Tag Archives: Grand Canyon

Another Birthday Comes and Goes

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How I spent my birthday this year.

Nothing terribly exciting to report.

I started the day at the airport, where I gave a helicopter ride to one of the SEAT pilots. The morning (at 7AM) was cool and the air was smooth. Door off, of course. I was low on fuel so we kept it short — only about 20 minutes. I flew him around Vulture Peak and town, then flew over Jim’s house. When we landed at the pumps, both needles were below E.

I took on 20 gallons and Mike and I flew up route 93, just south of the Burro Creek Bridge. Jim and Ray had been exploring up there and they’d found an old sheep ranch tucked away in a canyon, deserted. Jim described where it was and what it looked like to me, but did not give me GPS coordinates. (Jim is GPS challenged.) His descriptions of possible landing zones were completely useless. Trouble is, we found two places that could have been the place he described. And neither one had acceptable LZs nearby. I almost landed on top of a hill at one of them, but I didn’t like the look of the big rocks that would be beneath and around my skids. At the other one, I nearly landed in a corral, but with a lot of fuel and Mike on board and heat on its way, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to clear the fence to take off. And we weren’t sure if either place was the right one. Next time, I’ll let Jim fly and show me the place.

Our plans foiled, we decided to go to Skull Valley for breakfast. There’s a little cafe there that we’ve never tried. Jerry Kristoferson owns some land with a dirt strip nearby. It looked like the best place to land. A man and his son came out to make sure everything was alright. I guess they didn’t expect a helicopter to land on a dirt strip. It took us a while to figure out how to get to the cafe from the strip and we were a bit dismayed when we had to get through a locked gate. But we managed. Breakfast was good; we had chicken fried steak and eggs. The gravy was really stick-to-your-ribs. I didn’t need to eat for the rest of the day.

It was windy by the time we flew back to Wickenburg. I topped off the tanks, then wheeled the helicopter in to Ed for an oil change. He showed me the Champ, which JD had pretty much totaled at Eagle Roost a few weeks before. With all the work they’ll need to do on that thing, it’ll probably qualify as a homebuilt.

At the office, I took care of some e-mail and packed up my laptop to go up to the Grand Canyon. I also wrote the big check. That’s right. I finally placed an order for a Robinson R44 Raven II helicopter. I did a little wheeling and dealing on the phone and managed to swap the high skids and metallic paint for a pair of hardwired Bose Generation X headsets for the front seats. I haven’t lost my touch. Hillsboro Aviation gave me a smoking deal on the ship. I sent them a check for $25K (which took about a month to scrape together). If I’m lucky, I’ll see the ship in December. I have six months to come up with the down payment and arrange financing. Let’s hope interest rates don’t go up again and that I don’t have any trouble selling my apartment complex.

Bank, post office, supermarket. The usual errands. I bought some milk and other dairy products to bring to the camper with me. Then I went home and threw together my things for the trip to Howard Mesa. Mike took me to the airport where we pulled the helicopter out of Ed’s hangar and loaded it up. Mike watched when I started the engine (to make sure oil wouldn’t come spurting out). I sweated my brains out in the sun with the doors on, waiting for two other aircraft to get the heck out of my way. Then I took off, heading north.

It was still windy. Very windy. Fortunately, the wind was out of the south, blowing at about 25 to 30 knots. It was gusty, though, so I got bumped around a lot. When I climbed over the Weavers near Antelope Peak, turbulence hit very hard, reminding me just how tiny my helicopter is. But I kept a ground speed of at least 100 knots all the way up to Howard Mesa. The wind wasn’t quite as bad here. I landed, unloaded, made some dinner, and settled down to read and write.

Right now, I’m sitting on the sofa, listening to classic rock, sipping a glass of Australian Shiraz, writing this blog. It’s about 7 PM — that’s 12 hours after the start of my day. The sun’s still up. To the east, I can see the stream of smoke from the fire near Payson — I got a good look at the smoke plume most of the way up. The wind is carrying it far to the north; I bet I see it on the east side of the canyon when I fly tomorrow. To the west, there’s a small fire near the Grand Canyon. I wonder whether it’s close to my route and I hope they put it out soon.

Another quiet evening alone. Not a bad way to end a busy day.

On Accidents That Aren’t Accidents

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How I’m spared from being the victim of the government’s bureaucracy.

If you read my jumper story (in an earlier entry of this blog) and you know anything about the FAA and NTSB and the rules and regulations they operate under, you might be wondering why they hadn’t classified the event as an “accident.”

Unfortunately, they did.

If you search the NTSB’s Web site for accident reports, using the word “suicide” as a search word, you’ll find one case very similar to mine. In that case, the jumper went up with a CFI and dove out during a steep turn that he’d requested. Although the CFI was not at fault — heck, the passenger committed suicide! — the case was classified as an accident.

And my case was going the same way.

Papillon fought back. Not just for me, but for them, too. They didn’t want an accident on their record any more than I did. Although the event met the definition of an accident (which really needs to be revised, in my opinion), common sense says that the word “accident” does not apply to a suicide. There was nothing accidental about it. (The guy purposely undid his seatbelt, pushed his door open against a 100-knot wind, and jumped.) The trick was to get the NTSB to disregard their definition and classify this as something less damaging to the pilot’s or operator’s flight records.

It went all the way to Washington, involving people from the FAA, NTSB, Department of the Interior, and HAI. I even tried to get AOPA involved, but they lamely claimed that you couldn’t fight NTSB on its accident definition. (Good thing I didn’t pay for their legal services plan.) Someone must have talked sense to the bureaucrats, because the other night I got a voicemail message with the good news: they’d changed the classification from accident to something else. What that something else is is still a question. I’ll find out tomorrow.

If there’s a lesson to be learned here, it’s this: don’t let a passenger jump out of your helicopter. Not only is it a traumatic experience, but it results in a ton of paperwork.

Happy Birthday to Me

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I get another year older and think about my added experiences.

Tomorrow is my birthday.

I’d rather not say here how old I am. I will admit that I’m one of the oldest pilots at Papillon (although not one of the most experienced). And I’ll admit that among my circle of friends, I haven’t been the youngest in quite a while. And I’ll also admit that the signs of age are beginning to show in the way I look and feel.

But I’m not over the hill yet. And I certainly haven’t even reached the top of that hill. I don’t expect to do that until I’m in my 60s.

What has happened in the past year? Let’s review.

On this date last year, I was at Bar 10 Ranch on the north rim of the Grand Canyon, hanging around with the pilots and the folks who were preparing to take a trip down the Colorado River. I’d spent the morning at the bottom of the canyon, chatting with the river runners. I played pool in the afternoon, with pool cues so bad that I bought two new ones when I got home and immediately shipped them to Bar 10 as replacements.

PhotoI wrote a bunch of books, mostly revisions. Quicken 2004: The Official Guide, which I finished earlier in June, was published. That was followed by Microsoft Word 2003 for Windows: Visual QuickStart Guide, Mac OS X 10.3 Panther: Visual QuickStart Guide (expanded to 600+ pages!), Microsoft Excel 2003 for Windows: Visual QuickStart Guide, QuickBooks Pro 6 for Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide. As I write this, I’m finishing up Quicken 2005: The Official Guide and have two new titles and a revision under contract for the rest of the summer. Oh, yeah. I revised the Spreadsheet chapter for the latest edition (I’ve lost count) of The Macintosh Bible. The Panther book sold like crazy and continues to sell well, although returns from the Jaguar book are eating into royalties now.

I also wrote two 10 QuickStep Guides for David Lawrence. One is about writing a book proposal and the other is about the new features in Mac OS X 10.3 Panther.

I don’t think I wrote a single magazine article. I did, however, write a white paper for FileMaker, Inc. about using Excel with FileMaker Pro. They paid me a nice sum of money for the work. And I got to revise it for FileMaker Pro 7, too. (I really ought to finish that up.)

PhotoI bought a new car. It’s my midlife crisis car, a Honda S2000. Very fast. Very difficult to keep clean on the dusty roads where I live. In 10 months, I put only 4500 miles on it. Heck, this car has to last the rest of my life. I’ll drive the Jeep into the ground first. I sold my RC Helicopter, which I wasn’t flying. Heck, it’s easier to fly the real thing.

I flew my R22 all the way to Placerville, CA. I discovered, on arrival, that I’d forgotten to pay my insurance bill. I got that settled and flew home via the Owens Valley. I’ll never do THAT again.

I leased Tristan Charney’s R44 for the winter, using it to give short rides all over the desert. That convinced me to buy my own R44.

I got a job with Papillon Grand Canyon Airways, doing helicopter tours over the Grand Canyon. I learned a lot and I’m still learning a lot.

I gave up my contract as the Fuel Manager at Wickenburg Airport. Or at least tried to. I’m still on the hook until August. Am I going to party THAT DAY!

And now, as I sit in my sweltering office (the air conditioner must have turned off a little while ago), I’m trying to decide what to do for my birthday. I’m not coming up with too many ideas. On July 1, I have to report for duty at Papillon again, so I only have one day and I’d better not blow it.

Tonight, I think we’ll do a night flight to Falcon Field so Mike can buy me dinner.

What I’m Learning About Flying Helicopters

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My first real job as a pilot is actually the next step in my learning experience.

Before I started working at Papillon, my only flying experiences had been in Robinson R22 and R44 helicopters, with an hour here and there in a Bell 47, Rotorway Exec, and Hughes 500c. I was a piston pilot. I knew Robinson helicopters extremely well. And I knew the basics of flying any other helicopter.

The work I do at Papillon is taking me to the next level. Actually, it may be helping me skip a few levels to get to a much higher level.

A New (to Me) Ship

The first big difference is the ship I’m flying. No, it’s not a state of the art Eurocopter or fancy NOTAR ship. It’s a plain old (emphasis on old) Bell 206L1 Long Ranger with the Allison C30P conversion. The engine conversion gives it more power than a standard 206L1. And that’s a good thing, because at the Canyon, we need all the power we can get.

Ground school covered all the details of how the ship’s systems work. I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t fully understand everything I was taught. But I understood enough to pass a check ride and to intelligently preflight every morning.

Starting is a challenge. The problem is hot starts — getting the turbine outlet temperature (TOT) too high during start. It’s evidently easier to hot start when you start off the helicopter’s battery. So when you’re new at Papillon, they encourage you to start with an APU (auxiliary power unit). I’m not taking any chances. I’ve been flying for about two months and I still always start with an APU.

Learning about Torque

Another challenge is flying without overtorquing the engine. There’s a torque meter that displays the current power setting. I equate it with the manifold pressure gauge on an R22/R44. But they’re very different. If you redline an R22, the worst that can happen is that you get a rotor RPM droop. If you overtorque a turbine engine, all kinds of inspections have to be done. And if you really overtorque it, it’ll cost $100,000 to fix things back up the way they should be. Although Papillon won’t take that out of my paycheck, I still don’t want to be the one who does it.

Of course, there isn’t much of a chance of overtorquing in cruise flight. It’s when you’re hovering, taking off, or landing that it’s more likely to happen. And that’s where my re-education began.

Trouble is, the Robinson taught me that when I’m landing, I can reduce power on the way down and pull it all back in relatively quickly at the bottom, to come to a landing. Doing that in a 206 could easily result in an overtorque or a hard landing. So I learned to reduce power well before I begin my descent. Then, as I’m coming down, I increase power. The result is a smooth, controlled landing to a hover.

And let’s not even talk about what the Robinson taught me about pulling power at take-off! If I did that in the 206, I’d be overtorquing at least once a day.

Another interesting thing about torque is that pressing the left pedal increases torque. This can really get you into trouble in a crosswind. If you let it start getting away from you, rotating to the right, you can quickly get beyond the point where left pedal can stop you. This happened to me once and it almost got ugly. The trick, I found, is to lower the collective if you have to add a lot of left pedal. That reduces the amount of pedal you need to press and reduces power so pressing the darn pedal doesn’t overtorque the ship.

(If you’re an experienced turbine helicopter pilot reading this, you may be thinking, “Duh-uh.” Have patience. All this is new to me and I’m learning as I go along. If you find this too boring to read, move on to something else. Or go watch TV.)

Wind: Friend or Enemy?

I’ve also learned a lot about flying in strong winds. Someone once told me he had a flight instructor who said, “The wind is your friend.” I think that can be true. But I also think the wind can be your enemy.

Why a friend? Well, suppose you’re flying at max gross weight on a hot day and you need to take off from a helipad in a relatively confined area at 6600 feet MSL. You point your nose into that 20 knot wind, push the cyclic forward a bit, and voila! You’re at ETL (effective translational lift) and climbing. Same goes for landing. You can stay in ETL as you descend and maybe even as you hover to your helipad if there’s enough of a headwind.

Why an enemy? Well, what if that 20 knot wind at the helipad isn’t a headwind? What if it’s a crosswind? Or, worse yet, as you’re trying to set down on the pad, what if it’s a tailwind? Or what if it’s 24 gusting to 36? Or gusting to 50? (Yes, it does get that windy.)

I’ve flown in very strong winds and I’ve learned that taking off and landing isn’t always the biggest problem. At the Canyon, the problem is sometimes in the Canyon itself. Those nasty winds make nasty turbulence as they whip over the enormous rock formations. 3,000 foot-per-minute updrafts aren’t unheard of. Neither are their counterparts: 3,000 foot-per-minute downdrafts. Turbulence that smacks you from one side as you come past a butte. Or makes your helicopter seem like the car on a roller coaster.

Oddly enough, sometimes the worst turbulence are over the forest south of the rim. When you’re flying about 200 feet over the treetops, you’re really in it. It can seem pretty bad and you can feel bad for your passengers. But then you break over the rim and enter the Canyon and everything calms down. Go figure.

There’s no pattern to it. All the pilots have their own theories of how things should be when the wind is blowing from one direction or another. But it’s not science and it isn’t reliable. You never know how it’s going to be until you’re in it. And then it’s too late to do anything about it.

Power Settings

I’ve also learned a lot about power settings for different ships at different weights in different conditions. Papillon’s rule of thumb is to set the ship’s power to 70% torque and leave it there for the whole tour. While this might work in most situations, it doesn’t work in all of them.

For example, a relatively fast ship can do a North Canyon tour in the allotted time at 70% torque, but the same ship will come in too early on an Imperial Tour at that setting. So I set the power based on speed. I’d like to do 95-105 knots for a North Canyon Tour and 90-100 knots for an Imperial Tour. The difference in torque settings is usually about 5%.

Then there’s the descent on the east side of the Dragon. Both tours require a relatively quick descent in 2 to 3 miles. On a North Canyon tour, I descend from 8200 feet to 7500 feet. On an Imperial Tour, I descend from about 8800 feet to 7500 feet. If I follow the rules, I should be at 70% during the descent, pushing the cyclic forward to nose down. But that also increases my speed. Never exceed speed (Vne) at that altitude is around 115 knots. If I’m already doing 105 knots in straight and level flight, a 500-1000 foot per minute descent is going to make me exceed Vne. So I need to reduce power — sometimes to as low as 50%.

Turbulence has a lot to do with power settings, too. If there’s a lot of turbulence, you have to reduce power. And if there are a lot of updrafts and downdrafts, power must be adjusted to keep you within the allowable altitude range.

Fortunately, I haven’t had much of a need to increase power during the tour yet. At least not beyond 75% or so.

I’m Here to Learn

Every day is a new learning experience and I’m glad. After all, that’s why I’m here. Living in my own semi-controlled, R22 dominated world isn’t much of a challenge. But flying in all kinds of conditions in a ship that’s far more sophisticated, is like going away to school. I’ll learn more about flying helicopters this summer than I have in the past four years.

And the paycheck is kind of nice, too.

Jumper Away!

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The Grand Canyon has its first suicide by helicopter jump…and I happen to be the pilot.

It’s true. I was the pilot in the helicopter that made the news this week.

I don’t want to spend too many bytes discussing it here. Frankly, I’m a little tired of talking about it.

The short version is this: we were near the end of a North Canyon tour in the Dragon Corridor. We were about 2 minutes from crossing back over the south rim. I suddenly realized that the passenger beside me had his door open and was sticking his head out. About a second later, I realized that he was trying to get out. I grabbed his belt and held him, then started to think about what would happen if I got him back inside and he went berserk. He could have taken the controls or hurt me. We could have crashed. So I let go of him and he jumped. It’s as simple as that.

He fell 3000 feet. I didn’t circle back. Why should I? He was obviously dead. Besides, I was hysterical, screaming into the radio and shaking like a leaf. And then I had to deal with his headset hanging out the door by its cord — something I didn’t want hitting the tail rotor. And getting his door closed. And calming the other passengers. And landing us all safely at the heliport.

I talked to a lot of policemen. I was offered counseling. I was told over and over that I did the right thing. There’s no question about that. That’s probably why I’m not having much of a problem with it. It takes two hands to fly a helicopter. And it may have taken two hands to fight off a suicidal maniac. So I made my choice based on what we’re taught: in an emergency, your first priority is to fly the helicopter.

I took the next day off. When I came back to work on Saturday, people were surprised to see me. They obviously thought I’d become a basket case, traumatized by the event. I hadn’t. Although I do admit that I jumped when a passenger beside me yesterday quickly reached for her camera (near her seat belt clasp). And the movement of passengers shifting in their seats in the back of the helicopter makes me wonder if someone is heading for a door.

But I think I’ll get over all that. After all, this is the first time this has ever happened. Forty years of tours, millions of people flown. What’s the chance that it happens again? To me?