Helicopter Flight: Ellensburg, WA to a Friend’s House

A cockpit POV video from the FlyingMAir YouTube Channel.

COME FLY WITH ME as I leave Ellensburg, WA after an FAA check ride and take a scenic route back to the Wenatchee area. Along the way, I fly up a canyon I’ve never explored, go over the top of the Mission Ridge Ski Resort, and decide to make a stop at a friend’s house where I have some chores to do. This is a narrated flight with some radio chatter and lots of great valley and mountain views.

If I’d driven from the airport in Ellensburg to my friend’s home in Wenatchee, the ride would have taken nearly 2 hours. In this video, the flight is less than 17 minutes.

About Me and the Helicopter

  • I have been flying for about 20 years. My nearly 4,000 hours of flight time is in Robinson R44, Robinson R22, and Bell 206L (Long Ranger) helicopters.
  • The helicopter is a Robinson R44 Raven II — the same one that appears in the photo at the beginning of the video. You can learn more about them here: https://robinsonheli.com/r44-specifications/ I own this helicopter. It is the third helicopter I’ve owned since 2000.
  • My helicopter has ADS-B Out and is picked up by radar facilities. You can see my track for recent flights on Flightradar24: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/n7534D This is a great site for tracking any almost any flight, including the airlines.

About the Video

  • The video was recorded with a pair of GoPro cameras, one of which is connected to the helicopter’s intercom system. Both cameras record audio, but I dialed down the helicopter sound to about 25% of normal volume so it wouldn’t be annoying. I wouldn’t mind leaving it out altogether, but lots of folks seem to want it, so there it is.
  • The video was edited on a Macintosh using Screenflow software. (Screenflow was the only affordable software I could find that allowed me to do picture-in-picture.) Learn more about it here: https://www.telestream.net/screenflow/overview.htm
  • The intro music is by Bob Levitus, famed “Dr. Mac.” You can find him here: http://www.boblevitus.com/

I’m trying to drop flying videos like this one every Sunday morning and usually drop “extras” with more info about owning and operating a helicopter midweek. I also host occasional livestreams with Q&A chats. Subscribe so you don’t miss anything new! And tell your friends. The more subscribers I have, the more motivated I am to keep producing videos like this one.

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Time-lapse: Loading a Huey Helicopter onto a Trailer with a Crane

A video from the FlyingMAir YouTube channel.

I was fortunate enough to spend a lot of time yesterday with a Huey pilot who had just finished up his cherry drying contract and was prepping to take the helicopter back to Montana. We traded favors: he let me fly his Huey (video to come) in exchange for me helping him to get his helicopter trailer under the Huey while it was supported from a crane. You see, my truck has a gooseneck hitch in its bed, which is the one thing he needed that he didn’t have. (I think I got the better deal.)

In any case, as part of the day’s activities, I set up my BOGO iPhone in time-lapse mode on a tripod while he prepped the crane truck and helicopter and lifted the helicopter onto the trailer. What took a lot longer than an hour is condensed down to just 36 seconds here. Enjoy.

I don’t know much about this helicopter except that it’s a 1962 Bell UH-1 that saw action — with the bullet holes to prove it — in Vietnam and Nicaragua. It’s got a bare bones interior with just two pilot seats and a big empty cargo area. It holds about 125 gallons of fuel, which it burns off in about 90 minutes and costs approximately $1200/hour to operate. It usually cruises at 60 to 80 knots.

This is one of the video “extras” I release on the FlyingMAir YouTube channel midweek. I normally release cockpit POV videos on Sunday mornings. I hope you’ll check them out.

Helicopter Flight: Malaga to Ellensburg, WA

A cockpit POV video from the FlyingMAir YouTube Channel.

COME FLY WITH ME as I make a quick, 15-minute flight from my base in Malaga, WA over Jumpoff Ridge and across the Colockum to Ellensburg, WA for an FAA check ride at Bowers Field. This is a narrated flight with radio chatter. Along the way, I explain how I climb over the 1,000 foot cliff near my home, why the clutch light goes on periodically, and a bunch of other things. You’ll see various terrain changes and maybe even spot Mount Rainier in the haze.

About Me and the Helicopter

  • I have been flying for about 20 years. My nearly 4,000 hours of flight time is in Robinson R44, Robinson R22, and Bell 206L (Long Ranger) helicopters.
  • The helicopter is a Robinson R44 Raven II — the same one that appears in the photo at the beginning of the video. You can learn more about them here: https://robinsonheli.com/r44-specifications/ I own this helicopter. It is the third helicopter I’ve owned since 2000.
  • My helicopter has ADS-B Out and is picked up by radar facilities. You can see my track for recent flights on Flightradar24: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/n7534D This is a great site for tracking any almost any flight, including the airlines.

About the Video

  • The video was recorded with a pair of GoPro cameras, one of which is connected to the helicopter’s intercom system. Both cameras record audio, but I dialed down the helicopter sound to about 25% of normal volume so it wouldn’t be annoying. I wouldn’t mind leaving it out altogether, but lots of folks seem to want it, so there it is.
  • The video was edited on a Macintosh using Screenflow software. (Screenflow was the only affordable software I could find that allowed me to do picture-in-picture.) Learn more about it here: https://www.telestream.net/screenflow/overview.htm
  • The intro music is by Bob Levitus, famed “Dr. Mac.” You can find him here: http://www.boblevitus.com/

I’m trying to drop flying videos like this one every Sunday morning and usually drop “extras” with more info about owning and operating a helicopter midweek. I also host occasional livestreams with Q&A chats. Subscribe so you don’t miss anything new! And tell your friends. The more subscribers I have, the more motivated I am to keep producing videos like this one.

Still reading? Thanks! Maybe you’ll consider buying a T-shirt, mug, or sticker to help fund my video equipment acquisitions? Check out my Teespring store: https://teespring.com/stores/support-flyingmair-on-youtube

Lights at Night

Beautiful, but at a cost.

As the days are getting shorter, I’m finally rising and going to bed when it’s dark out again. This morning, I took a few moments to contemplate the predawn lights of Wenatchee from my home. And it really is beautiful.

Lights at Night
The view from my deck looking out towards Wenatchee at 4:51 AM this morning.

When I was a kid, my family would occasionally take a drive up to the east side of the town we lived in, Cresskill, NJ. Back in the 1960s and into the 1970s and beyond, developers had begun building luxury homes on a hillside that climbed away from the town toward the Palisades. We used to call it “the rich people’s hill” because the homes were huge and it was obvious that only rich people lived there. I remember one of those drives being in the evening, after the sun had set and the lights of Cresskill had come on. I remember seeing all those lights, like diamonds in the darkness.

That’s what my nighttime view here reminds me of sometimes.

I cannot begin to describe how wonderful it is to live in a place so removed from, yet within reach of, a small city like Wenatchee. I have all the conveniences that the little city offers — shopping, dining, theaters, nightlife, services, and even an airport with airline service to a real city (Seattle) and beyond. Yet I’m not down in it, crawling around in — or listening to — traffic. Even as I sit here now, typing out my thoughts as the sky brightens out my windows, the only sound is my wine fridge humming and my rooster crowing. Even when they’re spraying down in the orchards far below me, the sound seems more earthy, more natural, than the sounds of the city.

But the lights. Sigh.

I’ve begun to notice bright ones getting closer. When I returned from my winter travels in spring 2018, I noticed four new bright spotlights over some sort of maintenance yard down by the river. You can see them on the right side of this photo: three in one color and one in another. And last spring I noticed a new bright light across the river, likely shining down into someone’s yard. Why?

Here at my home, I have subdued lighting at night. There are solar accent lights along my driveway and the path to my tent and the posts tops on the uncovered side of my deck. There are motion-sensor lights that go on when someone — or something — walks near them. None of these lights shine up. And that’s it. I see no reason to pollute the sky with light at night.

And that’s what it is: light pollution. The only complaint I have about my home is the fact that it never gets truly dark here. (Well, it actually does, but only at night when it’s foggy.) And because I don’t have (or need) curtains on my windows, it never gets dark inside my home.

It was with a bit of sadness that I sold my old telescope last year. It was parked near the door to the deck for years and only used, with disappointing results, once or twice. Although I’m likely to pick up a more compact one with tracking that I can take on my winter travels — plenty of dark sky out in the desert! — I just have no use for one here.

It’s blue hour right now, light enough to see the empty sage land between my home and the orchards and lights beyond it. The city lights are starting to fade. It’ll be a hot sunny day today.

But at night, I’ll see those lights again, enjoying the view while lamenting my loss of dark night sky.

Helicopter Tour: Dam to Dam

A video from the FlyingMAir YouTube channel.

COME FLY WITH ME on a narrated tour of the Wenatchee, WA area from the Rock Island Dam to the Rocky Reach Dam.

I managed to squeeze in this 15-minute flight just before I had to pick up paying passengers near the Rocky Reach Dam. Never one to miss an opportunity, I got the cameras rolling and wound up with two video tracks to combine for this video.

About Me and the Helicopter

  • I have been flying for about 20 years. My nearly 4,000 hours of flight time is in Robinson R44, Robinson R22, and Bell 206L (Long Ranger) helicopters.
  • The helicopter is a Robinson R44 Raven II — the same one that appears in the photo at the beginning of the video. You can learn more about them here: https://robinsonheli.com/r44-specifications/ I own this helicopter. It is the third helicopter I’ve owned since 2000.
  • My helicopter has ADS-B Out and is picked up by radar facilities. You can see my track for recent flights on Flightradar24: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/n7534D This is a great site for tracking any almost any flight, including the airlines.

About the Video

  • The video was recorded with a pair of GoPro cameras, one of which is connected to the helicopter’s intercom system. Both cameras record audio, but I dialed down the helicopter sound to about 25% of normal volume so it wouldn’t be annoying. I wouldn’t mind leaving it out altogether, but lots of folks seem to want it, so there it is.
  • The video was edited on a Macintosh using Screenflow software. (Screenflow was the only affordable software I could find that allowed me to do picture-in-picture.) Learn more about it here: https://www.telestream.net/screenflow/overview.htm
  • The intro music is by Bob Levitus, famed “Dr. Mac.” You can find him here: http://www.boblevitus.com/

I’m trying to drop flying videos like this one every Sunday morning and usually drop “extras” with more info about owning and operating a helicopter midweek. I’m also working on putting together occasional livestreams with Q&A chat. Subscribe so you don’t miss anything new! And tell your friends. The more subscribers I have, the more motivated I am to keep producing videos like this one.

Still reading? Thanks! Maybe you’ll consider buying a T-shirt, mug, or sticker to help fund my video equipment acquisitions? Check out my Teespring Store!