zipping out of Papillon’s parking lot and driving past the terminal building. I went straight where signs advised that “All Traffic Must Turn Left” and passed a sign that said “FAA Control Tower. Authorized Vehicles Only.” Gary had authorized me. The road turned to gravel and I continued along it. Then, through the trees, I could see the tower before me, looming up out of the forest. I noticed for the first time that a low building was attached to it. And the whole thing was surrounded by a very serious looking fence with a electric gate.

A sign on the fence said something like “FAA Control Tower. Accidents or loss of life can result from loss of operations.” Something like that. I can’t remember exactly, but I do remember the phrase “loss of life.” I started wondering if my visit could distract the controllers enough to result in loss of life. I hoped not.

There were three boxes on the driver’s side of the entryway before the gate. One was a mystery box; I have no clue what it was for. Another had a camera that looked right at me, kind of like the robot in Short Circuit. The other was a speaking box with a button on it. I pushed the button and waited. Nothing happened.

I started thinking about making radio calls to the tower that weren’t answered. You know, “Copter 28 would like a Southwest departure with Zulu” followed by a lot of silence. The tower just not noticing your call. You hesitating to repeat it, not wanting to piss off the controller, who had probably heard you but was chewing his lunch or swallowing a mouthful of coffee.

I hesitated, then began to wonder whether the button was more like a mike button. I pushed it again and said, “Hello?”

The gate began to open. I waited until it was open enough for my Jeep to squeeze through, then drove through. I waited on the other side. That’s something you’re supposed to do at those kinds of gates. So that other cars didn’t piggyback in with you. It didn’t matter that I’d just driven a half mile down a dirt road and there was no one behind me. The controller could be watching from up above. And then, the next time I needed a clearance, he’d make me wait, even if he wasn’t having lunch or coffee.

I moved on when the gate closed. I noticed that there was a similar arrangement of boxes at the exit gate and wondered whether that was so that they could lock people in. I reminded myself to be on my best behavior as I drove up the concrete drive to the base of the tower.

The parking lot was paved in concrete and had at least ten parking spots. There was one car there. I parked next to it and got out.

I passed a bicycle leaning up against the side of the building as I walked to the front door. I guess you don’t have to worry about getting your bike stolen when you have a security fence with barbed wire and cameras around your place of business.

At the door was another voice box. I tried the door and found it locked. Then I pushed the button on the voice box. Nothing happened. I wondered again whether the button was a mike button, but before I could try my greeting, the door opened from the inside. Danni, one of the controllers, was there to greet me.

I’d met Danni at breakfast one morning about three weeks before. I’d gotten to Tusayan a half hour early and decided to check out the local Internet café to see if they had a wireless network I could tap into. (They didn’t.) As I ordered my latte, I noticed Marty, who’d been one of my flight instructors in Long Beach, sitting at a table with a woman. Marty had taken a job with Papillon the previous year and had come back for the season. Danni was his friend from the tower.

Danni is a really nice person. The first time she hears your voice on the radio in the morning, she says, “Good morning!” and expects a suitable response. And the last flight of the day will always get a “Have a good night!” Not very FAAish, but very nice. Kind of reminds me that we’re all in it together. We’re tourist babysitters. She helps us with our tourists while dealing with the occasionally Sunday pilot’s adventure of landing at GCN.

Danni gave me a tour of the low building. Lot of office space, a full kitchen, and equipment rooms. Everything brand spanking new and totally underutilized. We rode the elevator up to a floor marked 6 (the elevator can stop at 1, 2, and 6; there are no other numbers), then took a flight of stairs to the top level.

Ever wonder why you can’t take an elevator to the top floor in a control tower? It’s because the elevator shaft would block the view. A control tower is a big open room with windows on all sides. And this one had the best view of the Grand Canyon airport area. You could see for miles in every direction.

The room was surrounded with counter space. There were at least ten chairs, but only one had an occupant. Gary sat in the corner, in front of a laptop. A telephone receiver lay on the counter beside him. It turns out that the telephone receiver was actually a microphone, with a push to talk button between the earpiece and mouthpiece. It was on a very long curly cord, and as we chatted, he carried it around with him, talking into it now and then with his ATC voice.

Danni showed me around. I saw the radar screen, which tends to pick up ghost echoes and isn’t certified for use, but showed several aircraft in the area. I saw the wind reporting screen, which showed different winds for each of the three wind measuring locations on the airport, along with an average wind. The average was necessary because all three readings were different. I saw all kinds of screens that we didn’t really talk much about. I saw a device that printed out strips of paper with NOTAM and flight plan information on them. Danni showed me one for an incoming pilot’s flight plan. We looked at the time the pilot was expected in and realized he was due soon. He called in, got clearance, and landed during my visit.

My technical visit turned into a social call before I could stop it. Gary grew up in Wickenburg and wanted to know if I knew the people he’d grown up with. I didn’t. I’ve only been in Wickenburg since 1997; he left town in the early 80s. But that didn’t stop him from naming everyone he knew and making me come up with names of people I knew. Before long, my planned 15-minute visit to the tower had turned into 30 minutes. I told them I had to go.

Danni escorted me downstairs and outside. She told me to visit again. I promised I would.