It’s more than just drawing a straight line.
Every week I get at least one weird helicopter flight request. Yesterday’s was for a flight from Scottsdale to Four Corners and back.
Four Corners, on a map. (Wikipedia image.)
When I say Four Corners, I’m talking about the place on the map where Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico meet. In drawing their rather arbitrary state lines years ago, the mapmakers created this manmade point of interest: the only place in the United State where four state boundaries meet at one point. There’s a monument there that supposedly marks the exact point where the states meet. Tourists like to drive in and get down on all fours for photos with one limb in each state.
These days, the monument is managed by the Navajo Nation, which has land on three of the four states. The Colorado section is on Ute Indian land. I’m pretty sure there’s a fee to get in, but I could be wrong. I’ve driven past the point and flown over it, but have never stopped there.
So the passengers wanted to land at Four Corners, which is on Navajo land. That means I need permission from the Navajo Nation to land there. That’s the first hurdle the booking agent has to jump. (I won’t get permits for my passengers; I’ve wasted enough time trying for flights that didn’t happen.)
The booking agent evidently uses some kind of flight planning tool to estimate flight time. He estimated 2-1/2 hours each way. But the booking agent didn’t take into account the realities of endurance, refueling locations, weather, and FAA reserve fuel requirements.
I used SkyVector — highly recommended! — to come up with a basic flight plan — something I could use to estimate the cost of the flight. Its built-in aeronautical charts make it easy to identify places to stop for fuel if needed.
I learned that a direct flight from Scottsdale to Four Corners would take approximately 2-1/2 hours — just as he’d estimated. But this didn’t take into consideration the possibility of headwinds and my aircraft’s endurance. I roughly estimate 3 hours endurance on full tanks of fuel. But could I fill the tanks? I had no idea what the passengers weighed yet. And with my 20 minutes of required reserve fuel, planning a direct flight was not a good idea.
But what made it a really bad idea is that there is no fuel available between Winslow, AZ and Four Corners — a distance of 143 NM or 1-1/2 hour of flight time. Indeed, the closest fuel to Four Corners is 42 NM to the east — not on our way back — at Farmington.
SkyVector makes preliminary flight planning very quick and easy.
That meant I needed to plan three fuel stops: Winslow (INW) on the way up and Farmington (FMN) plus Winslow (INW) or Payson (PAN) on the way back. The resulting flight path is a narrow triangle totaling 549 NM and at least 5-1/2 hours of flight time. To be on the safe side, I’d estimate 6 hours.
This is what kills me about some of these booking agents. This particular one is based in Atlanta, GA. I can pretty much guarantee he’s never spent any time in an aircraft over the Navajo Reservation — which is where at least half this flight would be conducted. He has no concept of the vast distances and empty terrain a route like this would cover. He — and likely his passengers — can’t conceive of the utter boredom of six hours flying over this area. Sure, there are scenic parts, but not six hours worth. They’d be paying me close to $3,000 for this one-day adventure.
And all for what? A photo opportunity at a manmade “monument” in the middle of nowhere? Heck, look at it on GoogleMaps! There’s nothing there or anywhere near it!
Yet the booking agent will sell it to them if he can. And I’ll provide the service if it’s paid for.
I think the booking agent could do them a better service by selling them a Sedona tour or a trip up to the Grand Canyon. Or even Lake Powell, for Pete’s sake! Closer, cheaper to visit, and far more interesting.
Of course the weird requests of uninformed passengers or booking agents isn’t really my point.
My point is this: There’s a lot more to flight planning than simply measuring the distance between two points. The preliminary flight plan I cooked up here is just the first part of a lengthy planning process I have to go through if I get this job.
I have to admit that I find it a bit annoying when a booking agent oversimplifies the requirements of a flight — especially if he fails to inform his clients about what they’re getting into. In this case, it’s a long and expensive flight over the high desert of Arizona with very little of interest to see along the way.
Things seem different lately, and I’m not sure why. I’ve begun getting fan mail from readers of my articles in 
The result, as you can see here, is likely the best portrait of me that I’ll ever see.
Anyway, I didn’t see the photo until the May 2009 issue of the magazine came out. I was thrilled with it. I wrote to Jeff to ask if I could have a copy to use elsewhere. I also asked a few other questions. He answered the other questions, but didn’t send the photo. I thought perhaps the magazine had said no, so I let it go.
But then we got the horses and decided we wanted to be able to go camping with them. So I bought a 35-foot horse trailer with living quarters. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the concept, the trailer has stalls for the horses in back — mine held three. It also had a sort of closet for storing saddles and other tack. The other half of its length was dedicated to living space for people. It had a queen sized bed, sofa, sink, two-burner stove, good-sized refrigerator, and full (although tiny) bathroom. All this stuff was crammed into a very small space. We added a screened-in room to expand our living space. This photo shows what it looked like parked on our Howard Mesa property with the screen room attached. I lived in this space every other week in the summer of 2004 when I flew at the Grand Canyon. Sadly, we rarely used the camper as it was designed — to take our horses camping with us.
In 2006, I sold the horse trailer and purchased a Starcraft Antiqua hybrid camper. To me, this was the best of both worlds: a hard-sided camper with the usual amenities (kitchen, bathroom, dining area, sitting area, bedroom) plus the outdoorsy feeling of tent camping. I bought this primarily because I thought we were going to go “on the road” with the helicopter in the summer of 2007. I’d do 
Floor plan. The layout of the RV is likely to determine what amenities it has. If you’ve never shopped for an RV — or haven’t done it lately — you will be amazed at what they can cram into a space. For example, the RV I selected is 36 feet long and 8 feet wide. Yet it has a private bedroom, private bathroom, kitchen, dining area, living area with sofa and recliners, and desk. In many cases, it does this with slide outs. You drive along, park, and push a button to expand your living space.
Being the picky person I am, certain elements of the floor plan were very important to me. I wanted to be able to access the refrigerator and bathroom without having to expand all the slides. For example, suppose I’m cruising down the road in the middle of nowhere and need/want a cold drink. I can pull over, climb into the RV, and grab one out of the fridge. And even take a leak in a bathroom I know is clean. I also wanted what’s called a “side aisle bath” — a bathroom with all components in the same little room. Other floor plans actually put the bathroom sink in the bedroom. I didn’t want that. And finally, I wanted working space that wasn’t the same place I ate. That means I needed a desk or space for a desk. An RV with a good desk is hard to find and I was perfectly willing to pull out a recliner or even a sofa to put in my own desk. But the model I wound up with actually had a good, usable desk and even had drawers (see photo below). So as far as floor plan is concerned, what I bought is pretty darn close to “perfect” — for me.
Features and Amenities. Every RV manufacturer and design has its own set of features and amenities. For example, a toy hauler includes a garage-like space in the back. A family model RV might include a separate bedroom — and even an additional half bathroom! — with bunks for the kids. Many luxury RVs have surround sound entertainment systems with wide screen televisions that rise out of a panel or fill an entire wall space. Some units have electric fireplaces. You can find kitchens with two refrigerators and bathrooms with bathtubs. Dining can be in a booth or table and chairs. Sofas can become second beds. Bedrooms can have televisions, closets can be cedar-lined, cabinets can have washer/dryer hookups. The list goes on and on. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, you walk into an RV with yet another feature you didn’t think you’d ever see in an RV.
For us, less was more — on the inside, anyway. All the RV dealers in the world can assure us that an electric fireplace is a good feature because it gives off heat using the campground’s electricity rather than onboard propane. I can remind them all that we do a lot of off-the-grid camping where there is no campground electricity. A fireplace was a feature we simply didn’t want — yet it appeared in more than half the RVs we looked at! I was extremely pleased, therefore, when we found the unit I’d buy and saw that instead of a fireplace (see photo of typical configuration), there was an empty cabinet.
On the outside, however, I wanted some of the newer modern features that were not available in the 2009 model I almost bought. At the top of the list was an electric awning — something I could roll out or back in with the push of a button. (If you’d manually rolled in an awning in your pajamas in the middle of the night when the wind kicked up as many times as I have, you’d understand why.) A remote control to deploy the slide outs was also useful when setting up the RV by myself, as I’m likely to do this summer. Ditto for electric stabilizer jacks and “landing gear.” And it seemed to make a lot more sense to have all hookups (except electricity) and sewer dump/flush controls in one place rather than scattered all over the side of the RV. These features were the primary reason I went with the 2010 model rather than the 2009 (which actually had more cabinet space in the kitchen).
Quality and Price. Quality and price really do go hand in hand. You get what you pay for. A low-end fifth wheel that you might be able to pick up for $25K is simply not going to be as sturdy or well-built as a top-of-the-line fifth wheel that’ll cost you nearly $100K.
In my case, I wanted good quality but knew I couldn’t afford — or, more accurately, were not willing to spend enough for — the best. So the very first part of my search was to determine which brands were below my quality needs or above my budget. This should be the first step in anyone’s search for an RV; you can waste a huge amount of time looking at units that simply won’t work for you because of insufficient quality or expensive price. I also cut from the mix any manufacturer what was in bankruptcy or had gone out of the business. 2008/09 killed a lot of them. That limited us to about ten different brands by three different manufacturers. Mountaineer is a mid-range Keystone product. Montana by Keystone is one step above it and I could have made that step if I found one I liked. Heartland’s Big Horn and Big Country were also in the running.
The Mountaineer I bought won on all three factors:
I started calling some of the RV dealers I’d met with over the past few months — I kept all their cards — to see if they had the same model available. One, in Quartzsite, said he had a 2010. I told him I’d consider driving out to take a look if we could agree to a price over the phone. I told him about the 2009 I were prepared to buy. He asked me to make an offer. I did. He came back with a slightly higher offer that was still below retail. We were there by 2 pm and I had all the papers signed by 4:30 PM.
It was cloudy to the east when we arrived, so sunrise was pretty much a non-event. Although I did take some photos of the front of the building in first sun (or what we had of it), I detoured to a small shrine-like building on the west side of the main church building. My friend, photographer 
When the funeral ended, we paused as the blue coffin was loaded into the back of a Cadillac Escalade hearse — which I didn’t even know existed. As the mourners departed, the photographers swarmed into the church.
The main altar area, which is shown here, is a crazy ornate masterpiece of southwestern art. Having grown up Catholic, I can’t imagine sitting through a mass amid such decorations. Yet the church is active and has mass daily. (No photography allowed during church services.)
There are also candles all over the place. The sale of candles is probably the church’s biggest fund-raiser. They’re not expensive — only $3 each — and they’re quite beautiful when lined up in racks near statues. I bought one in memory of my grandmother. I’m not religious, but she was. She would have liked the place, so I bought a candle and put in in front of Saint Anthony (or “S. Antonio,” as the label at the bottom of the statue said). My grandmother used to have a Saint Anthony statue in the guest room — my mother has it now — so Saint Anthony statues remind me of her.
By the time we were finished inside, the sun was out and the sky was nearly clear. I shot this photo of the front of the mission, after waiting about 10 minutes for various tourists to meander in and out of my composition. This was shot at f/16 with a polarizer to enhance the color of the sky. There’s definitely some distortion in this shot, but I rather like it. It’ll probably end up in 
I also got a little creative, working with various elements inside and outside the main building. These two photos are examples. The first is of the backs of the church pews. They’re simple carved wood with this unusual scalloped edge. It was sad to see that more than a few people had carved words into the backs of them. 
This shot is a closeup of a scroll design in the stucco finish of a wall outside. I like textures and try to experiment with them in my photography. Although not very interesting, this is a good example.