Tag Archives: Arizona

Success!

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I get my Part 135 Certificate.

The process started on October 18, 2004, when I sent a formal letter of intent to the FAA’s Scottsdale Flight Standards District Office (FSDO). The “PASI” form included with the letter notified them that I was applying for a Single Pilot Part 135 Certificate. On February 9, 2005, I received that certificate.

It’s a big deal. Without the certificate, my commercial operations were limited to conducting sightseeing flights within 25 miles of my origination point. Disembarking passengers was pretty much forbidden — I had to drop off my passengers the same place I picked them up. Although I managed to drum up a respectable amount of business with this limitation, it also forced me to turn down many more lucrative (and interesting) flights. That’s one of the reasons why I went after my Part 135.

The other, of course, was the real desire to make a career change into aviation. To do that, I had to earn more money. To earn more money, I had to be more flexible. The Part 135 certificate will make me more flexible.

I’ve already added a bunch of day trips to Flying M Air’s Web site. I’m working on developing more. I’m also working on getting necessary permissions to conduct commercial operations on BLM land, as well as certain private and state lands. And making relationships with organizations that can get me more work, including an adventure tourism company based in Scottsdale, a resort in Lake Havasu, and a tourist attraction in northern Arizona.

With this Part 135 certificate, Flying M Air is free to grow and prosper. I’ll keep doing my part to make that happen.

Exploring the Desert by Helicopter

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We wander through a mill site, fly over an open pit mine, get a hamburger in the middle of nowhere, and see the “land now” light four miles short of home.

It all started over a year ago. I discovered the beauty of the Santa Maria River from the air.

The canyon east of route 93 is unbelievably beautiful, with dramatic rock formations, cacti, and a river with real water in it. Part of the canyon is in the Arrastra Wilderness and I generally avoid it. But most of it is open to the flying public (so to speak) and I occasionally fly through it, following the winding canyon from Alamo Lake to 93.

On my flights, I’ve always noticed the remains of some kind of mining site at the end of a road not far from 93. There was some kind of shack there, what appeared to be a metal tank, and some tailings piles. Among all that was what appeared, from the air, to be a good landing zone. I thought about what a neat place it might be to take passengers or even to set up a base camp for hiking the area over a period of several days. But the road that wound through the desert from 93 to the site made it less than perfect. After all, why take a helicopter to a camp when you can hop in a Jeep and do it for a lot less money?

Time passed. Then, on Thursday, I got a call from a man named Bobby who wanted me to take him and his wife to see some ranch land he owned on the Santa Maria River from the air.

You can probably guess where this is going. The “ranch land” was the mill site I’d seen from the air.

According to Bobby, the site is named Waters Sunset Mine. I spent a good part of this morning — my usual blogging time, in fact — trying to research the site. What I came up with was the Waters/Sunset Mill and Mine, which was purchased by Orex Corporation back in 1999. This kind of jived with what Bobby had told me: that he’d sold the land to a mining company and they’d gone bust so he’d gotten the land back. There was 46 acres of this land, right on the Santa Maria River, and he owned both the land and the corresponding water rights, which he said were now worth more than the land.

It turns out, the road to the mine is not passable, partly because the Santa Maria River, which is running pretty good right now, runs right through it. There’s only one road in. So it’s impossible to get there by wheeled vehicle (unless it’s amphibious). Bobby didn’t want to land there — which is a good thing, since I’m still not legal to land with paying passengers. He just wanted to photograph it from the air. So the job was an aerial photography/survey job rather than a sightseeing tour.

After he shot his pictures and we moved on to another site to photography, we talked about the site. I told him my ideas about using the land. I told him that I’d rather use private land than public land because it’s easier to get permission. He said that he’d give me permission to use the land. I told him that if I used the land for paying customers, I’d pay him a fee per customer I brought there. He liked that idea. I think he saw it as a way to make a few bucks off some otherwise useless land.

That was Friday. This morning — Saturday — Mike and I decided to go check it out from the ground. We called John and Lorna and they were interested in coming along. So at 10:00 AM, I lifted off from Wickenburg in Zero-Mike-Lima with all four seats full for the 41-mile flight to the mill site. We followed 93 most of the way, drifting to the west when we saw the rock formation known as Shiprock. (No, this isn’t the big Shiprock near the Four Corners area. It’s a much smaller, differently-shaped version.)

Landing ZoneWe overflew the site and I set up to land, coming up the canyon from downstream. There were two big, apparently flat areas to choose from. The first choice was not a good one; the landing zone wasn’t flat enough and the helicopter rocked a bit on its skids when I set down. I don’t like that, so I tried another spot. It wasn’t until I set down the fifth time, in another big, clear area that I was satisfied. I shut it down and we got out to explore.

Core SamplesThere isn’t much at the site in the way of ruins. There are some nicely preserved rock foundations and a weird metal shed. There are also hundreds — if not thousands — of core samples that were once neatly piled in wooden boxes alongside a big rock formation. The wood has rotted considerably and the boxes, in some places, have fallen over.

We spent nearly two hours there, walking among the ruins and trying to identify what the things we saw were for. We also spent quite a bit of time along the river. I’d been worried, at first, that we’d be able to hear the traffic on 93. After all, it was only a mile or two upstream. But the sound of the water drowned out any other sounds. Even when we hiked up the road to the top of a hill where the sound of the water was much fainter, there was no car sound. That made me happy. It’s hard to sell a place as “wilderness” when you can hear cars on a highway nearby.

The Santa Maria RiverThe river was beautiful, flowing swiftly over rocks and sand. There were a number of very nice beaches (if that’s the right word) that would have been wonderful for sunning yourself or even swimming. And the sand just below the water’s surface absolutely sparkled with mica — or was that gold? I think I’ll have to bring a gold pan the next time I fly out.

I asked John, Lorna, and Mike if they thought the site would make an interesting day trip for passengers. They all agreed that it would. Then I asked if they thought it would work for overnight camping trips. They said it would be great for camping. Lots of level places to pitch tents, plenty of water nearby, and wonderful, peaceful scenery.

Heck, I’m sold.

We climbed back into the helicopter at about 12:30, now hungry for lunch. I didn’t expect us to be there so long, so we didn’t bring any food. We decided to hit the Wayside Inn near Alamo Lake for some of their excellent hamburgers. But first, we’d swing past Bagdad so I could show John and Lorna the mine there.

Bagdad is a mining town about 60 miles northwest of Wickenburg, about 15 miles off route 93. Its main feature is an open pit copper mine and that’s what pretty much supports the whole town. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera out when we flew over the mine — it’s quite a site to behold from the air! John and Lorna were suitably impressed. I think they’d been expecting the usual mine shaft that we can often see from the air. But this was a big pit with huge dump trucks hauling ore out, even on a Saturday afternoon. I flew past the leeching ponds and descended down into the canyon. We followed that to Kaiser Canyon, where I pointed out the hot spring far below us, then followed Burro Creek to the Big Sandy Wash and followed that to Alamo Lake.

The lake is high because of all the rain we’d been having. So high, in fact, that the road that runs across its eastern end is under 16 feet of water. (I know that because our waitress told us. She also said she caught a huge bass there the other day.) I headed out toward the Wayside Inn, which is southeast of the lake and, because we had a tailwind, flew past and circled around to land into the wind. I set down on a triangle of land at the crossroads there, right across the road from the campground. I kicked up a bunch of dust, but no one complained. I shut down and we went in for lunch.

(I’m sure I’ve covered the Wayside Inn in another blog post. Let me look it up so you can read about it….ah, here it is.)

At the Wayside InnThe waitress remembered me from the last time I’d been in. “That’s a different helicopter from last time,” she said.

“Yeah, I added water and it grew,” I told her. That had become the joke that all my helicopter friends were using. “I wish it was that easy,” I added.

We ordered lunch, admiring the photos of the fish caught in the nearby lake. Some of the fish were quite large. There were dated Polaroids of dozens of them, held up by the people who’d caught them, on the wall near our table. Each photo included the date and the weight of the fish. The newest photos were only two days old. When the burgers were history, I helped myself to desert: a Schwans ice cream sundae cup. It was exactly the right kind of desert for a meal in the middle of nowhere.

It was about 2:00 PM when we headed home. When I started up, I realized that we were a bit lower on fuel than I thought we were. But as we gained speed, heading straight back to Wickenburg, the GPS told us we’d be there in less than 15 minutes. Surely I had enough fuel to make it back. Although my smaller, aux tank was on E, the main tank showed about 7 or 8 gallons. I remembered how I’d occasionally get both of Three-Niner-Lima’s gauges down to E without the Low Fuel (AKA Land Now) light going on. It certainly looked as if I’d have enough fuel to make it back.

I almost did.

Another Landing ZoneWe were about four miles out of Wickenburg when the Low Fuel light started to flicker. It went on, then off, then on, then off. Then on. According to my gauges, I still had about 1/8 left in the main. But I remembered what they’d taught us in the Robinson Factory Safety Course: trust the light, not your gauges. To me, the light meant “Land Now.” So I landed. On a dirt road. In the desert. At least a mile from pavement.

You have to understand that if I did run out of fuel, there was only one way down and it was the fast way. I much preferred taking my time about the landing, picking a spot when I still had enough fuel to get me there with the engine running. So I landed even when I may have had enough fuel to make it back to Wickenburg. After all, I might not have had enough fuel to make it back and then things could have gotten ugly.

Mike volunteered to walk to 60 and hitch a ride back to the airport. He started walking and I started making phone calls. I got Gus on the phone and told him where the fuel cans were. He wanted to know how far out we were. I didn’t really know how far out we were on 60. I gave him Mike’s cell phone number.

Then I saw a helicopter off in the distance. Could it be? I got in, flicked the master switch, turned on the radio, and put on my headset. I keyed my mike. “Ray? Is that you?”

“Yeah, what’s up, Maria? Where are you?”

“We ran out of gas about four miles short of the airport.”

“Got a fuel light?” he wanted to know.

“Yeah. I’m not taking chances.”

He flew by a few minutes later. Then I asked him to fetch us some fuel from the airport to save Gus a ride. Gus heard me on the radio and he and Ray made arrangements. I turned off the radio and called Mike. It was a good thing I did. True to form, he’d decided to bushwhack through the desert, thinking he’d take a shorter route back to pavement. But rather than bushwhack on a route that went more southbound (correct) he was going more westbound (incorrect). As we later pointed out to him, if he’d stayed on his track, he’d have walked an extra mile or so before reaching the road. Next time, I’m going to give him a compass. I had one under the back seat.

Just add fuelRay landed in a nice grassy area not long after Mike returned. We got the two fuel cans out of the back of his helicopter — he still doesn’t have seats back there — and he took off. Then Mike and John poured the 10.7 gallons of fuel into the helicopter. When I started up and looked at my gauges, I saw that we now had more fuel than when we’d left the Wayside Inn.

We flew back to Wickenburg and I landed at the pumps. Earl, who was on duty there, topped both of them off. We parked outside — I’m flying again tomorrow. Gus came by and made some jokes about me running out of fuel. I realized that I’d be getting ribbed about it for a long time to come.

We all had a great time, though, and I don’t mind the ribbing.

Quartzsite 2005

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I spend a day in Quartzsite, AZ with friends.

I know I’ve mentioned Quartzsite more than a few times on these pages. I can’t remember if I explained what Quartzsite is. So I’ll explain here.

Quartzsite, you see, is more of a what than a where. Where is easy: it’s on I-10 about 20 miles east of the Colorado River/California Border. What is more difficult. It’s a town with a population that swells from a summertime low of about 1,000 people to a wintertime high of over 100,000 people. Most of those people show up in January. They show up in RVs and motor homes, they fill the campgrounds and the overflow vehicles park on the BLM land out in the desert.

Why do they come? For the swap meets, rock and art shows, and RV show. The whole town fills with vendors selling everything from dental picks to RV toilet systems. There are tools, clothes, RV equipment, blankets, custom license plate frames, hand trucks, scooters, dried fruit — you name it. All spread out in “shows” throughout the town on what are normally dirt lots. By mid-February much of this is gone. By March, most of it is gone. Any by April, Quartzsite has a ghost town appearance. Things don’t start picking up again until November or December. Talk about seasonal economies!

I’d wanted to spend a week out at Quartzsite, giving helicopter rides. But I was too late to arrange for a landing zone. Besides, when I was out there last week, flying over with Nancy and Bill, I wasn’t very impressed by the size of the crowd. It didn’t seem worth the bother.

But yesterday, when I rode into town in the back seat of John and Lorna’s pickup, I got a different picture. What a difference a week makes! Last year I’d guessed that the biggest week in Quartzsite was the week of the RV show. Yesterday confirmed it. There were at least three times as many RVs parked out in the desert as there had been the week before. I have no idea of where all these people came from, but there’s no denying they were there. In numbers.

After inching our way through traffic in town, we found a good parking space on Kuehn Street, which runs parallel to I-10 on the south side of the highway. That became our base for exploring two of the shows: The RV show, which John and Lorna were anxious to explore, and Tyson Wells, a rock and art show across the street.

Before we hit the shows, however, I scoped out a piece of land I was interested in leasing for the following year. I’d seen it from the air and it seemed like a perfect location for basing helicopter rides. It was 20 acres, but I’d only need an acre or two. There was a For Sale or Lease sign on it with a phone number. I called the number and spoke to what I assume must have been a Realtor. He promised to e-mail me information about the property.

The RV show was packed. Walking inside the huge tent, in fact, often reminded me of the old days, when I shuffled with thousands of other commuters through the Port Authority Bus Terminal to the subway escalator in New York. (Days I don’t miss one bit.) Everyone had something to sell, some line to try on you. I especially admired the cookware sales people, with their tiny stages and ten or so audience seats, repeating, over and over, the well-rehearsed lines that expounded the benefits of their products. Imagine doing that hour after hour, day after day, for ten days? I couldn’t.

It soon became apparent that, at 43 years old, I was the youngest person in the crowd. RVers in January in Quartzsite tend to be retired folks who are escaping from some cold climate. Some of these people will show up in Wickenburg for Gold Rush Days, the town’s annual attempt to capture revenue from seasonal tourists. Later, when we went to Tyson Wells and the Main Event, the average age dropped a bit and I didn’t feel like a young whippersnapper anymore.

One thing John, Lorna, and I agreed on: the prices of some of the RV equipment seemed very high. We talked about the average cost of the rigs people were towing or driving. A fifth wheel rig averaged about $75K while a Class A motor home (the kind you drive) probably averaged around $150K. These people obviously had no qualms about spending money to make themselves more comfortable. That’s probably why there were at least eight satellite television receiver booths, ten generator booths, and countless booths for electric massage devices and drug-free pain relief products.

We picked up a smoked turkey leg to bring home for Mike, then went back to the truck to drop off our purchases. I’d bought a five-pack of micro-fiber towels ($20 inside the tent; $5 outside the tent — I bought outside). John and Lorna had bags of product literature that Lorna said they’d probably never look at. Near the truck, John bought a battery-operated, bug-zapping fly swatter and threw that in the truck, too. Then it was on to Tyson Wells for lunch.

There were a bunch of food vendors at Tyson Wells. We looked around and found Smokin’ Willie’s BBQ. The Smokin’ Willies people had spent about a week at Wickenburg Airport, at my invitation, the year before. It was my lame attempt to find some kind of “restaurant” at the airport. They did well while they were there, but they had other gigs (like Quartzsite) where they could do better, so they left. They remembered me well. John, Lorna, and I ate at their booth.

We walked around Tyson Wells for a while. I bought two 16′ telescoping poles that I could use to hang flags at helicopter ride events. (I still had four red, white, and blue flags I’d bought for the airport but had not included in my asset sale.) John and Lorna bought some ocarinas to give as gifts. I inquired at a booth about an engraved key tag. I’d bought one at Quartzsite years ago for Three-Niner-Lima: a classy leather tag with an engraved metal insert. I wanted the same thing for Zero-Mike-Lima. We were directed to the Main Event, which is where I’d gotten the other one made. So we walked back to the truck, pulled out, and got back into the inching traffic to cross the highway and hit the Main Event.

The Main Event is probably the longest-running show in Quartzsite. By that, I mean it seems to be the first to start and the last to end. We got a good parking space on the east end (the parking gods must have been watching over us that day) and got out to walk. We found the engraving booth right away. The guy remembered me. He no longer made the leather/metal key tags, but he had some other designs. I picked one and requested that he engrave N630ML on it. Then I designed a license plate frame for my Honda that said “My Helicopter is Red, Too!” and paid for my purchases. While I was there, the booth guy and his wife told me that the Main Event was now owned by two different people. The show was Main Event East and Main Event West. Interesting.

We walked around the show and it soon became apparent that the split was quite serious. A big piece of land between the east and west sides had been fenced off and was vacant. This is the same land that had been crammed with vendors the year before. A fence with a gate let people into the west side. There were fewer vendors than I remember and the overall quality of what was offered was a bit lower than the usual low I’d come to expect. Many of the vendors were what I call “garage sale” booths — booths that seem to be selling junk from someone’s garage. But the cactus people were there, along with a few better quality vendors. Among these was the pelt and feather guy (as I call him) from Sedona. I took a moment to call Janet in Colorado and see if she needed any feathers. (Janet is an artist who paints on feathers.) I wound up buying two different kinds of pheasant skins for her. So I got to carry around two dead birds with me for the rest of the day.

We crossed back to the east side and walked around those vendors for a while. We bought some dried fruit and some other odds and ends. Then we went back to the engraving guy and picked up my key tag and license plate frame. Both were perfectly done. I told the engraver that he was an artist and I think that pleased him quite a bit.

We met with John and Lorna’s friends, Steve and Sandy, soon after that. They were camping in BLM land off Dome Rock Road. We chatted at the McDonald’s, eating $1 ice cream sundaes. By the time we went our separate ways, it was about 3:30 PM.

I was beat. I spend too much time sitting on my butt, so when I do a lot of walking, it really wipes me out. But we had one more thing to try to find. Ruben, at Screamers, had asked me to pick up a machete for him. He said you could find them “everywhere” in Quartzsite. I’d been looking all day and hadn’t seen a single one. So on our way out of town, we went to the show he said he’d seen them. I don’t know the name of the show, but it’s on the north side of the highway, at the east intersection with SR 95. The machete was in the first booth we walked into. $4. I bought it. Mission accomplished.

The ride home was long — Quartzsite is about 100 miles west of Wickenburg — but pleasant. For much of the ride, there was a rainbow off to our left, where heavy rain was falling over the Harcuvar Mountains. Centennial Wash would be flowing later in the day. We got back to West Park, where John and Lorna are staying, just after sunset.

It had been a good day and I’d gotten plenty of exercise. I’d need some Ibuprofen to help work out the aches and pains today.

Air-to-Air

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An air-to-air photo shoot gives mixed results.

I needed a photo of my helicopter in flight for marketing materials. Jim needed a photo of his helicopter in flight for the cover of Trade-A-Plane. It seemed natural that we should go out together and take care of both photo shoots.

Three-Niner-LimaI’ve done this before. Years ago, when I needed photos of my R22 for marketing material, a friend took Mike and a camera up in a Piper Cub. We flew in formation around Vulture Peak. Mike snapped off 50 or so digital photos. I loaded them into my computer, discarded the really bad ones, and cropped the good ones to get what I needed.

Tristan's R44Two years ago, we did the same thing with Tristan’s R44. This time, I flew Mike in my R22. We flew in formation around Vulture Peak until Mike had about 30 pictures. For some reason, the focus wasn’t good on all of them — I think the camera’s autofocus feature was just starting to die at that point — but we had enough good photos for what we needed.

Sunday’s flight with Jim was a little different. Jim was more concerned with background than anything else. So we had to fly out to an area north of Lake Pleasant to get the interesting rock formations he wanted. He took Mike to photograph me first, then landed in a wash near what looked like a marijuana farm and let Mike out. Jim took off and I landed to pick up Mike. Then we shot Jim from my helicopter.

I didn’t enjoy the experience. Jim sits on the opposite side of the helicopter from me, so he couldn’t see me when he was next to me. He got very close twice and it really freaked me out. Mike couldn’t communicate with Jim because Jim has a push-to-talk intercom in his helicopter and Mike couldn’t push it while he was shooting pictures out of a tiny window. And the radio was a mess because every time we picked a frequency, it turned out to be a frequency already in use. We had to keep switching. Even when we got on the helicopter air-to-air frequency, some idiot kept trying to tell us to get off.

Now I know it sounds as if we dove into this without any planning. We didn’t. Jim and I discussed formation flying before we took off. We came up with a plan for getting the pictures. But somewhere along the line, the plan got thrown out the window. (It wasn’t my window; my windows don’t open.) The resulting flight was full of unpleasant surprises.

Zero Mike Lima in FlightBut Mike did get a few decent photos of my helicopter. One of them was almost perfect. A few of them were pretty funny; Mike managed to cut off various parts of the helicopter in others. Two of the photos didn’t show the helicopter at all. (That might have been when I spotted Jim over my left shoulder and veered away from him.) None of the photos, however, were as good as that first Vulture Peak shoot. In those photos, I’d been looking right at the camera. (That’s because I’d been following the lead, looking at the lead like I was supposed to. On this shoot, I’d been the lead but Jim had lost sight of me and passed me. Seeing him beside me, just after this photo was taken, scared the shit out of me.)

Jim's Hughes 500The photos of Jim’s helicopter weren’t very good at all. Jim had this idea of background firmly entrenched in his mind. So rather than form up with us and let Mike shoot photos with him relatively close, he followed the contours of a cliff face. He must have been a few hundred feet away from the cliff for the entire run. I couldn’t see him because I was ahead of him so I didn’t know how far away he was. He should have been watching me, forming up on me, adjusting his distance accordingly. I don’t know what kind of camera lens he thought we had. Mike claimed that Jim’s helicopter filled “one third to two thirds of the frame,” but Mike was seriously mistaken. In most shots, Jim’s ship is a red, white, and blue speck against the desert. I cropped the hell out of this shot here; it would not be suitable for printing.

Two Helicopters in WickenburgI was a nervous wreck when we finished up and very glad to be done. (My hands were shaking for some time afterward.) We landed and parked side by side on the ramp. Then we wandered over to the terminal to the shade to look at the photos in the camera’s tiny screen. We were both disappointed. I knew I had a few usable shots, but Jim’s were just too small to be of any use.

I do want to say that I appreciate Jim taking the time to do the shoot with us. I know his ship is expensive to fly and that he’s very busy working on a new product to show at Heli Expo early next month. I wish we’d gotten some better shots of his ship. Maybe we’ll try again sometime soon, when Jim isn’t so pressed for time.

A Busy, Educational Day

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I spend Monday flying all over Arizona and taking care of odd jobs.

I think I have the flying bug out of my system, at least for a while. I should. I spent about 4 hours in the air yesterday.

I started out with a flight to Prescott. It was time for my annual medical. As a commercial pilot, I need a Class 2 medical certificate, which must be renewed every year. January is my renewal month.

These days, I go to Dr. Ritter at Prescott airport. (I used to go to Dr. McCarvel — whose name I probably just misspelled — down in Phoenix, but that’s another [weird] story.) Dr. Ritter’s office is right across the road from Prescott tower. Although I could land on the ramp behind his office, I decided to fly in to Guidance Helicopter’s ramp on the other side of the airport. I keep my 1987 Toyota MR-2 in the parking lot there and I hadn’t driven or even seen it since I brought it there from the Grand Canyon in October. I figured it was high time to see if it 1) was still there and 2) still ran. Besides, I had to talk to John Stonecipher, who runs Guidance, about a number of things. And heck, it’s always nice to show off a new helicopter where helicopter pilots will see it.

So I flew into Guidance and parked on the ramp. I was running late, so I just gave Lisa and the guy in the office a quick hello, telling them I’d be back in an hour or so. My Toyota was right where I’d left it. I got in, removed the sunshades, and turned the key. The darn thing started right up. The engine sounded like the car was staying, “Hey! Finally! Where the heck have you been? Let’s go!” I love that car.

Although Dr. Ritter’s office is right across the airport, you can’t get there from Guidance. Not on the airport property, anyway. You have to go out and around. In fact, you have to get on a highway (the Pioneer Parkway) and get off at the first exit. It’s about a 10-minute drive, with traffic lights.

I’d been worried about my medical this year. Last week, I stopped by the blood pressure machine at Safeway and put my arm in. The number it came up with was a bit on the high side. Dr. Ritter always seems to find my blood pressure high, even when Dr. Miller here in Wickenburg doesn’t. Maybe it has something to do with elevation. (Wickenburg is 2400 feet; Prescott is 5000 feet.) Anyway, I figured that if I saw it high down in Wickenburg, Dr. Ritter would see it high up in Prescott. And with a new helicopter to pay for, I couldn’t afford to have any questions about my medical certificate.

So I was nervous that Monday morning in Dr. Ritter’s waiting room. Nervousness doesn’t do anything positive for blood pressure, either. And the thought of that was making me more nervous.

I wasn’t the only person waiting. Dr. Ritter does a booming business. In the hour I was there, he saw at least 10 people. At $75 to $95 each, that’s not bad. He has a receptionist who gives you the form you fill out, gives you a cup to pee into, and retrieves the cup when you’re done. His son Garth takes your blood pressure. Then the doctor himself spends about 5 minutes with you, checking your eyesight, listening to your heart, and taking your blood pressure.

Yes, the doctor took my blood pressure, too. When Garth did it with the machine, the numbers he came up with didn’t make sense. At least that’s what he said after he did it the first, second, and third times. Seemed I had a nice slow pulse rate but high blood pressure numbers. “Better let the doctor do it,” he told me, leaving his form blank.

Of course, that only made me more nervous.

But in the doctor’s office, the nervousness subsided. He took my blood pressure and the numbers must have been good. I didn’t ask what they were because I didn’t want to start a conversation about blood pressure. He said my pulse was soft and hard to hear. I’d heard that before when I gave blood, so it didn’t surprise me.

I discovered that my left eye sees better than my right eye and that my short vision is still very good.

I looked out the window while we were chatting and saw a huge hangar under construction. I pointed that out to the doctor.

“Yes, that’s mine,” he said proudly.

“What are you going to do with it?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine how many aircraft it would take to fill it.

“Lease it,” he said. “Are you interested?”

“Could I put living quarters in there?”

“Sure.”

“That would be nice,” I mused. “Living at Prescott Airport with my helicopter.” Then reality hit me. “You must want a lot of money for it, though.”

“Six thousand a month,” he told me.

“I’ll pass,” I said. That’s all I needed. Another $6K of monthly expenses. I still wasn’t sure where I was going to come up with the $4K a month I needed to keep Zero-Mike-Lima.

Back in the waiting room, the receptionist was typing up my new medical certificate.

“I guess I don’t need this anymore,” I said, extracting my old medical certificate from my wallet.

“Would you like me to shred it for you?” she said, without looking up.

“I think I’ve already taken care of that,” I replied. She looked up and saw the mangled condition of the little piece of paper that I held up. I’d been caught in a rainstorm at the Grand Canyon over the summer and my medical certificate, which had been folded in my shirt pocket, had been soaked with the rest of my clothes. It was torn and barely legible. Everyone in the waiting room had a good laugh.

Mission accomplished. I was good for another year.

I drove my Toyota back to the other side of the airport. I went into the FBO, ordered fuel, and changed the N-number for my credit card record on file. This made it possible to order fuel for my helicopter at Prescott without coming into the FBO to pay or even hanging around while it was being fueled. Then I went into the restaurant for a nice breakfast sandwich: bacon, egg, and cheese on an English muffin. Sodium! Yum!

Over at Guidance, I chatted with John S about the drug testing plan I needed for my Part 135 certificate, a bird strike I’d had on Saturday, and miscellaneous other helicopter-related things. He brought me into the hangar to show me “R44 Pods” — skid-mounted storage units. They were very impressive, but very expensive: about $6K for a pair. He told me they make a golf-club sized pod that he hasn’t gotten yet. That interested me. One of the things I’ve been wanting to do is take golfers to/from Los Caballeros and valley golf courses via helicopter. I think that if I pushed hard enough, I could create a market for it. Right now, however, I don’t have time to push and, even if I did, I don’t have the $8K needed to buy the big pods.

After speaking with John, I called Paul Alukonis, my first flight instructor. He works for Westcor Aviation, down in Scottsdale, flying charters. I was going to Scottsdale later in the day but had time to kill. I thought I’d kill it down there with him, showing off Zero-Mike-Lima and having lunch at the airport. But Paul had the day off (it was ML King day) and was spending it with his family. When he heard what I had in mind, I think he was on the verge of saying that he’d come meet me. But I didn’t give him the chance. I’d show it to him another time.

So now I had at least three hours to kill before meeting George for some practice. I decided to spend it by putting a couple of waypoints in my GPS.

I took off from Prescott and flew north, to my property at Howard Mesa. I was quite pleased to see that the ugly double-wide across the street still had a For Sale sign in front of it. One of my biggest fears is that some weirdo, anarchist drug maker will buy the place, set up a meth lab, and fill the yard with junk. It’s bad enough I have to look at that double-wide. I sometimes fantasize about winning the lottery (which I do play relatively regularly) and buying the place, tearing out the double-wide to restore my view and using the excellent solar system for my own home on my own lot. They say the best way to assure that you like your neighbors is to buy their property. If only I had the money to do it. That place would be history. I’d have that doublewide towed away before the ink on the title papers dried.

I landed on the gravel helipad we’d put in over the summer. The weeds I’d sprayed with poison were dead, but still rooted firmly. There were patches of snow on the ground. It was 10°C and breezy. I set up a waypoint and named it HMESA. Then I spun up and took off. I headed out toward a house on the other side of the mesa where some people we met had decided to live year-round. It didn’t seem as if anyone was home. So I dialed Sedona into the GPS and headed southeast.

The flight to Sedona was pleasant. The closer to I-40 that I got, the more ice and snow was on the ground. A huge field that I-40 cuts through was so covered with ice and snow that it looked like a lake from the air, with the highway cutting through it on a causeway. I reached a small canyon where snow melt was running off. I followed the canyon as it grew, looking below me for waterfalls. I wanted to fly in the canyon, but didn’t have a chart handy and couldn’t be sure that there weren’t wires running across it somewhere. So I stayed above it and enjoyed the view from there. The wind was doing weird things over the hills and the ride got a bit bumpy. The kind of bumps that scare first-time helicopter passengers. Nothing serious. But it was the first bumpy flying I’d done in the new ship.

Sedona was pretty quiet. As I approached from the northwest, I heard a plane land and another take off. As I got closer, I saw one of the tour helicopters flying alongside the red rocks north of the airport. I realized that I could also apply for a summer job with that outfit. That would be plan E or F. I had to work through other summer job plans first. The Grand Canyon, I had already decided, would be plan Z.

I crossed over the top of Sedona airport and headed south, flying right beside Bell Rock near Oak Creek. There were tourists parked alongside the road below me and I wondered whether any of them took a picture of me. I also wondered how the red helicopter would look next to the red rocks.

I picked up the Verde River, which was flowing pretty good with brown, silty water, and followed it to Camp Verde. Along the way, I crossed over two paved runways that were not on my GPS. I saw the Montezuma Castle National Monument (or Park?) and got a glimpse of the cliff dwellings from the air. Someone had suggested hooking up the tribe that runs the Cliff Castle Casino near there for tours and that was high on my list of plans for a summer job. I think it was Plan C. A friend of mine who trains horses is living on a ranch in the area and told me I could park my trailer there. She’d train my horses while I gave rides for the casino and lived in the trailer. Now that may not sound glamorous, but if you remember that my main goal is to escape the worst of the summer’s heat, it doesn’t sound bad at all.

I followed the Verde to Red Creek, which is southeast of Payson. Red Creek has a landing strip and a few amenities that make it a nice place to stop for a picnic or camp overnight. I’d tried to arrange a heli outing there on Sunday, but no one could come. (Which is why I wound up going to Quartzsite; covered in another blog entry.) I landed on the strip, which was in terrible condition, and created a GPS waypoint I named REDCK. (With only five characters to work with, you get creative.) Then I took off and continued down the river to the first big lake, which was full. I hopped over the mountains there, crossed over the top of Carefree Skyranch, flew to Scottsdale Road, and made my approach and landing at Scottsdale Airport.

It was just after 1 PM. I had two things to do in Scottsdale. First, I needed to contact the avionics people at Corporate Jets to see whether they could program my GPS and Transponder to talk to each other. I had a Garmin 420 GPS and Garmin 330 Mode S Transponder in my ship. If they’re properly connected to each other and programmed, the transponder will take traffic information provided by ATC in metro areas and put it on the GPS as targets. I bought the system not because I was interested in seeing traffic on my GPS — although I admit that could be useful and was definitely cool — but because this was cutting edge technology that could increase the value of my aircraft when it was time to be sold. The problem is, Robinson Helicopter does not support this technology, so they don’t properly install the two units to work with each other. And they don’t tell you what they don’t do. For example, is it wired but not programmed? Or not even wired? This is what I needed to find out. I’d been advised to have a Garmin dealer attempt to program it to see what would happen.

I called and was told that the avionics guy would be right out. I waited. And waited. And cleaned the bubble. And waited. And got fuel. And waited. It was about 1:45 when the avionics guy drove up in a tug. He had the document I’d e-mailed to Corporate Jets the day before, but that was it. It described how to program the transponder, but not the GPS. So we went back to Corporate Jets where I paid for my fuel and he got the information he wanted. Then back in the tug for a slow ride to Zero-Mike-Lima. Then more playing with the transponder and GPS. The message on the screen clearly indicated that no traffic information was available. But the avionics guy said it might work in flight.

Meanwhile, 2:30 had rolled around and I was late for my other appointment in Scottsdale, to meet with George McNeil of Universal Helicopters for some practice autorotations. I’m taking my Part 135 check ride soon — maybe even next week — and I wanted some more practice before the ride. The avionics guy gave me a lift in the tug, and we passed George on his way out to get me. I swapped seats and went back to Universal’s offices with George. He said he we had to talk first.

“So we’re flying into Sky Harbor,” he said.

My eyes must have opened as wide as platters. I’d completely forgotten my request to do a landing at Sky Harbor, Phoenix’s busy Class B airport. “I forgot all about it,” I said. I gave him my excuse for forgetting: that I’d been so concerned with my blood pressure for my medical that I’d couldn’t think of much else. “Pretty lame excuse, huh?” I finished.

“Yes,” he replied.

“But it’s true,” I protested. “We don’t have to do it today.”

He talked me into it. And we reviewed what we’d have to do to cross all three runways and land at Cutter on the southwest corner of the field. And then we went out to the helicopter to do it.

It wasn’t really a big deal. We called into Phoenix’s north tower while we were still about 8 miles north. We were given a squawk code and I punched it in. George reminded me that we couldn’t enter the airspace unless we were given clearance, so I started to circle, I was about 1/4 through the turn when we got clearance to enter and hold short of the north runway (26). Before we got there, the controller pointed out an Airbus on final and asked me if I saw it. How could I miss it? I confirmed I saw it and he told me to cross the runway behind it and hold short of the south runways (25 L and R). That’s where it got tricky. There isn’t much space between runway 26 and runway 25R. It’s the amount of space needed for the terminals and roads to access them. So although I could have done a circle there, it would have been tight. George advised me to hover. So I brought it into a 500 foot hover, not far from the tower, switched to the south tower frequency, and told the controller I was with him. No response at first, just some instructions to other aircraft. I called again. After a moment, the controller (who must have seen me hovering outside his window) told me about a Dash 8 on final. I told him I saw it. He told me to pass behind it and proceed to Cutter, remaining south of the runway 25L. We landed without incident.

Piece of cake.

We departed to the south. I had some trouble getting altitude quickly for our transition over I-10, but I managed it. George took pictures of the Salt River, which was running. We headed out to South Mountain, got a frequency change, and dropped into the valley there. Then we headed west, flew past the casino, got more pictures of the Salt River, and headed north to Deer Valley, where we’d practice the autos.

The south tower controller at Deer Valley was crazed and told us to go around the airspace to the north tower’s territory. Once in the airspace, we did a steep approach to the compass rose, followed by a bunch of straight in autorotations and a bunch of 180 autorotations. Then we headed out to the practice area to try something I’d never done before: autorotation from a high hover. This required me to bring it into a 600 foot hover, then dump the collective, and point the nose down to gain airspeed. There’s an awful moment when you’re looking right down at the ground and it’s rushing toward you at about 60 knots. Then you nose up to hold the airspeed and finish up like any other autorotation. George did the first one and I did the next two. In a way, they were kind of fun. The only thing I didn’t like about them was the high hover stuff. I never did like coming to a hover way up in the air; it always feels as if I’m falling backwards.

We had some trouble getting back into Scottsdale. It appeared there was a new controller in the tower and he couldn’t handle the load. It wasn’t much of a load, though. As a result, we were stuck circling north of the airspace along with two airplanes. One of them was circling at our altitude, which made me very nervous. George doesn’t like flying low, but I’ll be damned if I circle in the same space as an airplane. So I brought it down to 500 feet AGL. We were stuck out there at least ten minutes. Finally, George reminded the tower we were out there and he let us in.

I paid George and accepted his ride back to Corporate Jet to settle my avionics bill. The GPS traffic reporting did not work, but it had cost me a hefty $90 for the avionics guy to spend 30 minutes fooling around with it. A minimum of one hour labor, I was told. I didn’t tell them what I was thinking: that I wouldn’t be back to Corporate Jet for either avionics work or fuel.

I took off from Scottsdale just after sunset. It was a quick flight home — about 35 minutes. It was pretty dark at Wickenburg, but I didn’t have much trouble getting the helicopter put away.

It had been a long day with lots of flying, but I’d learned a lot. And I’d had some fun.