Tag Archives: summer

Goofing Off on a Summer Sunday

Posted on by
1

Getting hot, tired, and stinky.

The original plan, when I left the house with Jack the Dog this morning, was to go to the airport and wash the helicopter before it got too hot out.

Immediately Sidetracked

It was about 8 AM when I left the house. I stopped off at the supermarket to buy a case of bottled water for the hangar. I store the water in the fridge and bring it on trips for my passengers. I bought Arrowhead because it’s spring water (not from a “municipal source”) and tastes pretty good to me.

At the airport, I swung past the high rent district. That’s our pet name for the newer hangars on the northeast end of the developed area. (Our hangar is in the originally, low-rent district.) I was pleasantly surprised to find quite a few people out: Ivan and Shelley, Dave and his friend (who turned out to be my accountant’s son), and Ray and his mechanic.

Dave is renting space for his Hughes 500C in John’s big hangar while John has his Commander in Colorado, where he’s smart (and rich) enough to live in the summer time. I pulled up alongside the open hangar door.

“Going out?” I asked.

“Yeah. I haven’t flown in a month. I got get the dust off it first.”

“Where are you heading?”

“Well, there’s a narrow canyon with a creek in it up around Hillside. I think there’s a place to land down in there. You want to come?”

I did and told him so. But then Jack and I went to chat with Ivan while Dave dusted his helicopter. And I started thinking that I really should just wash the helicopter.

Meanwhile, Dave and his friend pushed the helicopter out and we closing the hangar door. “Is Ray going, too?” I asked.

Dave told me he might, but not right away. He had some things to iron out with his mechanic. And they were thinking of going to the Weaver cabins instead. The raspberries should be ready for picking.

I told him that I might meet them there. Then Jack and I got back into the Jeep and headed to our hangar where my dusty helicopter waited.

Heli Outings, the Wickenburg Way

I should mention something here. When we go on helicopter outings, we each take our own helicopter. Even though we each have four seats and we seldom have more than one companion, we still all climb into separate aircraft. It’s worse when there’s only one of us in each helicopter.

Dave tells a story about when he, Ray, and Jim explored a plane crash site out in the desert, “Yeah, we burned 90 gallons an hour to get three guys out there.”

In our hangar, I had to make a decision. Go or not go? And if I go, what do I do with Jack the Dog?

I decided to go and to bring Jack the Dog with me. After all, he’d earned his wings over a year before and had flown twice in the helicopter.

I loaded up my little cooler with three bottles of water and an ice pack from the fridge. Then I got Jack’s harness and the saddle blanket we use to protect the back seats when he’s in there. He trotted alongside the golf cart as I wheeled the helicopter out to the fuel pumps.

Meanwhile, Dave had started up his helicopter and hover-taxied to the fuel island. He was shutting down as we approached. The fuel guy came out as I was removing the wheels and I told him to top off both tanks. I had a flight to Meteor Crater at 6 AM the next day and I didn’t want to worry about fueling in the dark.

While he fueled, I tried to put the harness on Jack, got it on sideways, and spread the blanket on the back seats. I patted the seat and he jumped in. Then I fastened his harness to the seatbelt. It was the first time I was flying with Jack without another human on board and I didn’t want him getting excited and jumping into the front seat area. Especially since my door was off.

Ray had pulled his helicopter out of his hangar on its dolly and left it parked on the other end of the ramp. As I started up, he fired his up, too. And Dave started up.

A typical summer Sunday afternoon at Wickenburg’s otherwise dead airport: three helicopters starting up on the ramp.

The Weaver Cabins

Dave made a radio call and took off to the north. Ray hovered over to the taxiway without making a radio call. I didn’t know what he was up to.

“You going, Ray?” I asked.

“No, you go on,” he said. I realized he was still working on things with his mechanic.

I made my call and took off after Dave. Of course, I’d lost sight of him. He had a two minute head start and was flying a dark colored helicopter. I knew he’d be flying low — he and Ray always do — so I figured I’d just stay high. I was approaching Round Mountain near Box Canyon when I tuned into the air-to-air frequency we’d chosen.

“Dave, you up?”

“Yeah. Can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” I relied. “Where are you?”

He told me he was just flying over Ray’s gravel pit, which was out to my left. I couldn’t see him, but I stayed high.

I caught sight of him a few minutes later. “I got you,” I said. “I’ll pull in behind you.”

A few weeks ago, there was a midair collision in Phoenix with two news helicopters crashing into a park. All four people in the two aircraft died. Local helicopter pilots are still pretty shook up over this. I wasn’t flying with anyone unless I could see him.

I dropped down to Dave’s altitude, which was only a few hundred feet off the desert floor. I saw a lot of cows. In the back, Jack was standing up, leaning against the back wall behind the seats. Putting dog hair on the fabric there, I knew.

Dave overflew the ghost town of Octave and then started climbing up the canyon beyond it. I followed. We had a 2,500 foot elevation gain ahead of us to cross over the mountains. Dave took it close to the ground, following the earth up. I flew more conservatively, climbing to maintain a reasonable elevation over the terrain. At one point, my climb rate was 1,000 feet per minute. I realized I was catching up with Dave and reduced power.

Over the mountain, Dave did a pushover into the valley. I can’t do pushovers in my helicopter. Well, not aggressive ones, anyway. No low-G operations permitted. So I dumped the collective and glided down behind him.

Now I’ve been to the cabins about a half dozen times and I’ve always landed in the same spot — a flat spot on the arm of a mountain about 1/10 mile from the cabins. The last time I was there, I set up a line of white rock to mark the spot. But it was also in my GPS. Dave headed toward my spot, then looked as if he was going to land a bit to the east of it. So I moved toward my spot. That’s when Dave realized he had the wrong landing zone and I realized that my landing zone and Dave’s were the same. So I turned 90° and landed on the very edge of my spot, right beside some cacti and bushes where the arm of the mountain drops off. He found a flat spot about 75 feet behind me.

Weaver CabinsA while later, we were down in a canyon beside a spring-fed creek. Flies were biting. We checked out the condition of the larger cabin, then examined the raspberry bushes. We were at least two weeks too late.

It was cool and pleasant in the shade, despite the bugs. I wished I worn long, lightweight pants and hiking shoes. At least I had water.

Jack was having a ball, running around and checking everything out.

Helicopter OutingWe heard an approaching helicopter, then saw Ray circling above the trees. We walked out where he could see us. Although he normally lands in a clearing on the other side of the creek, he found a spot near us. We were back by the helicopters when he shut down. I snapped this photo with my Treo for my TumbleLog. That’s Ray’s Hughes 500D on the right and Daves Hughes 500C on the left with my big fat tail (take it anyway you want) in the foreground.

Ray had two passengers with him and he took them down to see the cabins. He told us that there was a fig tree in a clearing upstream. Figs, of course, are in season right now and everyone loves fresh figs. I still don’t know if he was bullshitting us, but we never found the fig tree and he wouldn’t walk upstream to show us where it was.

On to the Canyon

Dave decided to continue on to his first destination, which was the canyon up near Hillside. One by one, we started off and took off. Ray went first — he wanted to be off the ground before I brought my RPM up to 100% and blew dust into his cockpit. (Both guys fly with all doors off most of the year; I only had one door off because I’ve been flying passengers lately.) Then I went. Then Dave. Ray disappeared quickly. I followed Dave over another mountain and northwest toward Hillside.

I watched Dave fly from my perch about 200 feet above him and 1/4 mile back. He flew close to the ground, following the earth. He’d climb over a small hill and drop down on the other side. I either flew around the little hills or glided over them. I lost him when he reached the boulders west of Hillside, then picked him up again when he climbed into sight for me.

Then he was turning, following a canyon, dropping down even lower.

“Yeah, there isn’t enough room for both of us there,” Dave said into the radio. I looked down and saw Ray parked alongside a stream in the bottom of the canyon.

“Jeez, Ray, there’s barely enough room down there for one.”

“Oh, it’s not that tight,” he told me.

Dave turned and went back downstream. I lost sight of him for a moment, then saw him on a sandbar about 1/4 mile downstream from Ray.

“There’s another sandbar right in front of me,” he told me. “I think there’s room for you.”

But in all honesty the location didn’t seem very appealing to me. It was in full sun and there wasn’t much water flowing. I was wearing Keds, which don’t make very good hiking shoes. And although those guys have more rotor blades than I do, mine are almost twice as long. I needed a good, big spot. I probably could have found one, but I didn’t think it was worth the effort.

Besides, I’d gone to the airport to wash my helicopter and I still had some work waiting for me back in my office.

“I think I’ll just head back,” I told him.

“Are you sure?” Dave asked.

“Yeah. I got work to do. Have fun. Fly safe.”

Ray was still on the radio. “Dave, you on the ground?”

But Dave had either turned off his radio or, more likely, the signal was blocked in the rocky canyon. “He’s on the ground,” I reported. “About a quarter mile downstream. I’ll see you guys later.”

I climbed out and punched Wickenburg Airport into my GPS. I was close to the plane crash site Ray had shown me months ago, but I didn’t overfly it. Instead, I made a beeline back to Wickenburg, by way of Congress. It was a 41 NM flight. I made it in under 30 minutes and set down at the fuel island for more fuel. I’d flown 0.9 hours.

Down to Business

Of course, by that point I was hot and tired. Too tired to wash the helicopter. But I had to get that job done. It was dirty — I’d flown in the rain a few weeks ago and it had gotten badly dusted up at the cabins hours before. My passengers the next day were paying $1,200 for a flight to Meteor Crater and Winslow, AZ (made famous in that Eagle’s song). For that kind of money, they should fly in a clean helicopter.

So I put the helicopter away in the hangar, hopped into the Jeep with Jack the Dog, and drove back to the supermarket. I bought a sandwich, iced tea, and a tapioca pudding and drove back to the airport. I connected my iPod to my boom box, and listened to the last four Grammar Girl podcasts while I ate. Then I tuned in the Future Tense podcast playlist I’d created, rolled the helicopter out, and got down to work.

I hate washing the helicopter on a hot day. The challenge is keeping the water from drying on it before I get a chance to dry it with a towel. My post about washing the helicopter explains the process, so I won’t explain it again here. I will say, however, that I got so hot that I had to hose myself off. Twice. I must have sweat out everything I drank that day.

I put the helicopter back into the hangar and dried it. Then I did some paperwork. Jack hung out under my desk in the back of the hangar. It was too hot, even for him to chase lizards.

Now I’m back in my cool house with a nice cold egg cream in my belly. I’ll shower, put on clean clothes, and get down to the real work.

Chapter 23 awaits completion.

WebCam Timelapse – July 16, 2007

Posted on by
2

It’s getting closer!

My WebCam has been faithfully making timelapse movies every day. I’m trying not to bore you by showing you all of them.

Yesterday’s sky was extremely active. Cloudy then mostly sunny then cloudy with an approaching thunderstorm. This video shows an excellent example of a typical monsoon summer day here in Arizona. The storm was fast approaching and Mike and I really thought we’d get poured on. But when the sun sets, the storm’s main source of energy is removed. It dissipates quickly — usually within an hour of sunset. And although yesterday’s storm got close — probably within 20 miles — it died before it reached us.

Darn!

Here’s the video from the day. I’ve tweaked the settings to shoot a new frame every 8 minutes and create the video at the framrate of 5 frames per second. That stretches out the video to 20 seconds without making a major increase in the file size.

[qt:https://aneclecticmind.com/wp-content/movies/Timelapse-071607.mov https://aneclecticmind.com/wp-content/movies/Timelapse-071607-poster.mov 320 256]

Remember, after clicking this image, you may have to wait a few seconds for it to load before it starts playing. Be patient and click only once. It’ll play right in this window. QuickTime is required.

Could it Be? Monsoon Season?

Posted on by
Comment

Heat’s not enough. I want humidity and rain, too.

This morning, when I woke at 5:30 AM to the whistles of my parrot, I was surprised to see that Mike hadn’t opened the French door between our bedroom and the upstairs patio. He always opens it during the night this time of year. That’s the only time it’s cool.

But when I opened it, I realized why: it wasn’t cool. For the first time this season, the outside temperature remained in the 80s overnight. And that’s the first sign of what everyone in Arizona is waiting for this time of year: monsoon season.

A Monsoon? In the Desert?

Sure. I can’t make this stuff up.

Monsoon season in Arizona is marked by a number of meteorological events:

  • Dew point reaches at least 55°F for at least three days in a row. That’s the official indicator of the start of monsoon season in Phoenix. That means it gets humid outside. The “dry heat” isn’t so dry anymore.
  • The winds shift to bring moist air off the Sea of Cortez and Gulf of Mexico in a counterclockwise flow. This is why the storms, when they come to Wickenburg, come from the north or east during monsoon season.
  • My WebCamStorms build just about every afternoon. I can see them coming from my office window. (You can check out the WebCam image here; it’s usually available during daylight hours.) They’re isolated, severe thunderstorms, packed with high wind, lightning, and the occasional microburst.
  • It rains. That’s if we’re lucky. The clouds have lots of moisture, but if the ground is too dry, the rain dries up before it hits the ground, resulting in virga and, often, dust storms. But once monsoon season is underway, we get rain — although never enough of it to quench the thirst of our golf courses and swimming pools.
  • We get flash floods. That’s if we get enough rain all at once. A dry wash runs through our property and, with enough rain, it can turn into a raging river. For about an hour. Then it’s just a wet riverbed that, within 24 hours, turns dry again.

Want more info, you can get it here, here, and here.

And this is what most Arizonans are waiting for.

My Monsoons

I’ve experienced Arizona monsoons in three different places over the years.

Wickenburg
I’ve lived in Wickenburg for ten years now, and although I’ve been wanting to escape, like the snowbirds, in the summertime, I haven’t usually been able to. That means I’ve lived through a good bunch of monsoon seasons.

My office has always faced the mountains to the north (even when it was in a condo I own downtown). I’d be sitting at my desk, working away, occasionally glancing up out the window. I’d see the storm clouds building over the Bradshaw and Weaver Mountains, making their way southwest toward Wickenburg. The sky would get dark out there — while it remained sunny at my house — and lightning would flash. If the storm reached us before sunset, we were in for it. But in too many instances, the storm was just too slow and got to us after the sun set. Then it was a 50-50 chance that we’d get some storm activity — including welcome rain — before the storm dissipated.

Sometimes, the storms moved in more quickly — probably more moisture in the air. In those cases, we’d get a storm in the afternoon. What a treat! I’d stand under the overhang by my front door or on the patio at the condo and listen to the rain fall. Sometimes, if it looked rainy enough to get the washes flowing, I’d jump in my Jeep and head out into the desert, looking for a stream where streams don’t normally appear. I don’t drive through these — mind you — that’s dangerous. I just watch all that flowing water, remembering what it was like to live in a place where flowing water is a lot more common than dry streambeds.

On very rare occasions, a storm would move in just before dawn. I can’t remember this happening more than a few times, though. One time, it was the morning I was supposed to report back for work at the Grand Canyon, where I was flying helicopter tours. I had planned to take my helicopter up — the 1-1/2 hour flight sure beat the 3-1/2 hour drive. But with a thunderstorm sitting on top of Wickenburg, flying up was not a safe option. So I had to drive. I left two hours earlier than I would have and still got to work an hour late.

If you want to read more about the monsoon in Wickenburg, I recommend Lee Pearson’s excellent article for wickenburg-az.com, “The Monsoon Is Near“. It includes links to video footage he’s made available online.

Grand Canyon
In the summer of 2004, I worked as tour pilot at the Grand Canyon. I flew Long Ranger helicopters over the canyon 10 to 14 times a day on a 7 on/7 off schedule from April through the end of September.

My introduction to monsoon season came on my return from a flight in July. The storms had built up and were moving in toward the airport. I was about 5 miles out when a bolt of lightning came out of the sky less than 1/4 mile from where I was flying and struck the top of a Ponderosa pine tree. The treetop exploded into flames. I got on the radio, on our company frequency, and said, “It’s lightning out here. It just hit a tree about a quarter mile away from me.” The Chief Pilot’s voice came on and said, “Better get used to it.”

When you learn to fly, they teach you the danger of flying near thunderstorms. They advise you to stay at least 20 miles away. 20 miles! So you can imagine my surprise when I realized that the tour company had no qualms about continuing flight in the vicinity of thunderstorms.

And they were right — it didn’t seem to be dangerous at all. The storms were all localized — you could see them coming and usually fly around them if they were in your way. The rule we used was that if you could see through the rain, you could fly through it. Although it occasionally got a little bumpy, there were no serious updrafts or downdrafts. And although we were told that if things ever got too rough during a flight, we could land until the storm passed, I never had to. (Thus passing up my only opportunity to legally land a helicopter inside the Grand Canyon.)

The Grand Canyon with CloudsI do recall one other monsoon-related incident, though. The company I worked for had about ten helicopters on duty to do flights. Because of this, the company was very popular with tour companies, which would bus large groups of foreign tourists to the airport for helicopter flights. These flights were booked years in advance, so the company always knew when they’d need all helicopters to fly for a single group. One of these groups arrived late in the day during August. Nine other pilots and I were sitting out on our helipads, engines running, blades spinning, when the bus pulled up. Moments later, the loaders were bringing groups of five and six Japanese tourists to the helipads and loading us up.

It had been stormy most of the afternoon, with isolated thunderstorms drifting across the canyon. Farther out to the east, a controlled burn was sending low clouds of smoke our way. At the airport, however, the visibility was fine. We were scheduled to do a tour on the west side of the canyon, in the Dragon Corridor. One by one, we took off and headed west, making a long line of ten helicopters, all going the same way.

I was about six back from the front and could see we had a problem about five miles short of the rim. The north end of the Dragon Corridor was completely socked in with low clouds and falling rain. We couldn’t see across the canyon.

The lead helicopter announced on the company frequency that he was going to switch to an east canyon tour. He made a 180° turn. One by one, we all announced the same intentions and followed him. Now we were all heading back to the airport. We got permission from the tower to transition to the east, crossed about 1/2 mile south of the airport, and continued on.

Now we were in the smokey area. It wasn’t bad. Not yet, anyway. We crossed over the canyon and my passengers let out the usual oohs and ahs. And we proceeded to do the east canyon tour, which was reserved for weather situations because it normally ran about 35 minutes (and our passengers paid for a 25 minute tour). Of course, with the initial false start, their tours would be 45 minutes long.

The thing about flying at the Grand Canyon is that you have to stay on established routes. The only time I’d ever done that route was in training four months before, so I really wasn’t too clear on where I was supposed to go. Fortunately, there was a helicopter about 1/2 mile in front of me to follow. Unfortunately, the weather was closing in. It started to rain and visibility got tough. I focused on the other helicopter’s strobe light and followed it back across the canyon to the rim. Then I lost it in the smoke.

I pointed the helicopter in the direction I thought the airport might be and flew as if I knew where I was going. About a mile out, I saw the tower and other landmarks. I was only about a half mile off course. I landed safely, my passengers got out, and I shut down for the day.

I used to ask the Chief Pilot why we flew scenic tours in weather like that. His response: “If they’re willing to pay for it and it’s safe, why not?”

Howard Mesa
Howard Mesa is a mesa north of Williams and south of the Grand Canyon. It stands 300 feet above the Colorado Plateau. Our vacation property, with its camping shed, is at the very top of the mesa, with 360° views stretching out for 50 to 100 miles, depending on sky and dust conditions.

In the summer of 2005, I spent about a month at Howard Mesa, preparing our camping shed for its future duties. I lived in our old horse trailer with living quarters, a cramped space that was fine for one person, a dog, and a parrot. Mike came up on weekends to help out and escape Wickenburg’s heat.

Monsoon season atop Howard Mesa is a real treat. The clouds start building at around 11 AM and, because you can see in every direction, you can monitor their progress as they move across the desert. By 1 or 2 PM (at the latest), you can see rain (or virga) falling somewhere. This is where you can really get an idea of the individual storms because you can see them all, individually. I took this shot one afternoon around sunset. The view is out to the northwest. The mountain you see in silhouette is Mount Trumbull on the Arizona strip, 80+ miles away.

Monsoon Rain

The great thing about the monsoon up north is that when the rain comes, the temperature drops at least 20°F. I remember one day doing some work around our place in the morning. The temperature was in the 90s, which is pretty hot for up there. I was wearing a pair of gym shorts and a tank top. I hopped in the truck and drove down to Williams to do some laundry and shopping. While I was there, a storm moved in. In minutes, the temperature dropped down to the 50s. Needless to say, I nearly froze my butt off.

Of course, there’s also hail up there. Some friends of mine were on top Bill Williams Mountain south of Williams one summer day when a storm moved in. The golf ball-sized hail that fell did some serious damage to their car. And the fear of hail like that is what keeps me from leaving my helicopter at Howard Mesa, unprotected in the summertime. Rotor blades cost $48K a pair.

This Year’s Monsoon

Anyway, it looks like this weekend might be the start of the 2007 Monsoon Season here in Arizona. I’m hoping for lots and lots of rain — we really need it. And I’ll try to share some photos throughout the season. Sadly, I think all my old monsoon season photos were lost in my big hard disk crash earlier this year.