A Helicopter Trip to the Anacortes Boat & Yacht Show, Part 2

Posted on May 21, 2019 by Maria Langer

I fly to my helicopter to the boat show in Anacortes, see a bunch of boats, get tempting special show pricing, and fly home.

(Continued from previous post)

My goal was to be in the air by 8 AM so I’d arrive at Anacortes Airport with plenty of time to get to the Boat Show when it opened. I assumed it would take me all day to see the boats that interested me and was worried that exhibitors would start packing up early since it was the last day of the show.

Weather Woes

But the weather did not cooperate. Overnight, the local forecast had changed. Now it wasn’t expected to clear up until after 11 AM. I don’t need clear skies to fly, but I do need ceilings (cloud bottom heights) above the pass where I expected to cross the Cascades. As I went about my morning routine, the clouds seemed to drop in the west and rain began.

The view from my deck at 6:34 AM. My route would take me right through the middle of this photo.

I continued my morning routine, but without the same sense of urgency. I showered and dressed in clean jeans and a shirt that suggested it wasn’t out of the question that I might spend nearly a quarter million dollars on a boat. Then Penny and I headed down to Pybus Market, where I’d left my tables and display stuff. I was supposed to be selling my jewelry there that day and had already paid for my spot. But with sales so bad the previous day, I didn’t have high hopes for a good day and didn’t mind eating the fee to do something more interesting with my time. I packed everything up and loaded it into the back of my truck.

Back at the helicopter, I took my time setting up my GoPro, preflighting, adding oil, and settling Penny in the front passenger seat. The rain had passed and it was clearing a little. I used a microfiber cloth to dry the helicopter, which also took any dust off. By the time I was ready to head over to the airport for fuel, it was nearly 10 AM. The weather still looked iffy.

My friend Rich, who bought my friend Jim’s old R44 Raven I, was doing pattern work when I radioed my approach. He landed beside me as the fuel guys were topping off my tanks. I told him where I was headed and that I hoped to get over the ridge at the headwaters of Icicle Creek. I’d discovered on a flight to Lopez Island years ago that that particular ridge is adjacent to Stevens Pass on a more direct line from Wenatchee. If the ridge was clear of clouds and I could cross it, there was a good chance that I could drop into the valley beyond and follow Route 2 due west toward the coast. We chatted about other things and then parted company.

It was just after 10 when I did my walkaround, climbed back on board with Penny, and got my GoPro running. Mounted via suction cup over the front passenger seat, it was connected to a battery power pack and the helicopter’s intercom system. It would shoot continuous video as well as a still image every 60 seconds.

Here’s the GoPro’s view just before departure from Pangborn Memorial Airport. As you can see, the weather does not look promising.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I took off, heading northwest.

The Flight to Anacortes

One of the benefits of flying a helicopter is that there is no minimum airspeed. This makes it extremely suitable for flying in conditions where it might be necessary to slow down or make a very tight 180° turn. As I flew northwest toward the mouth of the canyon at Icicle Creek near Leavenworth, I was mentally prepared to make a turn if low clouds obscured the mountains and made it impossible for me to cross the mountains.

And it sure looked like it would be necessary as I got closer and closer to the ridge. The clouds were sitting atop the Enchantments — that’s the mountains just west of Leavenworth. I was in a relatively narrow canyon with the creek below me and cloud covered mountains on either side. If I couldn’t go forward, I’d have to stop, turn around, and go back.

Of course, you can’t see the end of the canyon from halfway down it. So although it looked very bad at one point, when I rounded a bend, it didn’t look so bad after all. Then bad, round a bend, and not bad. I was at least 1,000 feet off the creek and climbing with the terrain. I never reached the level of the clouds.

This is one of the points where it looked iffy. But when I rounded that bend, it looked much better.

Then the ground came up to a ridge with plenty of space between the treetops and the cloud bottoms. I steered over it and saw Route 2 winding down the west side of Stevens Pass. Just like that, I was over the Cascades. I didn’t even have to slow down.

These photos, taken 1 minute apart, show me approaching the ridge at the headwaters of Icicle Creek (left)and then topping the ridge where I can see Route 2 coming down the west side of Stevens Pass (right).

I descended down into the valley and followed Route 2 almost due west to Skykomish, then headed northwest toward Anacortes. The canyon opened up and the terrain dropped around me to mere hills. I flew along at a cruise speed between 100 and 110 knots, over creeks and marshes and forests, past logged terrain and waterfalls and quarries. The wind was still calm and the ride was smooth. Penny occasionally stirred in her seat or sat up as if to ask “Are we there yet?”

I crossed over a lot of wooded, hilly, and logged terrain between Skykomish and the coast.

I tuned into various nearby airport frequencies as I flew. I got close enough to Arlington and Skagit to make radio calls, but didn’t fly over either one.

Eventually, I left the mountains and hillsides behind, crossed I-5, and flew over the flat farmland along the shoreline. As I flew over various waterways, I wondered whether a boat with a 30-inch draft could navigate them. (Yeah, my boat lust had gotten that bad.)

This was shot somewhere west of Mount Vernon.

Then I was over Fidalgo Island, climbing over one last hill before looking for the airport. I found it very close to the hillside and came in for a landing on the parallel taxiway. I set down in an airplane parking spot near the fuel island, wondering whether the hose would be long enough to reach me where I was parked. I didn’t see a fuel truck.

Making the turn for landing at Anacortes.

I shut everything down and let Penny out while I gathered everything I’d need for the day. Then, after a quick bathroom visit in the Pilot Lounge, I used Uber to call for a ride. We were on our way to the Marina five minutes later.

At the Boat Show

If you haven’t read the first post in this two-post series, you probably should before continuing. It explains why I wanted to go to the boat show in the first place and the kinds of boats I’m interested in.

Andrew at Ranger Tugs had put tickets aside for me at the Will Call office, so that where I started. The event isn’t expensive — only $10/person — but I think they charge a fee to discourage low-budget lookie Lous. Let’s face it: the Anacortes Boat & Yacht Show has the word “yacht” in it for a reason. The majority of boats on display were far beyond the means of 99% of the people who attended.

A look to the right from the ramp leading down to the boats for sale.

A look to the left at the boats for sale.

I didn’t waste my time looking at boats I couldn’t afford, although I do admit looking at a few that didn’t quite fit my needs. In most cases, the problem was towing: I needed a boat I could easily tow from home to anywhere I wanted to launch it, whether that was 12 miles from home at the boat ramp behind Pybus Market or 1200 miles from home in Arizona’s Lake Pleasant. That meant it could be no wider than 8-1/2 feet, which is the legal limit for normal trailer loads. Wider than that and I’d need a special permit to tow it and would have to get Wide Load signage and possibly a pilot car. The Cutwater boats seemed to fall into this category. Other boats were lacking in the livability department and wouldn’t be comfortable for more than a few days. Some were inboard motors and I preferred an outboard. None of them had the finely honed feature set the R-27 Ranger Tug I lusted for had.

I should mention here that “looking” at a boat didn’t mean looking at it from the dock. It meant climbing on board, and looking from the stern of a boat. All the boats had ramps leading to them so it was an easy deal. In most cases I either left Penny tied up on the dock or I picked her up and brought her on board. Although it would have been quite a treat to explore the giant yachts parked here and there along the dock, there was no reason to make me want something I couldn’t afford. It was best to stick to the program and let the lookie Lous have their fun without me.

I spoke to a sales guy at the Ranger Tugs area where their five models — R-23, R-27, R29, R31, and R41 — were parked. He gave me a sales spiel that included favorable pricing on the R-27 parked there. Prices go up by $10K in July for the 2020 model year, he warned. This was the last boat off the line for the 2019 model year. I checked out the smaller R-22, which I think would be too small for me. I asked questions about the windlass — cruising on the David B had convinced me that I would be unable to pull up an anchor, especially if it had 50 feet of chain and another 100 feet of rode set out. Andrew walked up and I chatted with him about it. He gave me even better pricing. We talked about desalination and dingy storage.

Later, I walked around the marina to look at some used boats on the far end. There was a 2016 Ranger Tug for sale there at the same price as the deal Andrew offered. Jeez. Was it wishful thinking on the part of the owner/broker or did the boats really hold their value that much? Why would anyone buy a used 2016 model when a brand new 2019 model, with all its improvements, from the factory could be had for the same price?

Penny and I left the docks and walked up to where other exhibitors were gathered inside a big tent or outside under smaller canopies. I got into a conversation with a boat broker about her upcoming trip to Ketchikan on her 41 foot Nordic Tug and my recent one on the David B. Her husband joined us and we talked about financing, which I hadn’t even considered. Even though they knew I wasn’t going to buy a boat from them, they were every helpful. And they seemed impressed that I was considering an R-27; the woman said it was an excellent option for me.

I looked on as a sales guy explained a desalination system to a couple. The system was very large and convoluted — not to mention expensive — and I wandered off.

I chatted with two sales guys about a Zodiac boat to use as a tender for an R-27. Andrew had recommended them because they’re relatively light weight. Apparently they come in sizes as small as 6 feet (inside length), although they said the next size up might be better for me. One guy even described how he gets his Zodiac out of the water and stowed on his boat by himself. They seemed confident that I could handle it alone.

I had wanted to look at Bayliners — Captain Jeffrey on the David B mentioned that they had models similar to the tugs I liked — but they were not at the marina. They were in a boatyard who knows where. This morning, as I started researching links for this blog post series, I looked them up. Although they may have had boats like a tug in the past, their current lineup did not include anything remotely similar. So I’m glad I didn’t track them down. It likely would have been a waste of time.

Since I hadn’t had a thing to eat all day, I decided to have lunch before heading out. Fortunately, between the marina entrance and Anthony’s Restaurant, there was a casual dining place called the Cabana. Penny and I walked right through and I got a seat on an Adirondack style chair in the shade of an umbrella — did I mention that the weather was sunny and warm? — overlooking an unused bocce court and the marina. A short while later, I was digging into a blackened rock fish taco while Penny was stretched out in the sun for a nap.

I had a lot to think about. Too much. It was strange to me, almost as if the stars and planets were aligning for me to buy this boat. There’s no doubt that I loved it and that it met all of my needs and most of my desires. (I’ll be honest a much larger boat that came with a bunch of guys to move it around for me would be a lot more attractive but definitely not in my budget.) I knew that I’d be happy with it, perhaps for a very long time. Who knows? It — or something a lot like it — could be my next home.

But I won’t kid you: there are financial hurdles to jump. Selling the helicopter would make the boat easily affordable without any financing, but was I ready to retire from flying? Could I get a seasonal job flying for someone else? Did I really want to sell the helicopter? I’d been an owner for nearly 20 years and I honestly couldn’t imagine life without one.

But could I have both? Did I want the financial burden that came with owning both? The answer to that is no.

Meanwhile, as I sat in the shade at the Cabana, I realized that clouds were building in the mountains to the east. Was I going to have trouble getting home? Time to find out.

The Flight Home

Watch My Helicopter Videos on YouTube

Time for a shameless plug…

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Getting an Uber back to the airport wasn’t quite as quick as I’d hoped. The closest car was 25 minutes away. I tried Lyft, but they didn’t have anyone at all. So I parked myself on a bench near the entrance to the show and waited. Penny found shade under the bench and took another nap.

Back at the helicopter, I decided I had enough fuel to get me home with required reserves. So I just started up — with some trouble, which will be covered in a future post — and took off.

Flying down the west side of Fildalgo Island.

The clouds were low as I approached the canyon where Route 2 wound up toward Stevens Pass.

The conditions started off nice — after all, it was a really great day out near the San Juan Islands — and then got very iffy. The cloud level in the foothills to the Cascades had definitely dropped since I’d come through that morning. Some of the cloud tops were obscured. A gusty wind was blowing out of the south, setting me up for mechanical turbulence — turbulence caused by the motion of wind over landforms. It began raining lightly.

For a while, I was worried about the flight. Because I hadn’t taken on more fuel at Anacortes, I didn’t have enough on board to do detour around weather looking for a clear passage to the other side. (Yes, I did have enough to get home with required reserves.) That meant that if I hit a dead end on my course, I’d have to go back, probably to Arlington, to get more fuel before trying again. Conditions were likely to get worse before they got better, so going back might even mean spending the night, which I really didn’t want to do.

(They say that the only time you have too much fuel on board is when you’re on fire. It’s always better to have more fuel on board than you need — unless it puts the aircraft weight over limitations. It gives you more flexibility.)

As for the weather, now you can see why I fly to the Seattle side of the mountains so seldom.

Once I got to Skykomish again, however, the rain stopped and the clouds lifted a bit. I was even sheltered from that gusty wind. I reached the ridge near Stevens Pass, climbed up, and hopped over it, down into the Icicle Creek Canyon where it was a beautiful day full of sun and big fluffy clouds.

It was a typically beautiful day on the east side of the mountains as I flew down Icicle Creek.

The rest of the flight was great and I even took a moment to record a little in-flight lecture about what it’s like to be a helicopter pilot and owner. I recently discovered that has far more subscribers than I thought and I’m now motivated to add new content there regularly.

I was back at my base by 5 PM. I spent the rest of the day gardening and doing chores around the house.

If I had driven, I’d be starting my return trip around 6 get back in the dark.

Helicopter Minimum Altitudes

Posted on October 21, 2018 by Maria Langer

I’m working on a much longer blog post, with photos, about my recently completed autumn vacation, but I thought I’d put this shorter post out because it’s quick and on my mind.

It started with someone on Twitter sharing a video from inside the cockpit of a helicopter flying low and fast over a forest road. There were no cars on the road and no poles or wires. It was an exciting little flight that reminded me of the kind of canyon flying I used to do in some very familiar, remote areas of Arizona. See for yourself.

Here’s a screenshot from the video in question.

What followed was a bunch of comments, including some from a few people too lazy to look up the regulations who claimed that flying like that was illegal. When I pointed out that it was not illegal in the US, a particularly lazy, uninformed idiot quoted my tweet with a portion of the FARs in an attempt to prove me wrong. He didn’t. All he proved is that like so many people these days, he’s only capable of reading until he gets confirmation of what he wants the truth to be. The rest doesn’t matter.

Here’s the entire FAA regulation covering minimum flight altitudes in the US:

§91.119 Minimum safe altitudes: General.

Except when necessary for takeoff or landing, no person may operate an aircraft below the following altitudes:

(a) Anywhere. An altitude allowing, if a power unit fails, an emergency landing without undue hazard to persons or property on the surface.

(b) Over congested areas. Over any congested area of a city, town, or settlement, or over any open air assembly of persons, an altitude of 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle within a horizontal radius of 2,000 feet of the aircraft.

(c) Over other than congested areas. An altitude of 500 feet above the surface, except over open water or sparsely populated areas. In those cases, the aircraft may not be operated closer than 500 feet to any person, vessel, vehicle, or structure.

(d) Helicopters, powered parachutes, and weight-shift-control aircraft. If the operation is conducted without hazard to persons or property on the surface—

(1) A helicopter may be operated at less than the minimums prescribed in paragraph (b) or (c) of this section, provided each person operating the helicopter complies with any routes or altitudes specifically prescribed for helicopters by the FAA; and

(2) A powered parachute or weight-shift-control aircraft may be operated at less than the minimums prescribed in paragraph (c) of this section.

[Doc. No. 18334, 54 FR 34294, Aug. 18, 1989, as amended by Amdt. 91-311, 75 FR 5223, Feb. 1, 2010]

Did you read paragraph (d) and paragraph (1) right beneath it? I did, but the know-nothing twit pretending to be an expert on Twitter didn’t. It basically says that the paragraphs he quoted (paragraphs (b) and (c) above) don’t apply to helicopters.

I distinctly remember this FAR coming up during my primary training back in the late 1990s. It basically gives helicopter pilots permission to fly at any altitude they need or want to, given that “if a power unit fails, an emergency landing without undue hazard to persons or property on the surface.”

Take a look at the video. It looks to me as if the pilot is 50-100 feet off the ground. He’s moving at a good clip — at least 60 knots. (I tried to read the airspeed indicator but couldn’t.) With that altitude and airspeed combination, he’s not operating in the shaded area of the height/velocity diagram (or “deadman’s curve“). That means that a safe emergency landing is possible. And with nice smooth pavement beneath him, there’s plenty of suitable space for a landing if it was necessary. So it’s not in violation of paragraph (a) either.

Watch My Helicopter Videos on YouTube

Time for a shameless plug…

Lots of people don’t get this. They assume the altitude rules apply equally to all aircraft. But they don’t. This makes it pretty clear. Trouble is, there are too many self-important assholes out there — especially on Twitter — who share inaccurate or incomplete information as fact — and too many lazy people willing to believe them without doing their own homework.

If you want to read more about this topic, here’s an old, long, rambling post I wrote about an experience related to this years ago.

Oh, and by the way, this post is about whether the flight is legal in the US. I won’t make any comments about whether it’s safe or whether the pilot is using good judgement. That’s a whole different topic.

Another Ridiculous Charter Request

Posted on August 6, 2018 by Maria Langer

Honestly, given the situation, what else would you call it?

N630ML
Here’s the late great Zero-Mike-Lima parked out in the Arizona desert in March 2007.

I moved my business from Phoenix and Wickenburg, Arizona to Washington state back in 2013. Since then, the helicopter (my old one, technically) has been back in Arizona only once: for 4 months in the winter of 2016/17 to get its overhaul. It was in pieces for most of that time. I picked it up that February, flew it locally for about a week just to revisit my old haunts and give friends rides, and then took it to California for a frost contract. From there, it went home.

(I bought my new old one in Arizona in April and flew it home the next day.)

When I moved to Washington state, I updated my company website to remove all mention of the flights I do in Arizona. Why? Because I don’t fly in Arizona anymore.

I still occasionally get calls from people wanting me to take them to the Grand Canyon or fly them around Lake Powell. They claim they found one of my brochures or saw me listed on a website for helicopter tours in the area. They didn’t bother checking the website.

Today’s email message, however, sent to me via a form on my company website, takes the cake:

I have to have surgery in Phoenix and I live in Wickenburg AZ. the doctor doesn’t want me to travel for two weeks by road back home. We have friends in PHX, but it would put a strain on our friendship, plus I have a business in my home that I need to attend to.
Would you consider flying me to Phoenix and then back to Wickenburg? And if so, how much would it cost me?

After reading it three times to see what I was missing, I composed the following response:

Sure, I’d do it. But since the helicopter and I now live in Washington State (where we’ve been since January 2013), it would cost quite a bit. It’s about a 10-hour flight just to get to Phoenix from here, an hour for your flight, and then 9 hours to get back to Washington from Wickenburg. 20 hours at $595/hour? Even if I gave you a nice discount, I couldn’t take a penny less than $10,000. You could take a nice 2 week vacation at the Biltmore in Phoenix for that.
Sorry to be such a smartass, but you contacted me via a form on my website and I’m pretty sure my website makes it clear that I no longer operate in Arizona.
Good luck finding a local ride.

No, I didn’t send it. No need to make her feel as foolish as she is. I figure she’ll either forget about me or call. But it definitely is blog-worthy.

And can someone explain to me how her doctor would approve a helicopter ride but not a car ride?

Maybe she should call LifeNet.

Why Flying Experience Matters

Posted on July 26, 2018 by Maria Langer

Experience helps pilots make good decisions.

I’m often amazed by pilots who seem outraged that they can’t find a decent flying job until they’ve logged 500, 1,000, or even more pilot-in-command (PIC) flight time. Too many of these people seem to think that they’re qualified to fly for hire as soon as they get their commercial rating and a few hundred hours of flight time.

How Pilots Gain Experience

Some new pilots don’t seem to understand that the best way to build time quickly is as a flight instructor (CFI) and they stubbornly try to enter the job market without sufficient experience.

I can name more than a few of these people who have been floundering around, taking odd jobs that give them a few hours of stick time here and there with little or no pay. Some even pay to work for the privilege of working for a helicopter owner. One good pilot I met managed to lock in a flying gig with decent flight time — I can’t use the word “job” because he never got paid at all — and added a few hundred hours to his logbook. Then the company’s owner disappeared, leaving the leased helicopter sitting on an airport ramp for its owner to repossess and the pilot locked out of the hangar he’d been living in because he couldn’t afford an apartment.

More than a few of these low-time pilots make their way to Washington in the summertime, with unrealistic dreams of logging hundreds of hours of flight time drying cherries. I’ve had guys offer to fly for me for free just to get the flight time. Really. (News flash: this ain’t Seattle. It’s usually dry here and the likelihood of flying even a dozen hours is slim. Don’t believe me? Ask the four pilots over the past two years who came up to fly for me who didn’t turn a blade in over four weeks.)

I didn’t come up through the ranks of a flight school to build my time, either, and it took nearly five years to get my first 1,000 hours. But it was different for me — I never intended to make flying a career. My second career put me in an excellent financial situation, one that included the ability to buy a helicopter and fly it around for fun. I put nearly 1,000 hours on my first helicopter, an R22, before selling it and buying the R44 I took delivery of in 2005. By that time, my goal was to simply earn enough with the helicopter to pay for the helicopter — a goal I achieved in 2007 when I started doing aerial survey work. That changed, and, by around 2012 (or thereabouts; I’d have to check my tax returns for an exact date), I was earning more as a pilot than as a writer and my flying career was in full swing. By then, I had more than 3,000 hours in helicopters, none of which was flying under the supervision of a flight school.

But is building time as a flight instructor the best way to get experience? I’ll always argue that it isn’t — as I did in a 2009 blog post titled “Real Pilot Experience.” In that post, I discussed the value of my experience at 2,100 hours vs. the experience of several newly minted 300-hour CFIs that I’d flown with. My experience was built flying real-life missions that required planning, decision making, and aviating while theirs was in a flight school environment, mostly with a slightly more experienced CFI sitting beside them. I thought it odd at the time — and I still do — that they were more qualified to teach people how to fly than I was.

Still, how else can a new pilot get the experience they so sorely need to be good, safe pilots on for-hire missions?

At Stehekin
I took Mr Bleu, Penny, and a friend up to Stehekin on Sunday for a nice day trip. In this shot, I’m parked next to the grass runway.

Landings and Wind

The other day, I blogged about the stress I felt at facing my 15th Part 135 check ride. In that post, I wrote a little about the decision making process on one particular maneuver. Here’s what I said:

On my check ride, I was asked to land in a confined space on a hillside. It was a relatively big area — I’ve certainly landed in a lot tighter spaces — and there were no real obstacles, although there were some open range cattle, fencing, and a water tank nearby.
I misjudged the wind. I thought it was light and inconsequential and set up my approach to give me a the best angle of approach. As I came near the landing spot, however, I saw trees blowing and felt the wind buffeting me. Left pedal kept things under control without getting too sloppy.
Still, I decided to go around and approach from a different angle. As I told the examiner as I started going around, “If the helicopter is light, performance is not an issue, and the wind isn’t too strong, I could make this work. But making a bad approach work is probably not a good idea on a check ride.” He agreed.
And that’s the difference between flying as a pilot and flying as a CFI. A pilot flies depending on her skills, the conditions, and her intimate knowledge of the aircraft. A CFI flies depending on the best scenario learned in training. We all know it’s best to land with a headwind and that’s what the CFI will always try to do. But an experienced pilot also knows that you don’t have to fly into the wind if other conditionals make a safe operation possible. In this instance, there wasn’t that much wind and we were light. I knew I could land safely with that right quartering tailwind; I’d done similar landings before. But I also knew that the FAA was more interested in a textbook approach. My going around showed good decision-making skills and the second attempt was a lot smoother with a lot less dancing on the pedals.

A Story about CFIs and Headwinds

About 10 years ago, I had to fly from Arizona to Washington State for cherry season — a 10+ hour flight. In those days, there were plenty of low-time CFIs who wanted to build time in R44 helicopters so they could meet the requirements of SFAR-73 for flight training. I think they needed a total of 25 hours. I’d let these guys, who already had their R44 endorsement, lease my helicopter with me as a passenger to bring me and the helicopter up to Washington State. They’d get cheap flight time and I’d get the helicopter moved at no cost. Win-win.

This particular flight has a lot of stories to tell, but I’ll focus on one: landing at Redding, CA. The airport is towered. We arrived late in the afternoon, light on fuel, from the south. The ATIS said the wind was about 4 knots from the south. The tower told us to land on Runway 34 — in other words, straight in with a slight tailwind. The pilot at the controls — a 300-hour CFI — acknowledged the instruction.

As we got closer to the airport, it came into view. The pilot was flying to the west of it. I assumed he didn’t see it — after all, when you fly at 500 feet AGL it’s not easy to see airports. I pointed it out to him.

“I was going to go around to the west in a downwind and turn midfield and land to the south,” he told me. For you non-pilots, that meant he was going to go around to the left and then land on the same runway but in the opposite direction.

I was floored and took a moment to figure out how to gently explain the problem with that. “Well, the tower told you to land straight in on Runway 34. So you have two options. You can either call the tower and request a landing on Runway 16 or you can land on Runway 34 as instructed.”

(Is it me, or am I correct in thinking that I shouldn’t be instructing a CFI?)

He took a moment to think about it, then changed course and landed straight in on Runway 34. Of course, he came in hot and did a quick stop so he wouldn’t overshoot the parking area. The quick stop was unexpected but well executed and he was so proud of it that he sought my approval when he touched down in our parking spot moments later.

I’m afraid I didn’t deliver. Instead, I said the first thing that came into my mind based on my experience-based knowledge of flight conditions and possibilities: “If you do that at the Grand Canyon on a 90° day with a full load of passengers, you’ll have one hell of a hard landing.” (I can be such a bitch.) Most sea level pilots are completely clueless about flying at high density altitude and I can tell stories about that, too.

In my defense for misjudging the wind, during my high reconnaissance of the landing zone, there were no wind indicators — flags, bodies of water, large trees, blowing dust, smoke, etc. — for me to get an idea of the wind. The trees down near the landing zone weren’t big — maybe 10 feet tall? — and I didn’t see any movement from above. The location we’d departed from less than five miles away had a light wind out of the west. I came in from the north, assuming the wind would be about the same. It was, but it was also a bit stiffer. A better low reconnaissance would have helped me see this, but in the grand scheme of things, it really didn’t matter.

And that’s my point. Whether the wind over my right shoulder was 4 knots or 10 knots didn’t matter. (And yes, 20 or 30 knots would have mattered and I definitely would have noted on such winds.) The helicopter, with half tanks of fuel and just two average sized people on board, was light. It was still cool out and we were operating at about 1500 feet MSL, so density altitude wasn’t an issue. The helicopter’s performance was good. I was making a relatively slow, shallow approach, so airspeed and descent rate would not have put me into a settling with power situation and the minor tailwind would not have caused me to overshoot my intended touch down spot. As I came in on my approach and felt the wind, I could easily keep the helicopter under control with the pedals. I knew from experience — over 2,000 hours flying R44s in all kinds of conditions — that I could make a safe landing.

The only reason I went around was because I was on a check ride. The FAA isn’t interested in seeing pilots who can make a bad approach work. They’re interested in pilots who can made good decisions, even if those decisions mean breaking off an approach to go around and do it differently. So going around is exactly what the examiner wanted to see. He wanted to know that I could recognize a bad approach and act accordingly.

And I need to make one thing very clear: I’ve done go arounds on bad approaches before, without an FAA examiner sitting in the seat beside me. I recall one in particular at Sedona Airport, elevation 4830, years ago. There were three of us on board with luggage and half tanks of fuel, so we were pretty heavy. It wasn’t hot, but it was windy. I made my approach to the helipad following the path I always followed — I flew in there a few times a month. But in this case, it was a little too squirrelly for me and I was dancing on the pedals a lot more than I like to dance. I broke off about 50 feet from the ground and went around. My second approach was more into the wind and a lot smoother. Could I have made the initial approach work? Maybe. But why risk it?

That’s what experience teaches you. It teaches you what works and what might not work and what definitely won’t work. It teaches you how to fix little mistakes before they become big mistakes. Or fatal mistakes.

Does it teach you everything? Apparently not, as my February incident proves. But at least that won’t happen again. I learned my lesson.

Don’t Fly Like a CFI

Before you go ape and blast me for the above heading, let me explain.

A CFI is taught to fly “by the book.” If you’re a CFI you know exactly what I mean. Or you should.

Let’s take an example: taking off. Common instructions tell you to follow these steps:

Bring the helicopter into a 3 to 5 foot hover.
Pitch forward with the cyclic to start moving forward.
Add pedal as necessary to stay in trim.
Push through ETL and pitch for 45 knots, staying within 10 feet of the ground.
At 45 knots pitch for 60 knots to climb out.
When at desired altitude, pitch for cruise speed.

Did I leave anything out? This is from memory and I never taught anyone to fly.

This is basically how low-time CFIs always take off (unless they’re in a confined space or have an obstacle) because (1) it’s how they were taught and (2) it’s how they teach their students. Do takeoffs like this for 1,000 hours and it’s pretty much engrained in you.

But is that how all helicopter pilots take off all of the time? Of course not. The situation you’re in determines how you take off.

Need to get away from the ground quickly because of the potential for dust or damaging downwash along your flight path? (I was once with a low-time CFI when he did a textbook takeoff right past an ultralight sitting idle next to his flight path. He’s lucky the owner grabbed it as we went by.) While a maximum performance takeoff (with its inherent risks) might not be needed, there is some middle ground — and yes, it might require some flight in the scary part of the height velocity diagram.

And landing. I cannot tell you how many times a low-time CFI flying with me entered a traffic pattern at an airport in the middle of nowhere, did a one-mile final approach to land on the runway numbers, and then hover-taxied on the taxiway a half mile to the midfield self-serve fuel pump. What’s that all about? If you’re flying a freaking helicopter, you don’t need a freaking runway. Landing to get fuel? Land at the pumps.

(Want a story about that? I was passenger on a flight my friend Jim did to Prescott Airport (PRC) in his Hughes 500c. We were headed for the restaurant, which was adjacent to a parking area. The tower there put him on a wide downwind for one of the runways on the other side of the airport. Jim barked into the microphone: “Negative! Helicopter One-Two-Three-Alpha-Bravo is a helicopter! We want direct to the restaurant! When the controller recovered from the shock of getting this demand after working with flight school pilots all day every day, he gave Jim exactly what he wanted. Did I mention that Jim was a retired Eastern Airlines pilot?)

About high density altitude experience

Landing or departing at high density altitude is no laughing matter, especially if your ship is heavy and your experience is limited. That’s one of the lessons learned from this doomed flight in Easton, WA about 11 years ago. That’s what I was thinking of when I departed with three passengers at near max gross weight from an off-airport landing zone on a hot day this July.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that I struggled to gain altitude without puling pitch past the redline on my manifold pressure gauge. There was hardly any wind, which didn’t help matters at all, and the air temperature was about 90°F. When you consider our landing zone elevation of about 800 feet, that put our DA at about 3200 feet. Fortunately, the area around us was clear of obstacles and we inched up into the sky.

Once on our way, everything was fine. But I knew I had two problems ahead of me: making a safe landing in a confined space landing zone at 1400 feet and then departing from that confined space when it was likely to be up to 10°F hotter. That put us at about 4500 feet DA. We would not burn enough fuel on the 20-minute flight to make a significant difference in weight.

The landing didn’t worry me that much. I have a lot of high DA experience and it really paid off. I came in smoothly and landed to a hover, then quickly but surprisingly gently put it on the ground. My passengers climbed out and went about their business. While I idled there, I looked around me at the shop buildings, wires, and mature apple trees, and decided that there was no way I’d depart from there with all of them on board. I didn’t need performance data to tell me that it wouldn’t be safe. That 2007 Easton crash was up front in my mind.

So I called my client and told her that I’d pick up the group at an airport about 5 miles away. It was only a minor inconvenience for them; they were attending a meeting at the orchard and the orchardist had a truck he could take them to the airport in. I departed the orchard landing zone and waited for them at the airport.

My OAT gauge read 103°F when they met me for departure. I loaded them up, pointed the helicopter into the wind, and did one of those textbook takeoffs over the ground and across the runway of the deserted farm country airport, pitching for a 60 knot climb before I reached the fence line. We climbed out smoothly and safely, which is what any pilot should aim for.

And here’s my argument for why experience matters: According to the accident report, the Easton accident pilot had “a total time in helicopters of 2,122 hours, 1,492 hours of instruction given in helicopters, 160 hours in the last 90 days, 24 hours in make and model…” While 2,122 hours of helicopter experience is considerable, she had just 24 hours of experience in the make and model of the crashed helicopter (an R44). She was based in Seattle and had done the vast majority of her flying at sea level. The calculated density altitude at the crash site was 6,841 and the helicopter was only 33 pounds below max gross weight. The probable cause was listed as “The pilot’s improper planning/decision in attempting a downwind takeoff under high density altitude conditions that resulted in a loss of control and impact with terrain. Contributing to 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 gusty tailwind.” I have to think that her limited experience with the helicopter and high DA conditions, combined with an understandable desire to please the client, contributed to bad decision making and execution of departure maneuvers.

Only experience can help protect you from a similar fate in a similar situation.

But what I’m trying to say here when I tell pilots not to fly like flight instructors goes beyond modifying standard procedures to fit a situation. It’s this: You will never become a better, more experienced pilot if you don’t push the edges of what’s comfortable to you.

Now I’m not saying you should go out and fly like a lunatic, pushing your skills and aircraft to their limits. That’s a good way to get yourself and possibly others on the ground hurt or killed. I’m saying that you should push gently to expand your comfort level and learn valuable lessons along the way.

Has your flight school forbidden flights when the winds exceed 15 knots? Fly when the wind is 20 knots. Then, when that’s comfortable, bump it up to flying at 25 knots. (Obviously, you should consult your pilot operating handbook to see if there are any limitations.) Don’t be like I was when I went to work at the Grand Canyon. After being taught to avoid flying in high wind situations, I was suddenly required to fly when the wind speeds were up to 50 knots. I learned to deal with high wind a little faster there than I probably should have.

Does your flight school limit flights to a handful of airports? Fly somewhere else. (Yes, get permission if necessary. Duh.) One of the best ways to get real-life flying experience is to fly to different places. It works your flight planning, navigation, and communication skills. It challenges you to think about your approach and landing rather than to do the same thing you’ve been doing for weeks or months.

If you’re a sea level pilot — I’m talking about someone who has learned to fly and usually flies mostly at or near sea level — do yourself a huge favor and fly to a destination above sea level. Someplace high enough where you can really feel the difference in the aircraft’s performance. Then take it to another destination even higher. Do you really want to get your first high density altitude experience when you get a job flying tours at the Grand Canyon, elevation 6600 feet? (And yes, I’ve done running takeoffs from Grand Canyon Airport twice: once in my R22 and once in my R44. They teach us that stuff for a reason.)

Do long cross-country flights. Solo. That’ll really test your flight planning and navigation skills — especially when unforecasted weather or other conditions force you to choose an alternate destination airport or land off-airport to wait out a storm.

I guess what I’m trying to advise is to do the things CFIs don’t generally do when they’re working as CFIs. But don’t go nuts. Build your skills and confidence levels slowly.

And shame on flight schools that don’t give their CFIs or commercial students the opportunity to do these things.

Mr Bleu and a Friend
Here’s Mr Bleu with a friend from Lake Chelan. We occasionally work together to take more than 3 passengers on charter flights. Here, we’ve landed in a soccer field beside a cherry orchard.

Passionate for a Reason

I feel very passionate about real life vs. CFI flying and even more so after my own accident.

I’m not a complete idiot. I realize that my accident was caused by two things:

Distraction in the cockpit. I was flying VFR and I should have had my eyes outside the cockpit. Instead, I allowed myself to get distracted and failed to maintain awareness of my flight path.
Lack of experience with night flight. Seriously! What was I thinking? I’ve got 3,700 hours of flight time, but less than 100 hours of that is at night. How could I possibly have allowed myself to get as complacent as I obviously was about the additional challenges of flying in the dark?

I’m lucky to be alive and I know it. And although I’m seriously embarrassed about the mistakes I made that led to my crash, I’m not too embarrassed to use my learning experience to teach others.

Throughout this blog, you’ll find lots of lectures about safety, many of which touch upon NTSB-analyzed accident reports. When reading between the lines, so many of them can be traced back to insufficient pilot experience with the situation or aircraft.

Don’t be one of those pilots. Push yourself gently to expand your skills and knowledge with real-life scenarios you can only get from non-CFI style flying. And never stop learning to be a better pilot.

A Word about Life after Stress

Posted on July 20, 2018 by Maria Langer

That whole thing about a weight being lifted off your shoulders? It’s true.

This past week, I’ve been stressed out a lot more than I occasionally get. It had gotten to the point where I felt an overall malaise that I couldn’t shake, accompanied by an overwhelming desire to give up on all the things I do that contribute to the stress that was making me feel so crappy.

And that’s never a good thing.

The Check Ride Stress

Quick Note:
I know that in the grand scheme of things — comparing my sources of stress to the sources other far less fortunate people face every day — I shouldn’t complain. And I’m not. I’ve been in far more stressful situations. The point of this post is not to complain or to gather pity. It’s to share an observation.

The main source of that stress was an upcoming FAA check ride scheduled for Thursday (yesterday). It was my first check ride in my new old helicopter, Mr. Bleu. I take a check ride for my Part 135 certificate every year, so it had been a full year since my previous one. I won’t hide the fact that the Spokane FSDO, which oversees my Part 135 certificate, has been getting under my skin with a series of what I consider to be unreasonable requirements. I’d been pushing back, which is something I’d never had to do with the more reasonable FSDOs and inspectors I’d worked with in the past. This was their big chance to “teach me a lesson.” At least’s that’s what was in the back of my mind as I prepped for the check ride.

But check rides are always stressful to me. You see, I never became a certified flight instructor (CFI) and I never spent 500 to 1000 hours sitting next to new students, teaching them about all the weird aerodynamic issues inherent in a rotary wing aircraft and doing dozens of autorotations every day. I have always lived in a place with amazing weather, operating primarily out of Class G and Class E airspace, so I have trouble remembering silly little (but important) things like weather minimums for the various classes of airspace. I know how to fly and I’ve been called a good stick. But that doesn’t mean I can necessarily meet the requirements of a Part 135 check ride, especially if the examiner is tough or wants to fail me.

Add to that that although I usually prep by flying with someone who works full-time or nearly full-time as a flight instructor, no one like that was available to me. My check ride was scheduled for Thursday but the CFI I’d hoped to fly with beforehand was gone until Friday. So I flew with my friend Woody, who has tens of thousands of hours flying Airbus airliners and a bunch of time flying mostly Schweizer helicopters. He’s a CFI and he’s taken more check rides over the years than there are long, hot rainless days in Arizona every year, but he approaches flying as a pilot instead of as a CFI. While that should be a good thing, I wasn’t convinced that it was a good thing for someone prepping for a check ride. (More on that in a sidebar.)

The stakes were relatively high. I needed to pass the check ride to continue doing charter and air taxi flights. Those account for about 10% of my flying revenue, which isn’t really that much. But a Part 135 certificate means I can say “yes” to just about any flight request, including something as simple as a tour that goes more than 25 miles from a starting point. It sucks when you have to turn down work because you lack the piece of paper that makes it legal. If I failed the check ride, I’d have to redo it. Since I was already in my grace month due to FAA scheduling limitations, that meant I could lose that piece of paper staring August 1. And I already have a flight booked for August 3. Redoing it meant more stress, too.

And did I mention the wind? Winds were forecasted to gust to 22 miles per hour on the date of my check ride. The check pilot was coming from Seattle and there was no chance that he’d reschedule after a 3-1/2 hour ride (each way). (I’d offered to meet him in Ellensburg to save him 90 minutes of that drive, but the wind was forecasted to gust to 37 there, so he agreed to come to Wenatchee.)

So although this was the 15th Part 135 check ride in my near 20 years as a pilot, it was stressing me out.

My R44 Helicopter in the Morning
My new old helicopter, Mr Bleu, parked in its landing zone.

On “making it work”

On my check ride, I was asked to land in a confined space on a hillside. It was a relatively big area — I’ve certainly landed in a lot tighter spaces — and there were no real obstacles, although there were some open range cattle, fencing, and a water tank nearby.

I misjudged the wind. I thought it was light and inconsequential and set up my approach to give me a the best angle of approach. As I came near the landing spot, however, I saw trees blowing and felt the wind buffeting me. Left pedal kept things under control without getting too sloppy.

Still, I decided to go around and approach from a different angle. As I told the examiner as I started going around, “If the helicopter is light, performance is not an issue, and the wind isn’t too strong, I could make this work. But making a bad approach work is probably not a good idea on a check ride.” He agreed.

And that’s the difference between flying as a pilot and flying as a CFI. A pilot flies depending on her skills, the conditions, and her intimate knowledge of the aircraft. A CFI flies depending on the best scenario learned in training. We all know it’s best to land with a headwind and that’s what the CFI will always try to do. But an experienced pilot also knows that you don’t have to fly into the wind if other conditionals make a safe operation possible. In this instance, there wasn’t that much wind and we were light. I knew I could land safely with that right quartering tailwind; I’d done similar landings before. But I also knew that the FAA was more interested in a textbook approach. My going around showed good decision-making skills and the second attempt was a lot smoother with a lot less dancing on the pedals.

The stress affected my ability to sleep. On Wednesday night, I was up for four hours in the middle of the night. Wide awake enough to read my helicopter’s Pilot Operating Handbook (POH) and Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) in bed (on my iPad) without them putting me to sleep. I fell back to sleep at around 3:30 AM and was up again at 5:30. So on Thursday morning, I was facing a check ride with a total of about 5 hours of sleep. Not ideal. I was a basket case by the time I got to Wenatchee Airport with my helicopter to wait for the examiner.

Fortunately, it had a happy ending. I took the check ride starting at about 10:45 AM and did surprisingly well on the oral part, which usually makes me seem like an idiot. As for the flying part, I flew fine but could have made better in-flight decisions at least once. Still, it was good enough for me to pass. So by 12:30 PM Thursday, that source of stress was gone.

The Cherry Season Stress

Another source of stress this week was cherry season. We’d gotten over the hump and it hadn’t rained in a month. (We get paid for standing by, so it isn’t as if we didn’t make any money. We did fine.) But the season was winding down and there was no rain in sight and I had to decide whether to extend the contracts for any of my crew. This came down to a basic math and probability problem: How many acres were left to cover and what were the chances of it raining on all of those acres at once?

Early in the week, I didn’t have the information I needed to make a decision. That was the source of the stress: needing to make an important decision I couldn’t make because I didn’t have the information I needed to make it.

Once my crew left, I couldn’t get them back, so I had to decide at least a few days before they planned to leave. I knew I’d only need to keep one of them around if I needed any of them and I knew which one of them it would be. And I knew he wanted to stay, although his partners back in Arizona wanted him back with the helicopter. The trouble is, if I asked him to stay, I’d have to pay him more standby money. That money was coming out of my pocket and it wasn’t chump change. So the stressful part of all of this was figuring out whether I should ask him to stay before he made unchangeable plans to leave.

Cherry season is stressful.
I should mention here that cherry season is always a very stressful time for me, starting in April, a good two months before the season starts. In April, I’m trying to secure my contracts and get acreage counts so I know how many pilots I need. In May, I’m trying to lock in pilots who are freaking out because I can’t give them exact start dates. In June and July, I’m watching the weather, trying to foresee storms and flight needs, and making sure my pilots don’t wander off. In August, I’m still watching the weather and hoping that I can cover whatever acreage is left by myself. So it’s up to five months of varying levels of stress. August 11 is my last day this year and I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to it.

I started getting acreage estimates on Tuesday. By Wednesday, I was able to do the math part with some degree of accuracy. If I let all my guys go, on the first day they were all gone, I’d be right at the limit of the number of acres I could cover alone. If it rained everywhere, I’d be stretched thin. But too thin? And what was the chance of rain?

By Thursday, I was confident that there was no chance of rain for at least three days after the last member of my crew left. By the end of those days, it didn’t matter if it rained because the number of acres left to dry — remember, they’re picking cherries every day now — would easily be within my capability to dry alone.

So the stress from that decision was gone by Thursday, too.

The Tiny Sources of Stress

I have a few other tiny sources of everyday stress in my life.

Jeep air conditioner. It’s on the fritz, making a weird sound when the fan is on medium-high or high. That’ll need to get looked at.
Business planning. Believe it or not, I’m considering starting a new business with a partner here in Wenatchee. This is a huge decision for me and there’s some stress related to the yes/no decision of starting it at all.
Responsibilities. Like most folks, I have the responsibility of owning and managing a home and doing the work I do to make a living. Sometimes it’s more stressful than other times, but if I couldn’t handle that stress, which never really goes away, I should probably sell out, retire, and live in a rest home.

In all honesty, I can’t even count these as “stress,” mostly because they come and go on a daily basis. They’re part of life.

When the Stress Is Gone

What I really wanted to write about here is how I feel this morning. In one word: great!

Yesterday, after my check ride and lunch with Woody and an appointment to get my hair tended to, I rescheduled the business planning meeting I had set for 6 PM to sometime later in the weekend. On my way home from the hairdresser, I shopped at my favorite craft cocktail place and had one of their concoctions. I normally don’t drink at all during cherry season, but with absolutely no chance of rain, I didn’t think it would hurt. And I thought it might help for what I had planned next: sleep.

I was dead asleep by 7 PM. And I stayed that way until 3:30 AM. That’s 8-1/2 hours.

Now most folks probably wouldn’t be happy waking up at 3:30 in the morning. But after a solid night’s sleep, what difference does the time make? I spent some time sitting out on in the cool air on my deck, just looking out at the lights of the Wenatchee Valley. Then, as the eastern sky started to brighten, I went in and made my coffee.

That’s when I realized how good I felt and why: the stress was gone.

And with the stress gone, so was the malaise.

How could I have even considered giving up on the things I do? Running my helicopter services business? Managing over a dozen cherry drying contracts? Caring for and improving my home? Managing Airbnb properties? Making and selling jewelry? Raising chickens for eggs? Keeping bees? Gardening? Polishing gemstones?

And why wouldn’t I dive into a new business venture with a friend?

When I was stressed out earlier in the week, that feeling of malaise was making me question why I was doing any of these things, reminding me that the people whose lives revolve around a dull job and evenings spent watching television don’t get stressed out. The stress comes, in part, from facing challenges. No challenges, no stress.

But what those people don’t realize is that without self-imposed challenges, there’s no real meaning to life. They’re missing out on the amazing feeling of success that comes when facing a hurdle and jumping it.

Because isn’t that what I’m doing?

I wouldn’t have to take that check ride if I didn’t build and maintain a Part 135 helicopter business.

I wouldn’t have to make difficult staffing decisions if I didn’t take on the challenge of managing cherry drying contracts every year.

I make my stress when I take on these endeavors. The stress is usually temporary. And getting past it is what makes me tick, the reward of success is what drives me.

And I feel great today.

An Eclectic Mind

Web site and blog for Maria Langer, writer, video producer, jewelry artist, boat captain, and helicopter pilot. Blogging since 2004.

Tag Archives: helicopters