Tag Archives: cherry drying

Cockpit Distractions

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There’s a reason for a “sterile cockpit.”

The other day, I wrote a blog post about the four recent helicopter crashes that occurred during cherry drying operations here in Washington State. My point was to explore the possibility that pilots and operators were not taking this potentially dangerous work seriously. You can read that post here.

In giving this some more thought, I think that post neglected another indicator of not taking this work seriously: the concept of flying in a distraction-free environment — a so-called “sterile cockpit.”

Sterile Cockpit Defined

From Wikipedia:

The Sterile Cockpit Rule is an FAA regulation requiring pilots to refrain from non-essential activities during critical phases of flight, normally below 10,000 feet. The FAA imposed the rule in 1981 after reviewing a series of accidents that were caused by flight crews who were distracted from their flying duties by engaging in non-essential conversations and activities during critical parts of the flight.

Obviously, most — if not all — of a helicopter’s operations are below 10,000 feet. And helicopters performing cherry drying services aren’t subject to the same rules as airliners. So my point isn’t that helicopter operators are required to follow this rule. My point is that this rule exists for a reason.

When I went through the process of getting my Part 135 certificate, the topic of maintaining a sterile cockpit was brought up. My FAA POI was concerned about distractions during critical phases of flight. For my Part 135 operations, which consist primarily of tour and air-taxi services, that meant times when I’m in tower-controlled airspace, when I’m landing, or when I’m taking off. It also meant phases of flight operated at or below 300 feet AGL. The point being that when I’m communicating with a tower or close to the ground, I need to minimize distractions.

Distractions come in many forms. My POI’s main concern for me was chatty passengers. While I can normally perform landings at easy landing zones (LZs) without any problems — even while conducting a conversation with someone — when you add the need to listen to and look for other traffic, communicate with a tower, or deal with unusual conditions such as crosswinds or difficult landing zones, things are tougher.

For example, just the other day a very chatty passenger decided to start a new conversation just as I was on final approach to an off-airport, confined area LZ with a crosswind of 29 mph gusting to 36 mph. (We were about 1/2 mile from the airport, so that reading comes from an AWOS and is accurate.) When I didn’t answer her second question, she got the message and shut up. I have a switch I can flick to turn off cockpit chatter among passengers, but since I don’t usually need to use it, I didn’t flick it for that flight. Although the landing was fine, I’m thinking of a better briefing for passengers in the future.

Maintaining a sterile cockpit means eliminating all non-essential communication. It means reducing or eliminating distractions during critical portions of the flight.

Sterile Cockpits in Agricultural Work

Cherry Drying Near Wires
This is a photo I won’t show my mother. The helicopter’s airframe is probably about 20-25 feet from the wires in this shot by Patrick Schroeder. That’s as close as I’m willing to get.

Agricultural flying such as spraying, frost control, and cherry drying can be pretty intense. All of them require precision flying. Spraying is low level, at a relatively quick speed. Frost control is very low level, pretty slow, and usually done at night. Cherry drying is very low level and very slow, sometimes during or after weather that can obscure cockpit views. Obstructions are usually a concern for all agricultural flying work. These are conditions and flight profiles that could definitely benefit from a sterile cockpit.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that most aircraft set up for spraying — whether they are helicopters or airplanes — are either labeled “Experimental” or have just one seat. These are not aircraft set up for passenger flight.

Imagine this scenario: A helicopter pilot is sent out to do some cherry drying. He’s been hanging around all day with a buddy who might even be another pilot. He invites him to come along. They head out over the orchard and the pilot gets to work. While he’s flying, he and his buddy are talking. Maybe one of them tells a joke and they laugh. Or maybe the buddy is texting with someone they both know and is relaying the conversation to the pilot. Or, worse yet, maybe the companion shows the pilot a photo from last night’s trip to the local sports bar on his smart phone. The pilot is not giving his full attention to the task at hand. He’s being distracted by his companion.

The Orchard Block from Hell
Who plants cherry trees under wires? Too many growers.

This isn’t so far-fetched — especially in a situation where the pilot and passenger aren’t taking the work seriously. Sure, the pilot is just hovering and the pilot has been doing that since he learned to fly. It’s not very difficult for an experienced pilot to do. But add obstructions and wind gusts during slow flight and it isn’t quite as easy. It requires more concentration — less distractions.

A sterile cockpit.

A Coincidence?

There were two people on board when three of the four cherry drying crashes occurred in this area over the past twelve months. I pointed this out in my recent blog post, but didn’t really think about the second person as a cause of distraction.

Could that have been a contributing factor? That the pilot was not focused on the work and allowed himself to get into a dangerous situation? That he didn’t react promptly because of distraction?

It’s certainly something to think about.

The Serious Business of Flying

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When you’re operating in three dimensions, carelessness can be deadly.

There was a helicopter crash on Tuesday afternoon not far from my summer base. It was another cherry drying pilot, flying another helicopter a lot like mine. He had someone on board with him — I don’t know why — and when the helicopter’s main rotor blades hit a power line and the helicopter crashed in the orchard, this companion was killed. The pilot himself had serious injuries and was rushed to the hospital in Seattle for surgery. I don’t know what his status is.

This was the fourth cherry drying accident in this area in less than 12 months. The other three were in July of last year:

  • July 12, 2011, Wenatchee, WA – Hughes 269C with two people on board “experienced a loss of power” and crashed into an orchard. The two occupants suffered minor injuries; the helicopter was substantially damaged.
  • July 25, 2011, Brewster, WA – Sikorsky S-55B with two people on board descended into an orchard when, per the NTSB’s determination of probable cause, the private pilot flying for hire failed to maintain rotor RPM. Neither occupant was injured, but the helicopter was substantially damaged.
  • July 25, 2011, Chelan, WA – Sikorsky S-55B collided with power lines, impacted terrain, and caught fire, killing the pilot, who was the sole occupant on board.

Questions and Disturbing Trends

I can’t make judgements on any of these accidents. In all cases except one, the NTSB has not released a final determination of probable cause. Only limited information is available. But if I could have any questions answered honestly, these are the ones I’d ask:

  • Why were there two people on board for three of these flights? What was the role of the second person? Were the dual controls in? Who was manipulating the controls throughout the flight? Were flight duties shared? (This article, which covers the two July 25, 2011 crashes, sheds some light on the matter.)
  • In the Hughes 269C, what was the gross weight of the aircraft at the time of the accident? What are the operating limitations at the accident weight, temperature, and altitude? What was the exact flight profile in the minutes leading up to the accident? Did the aircraft really suffer a “loss of power” or did the pilot demand more performance than what was available by performing an aggressive maneuver — such as a quick stop with a tailwind — in a heavy aircraft?
  • How many hours of pilot in command time did the pilots have? How much time in that aircraft type? How much of their time in that aircraft type was within the previous 3 months?
  • Were these pilots wearing protective gear? Helmets? Nomex Flight suits? Would wearing such protective gear have minimized injuries or prevented fatalities?

I’ve noticed a disturbing trend among cherry drying operators to employ low-time, limited experience pilots to do this kind of work. These pilots are cheap — they’ll work for next to nothing just to get experience. Indeed, I’ve had more than one pilot offer to fly for me without pay — I can only assume that other operators are getting the same offers.

I’ve heard about several operators conducting training during actual cherry drying flights. The orchard owner or manager will pay to have his cherry orchard dried while a student pilot pays to fly with a flight instructor to get the job done. So not only is some or all of a flight being conducted by a low-time pilot, there’s a possibility that the person actually doing the flying might not be a certificated pilot at all.

I’ve noticed that a remarkable percentage of pilots doing this kind of work don’t wear any protective gear. On the morning of the Wenatchee crash, I met the pilot of the Hughes 269C at the airport. He wasn’t wearing a flight suit — I don’t know if he put one on before flying. The photos in the newspaper for this week’s crash clearly showed the pilot being taken away on a stretcher wearing shorts and a t-shirt. And one of the pilots I worked with last year was wearing shorts and sandals for at least one flight.

What are these people thinking?

It’s Mostly about Time

I debate regularly with my friend Jim about flight time as a measure of experience. While we both agree that not all 500-hour pilots have the same skill level, Jim is usually less convinced than I am that a cherry drying pilot needs to have at least 500-1000 hours of flight time to be safe.

Part of the reason for that is that Jim was a low-time pilot many years ago when he began doing this kind of work. He projects his own experience onto others. He figures that if he could do it safely as a relatively inexperienced pilot, others could too.

I agree — to a certain extent. But what Jim wasn’t considering was the type of experience most low-time helicopter pilots have. Most pilots build their time as flight instructors. That means they’re spending a lot of that “pilot in command” time sitting beside someone else who is manipulating the controls. They’re not actually flying the helicopter.

Jim and I, on the other hand, are helicopter owners who built our time flying — instead of teaching others to fly and keeping them company while they got proficient. We had our hands on the controls for every single hour logged while we owned each of our helicopters. How can someone compare that kind of experience to a flight instructor sitting beside other pilots day after day for hundreds of hours of logged time? Jim shouldn’t assume a 500-hour CFI has the same level of hands-on experience as someone in our shoes. There’s no way he could have that experience.

R22
My first helicopter was an R22. I put over 1,000 hours of time on that ship in about four and a half years.

And then there’s the helicopter type to consider. The helicopter that crashed the other day was a Robinson R44. Few people learn to fly in an R44 because it’s so damn expensive compared to its little brother, the R22. Most people learn in an R22 and step up to an R44. Flight schools don’t offer their instructors much opportunity to fly R44s because there aren’t many people training in them. As a result, most low-time pilots who fly R44s have far fewer hours in an R44 than an R22 — or some other helicopter they learned to fly in.

Sikorsky S-55CHere’s an example of a Sikorsky S-55C. Photo from Wikipedia.

The two Sikorsky crashes are another example. No one learns to fly in a Sikorsky S-55. It’s far too expensive to fly for flight training. How many hours of flight time could a young, low-time pilot possibly have in a ship like this?

You might argue that stick time is stick time. What’s the real difference, for example, between an R22 and an R44?

Well, one difference is the length of the rotor blades. An R22’s blades are 12-1/2 feet long. An R44’s blades are 16-1/2 feet long. That means you can — for example — get about 4 feet closer to power lines in an R22 than in an R44. (Just saying.)

Other differences include hydraulics, smoothness of controls, sensitivity of controls, operational power. Last year, I spent an hour in an R22 that was painfully difficult — at least at first. Even though I have over 1,000 hours in R22s, I certainly would not step into one to dry cherries — not without at least 10 to 20 hours of practice time right before the contract.

In talking to Jim about all this the other day, I tried to express how I feel when I’m flying my helicopter. I get in, buckle up, and fly. The helicopter becomes part of me — I’m in tune with it and know exactly how it will react in most situations. I should, shouldn’t I? After all, I’ve put more than 1,450 hours on it in the past 7-1/2 years.

When I’m drying cherries, I’m “in the zone.” I fly up and down the rows with both hands and feet on the controls, making minute adjustments that raise and lower the helicopter or adjust the yaw, sometimes by inches. I know where the tail rotor is; I know when I have to fly sideways to maintain low-level flight over the treetops as I fly downhill. It doesn’t require much thought — it just happens. My brain instructs my hands and feet without even thinking about what needs to be done to move the way I need to move.

Can a pilot with less than a few hundred hours in a certain type of aircraft be so in tune with it? Can a pilot who splits his limited flight time among different aircraft types ever really know any one of them?

I don’t think so.

Flying is Serious Business

But it all comes down to taking the job seriously. And based on what I’ve seen and heard in the five years I’ve been doing this kind of work, I’m starting to doubt whether the pilots — or the operators, for that matter — are taking the work as seriously as they probably should.

Height-Velocity Diagram for R44 HelicopterCherry drying is very unforgiving work. In most cases, you’re hovering less than 40 feet off the ground over treetops at less than 10 miles per hour. That’s right, smack dab in the deadman’s curve.

If you have an engine problem or you hit an obstruction and lose control, there’s only one place you’re going to go: down into the trees. Helicopter parts (and branches and leaves and cherries) are going to be flying everywhere — maybe even into the cockpit. A helmet could protect your head; a face shield on a helmet could protect your eyes. If the fuel tank ruptures, there could be a fire. A Nomex flight suit can protect your body from burns.

I’ve never seen a utility pilot anywhere doing a flight without a helmet and flight suit. Ditto for EMS and police pilots. And military, of course. Do you think they wear this stuff because they want to look cool? No. They wear it because they want to be safe. They want the protection these garments offer.

Yet why do so many cherry drying pilots continue to work without this gear? And why do the operators that hire them allow them to do so?

And what of the operators? Why are they allowing flights with two people on board? The “spotter” argument doesn’t have any traction with me. The pilot should be his own spotter. Hell, he’s only flying at 5 to 10 miles per hour. It isn’t as if wires and wind machines are going to come up on him suddenly. And wouldn’t you want full visibility in the cockpit? Hard to get that if there’s another guy in the seat next to yours and you have to look around him.

And why are the operators hiring insufficiently experienced pilots? I heard a story the other day about an operator that sent a JetRanger to a contract, then sent a pilot who had never flown a JetRanger along with a non-pilot who knew how to start one. They were supposed to work as a team to get the thing started and fly the contract. Pardon me, but what the fuck? Obviously, this is an extreme example, but it illustrates an important point: that operators are more interested in putting cheap, warm bodies and helicopters on site for contracts than providing experienced pilots who can get the job done efficiently and safely.

They’re not taking it seriously.

And people are getting hurt and killed.

It’s only a matter of time before the FAA takes notice — if they haven’t already. Then the regulation process will begin. Special equipment, special certification. Added expense for everyone involved. Costs will rise enough to push the small players — like me and Jim — out of the market. Prices will rise enough to make growers wonder if the service is really worth the cost. Everything will change.

I just hope I’ve moved on to the next thing before that happens. I like the work, I like my clients, I like the good feeling I get when I literally save their crop. It’s serious business for me and the people who hire me.

And I take it seriously.

Sometimes, I REALLY Love My Job

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I experience a “magic moment” in the course of doing my summer job.

A little backstory…

Cherry drying (or blowing) is one of those things most folks don’t know about. The short version is this: in the two to three weeks before the cherries are ready to harvest, if they get rained on they can split or rot, making them unmarketable. If a grower loses 50% or more of his crop to splits or other water damage, he won’t bother picking at all and the entire crop is lost.

So to protect the crop from this kind of damage, growers hire helicopter pilots with helicopters to stand by during the period before harvest. When it rains, they call us out to hover low over the trees. Our downwash blows the tree branches and shakes the water off the fruit, “drying” it. It’s tedious work that requires a good bit of concentration to deal with wind and obstructions. And it can be dangerous — in fact, there were three crashes in the area last year, one of which took a young guy’s life.

This is my fifth season doing this kind of work.

It was late afternoon on a day with drifting storm clouds. I was on call for cherry drying and had already gone out once, earlier in the day.

When I wasn’t flying or prepping the helicopter, I’d spent a good part of the day watching the weather radar on my iPad. Various colored blobs were drifting across from the west, after a gradual shift from their southwest to northeast direction earlier in the day. Rain varied in intensity from a light drizzle to torrential downpour. Every time a storm hit or missed an area, there would be another one right behind it to possibly do the same. Sometimes the rain was so intense that the storm would drain itself and the colored blob would fade as it tracked across the screen.

I was only on contract with one orchard: a 30-acre block of mostly very mature trees near the Columbia River. The grower was very careful about his orchard and, during the vital period, normally spent all day just about every day among his trees. Sometimes he’d mow the long strips of grass in the aisles between them. Other times he’d tinker with the tractors and other equipment he needed to care for his crop. Still other times, he worked on his shop, patching insulation, repairing a roof, adding a wall. Smart phones and good cell service — not to mention a good pair of eyes — had made it relatively easy for him to track the weather throughout the day. But he occasionally called or texted me at my base seven air miles away, where I had a better look at the sky and a bigger screen to watch the radar blobs.

I saw the storm coming on radar and confirmed it with a look outside. It was across the river to the west, heading right for the orchard. While there was a chance it might rain itself out before it arrived, I suspected it might not. Already still suited up from my flight a few hours before, I headed back to the helicopter to pull off the blade tie downs and prepare to fly.

Low CloudsThe sky was intensely dark out toward the river and the storm was definitely heading in my direction. But what was even scarier was the low hanging cloud near me that seemed to be swirling gently like something from a Weather Channel tornado special. I watched it for a while, wondering whether the storm was really intense enough to get a tornado going. It didn’t seem to be.

My phone rang. It was my client. “Work your magic,” he said.

It took me a second to comprehend his words. “It didn’t even start raining here,” I said.

“It poured like hell on the orchard,” he told me. “It’s stopped now. Come on out and dry.”

I hung up and moved my truck out of the way. By the time I was hurrying back to the helicopter, big raindrops were falling on me. The swirling cloud was gone.

I started up and began the warm up process. It wasn’t until I was pulling on my helmet that I realized I’d forgotten to take my door off. This could be a problem if the sun came out and it warmed up; the helicopter would become like an oven every time I faced the sun. But the sky was dark and that didn’t seem likely. Ah, little did I know…

By the time I lifted off the pad, the rain was dumping on me. The cockpit bubble was wet with a million drops. I pushed the cyclic forward and accelerated into my climb. The drops ran off the sides, clearing the window enough to see. I turned to the west and flew right into a wall of hard rain.

When I flew at the Grand Canyon back in 2004, we had a sort of mantra for dealing with heavy rain: if you can see through it, you can fly through it. This rain was so intense that I could barely see brightness in the sky beyond it. I was flying at about 200 feet off the ground — just high enough to clear the local power lines but probably not high enough to clear the high-tension power lines I knew were up ahead. The air was remarkably calm, so at least I didn’t have to deal with turbulence. I climbed cautiously, heading west, flying at 110 knots, focused on reaching the orchard quickly.

The sky brightened. The rain lessened. Then I was through the storm, on the other side, flying into what looked like a beautiful day.

A really beautiful day.

Ahead of me, the sun was shining brightly, sending patches of light through broken clouds onto the yellow-green hillsides beyond the Columbia River. Some low-level clouds were floating at my altitude over the river and beyond. Wisps of clouds were wrapping themselves around hilltops like winter scarves around thick necks. The sky had a kind of three-dimensionality I rarely get to see.

And over my right shoulder, back in the dark storm I was passing, was a double rainbow.

There are times that I can only classify as magical — times I wish I could bottle up and save, just so I can open them up to re-experience them when I need a little magic in my life. This was one of those times.

I realized, in a flash of clarity, that I really loved doing what I do.

I call myself a writer, but in all honesty, there’s no way I can express, in words, the feeling I get when I experience one of these moments. I can try to describe what I see. I can try to paint a picture for my reader to see something similar in his own mind as he reads my words. But in truth, there’s no way to share this kind of experience after the fact. It’s a moment in time and space — something that becomes part of me. It’s like a happy little secret I’m forced to bear, unable to share it with anyone else.

It’s moments like these that make my life worth living.

I cleared the big wires, reached the edge of the plateau, and lowered the collective almost to the floor to start a steep descent down to the river. The water was smooth, reflecting the clouds in a magnificent sky. Everything below me looked fresh and clean and wet. I descended at 1200 feet per minute over the river, then pulled the cyclic back gently to slow my airspeed and descent rate. Coming in over the orchardI came in over the orchard in a grand, swooping arc, settling in at the southeast corner in a hover over trees nearly as old as I am.

And then I got down to work, hovering back and forth, up and down the rows of trees, performing the tedious task I was paid to do.

From my seat only a few feet above the treetops, I could clearly see the bright red fruit and the droplets of water clinging to them. I could see my downwash shaking the tree branches all around me. Everything was very wet, but with only one pass, most of that water was shaken and blown down to the ground.

Sunset Cherry Dry

Golden Light

I stole glimpses of the river and sky and cliffs. It was early evening on a Washington day when the sun would set well after 8:30 PM. The sun played peek-a-book with thin strips of clouds. The sunlight illuminated the cliff faces in a golden light.

On the ground out on the road in front of the orchard, my client stood outside his truck, snapping photos with his camera. Inside the front passenger seat, I saw his mom. She waved once but, with both hands fully occupied, I couldn’t wave back. Later, the truck was in the orchard, near the shop building. The photos started arriving on my cell phone, which was docked in a cradle within reach, a while later. I wouldn’t be able to see them until much later.

It took over an hour to do the whole orchard. It always does. It’s a tough dry, with trees of varying ages and heights, a gentle slope, a deep gully, and some nasty wires right at rotor height along one side of the orchard. I spend a lot of time flying sideways so I can keep low on a downhill stretch without getting my tail rotor in the trees behind me. But finally I was done. I did what I think of as my “victory lap,” a fast, low-level flight diagonally across the orchard, gaining speed before pulling the cyclic back to start a steep climb up the cliff face.

At the top of the cliff, thin clouds were thickening, forming a fog layer that would soon be too thick to pass through. I squeezed through a gap in the clouds and pointed the helicopter east, toward my home base.

—
Note: Many thanks to Patrick, my client, for providing the in-flight photos that appear in this post and on Facebook.

A Dinner with Friends

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Salmon, local wine, and home-made cherry pie with friends.

If you’ve been following this blog or my Twitter or Facebook accounts, you know that I’m in Washington State on the last of several cherry drying contracts. I’m not the only helicopter pilot doing this work. At the peak of the season, there were probably about 20 of us working in central Washington state for a handful of service providers. My company, Flying M Air, is probably the smallest of those service providers; this year I was able to add a second pilot for about half my season.

My friend, Jim, has been doing this work for about fifteen years. He starts the season in the Mattawa area and ends it in the Chelan area. He usually starts before me and finishes before me.

This year, I met Lisa, who was new to this work. She worked for the same service provider as Jim, starting down in Kennewick, moving up to Brewster for a while, and then ending the season in Malaga.

Unfortunately, I only met Lisa last week, on Thursday. I say “unfortunately,” because we really hit it off. She came up to my RV for dinner that evening and accompanied me to the Beaumont Cellars Dinner on the Crushpad event the following evening. We went wine tasting and had dinner together again on Sunday. By then, I felt as if I’d known her a long time.

The End is Here

On Friday, my contract in Wenatchee Heights was extended two weeks. It made sense; they’d barely started picking the 86 acres I was responsible for. Since this particular client picks by color, it would take at least two weeks to finish picking. Lisa was told she’d be needed until Wednesday. Jim, the last pilot left in Chelan, was waiting to get cut loose any day.

Moonset over Squilchuck

My view at dawn.

Weather moved in Sunday night. Asleep in my RV at the edge of a cliff over looking Squilchuck Valley, I was awakened by the wind at 3:30 AM. I looked out the window and realized I couldn’t see any stars. I fired up the Intellicast app on my iPad and was shocked to see the green blob indicating rain mostly to the south of my position. I dozed fitfully for an hour, expecting to hear rain on my roof at any moment. It may have been drizzling when I finally fell back to sleep.

At 7 AM, I woke to the sound of voices, trucks, and construction noise. The mostly blue sky was full of puffy clouds. Down in the lower part of the orchard, the pickers were already at work. There was no rain in the forecast at all.

Jim called at about 10 AM. I knew instinctively what he would say and beat him to the punchline: “You’re calling to tell me they cut you loose.”

“You’re a mind-reader,” he said. “Today’s my last day.”

We chatted for a while and then I remembered that Lisa had an opportunity to do a trip with a friend and would probably be open to letting Jim take over her contract for the next two days. He was also open to that, so I hung up and called Lisa. I told her what we were thinking.

“That’s great,” she said, “but today’s my last day, too. They’ll be done picking in about an hour.”

It was then that I realized that both of them would be gone by the next day.

Errands, Favors, and a Cherry Pie

The end of a cherry drying contract comes with logistical challenges.

Lisa’s challenge was easy. All she had to do was pack up, move out of her motel room, and drive the company pickup truck back to Spokane. Her employers would be sending some pilots in time-building mode out to Malaga to pick up the helicopter. She needed to send them the GPS coordinates for where the helicopter was parked so they could find it. She was toying with the idea of leaving that afternoon so she could spend some time with her family before her trip.

Jim’s challenge was a bit more…well, challenging. His helicopter was four hours from its 100-hour inspection, which needed to be done by his mechanic in Seattle. Flying to Seattle was usually a challenge in itself — the weather in the Cascade Mountains was typically miserable with low ceilings, making it a difficult, if not dangerous, flight. A weather window was required, but you never knew when that would be. After dropping his helicopter off in Seattle, he’d have to come back to Wenatchee to fetch his truck and drive it home to Coeur d’Alene. Of course, both his helicopter and truck were in Chelan, about 40 miles farther up the Columbia River. He needed to move his truck to Wenatchee to stage it there for his return from Seattle by airline. Then he needed to get back to Chelan so he could fly out with his helicopter the next day. He suggested a farewell dinner that evening and I promised to drive him back to Chelan.

I had a bunch of errands to run in Wenatchee and I got around to starting them that afternoon. While I was out and about, Lisa called. She’d decided not to leave that day; she’d leave first thing in the morning instead. What she really wanted to do was make a cherry pie. We’d already planned to do that before she left, but that was before she was cut loose early. I had an oven in my RV, so it made sense to do it at my place.

We decided to do it that afternoon. And instead of Jim and me going out to dinner in a restaurant, I’d pick up a piece of salmon and salad fixings and make dinner for all three of us. I was finishing up my errands and heading back to my RV when Jim called and I told him our revised plan. He was on board.

Lisa showed up around 5 PM. Since Jim was still a half hour out, we each took a bowl and headed into the orchard. Five minutes later, we had enough cherries for a pie — and then some.

Back in the RV, I gave the cherries my usual three-soaking bath in cold water to clean them thoroughly. Then Lisa went to work with my junky cherry pitter. It didn’t surprise me much when it broke when she was only half finished. She pitted the rest by hand. By the time Jim showed up, her hands were stained with cherry juice, making her look like a mass murderer.

Jim helped me put a filled propane tank back into its cabinet on my RV and hook it up. The strap that holds it in place bent and he was determined to fix it — which he did. If I wanted to be mean, I would have shown him the strap on the other tank which had similarly broken but had not been fixed. But instead, we went inside and kept Lisa company while she worked on the pie.

We also drank wine. Both Lisa and I had bottles that we’d opened recently but had never finished. We polished them off, one after the other over the course of the evening. I even opened another bottle to keep the wine flowing.

The Salmon Recipe

When the pie was safely in the oven, I got to work on dinner. That’s when Jim gave me a recipe that another one of the pilots had shared over the summer. Oddly, I happened to have all the ingredients. I reproduce it here because it was so excellent:

Ingredients:

  • Salmon filet
  • Mayonnaise
  • Onions, sliced thinly
  • Bacon, cut into pieces

Instructions:

  1. Place the salmon on a piece of aluminum foil.
  2. Spread mayonnaise on the fleshy side of the salmon.
  3. Sprinkle the onions and bacon pieces over the mayonnaise.
  4. Fold up the foil to make a packet.
  5. Place the packet on a preheated grill set to medium heat. If possible, cover the grill to keep the heat in.
  6. Cook until the salmon is done.

The Summer’s Best Dinner

I’d bought a beautiful 1-3/4 pound Coho salmon filet. It was too large to fit on my portable grill in one piece, so I cut it into three portions and made three packets. I absolutely lucked out with the timing. The fish was fully cooked, but still moist. The onions and bacon were cooked to perfection.

I served it with a salad of mixed greens, cucumber slices, vine-ripened tomato, bacon bits, goat cheese, and bottled balsamic vinaigrette dressing.

At one point, Jim said it was the best dinner he’d had all summer. I thought about it and had to agree.

It was the conversation that made it perfect. We talked about flying and about the surreal situation of a cherry drying contract. They seemed to think I had the best setup, living in my mobile mansion on a cliffside with a view, with 86 acres of cherries just steps away. I agreed that it would be tough to go home in September.

Jim was happy that his contracts had gone long enough to cover his annual insurance bill and the cost of his upcoming maintenance. He added up the hours he’d flown during the ten or so weeks he’d been in the area. It wasn’t a lot — cherry drying is not a time-building job — but it was more than usual.

Lisa said it was the best summer she’d ever had and that she’d do it again if she could. Her future holds bigger and better things, though: she’s starting officer school with the Coast Guard in January. She was already looking forward to the trip she’d be starting on Wednesday with a friend.

After dinner, Lisa sliced up the pie, which had been cooling on the stovetop. I produced some Haagen Daaz vanilla ice cream from my freezer. The cherries were big and plump and tender — not the mush you usually find in a cherry pie. It was a perfect finish to a great dinner.

The Party’s Over — and So Is the Summer

The party broke up after 10 PM. Lisa left to drive back to her motel for one last night. Jim and I climbed into my truck and started the long drive to Chelan. We talked politics on the way. We don’t agree on all points, but we’re both too stubborn to give in to the other. We’re also too smart — and too close as friends — to let our disagreement hurt our friendship.

I dropped him off at the house he’s renting. In the morning, his boss would pick him up and drive him to the orchard where his helicopter is parked. Then, weather permitting, he’d make the one-hour flight to Seattle. I’d pick him up at Wenatchee Airport at 5:12 PM and bring him back to his truck. The plan set, I started on my way back.

I got back to my RV just after midnight. The moon was up by then, casting a gray-blue light over the valley spread out before my RV. I listened to the crickets and looked out over that valley for a while. I had 12 days left in my contract and there was a slight chance that it would be extended again.

Yet with my friends gone, I felt as if my summer was over, too.

Weather Forecasting: A Bad Joke?

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Each “source” of weather tells a different story.

My work this summer is highly dependent on weather. Simply stated, if the weather is picture perfect and there’s no chance of rain, I pretty much have the day off to do what I like. But if there’s any chance of rain, I need to stick around my base just in case rain starts. And if it’s raining, I go to work.

So, as I mentioned elsewhere on this blog, I’m really in tune with the weather.

Or at least I try to be.

The trouble is, I track the weather using multiple sources on my computer, iPhone, and iPad. And it’s very seldom that they all agree.

Today is a perfect example. Here are screenshots for the various sources, all captured within the save 5-minute period. What interests me is what it says for Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.

National Weather Service

The National Weather Service website is my preferred source of weather data. It’s a no-frills site that doesn’t have very good weather graphics — radar, etc. — but does have well-described weather forecast data.

National Weather Service Forecast

Note that in this forecast, they’re showing a 20% chance of rain on Monday.

The Weather Channel

Everyone loves the Weather Channel website. I don’t. It’s full of ads and info that most people who are serious about weather forecasts has no interest in. But it is a source of weather info and I do occasionally consult it — usually for radar graphics.

The Weather Channel Forecast

Note that this forecast indicates a 20% chance of rain on Sunday and only 10% on Monday.

Intellicast

Intellicast is the pessimist of weather forecasting. I’ve discovered that if any forecast shows a chance of rain, it’ll be Intellicast. I use the Intellicast app on my iPad, but there’s also an ad-heavy website.

Intellicast Forecast

In this case, Intellicast matches the Weather Channel’s forecast regarding rain: 20% Sunday and 10% Monday.

WeatherBug

WeatherBug ForecastI use Weather Bug on my iPad and WeatherBug Elite on my iPhone. They usually have the same forecast.

This screenshot is from the iPad version. It’s showing a 20% chance of rain on Monday, just like the National Weather Service. As you might imagine, the iPhone version shows the same information (although in a different way).

Which One is Right?

In this example, at least there is some agreement between the different programs. The way I read this is that rain is possible sometime on either Sunday or Monday or both. Chances are slim but is possible — at least as of now.

Of course, I’ll watch all of these sources throughout today and tomorrow to see how they change. These forecasts will change. They were, after all, different yesterday.

Will they ever all agree? No. I’ve experienced rain when the forecast for one said no rain and another said there was a 10% chance.

Monday, July 25, was a good example. I went to bed on Sunday after seeing a 10% to 20% chance of isolated thunderstorms for Monday, yet was awakened at 4:30 AM on Monday by a pouring rain that didn’t really let up until 2 PM that afternoon. All the pilots flew all day that day; it was a nightmarish situation where all the orchards got wet and needed service. (I also got calls from orchard owners who weren’t under contract with me, begging me to come. I couldn’t — I service my clients first and it took all day to take care of them. A lot of cherries were lost that day.)

So I’ll be watching the weather closely for the next few days, never wandering far from base.

Who knows? Maybe tomorrow raindrops on my rooftop will put me on active standby before my morning coffee.