Readers Cause Trouble

Why I had to take a post offline.

About two weeks ago, I wrote one of my typical flying posts, where I described an unusual flying gig. In the post, I described how I was hired by a company to help them find some lost items in a remote area.

Do I sound vague? It’s because I apparently have to be.

The post was read about 330 times. That’s all. It was Dugg twice.

Yet that was enough for at least three people to track down my client in their remote location, trespass on their private property, cause a nuisance for workers, and put themselves at risk of harm in a work zone. One of these people actually showed up twice.

Why? That’s what I want to know. Apparently they thought they could get some kind of reward if they found the missing items — which aren’t even missing anymore!

One of the trespassers told my client he heard about the lost items on this blog. My client found the post, read it, and then called me, asking me to remove it.

This is my client. I’ve worked for them on three occasions and would like to work for them again. Obviously, I did as they wished. I was ashamed and embarrassed that they had to call me about it.

And that’s why other pilots won’t be able to read about this unusual flying gig.

Is this going to happen again? Am I going to have to remove something I wrote about because readers thought my coverage was an open invitation to be a nuisance to someone else?

Do you know how many things I haven’t written about because I was worried that something like this would happen?

Or how many times I purposely kept details vague — or even lied about them — to prevent people from doing something I would have to regret?

I don’t know who caused this problem — other than me, of course — and I don’t want to know. But I hope the people who bothered my clients are reading this and I hope they have enough sense to stay away from my client’s private property in the future.

Chasing Race Cars Isn’t for Every Pilot

Analysis of an accident report.

The other day, I got a call from an off-road racing team manager. He was interested in hiring me to chase his truck at an upcoming race. But rather than ask me the usual bunch of questions about rates and ferry times, he grilled me about my flight experience.

How long have you been flying? Do you own the helicopter? How many times have you done this?

I answered all of his questions honestly — I have nothing to hide. I’ve been actively flying for about 8 years, since I bought my first helicopter. I have about 1800 hours of flight time. I own the helicopter I fly and I’ve put all of its 610 hours on it. I’ve followed cars and trucks and boats during races about ten times now.

Then he asked, “Did you hear about the helicopter crash at Lucerne Valley last year?”

I told him I hadn’t.

“One of our guys was on board. The pilot didn’t have very much experience, so we’re careful about who we hire now.”

The Accident Report

Later, after discussing rates and finishing up the call, I looked up the info on the accident he referred to in the NTSB database. I found it under NTSB Accident number LAX05FA189. He’d been wrong about the accident date — nearly three years had passed since the May 28, 2005 accident in Lucerne Valley, CA. The helicopter had been a Robinson R44. Although no one had died, three people had been seriously injured in the crash.

I read accident reports to find out how accidents occur. This helps me stay aware of potential problems with my aircraft or flight situations. Here’s the short text of this particular accident’s description:

The helicopter impacted level terrain and rolled onto its left side while maneuvering during a low-level photo flight. The pilot was flying southbound along a racecourse on a photo flight when he made a hard 180-degree turn, and lost control of the helicopter. As the helicopter began a spin to the right, the pilot noted a loss of rpm and altitude. He asked the certified flight instructor (CFI)/safety pilot to take the flight controls. As the CFI took control of the helicopter, he realized that the rpm’s were decaying and that the helicopter was too low to recover the rpm. He attempted to cushion the impact with the collective. Both pilots reported that there were no preimpact mechanical anomalies with the airframe or engine. No evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunction was found during the post accident investigation that would have precluded normal operation. During the accident flight, the helicopter was running approximately 131 pounds over the maximum gross weight for an Out of Ground Effect hover for the existing atmospheric conditions. The helicopter was being operated in a high density altitude environment, which was computed to be 7,350 feet mean sea level. The pilot received his rotorcraft helicopter rating 7 days prior to the accident. He had approximately 77 hours of total rotorcraft flight time at the time of the accident. The helicopter manufacturer indicated that photo flights were a high risk phase of flight and issued a safety notice SN-34. Safety Notice SN-34 recommended at least 500 hours and extensive training in both low rpm and settling-with-power recovery techniques prior to flying photo shoot type flights.

The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident as follows:
the pilot’s failure to maintain adequate main rotor rpm and directional control while maneuvering at low altitude. Contributing factors in the accident were the helicopter’s gross weight in excess of the maximum hover out of ground effect limit, a high density altitude, and the pilot’s lack of overall experience with regard to low rpm and settling-with-power recovery techniques.

Full narrative available

There’s a lot of information here. I’ll review it and explain the parts that might not make sense to folks who aren’t pilots, aren’t helicopter pilots, or are new helicopter pilots.

Out of Ground Effect Hover

Let me start out by explaining that helicopters need more power to hover than to perform just about any other maneuver. That might seem counter intuitive, since when you’re hovering, you’re really not going anywhere. But the reason for this is that when a helicopter is in motion, there’s an increase in lift from the relative wind against the rotor blades.

Effective Translational LiftFrom the FAA’s Rotorcraft Flying Handbook:

Translational lift is present with any horizontal flow of air across the rotor. This increased flow is most noticeable when the airspeed reaches approximately 16 to 24 knots. As the helicopter accelerates through this speed, the rotor moves out of its vortices and is in relatively undisturbed air. The airflow is also now more horizontal, which reduces induced flow and drag with a corresponding increase in angle of attack and lift. The additional lift available at this speed is referred to as “effective translational lift” (ETL).

So you use less power to fly than to hover. And any speed lower than ETL will require more power than speeds above ETL. Helicopter pilots often use 30 knots airspeed as a rule of thumb.

You can break down hovering into two types: in ground effect (IGE) and out of ground effect (OGE). From the Rotorcraft Flying Handbook:

When hovering near the ground, a phenomenon known as ground effect takes place. [Figure 3-7] This effect usually occurs less than one rotor diameter above the surface. As the induced airflow through the rotor disc is reduced by the surface friction, the lift vector increases. This allows a lower rotor blade angle for the same amount of lift, which reduces induced drag. Ground effect also restricts the generation of blade tip vortices due to the downward and outward airflow making a larger portion of the blade produce lift. When the helicopter gains altitude vertically, with no forward airspeed, induced airflow is no longer restricted, and the blade tip vortices increase with the decrease in outward airflow. As a result, drag increases which means a higher pitch angle, and more power is needed to move the air down through the rotor.

Here’s the diagram that goes with this information:

Hovering

Out of Ground Effect Hover R44Operating Handbooks for helicopters provide charts that help pilots determine the expected performance of the aircraft in a variety of conditions. The accident report indirectly refers to the OGE Hover Ceiling chart. This chart tells a pilot the maximum altitude you can expect to maintain an out-of-ground effect hover given the aircraft weight, altitude, and outside air temperature. The one shown here is for a Robinson Raven I helicopter (I can’t seem to find my office copy of my Raven II manual). Here’s how it works. Start by following the weight line up to where it hits the temperature line. Then follow that intersection across to the altitude.

For example, if the aircraft was 2300 pounds and the outside temperature was 20°C, the maximum OGE hover would be 3,000 feet pressure altitude. In this accident, the aircraft was roughly 2,220 pounds at the time of the accident and the temperature was about 31°C. Following those lines on the chart indicates that the maximum OGE hover would be 3,100 feet pressure altitude.

The accident location was at 4,266 feet MSL. So the pilot was operating in an area and at a weight that made out of ground effect hover impossible in his aircraft.

Now I don’t want people reading this to think that you can’t (or shouldn’t) fly a helicopter in a place where you can’t hover out of ground effect. That’s not true. But the OGE hover situation does weigh heavily into this accident because of the maneuvers required for the mission.

Lower Rotor RPM

Having just flown with a photographer for an off-road race, the kinds of maneuvers needed are very fresh in my mind. More than once, we were required to slow down to wait for a vehicle. We also hovered OGE several times, with and without slight tailwinds or crosswinds. And, of course, we often had to make sudden course changes that required sharp 180° turns. These are not simple maneuvers, especially when power is an issue.

I can also say from experience that when flying an R44, if you pull more power than what is available, the first indication of a problem will be a low rotor RPM horn. I’ve had this happen twice on takeoffs at high altitude locations (over 6500 feet) with four people on board. If you can increase airspeed to reduce the amount of power needed to fly, you can get out of the situation, but that normally means a descent. (In one case, I did a running take-off from an airport and was fine once airborne; in the other case, my takeoff was from the edge of a cliff, so a descent wasn’t a problem.)

Here’s how I see this accident setting up. The pilot is going very slowly, below ETL, almost in a hover, and makes a hard turn. The aircraft starts to settle, so he pulls more pitch. This increases the drag on the main rotor blades, but there isn’t enough power to overcome it. The blades slow down. The low rotor RPM warning system sounds its horn. He’s too close to the ground to push the cyclic forward and get the airspeed he needs to get out of the bad situation.

How could this have been prevented? One way is to lighten the load. The maximum gross weight for a Robinson Raven I is 2,400 pounds. The pilot and passengers weighed 230, 180, and 175 respectively. If the pilot had checked the OGE charts, he would have seen that the aircraft was too heavy to fly at speeds less than 30 or so knots. He could have taken on less fuel or, better yet, flown without the 180-pound man beside him.

Another way to prevent the problem is to keep the aircraft speed up, above a minimum of 30 knots. This will prevent the pilot from getting into a situation where OGE hover power is required.

I should note here that I considered buying a friend of mine’s R44 Raven I — until I looked at the OGE hover chart. The performance was simply not acceptable to me. I often fly to the Grand Canyon (6300 feet), our vacation property (6700 feet), and Sedona (5200 feet) on hot days. Based on the chart, it was uncertain whether I’d be able to land and take off from these destinations when the aircraft was near maximum gross weight. I needed the additional power and performance of the Raven II for flexibility and safe operation in these areas.

Pilot Experience

Like my potential client, I think a main contributing factor to this accident was the pilot’s inexperience. He had only 70 hours in helicopters, and this was the first time he’d flown this kind of helicopter at a race event. He simply was not prepared for the kind of maneuvers he’d have to perform to get the job done. Add that to the OGE hover problem and it’s easy to see how this could have happened.

Robinson Helicopter Company knows that inexperienced pilots should not be flying photo missions. It issued Safety Notice SN-34 in March 1999 which states:

There is a misconception that photo flights can be flown safely by low time pilots. Not true. There have been numerous fatal accidents during photo flights, including several involving R22 helicopters.

Often, to please the photographer, an inexperienced pilot will slow the helicopter to less than 30 KIAS [knots indicated airspeed] and then attempt to maneuver for the best picture angle. While maneuvering, the pilot may lose track of airspeed and wind conditions. The helicopter can rapidly lose translational lift and begin to settle. An inexperienced pilot may raise the collective to stop the descent. This can reduce RPM thereby reducing power available and causing an even greater descent rate and further loss of RPM….

The Safety Notice goes on to recommend that the pilot have at least 500 hours pilot-in-command time in helicopters and over 100 hours in the model flown before conducting photo flights.

Conclusion

I’m glad my potential client mentioned this accident and I’m very glad I looked it up. I learned a lot from reading it, analyzing it, and summarizing my thoughts here.

It’s also made me more aware of weight and performance at events like these.

When you do a lot of point-to-point flying, you become somewhat complacent about the aircraft and don’t consider the additional demands of multi-maneuver flying. Although I’m always concerned with the weight of my aircraft on takeoff, I tend to look at it more in terms of whether I’m too heavy to fly legally — over maximum gross weight. With only 3 people on board, unless we’re all fatties, that’s not usually a concern.

Parker was at less than 500 MSL and it was a cool day, so I admit I didn’t check the hover charts. (When you check them over and over, you get a “feel” for them and can “guesstimate” what they’ll say.) But after reading this and thinking about it, I’ll review the charts before each photo flight, even if I’m already pretty sure that OGE operations won’t be a problem.

Any thoughts, comments, experiences you want to share? Use the Comments link or form for this post.

Go RVing?

Two photos from our first real campground experience.

I’ve been camping since I was a kid. My family camped with an elaborate setup of tents and equipments on family vacations until I was about 11 years old. That’s when my dad caught a nasty cold and decided on comfort. My parents bought a 22-foot Prowler pull trailer that could sleep seven [little] people. That gave us all the comforts of home.

My family always camped in campgrounds that had at least partial hookups, even when we tent-camped. Mike and I, however, have always favored “dry camping” on public land and parks. We’re not the kind of people who like to be compartmentalized in a parking spot surrounded by other campers. Once, when we were camping at a park in Hawaii, everyone else set up their tents in a big field. We passed all that up and set up our tent on a cliff overlooking the ocean. At night, we could see the lights of the big island in the distance, we listened to the sound of the restless sea’s waves on the rocky shore below us — not our fellow campers.

Anyway, about a year and half ago, in preparation for a summer-long helicopter gig that didn’t happen [yet], I bought a 21-foot pull trailer. We’ve used it a number of times for helicopter gigs: at the Mohave County Fair, Big Sandy Shoot, COPPERSTATE Fly In, etc.

The camper is rigged for dry camping. It has a solar panel on the roof that keeps its batteries charged, so we have plenty of power for the lights and stereo and water pump. It holds 40 gallons of fresh water and has gray water and black water tanks to hold what goes down the drain or down the toilet. The fridge and water heater run on gas. Water is our big limiter; if we take very short showers every other day and use paper plates for all meals, we could probably last a week. But if we’re out for longer than three days, we bring extra water in up to four 7-gallon containers.

Most recently, we used the camper for a weekend-long stay in the Parker area, where I’d been hired to do an aerial photography gig of the Parker 425 Off-road race. Since we’d planned to bring Jack the Dog and Alex the Bird with us and since our camper isn’t very easy to keep warm on cold desert nights, I decided to reserve a spot in a campground. We wound up in Buckskin Mountain State Park (highly recommended if you don’t mind camping in a pleasant parking lot), right on the Colorado River. And for the first time ever, we had a full hookup: water, electricity, and sewer.

The main benefit of this is that we could use a very quiet electric heater to keep the camper warm at night. The gas heater that’s part of the camper has a very loud fan and goes on and off all night long. With the electric heater — which our batteries could not run — we got a very comfortable good night’s sleep.

Which is kind of important when you plan to spend the next day chasing off-road racers with a helicopter.

Anyway, after the race gig, Mike and I came back to the campground. We took Jack the Dog for a walk up to an overlook right above the campground. And that’s where I shot this photo. It reminds me of all those Go RVing commercials they have on television. It also shows what Arizona is like in the winter time, when the snowbirds come around in their $300,000 motorhomes and set up in transient RV neighborhoods like this campground.

 
In case you’re wondering, our camper is the small one just to the right of the big spread of green indoor/outdoor carpeting. That’s where our next door neighbors had set up an enclosure for their tiny dog, which spent all of its time on the dashboard of their motorhome, yapping at whoever went by.

And because you know I can never leave an interesting scene without trying that fisheye lens, here’s another shot from the same spot. That’s the Colorado River bending around the campground. The 10.5mm lens exaggerates the bend a bit, but it really does bend quite sharply here, making an interesting spot along the river.

 
And, for the record, neither of these shots have been cropped.

Chasing Desert Racers

At the Best in the Desert/BlueWater Parker 425.

I spent this past Saturday doing one of the things I really love to do: chasing racecars with a helicopter.

The venue was the Best in the Desert Racing Association’s BlueWater Resort & Casino Parker 425, which featured highly modified trucks, cars, and buggies racing on a 140+ mile dirt track through the desert. My client was a television producer who videos these events from multiple cameras and turns them in TV shows. For this event, they had a total of 15 cameras, includibut thingsng one in my helicopter and several in the trucks out on the course.

I flew the helicopter with the cameraman and my husband, Mike, working as a spotter, on board. The cameraman sat behind me with his door off. Mike sat beside me.

We started before dawn at the Parker Airport. I started up at 7 sharp and was warmed up and ready to fly by 7:15. The police escort was leading the 300+ participant vehicles to the starting line on Route 95 in downtown Parker when we began circling about 500 feet overhead. The cameraman had a list of 15 targets he needed to video. The first one was the 15th truck in line at the start. Racers were released 30 seconds apart. When our first target was released, the fun began.

Desert Racing TruckI chased the car down the paved road and onto the dirt track, descending as I left the downtown area. Soon, we were racing beside it just 70 feet up on the long straightaway that heads due east. Mike kept an eye out for wires, calling them out as he saw them. My attention was split between the truck, the wires, and the track in front of me. I worked the cyclic and collective hard, climbing, descending, slowing, speeding up. Both arms and legs worked automatically to make the helicopter do what I needed it to do. Spectators below me went by in a blur. The track made a 90 degree turn to the left and I paused at the inside of the curve just long enough to pivot so the cameraman could keep the camera on the target. Then down the short straightaway to the edge of a steep drop with high wires on one side. The truck descended the hill while I climbed over the wires. I met the truck on the other side and we raced together through a tree-filled dry wash.

“Okay, peel off,” the cameraman instructed.

I turned away from the target and followed the road back. Now we had to find the next target. All we had were numbers — we didn’t know much about how the vehicle looked, other than what class it was in. I had to fly low enough to see them. The first one of us to see a number, called it out. We got the next target halfway back to town. I lowered the collective to slow down and made a sharp 180 degree turn. Then I was on that truck, following it to the wires and into the wash.

We repeated this process about seven or eight times, each time picking up our target a little farther away on the track and ending a little farther down the track. I got to know exactly where all the wires were. Sometimes, I’d look down in time to see a spectator wave up at us or snap a photo. I think there were more photos taken of us that day than of any one racer.

This went on for over an hour.

Then, suddenly we could no longer find any of the targets we needed to video. That started a search up and down the track, flying low enough to read the numbers. Every once in a while, the cameraman would pick out a “trophy truck” or a vehicle driven by someone well-known, and ask me to follow it. I’d follow as closely as I dared, putting the cameraman close to the action. Inside the helicopter, through our noise-reduced headsets, we could sometimes hear the engines of the racers below us or the sirens of the vehicles preparing to pass. We watched one driver slip off the track and race along beside it, scattering spectators who had been standing too close. We shot some video of a modified Hummer flying through the air after a particularly bad bump.

I suppose I should mention here that I wasn’t the only helicopter at the event. There were at least five others: 2 R44s, an Astar, a Eurocopter, and a Bell Jet Ranger. In most cases, they’d been hired to follow a specific race vehicle or team. Once they left the area, they didn’t come back for a while. So keeping an eye out for aircraft wasn’t a serious issue.

After two hours, we headed back to the airport. I shut down and placed a fuel order. Then we drove over to the BlueWater Casino for breakfast. The cameraman the cameraman met with some of the folks he works with to see how many vehicles on his list were still in the race. Each vehicle had a transponder and satellite communications device so it could be tracked from headquarters at the Casino. According to the cameraman, fewer than 50% of the vehicles finish the race. Most of them break. And if you saw the track, you’d understand why.

With an updated list, we headed out again just before noon. We were expecting one of the target vehicles in the pit area, so we stayed nearby. There was a “serpentine” area just east of the airport, with winding, bumpy tracks in a big field surrounded by spectators. I think there was about 5 miles of road there, and it was so twisty that even from the air, I had trouble figuring out the route. We spent about 15 minutes there, filming the action of vehicles skidding around the sandy curves, throwing dust high up into the air. At some point, I realized that I was probably putting on a better show for the spectators than the cars and trucks were.

We spotted a target vehicle as he was leaving the pits and took off after him. More chasing at low level, avoiding wires, slowing when the truck slowed, speeding up when it speeded up. We peeled off and continued down the track, looking for more targets. That’s when we started seeing the breakdowns. Trucks and cars and buggies on the side of the road with parts peeled off of them and drivers bent over their innards. One team was changing a tire. Another was taking the hood off the car. We saw a fender alongside the track. Later, we saw a prone driver with his companion performing CPR. (The rumor I heard was the driver suffered a heart attack or stroke while driving and died on the race course. I have not been able to confirm this yet.)

Desperate to find one last vehicle on the cameraman’s list and looking for exciting footage, we followed the entire 140-mile course. It stretched from Parker through the empty desert as far east as Cunningham Pass (north of Wenden) and around Planet Peak (near the Bill Williams River) to the northwest. This much-reduced map gives you an idea of the distance — I’ve highlighted the track in light red so it’s easier to see.

Parker 425 Map

Much of the course was pretty boring from my point of view — lots of long, straight stretches. In one area, the road ran alongside a set of high tension power lines, making it tough to get low enough to see car numbers. But things got interesting on the last 4 or so miles, when the track headed into the mountains south of the Bill Williams River. The cameraman got some excellent footage of a car winding its way down a narrow canyon. I had to stay high — there wasn’t enough room for me to fly alongside it. But when the canyon opened, I dropped down so he could get some close-up shots.

After trying a few more times to find the missing buggy — we were in touch by radio with the satellite tracking people — we headed back to the airport and I shut down.

We’d flown a total of 5.0 hours. The sky had clouded up and lighting wasn’t as good as it had been earlier in the day. Although we’d planned a third flight for the finishers, the cameraman. The cameraman decided to skip it.

It had been a great day. Not only did I do a lot of flying, but it was the kind of flying I really love to do — challenging, exciting, and with a goal other than going from point A to point B.

Why can’t all my gigs be like this one?

Note: If you were at the 2008 Parker 425 in February and have photos or video footage of a plain red helicopter (no stripe) flying with the cars, please let me know. I’d love to show them off with this post or elsewhere on this site.

February 7, 2008 Update: I added a photo Mike took during the flight to give a better idea of what was going on at Parker.

Over Quartzsite

An interesting photo gig.

I got the call about a month ago. From France. A photographer with a name I couldn’t easily pronounce wanted to photograph Quartzsite, AZ from the air during its busiest time of year. This year, that’s January 19 through 27.

About Quartzsite

Quartzsite, in case you’re not familiar with the place, is a small desert community about 20 miles east of the Colorado River, right on Interstate-10. During the summer, it’s a glorified truck stop, with gas stations, a handful of fast food joints, and a few of the necessities of everyday life for the 1,000 or so people who live there year-round. But in the winter, it’s home to numerous events, including gem and mineral shows, a huge RV show, and flea markets. That’s when the snowbirds flock to the place, filling in the otherwise empty campgrounds and spilling over to the millions of acres of BLM land around the town. The population swells to an estimated 100,000 people, most of whom are living in extravagant RVs and motorhomes.

From the air, this is simply amazing. Quartzsite is nestled in a valley between two small mountain ranges. I-10 cuts through it east/west while route 95 between Parker and Yuma cuts through it north/south. The town is a concentrated sea of white rooftops. Scattered all around, in every direction, grouped in the BLM-approved camping areas, are more white rooftops, sometimes arranged in circles or rows.

Sadly, I don’t have a single photo of the place that shows it off.

Back to France

I gave the Frenchman a quote. He’d have to pay for me to fly to Quartzsite, fly around there for his photos, and fly back. We estimated that at about 3 hours: 1 hour ferry, 1 hour photo shoot, and then 1 hour ferry. At $495/hour, which is my current going rate, it wasn’t going to be cheap. He didn’t book, but that didn’t surprise me. About 90% of the calls I get are from folks who are “fishing.”

Two weeks went by. I got CCed on a message to a Frenchman from Robinson Helicopter, Inc. They told him that the closest Robinson helicopter operator to Quartzsite was Flying M Air. In other words, me.

Another week went by. I got an e-mail message from the Frenchman. He wanted to know about dates and weather. I told him that the weather in Arizona this time of year is usually perfect. He tentatively scheduled a flight for January 25. But since he wouldn’t provide a credit card number, I wouldn’t guarantee it. If someone else put up a card for the same date and time, he’d be out of luck.

The Gig Happens — Suddenly

On Saturday morning, I got a call from Etienne. He was in Arizona. He wanted to do the flight that afternoon because the weather forecast for midweek wasn’t very good. Was I available?

Oddly enough, Mike and I had planned to go camping in Quartzsite that weekend but had decided, just the night before, to skip the overnight trip and just drive out there for the day on Sunday. So I was available after another flight booked for 10 AM.

Etienne picked up an RV from a rental place in Mesa, AZ and drove it up to Wickenburg. He parked it in the airport parking lot. We had a pow-wow to go over details on timing. Then he went into town to book a hotel room — don’t ask me why; I don’t understand either. At 3:15 PM, he was back.

We took off to the west with coats on and his door off.

Fuel Concerns

I’d filled the helicopter’s fuel tanks to capacity. That’s close to 50 gallons of fuel. At my normal rate of consumption, that would last close to three hours. Unfortunately, we were expecting to be out for a full three hours. There’s no fuel between Wickenburg and Quartzsite. The closest fuel is Blythe, which is 20 minutes farther west. If we went there for fuel, it would add 40 minutes to his flight time. It would also have us crossing through very dark desert — and over several mountain ranges — long after sunset.

So I filled an approved fuel container with another 5+ gallons of fuel and tucked it into the back passenger area. There were two paved runways between Wickenburg and Quartzsite, as well as numerous other landing zones. If fuel got low on the way back, we could land, shut down, add 5 gallons, start up, and get back. Of course, if we spent a lot more time in Quartzsite than we expected to, we’d have to detour to Blythe anyway. Five gallons was only about 15-20 minutes of fuel.

The Gig

The flight out to Quartzsite was as boring as I remembered it. Etienne had asked me to show him Arizona. I warned him that the ferry flight didn’t have much of interest, but he assured me it would be interesting to him. I think that by the time we were on our way back, he agreed with me. The landscape is mostly flat, empty desert, with the exception of a few small communities, some of which have farms. We cruised over all of this about 700 feet off the ground, doing exactly 100 knots. Why 100? Because with a door off, that’s my maximum airspeed.

We crossed over two tiny mountain ranges: one just west of Salome and the other just west of the intersection of Route 60 (which we’d followed) and I-10. After the second one, Quartzsite came into view. We’d been in the air less than 50 minutes.

Etienne had envisioned a shot that included mountains in the foreground, Quartzsite in the middle, and the low-lying sun in the background. Problem: the mountains to the east that he was thinking of for his foreground were simply too far away to make the shot work. So we headed into town to see what he could do.

Thus began at least 90 minutes of aerial photography over Quartzsite.

At Etienne’s request, I started by climbing up to about 3,000 feet over the town. I circled the town several times while he shot down at it with two different cameras, each sporting a monster zoom lens. I spiraled down to get closer to the town while he snapped away. Then we flew up and down along the freeway and the BLM camping areas. Then out to the west, to get a shot of the town behind a sunlit mountain. Then lower over the camping areas, with me flying sideways at about 10-20 knots groundspeed so he could shoot right down at the campers.

By this time, most folks had returned from their day at the markets and were gathered around within their “circled wagon” compounds. It was impossible for them not to see and hear us, so there were a lot of people waving up at us. I think each group was competing to be included in the photos.

We broke off from that and started following campers on the Interstate or side roads as they moved to their campsites. We must have followed five different rigs, following above and behind them. I’m sure none of them realized they were being followed. (It reminded me of that scene in Goodfellas where Ray Liotta’s character is followed by a helicopter as he drives around the city.) Etienne was especially interested in rigs that included motorhomes pulling cars. We hit the jackpot when we found a motorhome pulling a pickup that had an ATV in the back of it. There must have been $400,000 worth of equipment down there, driving out into the dusty desert to dry camp.

We did some more shots all over town as the sun started sinking to the west. Etienne got some really interesting shots at the dry camping campground southeast of the I-10/95 intersection.

The sun finally disappeared, but Etienne still snapped photos.

My fuel situation was interesting: I was showing 1/3 tanks of fuel. If we broke off soon, we might still make it to Wickenburg without stopping.

I think Etienne read my mind. He announced that we were finished. I swung out to my right, added power, and headed back. I’d already programmed the GPS for Wickenburg and I made a beeline for it.

Flying Back

The flight back was almost as boring as the flight out had been. The only difference was the moon and the fuel situation.

The moon was nearly full, out in front of us to the east. Each time I passed over a body of water — the Central Arizona Project canal, a cattle tank, etc. — I’d see a quick flash of light as it caught the moon’s reflection. Beautiful.

The fuel situation kept me on edge, wondering if we’d make it all the way back. We were still excellent shape as we flew over the first paved strip at Salome. About 20 minutes later, we were still in reasonably good shape as we passed over the second paved strip at Aguila. And when we landed at Wickenburg in the darkness, we still had fuel and no low fuel light.

When I finally shut down, I was amazed to note that we’d flown 3.3 hours on the full tanks of fuel. Based on what we had left in the tanks — at least 5 gallons because of what the gauges said and there was no low fuel indicator — I figure we burned only about 13-14 gallons per hour. My normal burn rate is closer to 17 gallons per hour. But one look in the Pilot Operating Manual confirmed what I vaguely remembered: maximum range speed is 100 knots. So the fact that my speed was limited by the door being off helped us save fuel.

Since the airport was dark and the FBO office was closed, Etienne and I finished up the paperwork in his rented camper. He was shivering; sitting beside that open door all the way back had chilled him to the bone. I went back to the helicopter, put the door back on, and closed it up for the night.