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Christmas at Howard Mesa – Part I

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I was dreaming of a white Christmas.

On the Friday before Christmas, Mike and I loaded up the truck with a bunch of things, including some furniture, food, tools, Jack the Dog, and Alex the Bird. At about 9 AM, we headed north, to our property at Howard Mesa.

In Wickenburg, it was raining. It was the first time there had been enough rain there to actually get your skin wet for at least a month. Part of me wanted to stay behind and enjoy the weather. But the other part of me knew that it was likely to clear up in an hour or two and I’d just be disappointed. We don’t get many good rainy days in the desert and Friday was not going to be one of them.

Our path took us up Route 93 to Route 89, through Congress and up Yarnell Hill. We stopped at the Cornerstone Bakery for some fresh baked goods to munch on in the car and enjoy on Saturday morning for breakfast. It was a freezing rain there, but nice and toasty in the bakery, which was filled with the usual collection of locals.

Back on the road, we took 89 through Peeples Valley, turned toward Kirkland at Kirkland Junction, got on Iron Springs Road in Kirkland, and followed that to the first traffic light in Prescott. Then Williamson Valley Road to the Pioneer Parkway to Willow Springs Road to 89A. In Chino Valley, we stopped at Safeway, where Mike filled the truck with diesel and I hurried through the store to get veggies and a few last-minute food items. By this time it was snowing pretty hard, with just enough wind to blow the flakes at about a 30° angle to the ground.

Back in the truck, we followed 89A to Ash Fork, where we got on I-40 eastbound. The snow was sticking up there, coating the road with a thin layer of snowy ice. Trucks and cars were taking it easy, preferring a self-mandated speed limit of 35 or 45 MPH rather than the legal 75 MPH limit. It was slow going, but I’m sure it was better that way. Alongside the road, a light dusting of snow covered fields and trees. It looked more like Christmas than it has in a long while for me.

At the exit for the Grand Canyon (the third exit, the one that’s really for the Grand Canyon), we got off and followed Route 64 northbound. There was a lot of snow on the ground there but very few vehicles. Still, we both felt relieved when we reached the turn for Howard Mesa and began our last five miles of the trip. 20 minutes later, we were pulling through our gate while the snow swirled around us.

The entire drive, including the two short stops, had taken about 4 hours.

Inside our camping shed, the temperature was hovering around 35°F — which was pretty much the same temperature as outside. Mike turned on the gas and I struggled a bit to get the heater turned on. He unloaded the car while I turned on the fridge and started putting things away. Jack the Dog immediately got to work terrorizing whatever small rodents had made homes in the fire pit outside. Alex hung out in the truck where it was warmer. He didn’t come in until the temperature had risen to nearly 50°.

My first main task was to clean up after our unwanted lodgers — the mice. The shed has a mouse problem that we’ve tried everything to solve. The last time we were there, we’d gotten desperate enough to leave poison around. I had to scoop up what remained of it (only one of four pieces) before Jack came in. Then I had to uncover the furniture and get the vacuum going to suck up the mouse droppings that seemed to be just about everywhere. I used a lot of disinfectant cleaner on the floor and countertops. I took my time about it — there really wasn’t any reason to rush; I had all day. I had my iPod sitting in the iHome base, playing Christmas songs. Within two hours, I was pretty much done.

In the meantime, Mike was working in the bathroom on the plumbing. On our last brief visit (by helicopter during snow showers), we had discovered that most of the pipes had frozen and cracked. Mike had brought along pipes and connectors and tools to replace the broken pipes with new ones. The job required that he cut away one wall to access the pipes and do a lot of disconnecting. There was no running water in the shed and wouldn’t be until the pipes were repaired. Even the 5-gallon water cooler jug was mostly frozen; I had to light a candle under its spigot to get the water to flow.

I made us a hot lunch of canned chili with scallions and cheese, then washed up using water I boiled on the stovetop. It reminded me of the old days at Howard Mesa, when we’d camped out in our pop-up camper. That camper was wonderful on warm summer nights, but it lacked basic conveniences, such as a refrigerator or toilet. We’d use the tiny two-burner stove to heat water in the morning for coffee and washing up. During the day, we’d use those solar shower bags to heat water for showering and washing dishes. (They really do work in Arizona; we once had the temperature of the water in one of those bags up to 110°F — too hot to shower in!)

After lunch, I went on mouse cleanup duty on the shed’s little loft, which is where we sleep when we camp there. I discovered a place where they might be getting in; I’ll work on closing it up this weekend. Outside, the snow was still falling lightly. Everything was covered with a dusting of it. Jack the Dog was still hard at work at the fire pit, with the fur on the lower half of his body soaking wet. Oddly enough, it wasn’t windy, even though the weather forecast had called for wind gusts up to 28 MPH. A low cloud hung over the mesa, cutting our view to only a few miles.

Before the end of the day, Mike had finished replacing all the cold water lines. He connected the hose from one of our water tanks to the shed’s water line, turned on the pump, and pressurized the system. That’s when he saw the cracks in the hot water lines. We turned off the pump and disconnected the hose, then let any water in the lines run out.

The sun went down and it got dark. We brought Jack in. I made leftovers from home for dinner. The heater, which had been set to 85°F, had gotten the temperature in the shed up to a high of 64°. It didn’t seem that cold. We settled down on the sofa with my 15″ MacBook Pro on a folding table in front of us. I popped in a DVD from the first season of 24. We watched two episodes. We’d heard a lot about the show but had never actually seen it. So I’d added it to my Netflix queue (along with the second season of Boston Legal) and we were checking it out for the first time. Not bad. I can’t imagine watching it with commercials, though.

I slept badly. It’s the stupid hot/cold/hot/cold middle-aged woman thing, combined with the sounds of sleeping someplace different. It was pretty quiet when we first got to sleep, but at about 3 AM, the wind finally kicked up, blowing from the west right at the loft’s only window. I’d left the window open a crack — I’m always worried about asphyxiation in a closed space with a gas appliance running — and Mike had to close it. Sometime during the early morning hours, the wind shifted around to the northeast, which is the back side of the shed. It wasn’t blowing hard enough to shake the building, as it sometimes does. Just loud enough to hear it rushing past in the piñon and juniper pines scattered over our 40 acres. The sky had cleared and there were billions of stars out.

In the morning, the temperature in the shed was 43&degF with the outside temperature 28&deg. This was a problem. The heater was turned up, still set on 85°. As we moved around, making coffee and tea, washing up with water heated on the stove, we started finding drafty places. Around each window. Where the water heater sits against the outside wall. Around the edges of the door. I got my assignment for the day: caulk.

Mike decided he needed something from the hardware store to keep working, so we made a trip down to Williams, AZ. The town was remarkably busy for the time of year. I think it’s because the Grand Canyon Rail Road is doing a special “Polar Express” to the Grand Canyon each day and that’s attracting a lot of families. The town also sets up a real Christmas tree on side street off Route 66 and blocks off the street so visitors can walk around it. Nice.

We took care of business in the True Value hardware store, buying about $90 worth of stuff that included a new front door mat and weather stripping. Then we hit Safeway for a few things, stopping at the Starbucks counter on the way out for mocha lattes.

By the time we got back to the mesa, before lunchtime, a lot of the snow had melted. Mike got back to work and Jack continued his vigil at the fire pit. Sometime during the day, he started barking at something — we looked out the window in time to see an antelope hopping away across the road. One of the open range cows also came by, but since we’d kept the gate closed, she didn’t get into our property. (Cows have done a lot of damage at our friends’ place on the other side of the mesa, making us very glad we fenced in our entire lot years ago.)

Soup and sandwiches for lunch. The shed temperature was in the low 60s while it remained in the 30s outside.

I went through a whole tube of caulk on the windows. The shed was built with window frames that they’d stuck standard sized windows into. Unfortunately, the frames were about 1/2 inch too wide and tall for the windows, leaving a gap on at least two sides. They’d finished the outside of the windows with trim, closing up the gaps a bit, but they were still drafty. And one window leaked. I’d fixed the leaky window during the summer but had never thought that the gaps might cause drafts in the window. So I went to work with the caulk gun, which I’m actually pretty good at using. I ran out of caulk before I’d finished all of the windows, but I’d closed up the worst of the gaps.

Mike, as part of his pipe insulation procedure, had sealed up around the water heater with Fiberglas and foam insulation. I used garage door weather striping around the front door. The door was made to fit the shed and it doesn’t fit quite right. You can see light through the cracks around the door. Even with the thick rubbery weather striping, you can still see light in a few places. But it’s a lot better than it was.

Mike finished up all the piping by sunset. Hooked up the water again, ran the pump, and pressurized the system. No leaks. He turned on the water heater. I washed dishes from lunch. He cleaned up. Then he was ready for a shower.

Unfortunately, he’d waited too long. The outside temperature had dropped and the hose, which had never fully defrosted from the night before, had thickened up with ice. The pump was unable to bring in enough water. His shower was very short-lived. He stepped out, cranky and miserable. I was just glad I’d let him go first.

Getting water from the tanks to our camping equipment had always been a problem in cold weather. In the spring of 2004, I’d moved up to Howard Mesa in our horse trailer with living quarters, which also had a pump to get water from the tanks to the inside plumbing. Unfortunately, during the night the hose would freeze and the pump would try in vain to get the water out. That would run down the trailer’s battery and burn up the pump. So I had to turn off the pump each night and use the trailer’s internal water storage system for water. Not a big deal. Once every few days, I’d fill the internal tank so there was always water there when I needed it.

But here at the shed, we don’t have internal water storage. All the water has to come from one of the big tanks. The closest one is about 40 feet away. Because this is not a permanent setup, we didn’t dig a trench and put in a pipe. We use a hose. And the hose freezes every night, even though we do our best to drain the water out of it.

At least it hasn’t cracked yet.

Anyway, we spent Saturday night much the same way as Friday night. A nice hot dinner and two episodes of 24 on my MacBook Pro’s wide screen. The shed was much warmer — it had gotten up to 71°F by late afternoon. I slept well, waking about an hour before dawn. Outside, the moonless sky was bright with stars.

This morning, the inside temperature was 57°; outside it was 31°. I like to think it was my excellent caulking and weather striping that kept the shed reasonably warm overnight.

Today, Christmas Eve, I’ll finish cleaning up the shed — didn’t get much done in the bathroom with Mike making such a mess in there. Then we’ll put up the Christmas lights. Later, when it gets warmer, we’ll go for a walk around our fence line, making repairs and looking for castoff elk antlers as we go. It’s beautifully clear outside — I can see for at least 50 miles in every direction — and, as I write this at 10 AM, its already nearly 40°. It’ll be nice to get out. And I’m sure Jack the Dog is looking forward to a good run. He’s been going nuts every time the coyotes start howling nearby.

This afternoon, after a nice hot shower (got my fingers crossed), we’re going up to the Grand Canyon to meet some friends for dinner at El Tovar. Then dessert at our friends’ house on the other side of the mesa.

I’m looking forward to driving back to our place tonight, to seeing those red Christmas lights all alone in the middle of nowhere.

[composed on top of a mesa in the middle of nowhere with ecto]

The Toyota Comes Home

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We revive my comatose Toyota and bring it home from Prescott.

In October, 1986, twenty years ago last month, I bought my second ever brand new car: a 1987 Toyota MR-2. It cost a whopping $15K, which in those days was above average for a new car, but not really considered “expensive.”

And what did I get for my money? A really fun, 2-seater sports car. Red, of course — it was my first red vehicle. It was also my first five-speed, and since I didn’t know how to drive a manual transmission in those days, I couldn’t even drive it home from the dealer.

Less than a week later, I was driving it to work in downtown Manhattan. One of the perks of my job with the City of New York, Office of the Comptroller, Bureau of Financial Audit was a free parking space near the Municipal Building, where I worked. I worked an 8 to 4 shift in an attempt to avoid rush-hour traffic. (New York’s rush hour is later in the day than Phoenix’s and doesn’t seem to last as long. I think good mass transit has something to do with that.) My big challenge in those early days of driving with a clutch and gearshift was the ramp from the Harlem River Drive up to the Cross Bronx Expressway and George Washington Bridge on my way home. The ramp was a steep climb and it was always backed up in the afternoon. If there’s one thing that’ll teach you how to drive a stick shift, it’s being forced to drive uphill in traffic.

Six months later, I was working in Redbank, NJ, for another company. The 60-mile (each way!) commute was only one of the reasons I hated that job. I found another one after just four months — I started looking after only two — and settled down to the last “9 to 5” job I’d ever have, at ADP’s corporate headquarters in Roseland, NJ. That was a 30-mile commute. Just right for the MR-2.

Years passed. I left that job and went freelance. I had a few questionable years. Then things started looking up. I had money and flexible time. But I kept the Toyota. Why not? It was a fun car to drive.

In 1995 (I think) I drove it across the country to Yarnell, AZ, which isn’t far from my current home in Wickenburg. It was loaded down with all the things I’d need for a winter as a snowbird — possibly the youngest snowbird in Arizona. I spent three months living and writing in Yarnell. I got to know Prescott and Wickenburg. And that winter, my Toyota had its first accident.

It happened right downtown in Wickenburg, right in front of St. Anthony’s Church on North Tegner. I was driving through town with Mike, who had come to visit for a week. We were on our way to Tucson to meet with his cousin Ricky. The person in front of me was making a left turn into Yavapai street. I was going straight. Unfortunately, a senior idiot from Pennsylvania, driving in the opposite direction, decided to make a left turn right in front of me. The road was covered with a thin layer of sand and when I hit the brakes, the car slid right into the corner of the guy’s bumper. The impact wasn’t hard — neither of us were going very fast — but it was enough to put a dent in the middle of the Toyota’s front bumper that made it look as if I’d hit a pole.

To say I was angry is an understatement.

Although the car was already almost 10 years old, the insurance company sprung for the repairs. Three weeks later, it was good as new. Actually, a little better. The air conditioning had started working again.

Before I went back to New Jersey at the end of that winter, I drove the Toyota out to California for a weekend. I took a picture of it at the beach on the Pacific ocean. From sea to shining sea. I’ve since lost that photo. After all, it was taken in the days before digital photography.

In those days, we called the Toyota “the mule” because I’d found a roof rack for it and, when it was installed, we could pack all kinds of stuff on it. I drove back to New Jersey by way of Florida — I was a speaker at a writer’s conference there. Mike came with me. Along the way, we camped out at Big Bend National Park and were nearly washed off the road by flooding in New Orleans.

Two years later, the Toyota and I made the drive again. This time, we were moving to Arizona, to an apartment I’d found in Wickenburg. I’d had enough of New Jersey’s cold, snowy winters. I wanted a new life in a warm place. Mike would leave his job (kind of; long story) and follow me five months later, in May, when our house was sold.

In 1999, I bought the red Jeep Wrangler I still drive around quite a bit these days. The Toyota began a life of leisure in the garage, pulled out for trips to Prescott or Phoenix. It was starting to look its age, but the paint was still bright and it still ran like a charm.

In 2000, I bought a helicopter. It was a two-seater. About a year later, when I started getting helicopter maintenance done in Prescott, I decided that it might be nice for the Toyota to live up there. Then, when I flew up, I’d have something to drive when I got there. Since I flew up at least once a month or so — not just for helicopter maintenance; we prefer shopping in Prescott to shopping in the Phoenix area — the car was driven quite regularly.

Meanwhile, at home, I missed the Toyota. The Jeep might be fun on dirt roads, but it’s miserable on highways. The Toyota is fun on all kinds of paved roads.

In June 2003, I bought a Honda S2000. So now I had a Jeep for dirt roads and around town driving and a sports car for paved roads and road trips. I vowed to never let the Toyota know I’d bought the Honda. I didn’t want it to get jealous.

One time, we got to Prescott to do a little shopping and found the Toyota’s battery just about dead. Mike gave it a push down a hill while I rode inside, gathering speed. I dropped the clutch and the car came to life. We drove it to Sears and bought it a new battery — its third in about 15 years.

In 2004, I got a summer job with Papillon at the Grand Canyon. I lived in a trailer on our property at Howard Mesa. The Toyota became my spare car up there, spending time either at Grand Canyon Airport or Howard Mesa or taking me from one point to the other. It shared this duty with my Jeep. So yes, I had two cars and a helicopter with me that summer. What good is an asset if you don’t use it?

At the end of that season, the Toyota went back to Prescott, where it stayed until it needed an oil pan replacement, which I wrote about in another blog entry. I was flying up there less and less. I’d sold my little helicopter and bought a bigger one. It was brand new and didn’t need much maintenance, especially since Ed Taylor, Wickenburg’s excellent aircraft mechanic, had gone to the Robinson Factory Maintenance Course and was authorized to do maintenance and repairs. He did all my engine-related work — oil changes, fuel reorientation SB, etc. — while the Prescott folks handled the helicopter-specific stuff (rotor blades, gear box, etc) and 100-hour and annual inspections.

Earlier this year, I switched helicopter mechanics. I now take my helicopter down to Williams Gateway airport in Mesa for work. I flew into Prescott less and less. I realized that it was kind of silly to keep a car there.

A few weeks ago, on our return trip from a weekend in Sedona, we decided to stop by the airport and pick up the car. We found it looking sad and feeling comatose. Even a push start wouldn’t get it running. We towed it back to a parking space and went home.

Yesterday, we drove up to retrieve it, bringing along jumper cables and tools. It started right up with a jump from Mike’s Honda, but there wasn’t enough juice in the battery to keep the engine running when it was at idle or when switching gears at low speed. (It still has its original clutch, which is really starting to show its age, so it’s a bit tricky to drive.) After two attempts to get it out of the parking lot, we decided to park it, remove the battery, buy a new battery at Sears, and put it in ourselves. (We do have AAA, but we needed the car towed to Sears sometime within our lifetimes and AAA seems to have a problem with fast service when it comes to towing.)

At Sears, the guy who tested the battery said it was the second deadest he’d ever tested. (How he made that conclusion is beyond me, since his meter didn’t read a thing when connected to the terminals.) We discovered that the old battery was only 3 years old, so I got a new one at a discount. We bought some other stuff at Sears, had sashimi for lunch in a nearby Japanese restaurant, hit Office Max for a computer cable and Petco for dog vitamins, visited Old Navy for some winter shirts, and then spent an hour (and almost $300!) at Costco. At 4 PM, we returned to the Toyota, which was waiting patiently, looking more faded and forlorn than ever. Mike installed the battery and I hopped in behind the wheel. I stepped on the clutch pedal, turned the key, and the car roared to life. “Let’s go!” it was saying.

Sounded good to me. After manually cleaning the dusty windshield — the wipers have dry rot and need replacement — we headed home. You know, I had that little sucker up to 80 mph? Wasn’t meaning to, of course, and was pretty surprised to see that speedometer needle in the straight-up position.

Mike followed me, just in case the car decided to lose a wheel or collapse on the way home. No problems, though.

I stopped at Safeway to pick up some groceries on my way home. When I pulled into the parking lot, people looked at me as if I were driving some kind of junker. Little did they know.

The Toyota is home now, in one of Mike’s parking spaces on the driveway apron. For the first time in a long time, all six of our vehicles (including his 1986 Mustang Convertible, which, in my opinion, looks worse than the Toyota) are in the same place at the same time. My Honda is in the garage, of course. We toyed with the idea of bringing the Toyota to live in my hangar at the airport, but I think I’d rather keep it home, at least for a while. I’m going to drive it today. I’ll get it an oil change and a little check up at Dan’s place. (The Toyota loves Dan.) I’ll bring it by the airport to wash it. I’ll pull out the Zymol and see if it can make what’s left of the paint shine again.

And then, when I’m finished playing with it and convincing it that I still love it, I’ll take it down to the Phoenix area and probably park it at Deer Valley airport, or perhaps Scottsdale, if I can find free long-term parking. These days, I seem to fly more in the Phoenix area than around Wickenburg anyway. It would be nice to take care of some errands while I was down there.

Oh, and for the record, the Toyota has a book value of about $250 these days. It costs about $400/year to insure. (No, I don’t have collision coverage on it.) It’s hard to sell a nearly worthless asset when it’s so cheap to keep.

Corral Gate, Northern Arizona

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An idyllic scene in high desert range land.

Mike and I own 40 acres of “ranch” land about 30 miles south of the Grand Canyon at Howard Mesa. For the past three years in a row, I’ve spent a good portion of my summer camping out there with my dog, bird, and horses.

I’m an explorer. I like to look at a map, find a potential destination, then hop in my Jeep (or helicopter) and see what it looks like. On a summer day in 2006, Jack the Dog and I took the Jeep to follow some of the dirt roads that run through National Forest land just south of the Grand Canyon’s South Rim. My objective was to take a photo of the Grand Canyon Railroad’s steam engine as it made its way to the depot in Grand Canyon Village.

I wrote about that day in my blog, so I won’t spend a lot of time repeating myself here. I’ll cut to the chase.

Corral GateThis gate and corral was on one of the roads I followed near the railroad tracks before I got into the National Forest. Nearby were the remains of a few buildings. It had once been part of a train station where cattle had been loaded onto cattle cars and shipped south for sale and slaughter. Now it’s just a picturesque spot on a remote dirt road, captured with my camera during a Jeep outing with my dog.

How Much, How long?

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The financial dynamics of selling helicopter rides.

I went down to Goodyear, AZ yesterday to offer helicopter rides at the Goodyear Balloon & Air Spectacular. This was my second year doing rides at the event; last year I did them at Glendale as a subcontractor for another helicopter operator. This year, when the event was moved to Goodyear (a Phoenix-managed airport), the paperwork requirements were more stringent. The other company couldn’t get their paperwork together on time. They dropped out. I had all my paperwork in order. I did the show without them.

First I need to say something about the show. Formerly known as the Thunderbird Balloon & Air Classic (and still run by a company of the same name), the event is a combination balloon gathering and air show. The balloons, which can only fly early in the morning or in the evening, do their thing in their time slot. I wrote last year about walking among the balloons during the nighttime glow and about arriving at the airport as the balloons were departing at dawn. It was an incredible experience. Oddly enough, most people don’t go to the show for the balloons. They go for the air show which goes on during the day. There are aerobatic displays, war birds, F-16s, and this year, the Blue Angels. On the ground, there are food vendors, car and motorcycle dealers, navy recruiters, carnival rides, and souvenir sellers. There is literally something for the whole family. And although it ain’t cheap to attend — $15/adult, less for children and seniors — it’s a great event for a family to attend together: outdoors, surrounded by history, technology, and carnival food.

This is an extremely professionally run event, with excellent management and crowd control. The entertainment is top notch and the announcer is incredible. There’s no shortage of staff members to help with a problem. And the Air Boss, who works behind the scenes with the pilots and airspace, is safety-conscious, reasonable, helpful, and well…professional. I cannot stress what a pleasure it is to work at an event that’s so well run.

Unfortunately, the new venue at Goodyear had a bit of a dust problem. Instead of being on pavement like the vendors were at Glendale last year, they were on dirt. Which turned to dust. Even the water truck couldn’t keep up with it. Thank heaven it wasn’t windy like it always is in Kingman for the Mohave County Fair.

And unfortunately for us, my landing zone was about a mile away, near the main terminal building. (On concrete, thank heaven.) So we had to provide transportation from the ticket sales area to the LZ and back. The folks I was supposed to fly for were going to provide transportation via golf cart. We didn’t have a suitable golf cart, so we used Mike’s truck.

I say “we” because when I realized I’d be doing the event without the other helicopter company, I had to get together a full ground crew. For me, a full ground crew consists of three people: a money person to sell tickets, answer questions, and hold the money and two loaders who do safety briefings and escort passengers to and from the helicopter. (We do hot loading, like most helicopter operators do, and I don’t want anyone walking unescorted or unsupervised near the helicopter while the blades are turning.) In a pinch, with a secure LZ, I can do with one experienced loader (my husband, Mike), but I really like two. It speeds up the loading/unloading process by having one crew member on each side of the helicopter.

DarleneDave
Our great ground crew: Darlene and Dave (photos by Dave and Darlene).

I should point out one thing here about the R44 helicopter. The main rotor blades are 10 to 12 feet off the ground (depending on RPM and rotor droop) so the possibility of someone getting hit on the head by the blades is remote, especially at 68% RPM, which I maintain during loading/unloading. That’s one less thing to worry about when hot loading.

Me in the Pilot SeatBecause the LZ was so far from the rest of the venue and there were aerobatic displays going on while I was giving rides, I couldn’t fly past or around the venue to attract future passengers. That turned out to not be a problem. We had a steady stream of riders for our 8-10 minute rides. And, when the Blue Angels were done flying at about 4:15 PM, I started up and flew just about nonstop until 7:15 PM.

Here’s where the finances come into the picture. Last year, the other helicopter operator charged $45/person for 10-minute rides. Of that, I got $35, which I thought was a fair price for the ride. They did the money stuff and provided transportation to/from the LZ, which was about 1/4 mile from the ticket booth that year. (Easy walking distance, but who likes to walk?) They also provided one ground crew member, but since they were flying a helicopter, too, he mostly dealt with loading/unloading that helicopter. So Mike came along and took care of my passengers.

At $45/person, I flew 131 people last year over a 3-day period. To date, that’s my second-best gig, surpassed only by 2005 at the Mohave County Fair (150). I personally could not believe that so many people were willing to lay out $45/person for a ride. To put it in perspective, for about $120 a person can get a 25-minute helicopter flight over the Grand Canyon with Papillon. That’s a more memorable flight than 8-10 minutes over Sun City.

Yet this year, when I went to the Mohave County Fair and tried to sell 8-10 minute flights for $35/person, I had very few takers. I had to resort to Plan B, which offered 3-4 minute rides around the fair for $15. That kept me busy. In Congress, I did 5-minute rides for $20 around Congress. I had a line for 3 hours straight and probably could have sold the same rides for $25 without losing a single passenger.

So what I learned during the year (or thought I learned) was that I could keep flying if I priced the rides at a price most people would consider cheap. I want to keep flying. Sitting on the ground, spinning my blades while I wait for a passenger burns fuel without earning revenue or paying my ground crew. The problem is, if I make the rides too cheap, I don’t make any money. Duh.

At yesterday’s event, I offered the rides at $35/person, which was what I would have gotten if I’d flown with the other company anyway. I’m not greedy, but I do have loan payments to make. The result was a steady stream of passengers who couldn’t believe how cheap the rides were.

So what’s expensive in Kingman, AZ is cheap in Goodyear, AZ.

Our flight path, in case you’re interested, left Goodyear airport heading southeast. I flew straight down to the Phoenix International Raceway (PIR), where they have NASCAR events, and came back to the airport. There were cars on the track (not NASCAR) for much of the day, and people riding quads and fishing along the Gila River, which we crossed in two places. At night — because I flew for over an hour after sunset — I flew more to the east, trying to stay in a well-lighted area and give my passengers something to see. At night, the city is a blanket of lights in every color and it really doesn’t matter what you’re looking at. It’s just so darn pretty from the air.

Maria and MikeAlthough it was a 3-day event, I missed the first day due to a miscommunication. (Long story and please don’t ask me to tell it because I’m still pretty pissed off about it.) Yesterday was the second day and we did pretty well. Unfortunately, there are limitations on when I can fly. Those limitations are imposed by the Air Boss, who is basically an air traffic controller during the event. Keep in mind that the air show part of the event runs all day long and has many performers. Some of them simply don’t like operating while a helicopter is making flights in and out of the airspace. And in other instances, the Air Boss himself might consider my operations a hazard while other performers are on. So throughout the day, I’d be asked by the Air Boss to stay on the ground. These stoppages could be as short as 5 minutes or as long as 90 minutes. They broke up the flying day, limiting the number of people I could fly.

This happened last year, too, but there weren’t as many of these breaks so they didn’t affect me as much. This year, they really put a damper on things. People who showed up at the booth at 1:30 PM, ready to fly, were told they had to wait until 4 PM. Not everyone wanted to wait. And I certainly didn’t want to sit in the dusty booth waiting for the green light. But when 4:15 rolled along, I started flying again — for 3 hours straight.

Unfortunately, we had to skip today at the show. That’s not so bad. Mike is fighting a cold and he needs the rest. And I’m still exhausted from flying so long after nightfall — it takes more concentration, at least for me, and it really wipes me out.

Now if you’re doing all the math and coming up with some really big numbers for our ride revenue, remember a few things. It takes (and costs) more than just fuel to operate a helicopter. My insurance alone costs $60/hour (based on my current 200-hours per year flight level). And then there’s the reserve for the overhaul my helicopter will need at 2,200 hours — that currently costs $185,000, which is about $85/hour. There’s regular maintenance (at $50 to $75/hour), fuel (at about $4/gallon), oil (at about $5/quart), and hangar rent (at several hundred dollars a month). There’s additional costs to comply with service bulletins (SBs) and airworthiness directives (ADs). There’s advertising with signs, banners, brochures, and business cards. There’s business licenses and drug testing program fees and credit card acceptance fees. And there’s state and local sales tax, which must be paid out of every qualifying revenue hour — including rides. (Although we charged $35/person, $2.68 of that goes to Maricopa County and the City of Goodyear with its total 8.3% sales tax rate.) On an event like this, there’s also the cost of the ground crew, which must be transported, housed (in some instances), fed, and paid. There’s also the cost of operating the helicopter to get from its home base to the event location — cost that has no revenue associated with it. And let’s not even talk about the cost of equipment such as shade structures, tables, and chairs for a booth; a camper that can sleep up to 8 for overnight events; and a truck to haul all of this stuff around on the ground.

As you can see, the math isn’t as simple as saying 60 rides x $35 per ride – fuel costs = big profit. That’s the formula some passengers try to use. I only wish it were that simple.

What did I learn about this past weekend’s event? Confirm and reconfirm all the information I get. Stay involved in the setup process from the beginning. Don’t miss any meetings. Have a ground crew ready and waiting if needed.

And if they want to pay $45 per person for a ride, let ’em.

Many thanks to Darlene and Dave, Ground Crew Extraordinaire, for taking photos at the show and sharing them with me so I could put them here.

Helicopter Rides at Old Congress Days

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A great event for all.

It was a good day for all involved. Nice weather, calm winds, and a great little small-town event out in the desert.

Old Congress Days was sponsored by the Congress Senior Citizen’s Association. It was a revival of the old Old Congress Days event they used to have in Congress, AZ, annually. If you’re not familiar with Congress, it’s a small, unincorporated town on route 89 about 15 miles north of Wickenburg. If you drive from Wickenburg to Prescott, you’ll go right through it just before climbing the Weaver Mountains.

Congress was a mining community and the old Congress Mine is still being worked a little. But that’s not the big business in town. There are a few shops, including a restaurant, a market, and a dollar store, and a brand new gas station is coming soon. The Trading Post is a fixture on Route 89 and a number of other businesses have sprung up on both sides of the road just south of there. There’s also a great K-8 school (which invited me to do a helicopter demonstration a few years ago) and a relatively new post office. Homes range from single- and double-wide manufactured homes on lots up to 10 acres to stick-built homes in a brand new subdivision.

When I heard about the Congress Days event, I called one of the organizers, Jane Summers, and asked if I could participate by offering helicopter rides. She remembered me doing rides at Yarnell Days (another 9 miles up the road) a year and a half ago. We discussed arrangements and the local volunteer fire department very kindly allowed me to use their truly wonderful helipad. The helipad is used to airlift local emergencies down to Phoenix; no helicopter is based there, but one can get there within 25 minutes when needed. I had to be prepared to land elsewhere if the medevac helicopter was inbound. No problem. I’d already landed on the opposite side of the tracks a few times for visits to the Trading Post and was prepared to land in the lot behind the dollar store if I had to give them more space.

We arrived at about 9:30 AM on the day of the event. Across the street was the swap meet that was part of the event. I shut down and Mike and I took out the few supplies we’d brought along: a folding table, tickets, Helicopter Rides banners, a flag with a collapsable pole (we’d had two but the other pole broke at the Mohave County Fail last month). We put up the banners and set up the table, then went for a walk to check out the swap meet and watch the parade.

We ran into our friend Jeannie along the parade route and watched the parade with her niece and her niece’s 9 month old son. The boy looked cute in his cowboy hat. The parade had a few classic cars and lots of miniature animals: horses, burros, and mules. I don’t think think I’ve ever seen so many minis in one place. They were mostly pulling carts. The people in the carts looked very large, even though they really weren’t.

When the fire trucks came, marking the end of the parade, we walked back with them to the landing zone. Our ground crew, Darlene and Dave, arrived and introduced themselves. Darlene had answered an ad I put on wickenburg-az.com for ground crew. She and her husband turned out to be among the best helpers we’ve ever had. Darlene is a great salesperson and Dave understood the importance of safety and did a great job helping Mike load.

Flying M Air at Old Congress DaysLet me take a moment to describe this landing zone, since it’s the best one I ever had for an event. First of all, it’s a helipad. That means it’s laid out and designed specifically for helicopter traffic. It’s 60 x 60 feet and concrete. It’s surrounded by gravel, so there’s no dust. That’s surrounded by a 3-foot high chain link fence that has only two gates — both on the same side. The fence made crowd control very easy — no one gets through the fence unescorted. Beyond that is a parking lot that was blocked off, the firehouse (a one-story metal building with a wind sock on top), and a lot soon to be occupied by a longtime Wickenburg business that is moving from Wickenburg to Congress. Behind the helipad are some palo verde and mesquite trees — perhaps 10 feet tall and beyond them is the railroad tracks for the Santa Fe railroad. No wires near enough to matter. My approach was over some empty land east of the railroad tracks, then over the tracks and onto the pad. My departure was over the tracks and up some more empty land, then over the tracks again to start the tour. On the one time a train was moving through, I made a slow approach and landed behind the last car after it had passed. Everything — including its location — was perfect for the event.

The loading started almost immediately. We’d decided to go with $20 rides around Congress. We figured that the low price would make it affordable to everyone. Congress is not a big place so the ride took 5 to 7 minutes. And from 10:40 AM to 1:10 PM, I flew nonstop, with two or three passengers on each flight. Darlene sold the tickets (and took photos) and the people lined up along the outside of the fence. (It reminded me of my Papillon days, when the passengers for my next flight were often right on the other side of the fence when I landed, waiting to be loaded.) Every time I landed, the line seemed as long — if not longer — than it had when I took off. Mike kept telling me to make the rides shorter and I tried, but I wanted everyone to get the same experience. No one complained about the wait, which got up to 30 minutes at one point. Everyone was happy and friendly and genuinely excited to have a chance to fly over town. And I guess the price was right for them.

As for me, well, I love giving rides at events like these. It lets me introduce people to helicopter flight — after all, this was a first helicopter flight for more than half the people. I gave the kids helicopter toys with the Flying M Air logo on it. I even gave out a few to dad, since the toys are almost as popular with them as they are with the kids.

When the crowd thinned out, I gave Darlene and Dave the “deluxe” ride and Darlene took some more photos. A few more passengers waited while we were gone. I took them up while Mike paid Darlene and Dave for their time and they went on their way. We did a few more rides, then packed up and headed home. We landed at Wickenburg at 2:00 PM.

It was a great day for me and for Flying M Air. We figure we flew about 55 people that day. Many thanks to Jean and Virgil for making the day possible. I look forward to coming back next year!