Tag Archives: weather

Helicopter Flight: McMinnville to Yakima, Part 2

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Another video from the FlyingMAir YouTube channel.

Join me for the second part of my cross-country flight from McMinnville, OR back to my summer base in Malaga, WA. In this video, I descend down into the Columbia River Gorge to fly upriver below the clouds. As the clouds lift, the wind picks up. Along the way, there’s lots of rain on the windscreen, an airplane passing in the opposite direction, and waterfalls along the oregon cliffs. This part of the flight goes from Columbia River east of Troutdale and ends after a “left turn” into a valley across the river from Hood River. Audio is from direct connection to the intercom, so you can hear radio chatter and me narrate the flight and make radio calls, plus dialed down volume of the helicopter’s engine/rotor noise. I included a bit of “nosecam” video, too.

Here are the videos in this series. I’ve already published videos that cover the last part of this flight, which was done a few days later:

McMinnville to Yakima, Part 1: https://youtu.be/6x6XY3-uZjo
McMinnville to Yakima, Part 2: https://youtu.be/3mmyOMzN0Ls (this video)
McMinnville to Yakima, Part 3: to come
Yakima River Canyon: https://youtu.be/1HZi_UHjK0I
Kittitas to Malaga: https://youtu.be/cRuUhyCQWMA

I should mention here that “cross-country” in the world of aviation is any long flight where you land at a different place from where you started. For airplanes, it’s 50 miles or more; for helicopters, it’s 25 miles or more. This is only part of a 178 nautical mile trip.

Helicopter Flight: McMinnville to Yakima, Part 1

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Another video from the Flying M Air YouTube channel.

Join me for the first part of my cross-country flight from McMinnville, OR back to my summer base in Malaga, WA.

In this video, I depart McMinnville, which is really rocking with pattern traffic, and head northeast into — you guessed it! — descending weather. (Seriously: just once I’d like to fly in that part of Oregon with good weather. How can people live there?) This time, I’m also dealing with a bit of wind that shakes the helicopter up every once in a while and makes me wonder whether my dogs in the back seat will puke. This part of the flight goes from McMinnville to the Columbia River and ends on a bit of a cliffhanger (pun intended).

Audio is from direct connection to the intercom, so you can hear radio chatter and me narrate the flight and make radio calls, plus dialed down volume of the helicopter’s engine/rotor noise.

Here are the videos in this series. I’ve already published videos that cover the last part of this flight, which was done a few days later:

McMinnville to Yakima, Part 1: https://youtu.be/6x6XY3-uZjo (this video)
McMinnville to Yakima, Part 2: https://youtu.be/3mmyOMzN0Ls
McMinnville to Yakima, Part 3: to come
Yakima River Canyon: https://youtu.be/1HZi_UHjK0I
Kittitas to Malaga: https://youtu.be/cRuUhyCQWMA
I should mention here that “cross-country” in the world of aviation is any long flight where you land at a different place from where you started. For airplanes, it’s 50 miles or more; for helicopters, it’s 25 miles or more. This is only part of a 178 nautical mile trip.

Cross-Country Helicopter Flight from Malaga to McMinnville, Part 5

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Another video from the FlyingMAir YouTube channel.

Join me for the fifth part of my cross-country flight from my summer base in Malaga, WA to McMinnville, OR. In this video, I depart Scappoose (where I made a precautionary landing in the previous video) and finally get across that dinky little mountain that separates me from my destination. From there, I get a special VFR clearance to cross Hillsboro’s airspace and find a path between the hills to McMinnville. The weather is pretty miserable, with rain and low clouds. I had two cameras rigged up for this video — the nosecam got wet along the way so I didn’t even run it. Audio is from direct connection to the intercom so you can hear me narrate the flight and make radio calls, plus dialed down volume of the helicopter’s engine/rotor noise.

You can see all of the videos for this flight here:
Part 1: https://youtu.be/pgKDciGP4eA
Part 2: https://youtu.be/CmupuFDXa4Q
Part 3: https://youtu.be/vyveMEm_MhQ
Pups in a Helicopter: https://youtu.be/eEVq9sRlJK8
Part 4: https://youtu.be/3KXR_D3SliA
Part 5: https://youtu.be/eghRyzhPigg (this video)

I should mention here that “cross-country” in the world of aviation is any long flight. For airplanes, it’s 50 miles or more; for helicopters, it’s 25 miles or more. This is only part of a 178 nautical mile trip.