Tag Archives: aviation

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.

A Birthday Flight

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I take a 90-year-old woman, her 88-year-old brother, and her son on a helicopter tour.

I’ve been getting a lot of calls lately from people in Scottsdale, interested in helicopter tours. There’s a charter company down there named Westcor Aviation (associated with the Westcor malls and other real estate ventures) and my very first flight instructor, Paul, works for them as a pilot. They occasionally get calls from people who want to charter a helicopter and get “sticker shock” when they hear the rate: $1,500 per hour. So when asked to recommend other operators in the area, Westcor has begun recommending me, along with the others.

Doing flights out of Scottsdale isn’t exactly good for me. I ask $495 per hour for flights originating in the valley, with a one-hour minimum. But I don’t charge people for the amount of time it takes me to get from Wickenburg to the valley and back again. So I don’t really make much money on these flights. But they’re good experience and they do help pay for the helicopter. And they give me an excuse to fly.

I did one of these flights on Sunday. I’d gotten a call during the week and made arrangements with someone named Brad to fly his grandmother on a tour of the area for her 90th birthday. He’d fill the other two seats, too, and he’d make sure the total weight was below 650 for the three passengers. I just had to meet him at Scottsdale Airport at 10:00 AM.

This worked out well for Mike and I. Mike had gotten Greyhawk Members Club tickets to see the FBR US Open in Scottsdale, which wasn’t far from the airport. The tickets got us entrance to the event as well as entrance to hospitality tents scattered around the course. We could eat and watch the golfing from comfortable, shaded seats — all for free. We figured we’d head over to the course when my flight was finished.

We arrived at Scottsdale Airport about 40 minutes early and got a great parking spot right out in front of the terminal. We went into the restaurant for some weak coffee and a bite to eat and I spent some time reviewing the Phoenix Terminal Area Chart to see where I could take them. At 9:50, I headed out to the lobby to wait for my passengers. There were three young people there and one of them approached me. It was Brad.

I looked at him and his two companions. “I thought you said it was for your grandmother.”

“She’s on her way,” he said.

I tried to review the route I’d planned with him, hoping it would meet his approval. He didn’t seem to care. “She wants to see the Superstition Mountains,” he said.

I wanted to take her up the Salt River, which would take us near the Superstitions but not over them. I didn’t want to fly over or around the Superstitions. It’s rocky, dangerous terrain and I didn’t think it would make for an interesting or comfortable one-hour flight, given the wind conditions and the descending clouds out that way.

“She doesn’t know she’s doing this,” he added.

A while later, his grandmother arrived. With about twenty other people. She was a petite 90-year-old woman. They escorted her up to the window where she could see Zero-Mike-Lima parked on the ramp. “That’s your birthday present,” someone told her.

She was thrilled. They quickly sorted out who would be flying with her: her brother, who I can accurately describe as a little old man, and her son, who was considerably larger. I don’t think their total weight even reached 500 pounds. I escorted them outside to the security door and told them that only one person could accompany us through the gate to take photos. Out at the helicopter, I gave them the safety briefing. I put the birthday girl in the front, her brother behind her, and her son behind me. As I warmed up Zero-Mike-Lima, my passenger’s entourage watched from behind the glass partition.

We departed to the southwest to remain west of Runway 21. Although the controller told me he’d call my turn to the east, he was so busy with other traffic that I was clear of his airspace before he had a chance to. I passed north of Camelback, then headed east toward the Salt River. I skirted the north edge of Falcon Field’s airspace, then continued up the Salt River Canyon.

The desert was absolutely beautiful. I’d never seen it so green. And all the lakes we flew over — Saguaro, Canyon, Apache — were completely filled with water. The sunlight through the low clouds made a patchwork of shade over the entire scene, illuminating some hillsides and rock formations and shadowing others. The Superstitions were clearly visible, just below the clouds, to the south of us, so my passengers got to see what they wanted to, and so much more.

About 0.6 hours out, I made the turn to come back, using my GPS to give me a more direct route. The goal was to make the flight exactly 1.0 hours. Soon we were heading toward Fountain Hills. I looked at the clock on my instrument panel. It was nearly 11 AM. Is it possible that I’d overfly Fountain Hills just as they turned on the fountain? It was. We were still about three miles out when the water started to rise. It was an added bonus for my passengers to see it from the air.

We approached Scottsdale Airport from the west. Fortunately, the controller wasn’t nearly as busy as he’d been when we left and we had no trouble approaching the airport, crossing the runway, and landing right where we’d begun.

My passengers were very pleased with the flight. I was too.

And when the woman’s daughter handed me a check, a little voice in the back of my head reminded me, “And they pay you to do great stuff like this, too.”

It’s Too Cool

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I rediscover the cool things I can do with my Mac.

One of the reasons I got into the business of writing about computers is because I thought that the things you could do with computers were very…well, cool.

I got my start with Macs back in 1989 with a Mac II cx. My previous computer had been an Apple //c and the Mac was a huge step up for me. One of the reasons I wanted it was so that I could start a BBS. I needed a hard disk and a bit more processing power than the Apple //c offered. Back in those days, the Mac IIcx was hot. It was one of the first Macs to offer a color monitor option and it ran at whopping 16 MHz. I taught myself everything I needed to know about that machine and had a BBS up and running within a month. I also learned enough to get a per diem job as a computer applications instructor, so I quit my “day job” to pursue a writing career. I like to say that that computer changed my life. It did. If I hadn’t bought it and learned my way around it so quickly, I would never have developed the expertise to change careers.

Anyway, back in those days, shareware was a big thing. There was all kinds of shareware out there and much of it was pretty cool stuff. I distinctly remember the sound editing software I used — I believe it was called SoundEdit — which enabled me to record sounds and edit sound waves. Macs had “sound cards” built in from Day 1, so sound was always part of the Macintosh experience. Everyone had their own custom sound effects and used MacInTalk to get their Macs to read.

I did other cool stuff, too. For a while, I thought I wanted to learn how to program, but I soon realized that it wasn’t worth the bother with so much good shareware and freeware out there. But somewhere along the line, I got pressed for time just trying to make a living. The time between books got shorter and shorter and I developed new interests such as motorcycling and photography, and when we moved out west, horseback riding and flying. Although I still spent the same amount of time sitting in front of my computer, that was mostly work time. I didn’t get to play around as much as I used to. The “cool factor” of the computer seemed to fade away. It was a tool for getting a job done and that job happened to be to write about using this tool. It didn’t help that I somehow became an “expert” on productivity software like Word and Excel. I’d hopped on the Web publishing wagon early on and had a book about PageMill Web authoring software that did very well. But when Adobe killed PageMill, they also killed my book. So the path back toward a cool aspect of computing was removed and I didn’t have time to cut another one.

Things haven’t changed much. I’m sill busy writing books — I think I did six or seven last year — and still interested in other things — primarily flying. But I’ve managed to crack open a door to start writing about cool things again. An eBook I’ve got lined up should be very interesting. And it has me thinking about other topics, other cool things I can do with my computer.

That’s how I stumbled upon Nicecast. Nicecast, published by a company named Rogue Amoeba, is software that enables you to broadcast from your Macintosh onto the Web and it’s very cool. To be honest, I’d seen Nicecast at MacWorld Expo last January and had thought about it as a way for the local radio station to get started in Web broadcasting. KBSZ-AM is a low budget station that isn’t particularly high tech. They have a wonderful studio with a computerized broadcasting setup, but their knowledge of computing is limited and some of their equipment is very old. In fact, Pete’s wife Jo still uses a Mac IIci (the next model after my old IIcx) to do word processing and other stuff! But Pete does surf the Web via modern PC in search of information to include on-air and to keep abreast of what’s going on in the world. Anyway, I’d seen Nicecast at Macworld and had brought back a brochure for Pete. But it didn’t seem like they’d make the hardware investment to get it all up and running. You’d have to sell a lot of ads at $2 each to get started.

A few weeks ago, I discovered a Web site that has live broadcasts from various air traffic control (ATC) locations throughout the world. It’s called LiveATC.net. You click a link for an airport and a small file is downloaded to your computer. A moment later, iTunes launches (if you’re on a Mac; I don’t know what it does on a Windows machine) and the live ATC feed plays through your speakers. You can listen to ground control at JFK directing 474s around the airport or the tower at Boston clearing AirBuses to land. Live. How cool is that?The Home page at LiveATC.net mentioned that they were looking for feeder sites. All you needed was a computer running Windows or Unix, a scanner, some relatively inexpensive software, and a connection from the scanner to the computer. Although I have a Windows PC, I don’t usually turn it on unless I’m writing about Windows software. But my Mac OS X Macintosh runs Unix “under the hood.” Perhaps I could get it to work on my Mac. Wouldn’t that be a hoot! So I e-mailed the Webmaster and told him about my setup. He responded within an hour with a friendly message that told me it could indeed work. Some more e-mail crossed between us and I had a list of possible hardware and software to get the job done. I put the hardware on my Christmas Wish List and started looking into the software.

That’s when I stumbled onto Nicecast again. And this time, I downloaded it to give it a try. I figured that if I could get it to work with my weird network setup, I could get it to work anywhere. I had to reconfigure it to use a different network port than the default 8000 (which was in use by my Web server software) and then had to reconfigure my Airport wireless station to send requests to the new port to that computer (my production machine). Then I began broadcasting directly from my iTunes playlist. About 15 minutes of setup and it works flawlessly. Not bad for $40 worth of software. I shouldn’t have any trouble at all getting it to work with the scanner.

Then I thought about recording things that I could play on my radio station. I went in search of additional software that would enable me to use my PowerBook’s built-in microphone to record voices and sounds. I wound up with two packages that seem to complement each other nicely: Audio Hijack Pro, which is a $32 product by Rogue Amoeba, and Audacity, which is a freeware product distributed by SourceForge.net. Audio Hijack is cool because it can “hijack” other programs and record their sounds. This makes it possible to record a soundtrack from a game or a video presentation, as well as from the Mac’s built-in sound sources. Although you can apply special effects, you can’t edit the sounds. That’s where Audacity comes in. Although it can’t hijack sounds from other programs, it can record from Mac sound sources and it has editing capabilities. In fact, it reminds me a lot of SoundEdit, the shareware program I used years ago on my first Mac.

I played with all this last night. I recorded my bird, Alex, saying some of his usual things

So that’s where I stand now. I have the tools to record and broadcast. But I don’t have the time to set anything up. (What else is new?) But maybe one of these days, you’ll tune into Flying M Radio and be able to hear these blog pages.

I’m Addicted

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I realize that I’m addicted to flying.

Addiction. It’s a strong word for a nasty condition. Unfortunately, I think it applies to me.

I think I’m addicted to flying. It’s been over a month now since I’ve flown and I’m suffering from withdrawal. I look out into the clear, blue skies so common in this area, see the mountains out in the distance, and imagine flying among them, in their canyons and over their peaks. I imagine discovering new points of interest from 500 feet up. I imagine cruising around Vulture Peak, waving to the hikers I know must be climbing this time of year. I imagine flying low over empty desert roads, using them as guidelines at twice the speed a ground vehicle would drive them. I imagine dropping in to the Wayside Inn, Kofa Cafe, Wild Horse West, or that truckstop out on I-10, just for a $200 hamburger. I imagine sharing the joy of flight with Wickenburg residents and seasonal visitors, many of whom have never been aloft in a helicopter. I imagine smooth flight, graceful turns, on-the-spot landings.

It’s hard not to be able to do all that. But my old helicopter has been gone since November 1 and other than a few minutes of stick time in Jim Wurth’s Hughes 500c, I’ve been grounded, waiting for my new helicopter to be built, tested, and ready for delivery.

I never really thought of this feeling as withdrawal from an addition. That wasn’t until I started surfing the Web. I found an article on VerticalReference.com titled “How to Get Out of Aviation.” And there it was, in big, bold letters, the phrase I’d never considered: “Helicopters are an addiction!” What followed was a tongue-in-cheek 12-step program to quit flying helicopters. Cute. As if I wanted to quit.

Yesterday, I was chatting with Gus, who took over my contract at Wickenburg Airport. I told him about my frustrations in not being able to fly. He used the A word, too. He said he hadn’t flown in 12 years. He’s been offered rides many times, but he always turns them down. He’s worried that he’ll get hooked again. And he says the habit is just too expensive. Can’t argue about that. But there’s a lot of bang for the buck.

My sister smokes and has been smoking for over twenty years. We all want her to quit, but she won’t. She says she likes smoking. Well, I like flying. And at least this addiction isn’t slowly killing me, poisoning my lungs with smoke and tar.

Yesterday, while I was working hard on a revision to my Mac OS X book, I got a phone call from Tristan. Tristan is a buddy of mine based in Santa Clara, CA who owns an R44 Raven helicopter. I leased his helicopter last winter/spring while he was in graduate school and it did great things for my tour business, convincing me to upgrade. Anyway, Tristan starts off the conversation by saying, “I’m at the Robinson factory taking the safety course and there’s a beautiful red Raven II with the N-number 630ML doing hovering autos outside on the ramp.” My helicopter! It’s finished! It’s flying!

It appears that it emerged from the factory on Monday and is going through its FAA airworthiness certification. After that, according to Justin at Hillsboro Aviation, it’ll be partially disassembled and inspected again. Then 5 to 10 hours of test flying will be done. Oddly enough, safety course students sometimes fly helicopters ready for delivery. (If the timing is just right, Tristan might actually fly my helicopter before I do!) Finally, the helicopter will be taken back inside, where it will be detailed and prepared for delivery. I’ll get a phone call and hop on a plane to LAX, where a Robinson test pilot will pick me up — perhaps in my own helicopter! — and take me to the factory to receive my ship.

When will all this happen? Well, there’s a SLIGHT chance that it will happen next week, right before Christmas. What a present THAT will make! But it’s more likely that it’ll have to wait until after the Christmas holiday, when Robinson is closed for the week. That means January 3 or 4. In the meantime, I’m draining all my bank accounts and going back into debt to fund the purchase and pay the first installment on an extremely costly commercial insurance policy.

Until then, I’m looking for a fix. Mike offered to take me flying in his Grumman Tiger, but I’m not very interested. Cruising along at 120 knots 5000 feet above the ground is not very interesting to me. I’d rather fly at 90 knots and 500 feet. Jim said he’s going flying this week and promised to call me. I promised to pay for fuel. And Chris said I can come flying with him in his recently acquired 1946 Piper Cub. He says he seldom flies faster than 60 knots or 400 feet up. Just the kind of flying I like to do. The trick is to be at the airport when Chris gets there. And although Chris doesn’t work all winter long, I do.

Today I’ll go back to my office and continue working on the book that will pay for my addiction. I was recently told by someone in the know that my Mac OS X book is the #2 bestselling Macintosh book. (Number one would be better, but I’d need to hire a hit man to achieve that and all my money is tied up in aviation right now.) I’ll finish Chapter 3 and probably Chapter 4. My editor will be very pleased. But while I’m working, I’ll be listening to my aviation radio, hearing the helicopters from Universal and Silver State fly into Wickenburg for cross-country flights and pattern work.

And I’ll be looking forward to the time when I can get a good fix.

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.