The Orchard I Dried Yesterday
A bit of a challenge, mostly because of wind.
There was no rain in the forecast yesterday. But that didn’t stop rain from falling on the first orchard I’m contracted to dry this summer. The rain started at around 7:15 PM, falling from a cloud that had already drifted to the east. When the grower contacted me with my “heads up” call, he said it was “dumping rain” and would likely need me in about 15 minutes. I suited up, buttoned up the camper, and headed out to the helicopter. I was just pulling the cover off the helicopter when he called to launch me.
I was in the air 10 minutes later and at the orchard block 5 minutes after that.
As shown in the illustration below, the orchard is at the foot of a cliff along the Columbia River. It’s a hilly site, that actually has a gulch near the back side. The orchard itself is quite old and about half the trees are quite large and dense. The rest are younger. This shot is from last year and it is still representative of its layout and look.
I approached from over the cliff; my base is on the high plateau east of the site. I zipped across the flat farmland up there, passing through the same rainstorm that had likely drenched the orchard. When I reached the cliff edge, I was just downriver from the orchard block. I dumped collective and descended at about 1200 feet per minute. It wasn’t enough. I still had to swing out over the river to lose more altitude before coming in low to start the dry.
It was windy. The wind was coming off the river hitting the orchard from the lower left corner (in the image). I could clearly see where the wind was hitting the young trees, blowing their tops around wildly. This meant two things:
- The wind would do a lot of the work for me. That was a good thing.
- It would be very difficult to hover with the wind at my tail as I flew up rows toward the cliff. That was a bad thing.
So I started at the top left corner, along the fence that separated the orchard from the condos beside it, and headed down toward the river. The wind was blowing my downwash behind me, to my left — my blind spot. I couldn’t see how I was affecting the trees. I dropped down to about 5 feet off the treetops and moved to my right. My downwash should be blowing the first row of trees. I moved down the first row at about 6 knots.
Beside me, in the condo parking area, people were gawking.
At the end of the row, I knew I wouldn’t be able to turn and fly with a tailwind. So I moved to the left about two rows over and turned my nose to the right. I went back up that row sideways, pointing mostly into the wind. Now I could see the downwash. I was blowing the trees pretty good, with my downwash getting down under the branches.
I continued the pattern, flying forward down to the river and sideways back up to the cliffside. I could see where the wind was hitting the trees and where the trees were generally untouched. I concentrated on the sheltered areas, doing my best to shake the branches around. At the bottom of the orchard, near the roadside, the wind was tough. A flag there was standing straight out. A few times, I had trouble getting into position for my return flight and had to zip around to approach differently. I realized later that I should have started in the top right (in the photo) corner.
I did the left side of the orchard, up to the row adjacent to the shed. Then I did the trees in the gully behind them, which I’d neglected. Then I repositioned to the upper right, where I should have started in the first place, and did the section between the corner with the water tower, the house, and the row I’d ended on behind the shed. Then I went sideways back and forth (instead of up and down) on the remaining section of the orchard, between the shed and house and then everything forward of that.
There were people watching from the parking lots and roads. One guy in the parking lot had a video camera. (I wonder if I’ll be on YouTube. Here’s another pilot I found on YouTube doing the same thing.)
When I was finished, I flew past the grower. He waved enthusiastically. I pulled pitch and climbed out at 1500 feet per minute. It didn’t take long to climb over the cliff and head back to base. The cool air coming through the vents as I sped along at 110 knots helped cool me down.
I landed and cooled down the helicopter. I’d flown a total of 1.1 hours, including the 14-mile round trip flight to and from the orchard, and had dried about 30 acres of cherries.
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I hope we get to see some pictures of you in your helicoptor above the cherry trees. I’ll bet it will make a pretty picture, with your bright red helicoptor and the green trees! I’m loving this discussion on how you do this job.
I just posted some flyers around the orchard, asking for folks who took photos to e-mail them to me. The grower says he knows someone taking pictures yesterday, too. So, with luck, I’ll have some photos to share here soon.
I can’t wait to see them. I have no idea what I look like when I’m drying cherries. But I can bet no one watching me knows there’s a woman in that flight suit and helmet.
Do you enjoy drying the orchards or do you consider it just hard work? I know it has to be stressful as hell and was wondering if it tires you out or you enjoy the work? Was also wondering if you have fuel injection or carburetors in the R44? I hear the fuel injection system gives some extra power but there are some problems with it when operating the aircraft in hot weather, the fuel in the injection lines heat up and vaporize not giving a constant flow of fuel. I am going to guess you don’t have fuel injection. Hope I am not a pain in your arse asking all these questions.
It was definitely hard work the other day. The wind was gusty and irregular. It would toss me around in one place and be almost non-existent in another. The tree height and hidden hills forced me to change elevation frequently. I really had to work the pedals and collective hard for almost the full hour.
I also caught myself giving the collective a “death grip” — which is definitely a bad thing in a Robinson. Robbies have a governor that control the throttle by actually twisting it automatically under your grip. Hold it too hard and the governor can’t work. Some Robbie pilots doing this kind of work have reported low rotor RPM horns because they hold the throttle grip too tightly. I haven’t had this happen to me (yet); that’s likely because I”m flying a Raven II alone at relatively low density altitude. But it could. So I have to keep reminding myself to loosen up my grip.
The Raven II has fuel injection. The weather here is not nearly as hot as where Robinson has seen problems. (The accident that caused the fuel injection worries happened in Arizona during the summer.) I haven’t had any problems operating in hot weather — and I’ve flown the Raven II in temperatures exceeding 110°F.
You’re not a pain for asking questions. I find it interesting to see what people want to know about. It also helps me think more about what I’m doing. Thanks!
High winds always make my hands hurt to. It gets a little stressful doing a dance up there. I find it easier to loose the “deathgrip” tendency by remembering that with Robbies you really don’t need all your fingers. The cyclic (especially in the 44 because of the hydraulics) is easy with two fingers and a thumb. When holding the collective I only have my pointer and middle finger around the throttle, my ring and pinky on the metal of the collective stick. It makes it so your ring and pinky can control the up/down of the collective, but still definately have enough hand on the throttle in case of a governor failure. Keep blogging about your cherry drying- I really enjoy your posts. Fly safe!
Definitely stressful. I need to work on my cyclic grip; it’s always been too tight and I get minor calluses on the base of my ring finger. It’s something I should practice in all my flying so it becomes natural in stressful flying. I haven’t flown an R22 in years; I really need to get current, just to see if I can still do it!
Clearly for this orchard you planned your strategy by the wind and terrain, but you also mentioned the older and younger trees.
Do the orchardists ever express a priority preference? For example, perhaps the older tress produce more and better fruit than the younger ones, and the orchardist may ask you to dry the older trees first if you’re able to.
One other tiny question: you arrived downriver. Is the river flowing left to right or right to left in the photo?
No, most growers don’t really care how you dry as long as the fruit is dried. Two exceptions I’ve noticed:
• Rainier cherries (do you ever get them in New Zealand?) have thinner skins than bings (black) and sweethearts, which are also grown in this area. In general, growers want pilots flying higher over them to prevent the fruit from getting bruised.
• One of my growers very specifically told me that he wants me flying 5-10 feet over the treetops at 5 miles per hour. He even confirmed that I have a GPS aboard that indicates ground speed.
The bigger the trees, the more fruit is on them. Usually. Some of the REALLY old trees look pretty gnarly and I’m not sure how much fruit they get.
I can usually dry about 30-40 acres in an hour. Evidently, they MUST be dried within 2-3 hours to prevent damage.
The river is flowing from left to right in this photo.
You’ve motivated me to hook up one of my cameras pointed down to show how the branches go crazy when I fly over them. Maybe I’ll set that up now…looks like I’ll be flying again this weekend.