An Eclectic Mind

Running the big fan.

It’s official. I’m going to Washington State for the cherry drying season.

(You can learn more about the kind of work I’ll be doing in “Drying Cherries with the Big Fan.” The photo here shows what helicopters try to prevent: split cherries, in this case, with brown rot. Would you want to eat this? Yuck.)

This is the third year I’ve tried to get into this kind of work — the second year that I’ve tried hard — and I’m finally in.

This has pretty much set the basis for my schedule for the entire month of May.

100 Hours

As those of you who are pilots know, every aircraft is required to have an annual inspection. N630ML’s annual inspection is due in June. But aircraft used for commercial (for-hire) purposes must also have an inspection every 100 hours of flight time. This 100-hour inspection is almost the same as an annual inspection. In fact, an annual inspection meets the requirements of a 100-hour inspection. Since I fly just over 200 hours each year, I normally get one annual inspection and one 100-hour inspection.

As I type this, N630ML has about 15 hours left before its 100-hour inspection is due. It’ll take us about 12-13 hours to fly to Seattle, which is where I’ll get my annual inspection done. That leaves very few hours to spare. Even though I’m allowed to go over the 100 hours by as many as 10 hours if I’m moving the aircraft to a facility to get this job done, I’d rather keep the aircraft 100% legal for commercial flight, right up to the time I drop it off.

So I’ve been turning down flights. I can’t tell you how many I’ve turned down. Tours to the Grand Canyon, tours of the Phoenix area, pipeline survey flights, air-taxi flights. The list goes on and on. Where were these people in January, when I was twiddling my thumbs and flight conditions were perfect?

You might say, well why not fly those hours and get the maintenance done here in Arizona?

It isn’t that simple. The maintenance takes up to a week to complete. Because my former helicopter mechanic went belly-up in February, I have to build a relationship with a new shop that’s willing to “make room” for me on its schedule when the time comes. Otherwise, it has to be scheduled far in advance. I don’t know when I’ll need it.

My partner on the cherry drying work, Erik, suggested his mechanic. Two months ago that seemed like a perfect solution. I’d just keep flying until I had about 15 hours left before maintenance was required, then put it in the hangar until I was ready to take it to Washington. I never dreamed I’d reach the 15 hours left mark so quickly. Great for my business and bank account, but I wish I had 10 more hours to burn off with other people picking up the tab.

Erik’s mechanic is based at Boeing Field in Seattle. He works on Robinsons all the time and has a lot of experience with the one thing no local mechanic wanted to tackle: painting my blades. Arizona’s dusty environment, coupled with my frequent off-airport landings, strips the paint off my main rotor blades at an alarming rate. We had them “touched up” once, but I want it done right. This guy can do it.

So I scheduled the maintenance for May 19. That means I had to have the aircraft in Seattle by then.

The Ferry Flight

I’m really looking forward to the ferry flight from Wickenburg to Seattle, WA. We’re planning a coastal route that’ll take us up the coast of California and Oregon before coming inland to Portland, OR. We’ll do that over two days, starting on Saturday, May 17.

I say “we” because I won’t be flying alone. Louis, a CFI (certified flight instructor), will be joining me, sharing the costs to make the flight more affordable. Louis has close to 300 hours of flight time but wants more. He also wants the experience of a long cross-country flight. This one, which will include deserts, mountains, valleys, and coastal lands, will give him plenty of experience. He’ll be sitting in the left seat, as a CFI normally would. I hate flying from the left seat.

He’ll be doing most of the flying while I take photos. I plan to have my door off for part of the trip. We can stick it in the back seat where it’s out of the way. I’ll do mostly still photos with my Nikon D80. I should be well positioned to put the sun behind the camera for most of the flight.

I’ll also have the POV.1 hooked up, possibly to the helicopter’s nose. The control panel for the camera had to be replaced because of a power-related problem, so I haven’t had a chance to check that position yet. I’ll probably do it on Friday, before Louis and I pack up the helicopter. I’ll try to get some interesting video during the flight. I’m sure I’ll capture each takeoff and landing and, hopefully, get some good footage along the coast.

In addition to taking photos, I plan to spend some time practicing my navigation skills. I think I depend too much on my GPS to get me from point to point. So I’m going to practice following a route on a map. I figured I’d pick a place out in the desert between Wickenburg and Palmdale, CA, set the GPS to give us the heading, and let Louis fly it. Then I’d cover the GPS’s map with a Post-It note and follow our path through the otherwise featureless desert on a sectional chart. Louis’s task will be to stay on course without checking the GPS. My tasks will be to know where we are at all times and have him adjust his course if he needs to. I think it’ll be a good exercise for both of us — and it might just make that part of the flight a little less boring. (Having flown it about a half-dozen times, I can’t begin to describe how boring it is. You can read about my first experience flying through that area in “Wickenburg, AZ to Placerville, CA – Day 1,” one of my very first blog entries.)

Although Louis is in charge of flight planning, I came up with two possible routes. One is the coastal route he said he wanted to try. The other goes right up California’s Central Valley. That’s the route I know best — I’ve taken it as far as Placerville (in my old R22, N7139L) and Georgetown (in N630ML), in the foothills of the Sierras. I created two possible routes just in case weather moves in. I don’t want to get delayed. I need to be in Portland by the evening of May 18.

Portland?

Yes, you read right. I have to make a stop in Portland on the way to Seattle. That’s where I’m meeting up with Dave, a cherry dryer turned ENG (electronic news gathering) pilot. Dave says drying cherries is the most dangerous work he’s ever done in a helicopter. He trained Erik and has agreed to train me.

Let’s face it: when you’re drying cherries, you’re operating in the deadman’s curve of the height velocity diagram. You’re flying at about 5 knots about 15 to 20 feet off the ground. If you have an engine failure, you’re not drying cherries anymore. You’re chopping them. (Perhaps we can call that “doing a George Washington without an axe”?)

Because you’re going slowly, you’re flying below ETL (effective translational lift) which means you’re on the front side of the power curve. You’d basically doing an out-of-ground effect hover the entire time you’re operating — which can be the full 2-1/2 to 3 hours between refuelings, if the field is large enough. (They say an R44 can dry 40 acres in an hour; I’ll see if that’s true this summer.) Not only is that incredibly boring and tedious, but I’m sure it’s fatiguing.

Now add a little wind — maybe the quartering tailwind that can cause LTE (loss of tail rotor effectiveness). While Robinson helicopters have very authoritative tail rotors, a few gusts from behind will certainly give the helicopter a case of what I call “the wigglies.” Remember, a helicopter wants to point into the wind, like a weather vane. Blow a little gust up its butt and you’ll be dancing on the pedals to keep it pointed the right way.

While it’s common to release the collective while cruising in straight and level flight — the old set-it-and-forget-it approach to cross-country flying — a cherry drying pilot operating in anything but dead calm air will be lucky if he gets enough time with his hand off the collective to scratch his nose or reach for a bottle of water. So there’s a good chance he’ll be holding that collective tightly, making constant pitch adjustments. I’ve discovered that when I do any kind of intense flying — like chasing race cars — I hold the collective with what CFIs call a “death grip.” (That’s me: either let go completely or get finger impressions in the throttle grip.) The trouble with that is that Robinson helicopters have a very effective throttle governor that automatically adjusts the throttle based on power requirements to keep the RPM in the green. It works like a charm — really! Unless, of course, you’re holding the damn throttle grip so tightly that it can’t turn on its own. Then you might just prevent it from getting enough power to keep the RPMs up. That low rotor RPM horn should be enough to wake up any pilot, but I’d rather not hear it at all. I know I’m going to need to relax that grip.

I also have to wear a flight helmet and a Nomex flight suit. I bought the helmet last week. When I get the flight suit, I’ll put both on and model them for readers. I expect to look like a big, fat, white-capped khaki pickle. But what’s worse is that I have to wear these things in June and July, when temperatures could get into the 90s and it’ll definitely be humid. (Remember, it just rained, right?)

On the positive side, an R44 Raven II with just one person on board isn’t likely to have any density altitude-related power issues, especially under 2,000 feet MSL (mean sea level) elevation. So it’s not like I have to worry much about having enough power to fight a little breeze in a turn or climb over the occasional power line. (Did I forget to mention that the fields are sometimes bordered by power lines or have power lines running across them?)

So what you wind up with is flying that is potentially dangerous and more than a little challenging while being completely and utterly boring. By boring, I mean not fun. Chasing race cars is dangerous and challenging and fun. Drying cherries is likely to be dangerous and challenging and boring.

Drying cherries does pay better, though. And it’s something new and different for me. I’m always interested in trying something new and different, trying things that’ll hone my flying skills and make me a better pilot.

Seattle, Wenatchee, Quincy, Wenatchee, Seattle, Oakland, Mountain View, Oakland, Phoenix, Wickenburg

That’s my planned return route. All business.

When I get to Seattle’s Boeing Field, I’ll drop off the helicopter with my new mechanic and say goodbye to Louis. I’ll spend the night somewhere relatively close to Seattle-Tacoma Airport (SEA).

Then, in the morning, I’ll hop on a 45-minute flight to Wenatchee. I’ll rent a car and start exploring the area around Quincy, WA, where I’ll be based. I’m looking for a campground where I can get a full hookup and WiFi. There are at least two options that I know of — maybe I’ll find others. Or maybe the private airport where the helicopters will be based will give me electricity and water for the trailer. But I do need WiFi — I’ll be writing two books while I’m there, waiting for the cherries to get wet.

I’ll spend the night somewhere around there — Quincy or Wenatchee — after getting a real good feel for the place. Then I’ll drop off the rental at the airport and hop on a flight back to Seattle, with a connecting flight to Oakland, CA.

I’ll spend the night at a nice hotel in Jack London Square, courtesy of one of my publishers. In the morning, I’ll have breakfast with an editor and make the drive with her to Mountain View, for a meeting with a software developer.

When that’s over, we’ll speed back to Oakland so I can catch a 2 PM flight to Phoenix.

There, I’ll pick up my car, which Mike will have left earlier that day when he came to the airport for his flight to New York. I’ll be home before sunset.

The Long Drive

I’ll be home just a few days and all of it will be spent preparing my pull trailer and truck for the long drive to Washington State.

To save money and give me a bit more flexibility, I decided to stay in the trailer where I could prepare my own meals and have plenty of room to work rather than stay in a cheap motel. The going rate for campsites appears to be $30 to $40 per night, which isn’t exactly cheap, but I’ll have my own home away from home. And I can bring Alex the Bird for the summer, too.

The truck needs its new 82-gallon fuel transfer tank, pump, and static reel installed. I also need to pack it with the things I’ll need for the trip: Alex’s big cage, a 6-foot ladder, and various helicopter-related equipment, like the new hail-protection blade covers I bought.

The trailer needs to be filled with all the computer equipment I’ll need to write those two books and do any other writing I may want or need to do. I also need to pack it with the usual collection of items a person needs on a three-month stay away from home.

Then, right after Memorial Day, I start the long drive. Just me and Alex the Bird, driving about 1400 miles on the most direct route I can. I figure it’ll take about 3 days. I need to be in Quincy by that Friday to hitch a ride with Erik’s friend back to Seattle so I can pick up my helicopter and get it to its base for June and July.

That’s Job #1

Come June 1st, I’m on contract in my mobile summer home, waiting for the rain.

But that’s only my first summer job. I have another one starting in August. More about that in another post.

Flying, Summer Jobs, Travels with Maria careers, cherry drying, driving, helicopters, travel

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