The end of my first cherry drying contract of the season is coming to a close. The grower has begun picking and should be finished by Monday.

I was called out to dry his 30-acre orchard block twice. The block is located in a resort area and is surrounded on three sides by condos, a golf course, a campground, and a small strip mall. The Columbia River flows past nearby. I described my first drying call in my blog, in a post called “The Orchard I Dried Yesterday.” There’s an aerial photo of the orchard in that post.

During that first call, I noticed a lot of bystanders taking pictures of me. I didn’t have any photos of me drying cherries and I wanted some. I wanted to see what I looked like and how close I really was to the trees. I was especially interested in seeing how far my tail rotor was above the trees; in solo flight, the tail tends to hang down a bit in the back, especially with full (or nearly full) fuel. This particular orchard was hilly and every time I came down toward the river, I knew the trees behind me were higher than the trees beneath me. I didn’t see any sign of green (or red) on my tail rotor, so I assumed I was okay. But I was still curious.

So I made up a flyer and posted it on telephone poles along the road at one end of the orchard, right where some of the spectators had been standing. The flyer requested that anyone who took photos or video of the helicopter over the orchard send them to me or call me. I provided an e-mail address and my Web address.

Blackberry photo taken by Berni, a spectator at Crescent Bar on June 21, 2009.

I dried a second time less than a week later. After landing back at my base, refueling, and locking up the helicopter for the night, I came back to my trailer. And I found this photo in my e-mail in-box. I was both thrilled and disappointed at the same time. Thrilled because I finally had a cherry drying photo. Disappointed because I was very sure that I fly much closer to the treetops than it looks in the photo.

I emailed the photographer and thanked her(?) for the photo. I got an e-mail back that said, “Are you the pilot? Hard to tell when you are above us. We loved watching you.” I replied that I was the pilot and appreciated the photo. I told her it was the first time I’d seen a photo of myself drying cherry trees. She replied that “it was wonderful to see you in the air. We all waved, the kids got better shots and I will send them too you also.”

That perked me up. Maybe there would be a shot that showed me closer to the trees.

Meanwhile, the weather cleared out and dried up. My grower started picking. It didn’t look as if I’d be flying again at Crescent Bar that season. My husband scheduled a trip out to see me. I wondered if I could get him to take some photos or video while he was here. I started wishing for more rain.

A shot of me over the trees, taken by one of Berni’s kids.

Then last night I got another e-mail from Berni. There were five attachments. These were indeed better shots, and they showed me right over the trees. No disappointment at all — in fact, I was surprised to see how low I was flying and how close my tail rotor looked to some of the trees in this first shot. But after looking at it a bit longer, I realize it must have been taken with a zoom lens. In the photo, it looks as if the cliff is right behind the trees; in reality, it’s a bit farther back. That depth illusion is caused by a telephoto lens.

Another shot by one of Berni’s kids.

Another shot looked a lot more realistic regarding distances, including my height over the trees. I generally try to maintain 5 to 10 feet over the treetops. This part of the orchard block, which is closer to the road, has younger trees with uniform tree height and flatter terrain. It was much easier to dry, although it was also much windier, especially the first time I dried. I think this shot is pretty representative of how I look when I’m drying.

One of Berni’s kids took this really cool shot, too.

I’m also including this last shot, mostly because it’s really cool. I know I look pretty dorky in the helmet, but look how clean and shiny the bottom of my helicopter is! I actually remember seeing this shot being taken. I was approaching the end of the row and the road where the spectators had gathered. There were some wires there and I really couldn’t go right up to the edge of the road. I distinctly remember seeing someone pointing a camera straight up at me just before I turned to go up the next row. Judging from the background, he must have zoomed in. The result is a pretty cool shot.

Anyway, I want to thank Berni and her family again for sending the photos. I really do appreciate it.

Now I want to track down the guy with the video camera on the first flight. That should be some interesting footage.

My buddy Rod called me yesterday and we chatted for about an hour. Rod’s an experienced utility helicopter pilot who got his start in agriculture (spraying), spent some time doing tours at the Grand Canyon, and worked his way into long-line work. He’s a great pilot who’s extremely conscientious, takes great care of the helicopter assigned to him, and gets the job done responsibly and safely. It’s no wonder he never has any trouble getting a job when he wants one.

Rod’s only problem is burnout. After a season working fires or moving stuff around at the end of a long line, he just wants to go home and be with his fiance and dogs. The 14 on/14 off schedule usually sounds okay at the beginning of a season, but by the end of the season, the 14 off just aren’t enough days off. That’s when he takes a break and does other stuff.

Rod always gets a kick out of these young guys who want to be helicopter pilots. We both know that these wannabes really don’t know what it’s all about. Everyone thinks it’s a glamour job, but Rod knows better. He does the kind of work that pays well and takes the unglamorous “perks” that go with it: extensive travel to places in the middle of nowhere, crappy motels, greasy spoon restaurants. Even I can attest to the less glamorous side of flying helicopters — look at me right now, blogging from a 22-foot travel trailer, parked in the RV park/golf course in the middle of a farm town.

Although Rod’s not very computer literate, his fiance is. They found this video on YouTube, and sent me the link last night. It takes a more realistic — yet hilarious — look at what it’s like to become a helicopter pilot. The words and video clips together make this a classic. It even has a catchy tune.

Enjoy!

Yesterday morning I set up my POV.1 camera on the nose of my helicopter with the idea of gathering some footage while I was doing a cherry drying flight. Right before taking off on a flight later that day, I turned on the camera. Then I just forgot all about it until I returned to my landing zone at the end of the flight.

I got a lot of footage. The camera recorded roughly an hour of it. I wanted to put some part of it online yesterday, so I picked a piece that was interesting.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I’d turned the sound recording off on the camera. This is probably a good thing; all you would have heard was helicopter noise. So for this particular clip, I recorded a narration in QuickTime and pasted it into the clip. It describes what I’m doing, including why I’m flying sideways for part of the flight.

Apologies for the poor quality of this video. I need to work on my compression schemes to get a good setup for use with the POV.1 camera. This obviously isn’t it.

I first met Erik by phone back in 2006. I’d placed an ad on a helicopter forum, looking for summer work with my helicopter. Erik saw it. He called and introduced himself, then asked if I’d ever heard of cherry drying. It was the beginning of a long-distance friendship.

Erik was a helicopter operator based in Seattle who was building a cherry drying business in Central Washington. He’d just broken into the business and was looking for another experienced and reliable pilot to share the work he expected to get.

That first summer, he was unable to get enough work for two of us. But we stayed in touch by phone. We’d talk every few months, sometimes staying on the phone for an hour or more. He was interested in getting a Part 135 certificate for his business and I offered to help with the mountain of paperwork that the FAA requires.

The second year, 2007, he gave me a lead on a cherry contract in Wenatchee. I followed up on it with a bid. I didn’t get the job. He tried to convince me to fly up anyway. He assured me there would be work. I declined; I couldn’t afford to gamble with such a long ferry flight (10 hours each way). He called me at the end of his first day of drying. He was exhausted. He’d flown 10 hours that day and would fly a lot more that season.

Last year, 2008, Erik lined up enough work for both of us. I made the commitment to come up at the end of May. I’d get my helicopter’s annual inspection at his mechanic in Seattle, then get to work with him in early June.

That was the plan, anyway. Two things happened to change it.

In April, there was a late frost that destroyed about 30% of the Central Washington cherry crop, including half the orchards we’d contracted for. Suddenly, there was only half as much work to do.

Around the same time, one night, Erik woke up, got out of bed, and collapsed on the floor. He was paralyzed from the waist down. One of his vertebrae had crushed.

And that’s when they discovered the cancer.

I didn’t ask many questions. It was hard for me. I listened to what he told me when he called, groggy from medication. I didn’t understand most of it, but I didn’t want to ask questions — especially the big one.

When I flew my helicopter up to Seattle, I rented a car and drove to the hospital where Erik was recovering from back surgery. It was the first time we met in person. Although he’d lost an inch or more in height from his back injury, he was still very tall — maybe 6′5″! — and not at all what I expected. But we greeted each other like old friends.

Erik was learning to walk again. I followed him and a physical therapist and a hospital orderly around the hospital floor as Erik took baby steps. He had to stop twice for rest, sinking into the wheelchair the orderly steered along for him. He was upbeat; this was just a setback. He’d be fine. He expected to be flying again soon. Perhaps he’d even come see me in Central Washington, where I’d be handling all the cherry drying work.

He didn’t come by that summer. I spoke to him a few times. He usually sounded tired and weak. But optimistic. Always optimistic.

Erik’s situation had a profound impact on me. I’d always been a kind of carpe diem person, but now things became urgent for me. Erik was 56 years old. Older than me, but still not very old. His life had taken a sudden change for the worse with paralysis, pain, cancer, chemotherapy, and a never-ending stream of health problems. He couldn’t fly, he could barely walk. His life had been taken from him. The same thing could happen to me. Or anyone else. Erik’s situation reminded me that life was short and you had to make the most of it while you could. Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do now; there might not be a tomorrow.

Things for Erik took a turn for the worse in autumn. I tried to plan a trip to Seattle to see him again. With book deadlines, the holidays, and house guests, I couldn’t get it together. Maybe I didn’t try hard enough. Maybe I couldn’t bear to see the new reality of the man I’d associated with that upbeat, friendly voice on the phone. Maybe I just wanted to remember the voice and the person I’d imagined with it.

Then I heard he was in remission. I tried calling him several times. I had three phone numbers for him and tried all of them. Every number had a recording of his voice, asking me to leave a message, promising a call back. His work phone number even suggested that he might be out flying. I knew how unlikely that was.

When I dropped off my helicopter in Seattle again this May, I tried to set up another visit. More calls, more e-mail. No response. I didn’t know what to think.

And then today’s phone call from a mutual friend. Erik had passed away. There would be a memorial service for him in Seattle on Saturday. Because of contractual obligations, neither of us could go. I called a florist and arranged to have flowers delivered. I signed it: “Our Thoughts and Prayers are with You; Jim, Maria, and the Cherry Drying Pilots.”

Erik’s gone, but my memory of him and those phone calls remains. He expanded my horizons by bringing me to Washington State, by introducing me to a new kind of flying, a new way to squeeze a few bucks out of my helicopter investment.

And he reminded me that life is short. Live it while you can.

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.

In a comment to yesterday’s post about my work drying cherries, Miraz asked:

Could you write a post about your Nomex flight suit. What is it? What’s special about it? Why don’t you just wear whatever you normally wear when flying?

A good topic for a post, so here it is.

First, Nomex. Wikipedia describes Nomex as follows:

Nomex (styled NOMEX) is a registered trademark for flame resistant meta-aramid material developed in the early 1960s by DuPont and first marketed in 1967.

It can be considered an aromatic nylon, the meta variant of the para-aramid Kevlar. It is sold in both fiber and sheet forms and is used as a fabric wherever resistance from heat and flame is required [...] Both the firefighting and vehicle racing industries use Nomex to create clothing and equipment that can withstand intense heat. All aramids are heat and flame resistant but Kevlar, having a para orientation, can be molecularly aligned and gives high strength….

The Wikipedia piece goes on to list the different uses of Nomex fabric, including this statement:

Military pilots and aircrew wear flight suits made of over 92 percent Nomex to protect them from the possibility of cockpit fires and other mishaps.

Here’s an example of a flight suit available on Flightsuits.com. (And no, it doesn’t come with the guy.)

It’s not just military pilots. Nomex is also widely used in flight suits worn by EMS pilots and crew members and law enforcement pilots.

A flight suit is usually a one-piece, zip up garment, often with many pockets, that is worn by pilots and aircraft crew members. While they come in many colors and styles, they’re usually a military green or khaki color. The green suits (see photo) are sometimes referred to by the folks who wear them as “pickle suits.”

Flight suits can be made of any fabric, but since they’re available in Nomex, it seems silly to wear one that doesn’t offer the additional protection of the Nomex fabric. And although they come in long sleeve and short sleeve styles, it also seems silly to have Nomex protection on only half of your arms when you can get full arm coverage.

At least that’s the way I see it.

Why does a pilot need protection at all? Well, it’s mostly to save your life (or even just your skin) in the event of a post-crash fire. And fires are definitely possible when you’re carrying fuel (which you should be) if you hit the ground hard in a crash.

Robinson Helicopter Company recommends that all pilots — and even passengers! — wear flight suits. Safety Notice 40 was released in July 2006, possibly in response to an accident with a post-crash fire in Texas. Robinson often releases Safety Notices in response to what it sees as dangerous or potentially dangerous situations. Safety Notices are not requirements; they’re suggestions. They’re also Robinson’s way of “covering its butt.” The company is owned by Frank Robinson and is self-insured. By recommending that we wear flight suits, Robinson Helicopter cannot be held accountable for burn injuries if we’re not following their recommendation.

That’s not to say it isn’t good advice. It is. But it isn’t exactly practical to require every person on board a flight to wear a flight suit. And while I might be tempted to wear a flight suit more often if I actually looked good in one, I don’t. Besides, I’ve decided on a more professional “corporate pilot” appearance for my charter flights: slacks with a polo shirt or pilot shirt.

It’s a matter of risk assessment. Tour and charter flying has much lower risk associated with it. I’m usually operating at airports, landing and departing from locations very suitable for that kind of activity. Flight profiles remain outside the “deadman’s curve.” There isn’t anything unusually risky about these flights. Even most of my photo and survey flights are relatively low-risk.

But hovering 5-10 feet over cherry trees at 5-10 knots ground speed puts me firmly into the deadman’s curve. If I have an engine failure, there’s nothing I can do to prevent a messy crash into the trees. With lots of fuel on board, a post-crash fire is possible. Wearing a Nomex flight suit seems like a pretty good idea.

A helicopter helmet like the one I wear. This is a low-cost model available from AviationHelmets.com.

So does wearing a helmet. I can’t tell you how many articles I’ve read in helicopter flying magazines about the importance of wearing a helmet on high-risk missions. The main thing that worries me is the flinging parts that might just enter the cockpit in the event of a crash. It would be awful to have a soft landing only to have a main rotor blade enter the cockpit and split your head open like a coconut. (Ick. What a terrible visual.) Or even to just clock your head on the door frame hard enough to cause serious damage. The helmet protects me against this.

But I don’t think my passengers would feel very comfortable if I wore it on a charter flight.

So, in answer to Miraz’s question, I wear a flight suit for cherry drying because of the increased risks associated with that kind of flying. I don’t wear it for other, less risky missions because I’m trying to maintain a “corporate pilot” professional look for my passengers. And I look like a big khaki sausage in my flight suit.

Fortunately, the cherry trees — and growers — don’t care what I look like.

I’ve been writing a lot about my summer gig as a cherry drying pilot. Most folks focus on the flying or the money or the simple fact that I can perform what looks like an easy task, make money, and build flight time. Few people seem interested in what it’s really like.

The truth is, it’s neither fun nor glamorous. In fact, when you look at the big picture and understand the responsibility and potential danger involved, it’s rather tedious.

So I thought I’d take the time to fully describe what being a cherry drying pilot is all about.

An Introduction to Cherry Drying

Let me begin by describing what this is all about.

Cherries grow on trees in orchard blocks in the U.S. northwest (and elsewhere). Like other fruit trees, cherry trees flower in the spring and are pollinated by birds and bees and possibly by other methods I’m not familiar with. The fruits begin to grow.

About three weeks before the cherries are ready to be picked, they are particularly vulnerable to threats that can damage them. One of those threats is water. When it rains, the water sticks to the cherries and can cause them to rot, split, or both. This makes the cherries far less valuable to buyers.

Cherry growers have long tried to find ways to dry the cherries and prevent the rot/split problems. They put fans on tall poles in their orchards and run blowers up and down the rows. But this isn’t usually effective. Enough rain in those last few weeks can destroy the entire crop.

Sometime in the past — maybe 10 or 15 years ago? — someone had the idea of using the downwash of helicopters hovering over the cherry trees to blow the branches around and shake the water off the cherries. This was extremely effective and apparently well worth the cost.

“Cherry drying” by helicopter was born.

How I Got Here

I first heard about cherry drying a little over four years ago. I was looking for summer work with my helicopter and another helicopter pilot, who was based in Seattle, got in touch with me. He was trying to build a cherry-drying operation and wanted to get together a bunch of pilots he could call on each year.

Two years in a row, I almost got work doing this. But there wasn’t enough guaranteed work for me to make the 10-hour (each way) ferry flight from Arizona. Last year, there was. I flew up, stopped in Portland, OR to get some training with another pilot, and set up base in Quincy, WA. I was working for my pilot friend as a subcontractor for several growers and for another cherry drying provider.

Last year wasn’t very good for pilots — but it was great for growers. Why? It didn’t rain. I was on a variety of contracts for a total of seven weeks and only flew 5.2 hours. And because my assigned orchard blocks were so small, most of that time was spent flying from one to another.

This year, everything was a mess. My friend had let his business go because of a serious health problem so he wasn’t digging up work for me. The other cherry drying provider had promised me some work but, at the last possible minute, went out of business. Pilots like me were frantic, trying to find contracts for work. Growers were frantic, trying to find pilots. And out of this mess, with the help of some contacts I had from last year, I managed to get four contracts stretching out over a period of six weeks.

How It Works

The cherry drying work I do is on contract. This year, I contracted directly with growers (or orchard managers) for a 2 or 3 week period. During the contract period, the grower pays me a daily standby fee. Payment of this fee ensures that I will be available to come dry the orchard block within a reasonable period of time — usually within 20 minutes of the call to come.

When it rains, the grower calls. He usually calls at least twice:

• The first call is what I call the “heads up” call. At this point, it’s either raining or very likely to rain on the orchard. The grower wants to make sure I’m aware that I’ll probably be called out to dry soon.
• The second call is the call to action. The grower expects me to arrive as quickly as possible and get right to work.

When I’m finished drying and return to my base, I note the time flown as indicated on my Hobbs meter. At the end of the week, I bill the grower for the flight time at a pre-agreed hourly rate.

The Expenses

Because I can never depend on it to rain, I have to set my standby rate high enough to cover all of my fixed expenses. These expenses include:

• Cost of transporting the helicopter between Arizona (where I live) and Washington (where I dry cherries).
• Cost of getting my truck up to Washington and back.
• Lodging expenses for the entire time; I save money by living in my small RV, which I tow up with my truck.
• Meals and other living expenses.
• Insurance. Last year I had to supplement my regular insurance with a second policy; this year I got a policy that covers all of my operations.

There are also a bunch of startup costs that have to be considered:

• Helicopter. Medium sized helicopters with two-bladed systems are best. Think Robinson R44, Bell JetRanger, and Hiller. R22s and Schweitzer 300s generally don’t push enough air, although they can get into tighter spots.
• Truck. It’s needed to provide ground transportation and haul around fuel.
• 100-gallon fuel tank, pump, filter, and grounding strap so I can carry and pump aircraft fuel.
• Helicopter helmet.
• Nomex flight Suit.

As you can imagine, this can be a major investment. My fuel setup alone cost $2K. And have you priced up helicopter helmets lately?

Finally, the expense many people don’t consider: taking a normally revenue-generating helicopter offline.

You see, when you contract for cherry drying, you have to keep your helicopter near the orchards. That means you can’t hold it out for hire on other jobs. While my helicopter is here in Washington, I can’t be doing charter work down in Arizona. I have no customer base here. And even if I did, I couldn’t fly customers unless I was absolutely certain it wasn’t going to rain.

So suppose I’d fly 5 hours a week in Phoenix but can’t fly those 5 hours in Washington. That’s 5 hours of revenue lost each week. My standby rate has to compensate me for this potential loss of revenue.

What It’s Like

Cherry drying is a waiting game, one that turns you into a local weather expert.

Here’s the kind of analysis I make all day long when there’s weather moving in. The arrow indicates the direction of the weather movement.

Each day starts with a look out the window and at the current day’s weather. I have an Internet connection here, so I can check the weather from a variety of sources throughout the day. I also have a scanner with weather frequencies that broadcast official local weather 24 hours a day. If there’s no rain in the forecast and no clouds in the sky — like most days last season — you’re free to do what you like, as long as you keep monitoring the weather and can be back at base at the slightest hint of rain. But if there’s any rain in the forecast or any clouds in the sky, you need to stick around base, just in case those clouds turn rain-bearing and they drop moisture on your assigned orchard blocks.

Or maybe the day starts with a phone call. Like today.

The point is, when you’re on contract and being paid standby money, you’re responsible for making sure you’re available quickly when called. That means you can’t screw around and do whatever you want wherever you want. If it looks like rain, you need to be ready to fly. Even if it doesn’t rain and you don’t get the call.

For me, that means spending a lot of time hanging around my RV at the golf course. (It’s almost unfortunate that I don’t golf.) It means having access to weather information and having something to do to keep busy so you don’t die of boredom. It means keeping your cell phone fully charged and in a place where it gets a good signal.

It doesn’t mean disappearing to Seattle for a few days without telling anyone. That’s a horror story I heard from a guy who hires pilots as subcontractors. He’d hired one irresponsible pilot who didn’t take the job seriously. When he called the guy to fly, the guy admitted that he was in Seattle and couldn’t get back for hours. That’s too late. The crop would be destroyed by then.

For the amount of money we’re being paid to hang around, the least we could do is hang around.

Oh, and did I mention how long the days are here up in North Central Washington in June and July? Sunrise is at around 5 AM. Sunset is around 9 PM. I have to be available for all daylight hours. That means I have a 17-hour work day.

The Work

Of course, sooner or later those calls will come.

On the first call, I prepare the helicopter and myself for flight. For the helicopter, that means taking off the cockpit cover (if it’s on). I’ll also remove the blade tie-downs, but only if a storm isn’t approaching my position. The helicopter is already pre-flighted. Then I’ll go back to the camper — it’s literally right down the block — and prep myself by pulling on my flight suit. I wear a tank top with it, so I can keep the top half of the flight suit off with the sleeves tied around my waist. It’s hot and humid here and I don’t want to sweat my brains out in a long-sleeved Nomex suit. I make sure all my documents and my sunglasses and the helicopter keys are in my pockets. I put on socks and comfortable shoes. If Alex the bird is outside, I bring him in. I also zip the bed windows closed so rain doesn’t get into the camper. I put a bottle of regular water and a bottle of “vitamin water” in my little six-pack cooler to bring along on the flight.

And then I wait.

The other day, I waited three hours. The second call never came. The first call had been premature and it never rained on the orchard. I had to call the grower to see if he thought he’d need me to fly. He didn’t. I was all dressed up with no place to go.

When the second call comes, I’m ready to go. I pull up the top half of my flight suit and zip up. I lock up the camper and drive back over to the helicopter. I take off the tie-downs (if they’re not already off), do a walk-around, and climb on board. I start the engine and get it warming up. Then I put on my helmet, set up my cell phone to receive calls in flight, and when the helicopter is warmed up, I take off.

I thank my lucky stars that I never had to dry this nightmarish block.

I use my GPS to fly direct to the orchard block. I’ve already scouted all the blocks on foot and by air, so I know how to approach. I come in low over one corner and settle down to 5 to 10 feet over the tree tops. Then I fly slowly down the row. At the end, I turn, move over a row or two — depending on the density of the trees — and fly back to the side I started on. I go back and forth like this at 5 to 10 knots groundspeed, being careful to avoid obstructions like wires, fans, poles, tall bordering trees, hillside rock outcroppings, and buildings. Some orchard blocks are easy to dry. Others are damn near impossible. Most fall somewhere in between — not too difficult to do, but not so easy that you can do it without paying attention.

Complacency can kill you — or at least destroy your helicopter and a bunch of trees.

You can read about my first time drying here.

Cherry Drying Isn’t for Everyone

I can’t tell you how many people have contacted me, asking me to help them get into cherry drying. Do these people understand the expenses involved? The skill level required? The dedication to waiting around for a phone call that may never come? I don’t think so.

I also don’t think they understand the competitive nature of this work. Right now, there are too many pilots for the available work. We’re all competing against each other for contracts. This year, a bunch of JetRanger pilots were so desperate for work that they undercut the rates of most other pilots — they were actually billing themselves out for less than R44s! How can we compete against that?

When the company I flew for part of the season last year fell apart this year, I had to scramble to get the contracts I have. While I got enough work for myself, I could handle more. It’s just tough to break into this work and build a reputation for yourself — especially if you don’t get a chance to fly and prove you can meet growers’ needs. I wasn’t able to prove myself last year and feel lucky to have the opportunity again this year.

And then there’s the skill level required to do this kind of flying. It’s not as easy as it seems — especially if conditions are less than perfect. Sure, any decent pilot should be able to hover slowly over tree tops. But for hours on end? And what if the wind kicks up and you’re dealing with a quartering tailwind as you travel in one direction? Or the block is full of obstructions, like power lines and fan poles? Or bordered by trees? Or there are storms in the area that you need to fly through to reach your orchard blocks?

Why do you think I wear a helmet and a Nomex flight suit when I fly?

No Flying Today

I worked on this blog post on and off all day. I watched the storm clouds build and move in the sky and on Doppler radar. I saw the scary yellow blobs of convective activity flare up and fade out on my computer screen.

It’s still cloudy, but if the radar can be believed, it’s not threatening rain over my orchard.

But it’s only 5 PM. There are still more than 4 hours left in my work day.

The backstory: I’m in Washington State on cherry drying contracts. In short, I’m being paid to be on call to use my helicopter to dry cherry trees in case it rains. You can learn the details about this in “The Life of a Cherry Drying Pilot.”

Last night, my grower called around 9 PM. He was almost certain that it would rain at 4 AM this morning. He lives in Wenatchee and his orchard block is near Quincy, a 30-minute drive south. He wanted to give me a heads up. He said that he knew I wouldn’t fly in the dark, but if it rained, he expected me to be drying at dawn. I assured him that would be no problem and encouraged him to call me if he needed me, no matter what time it was. That, after all, is what he’s paying me for.

I was dead asleep this morning when my phone rang. My Blackberry’s ring tone is a digitized version of the classic analog telephone bell. Despite the fact that I’d heard that sound every day for the first 20 years of my life, when it rang this morning, I had no idea what it was. After all, I was asleep. When I realized it was my phone ringing just inches from my head, I grabbed it, pushed the answer button, and said “Hello.”

It was my grower. “I’m leaving Wenatchee now,” he told me. “The sky is clear.”

I wasn’t too sleepy to wonder why he was calling me to tell me the weather was good.

“I’m going to see what it’s like down at the orchard,” he went on.

I got the feeling he wanted a local weather report. After all, I was only 6 miles (as the crow flies) from his cherry trees. Fortunately, the zip-up window beside my head faced out that way. I unzipped it and looked out. I could see stars. It wasn’t raining. I couldn’t see any rain clouds by the light of the waning moon. I reported my findings.

“Well, I’m going down there anyway,” he said. “I’ll call you if it rains.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said. We said goodbye and I found the button that disconnected us. The phone reverted to clock mode. It was 3:50 AM.

I managed to get back to sleep for another hour before the birds woke me up for the day.

It’s nearly 12 hours later and it still hasn’t rained.

When I told this story to my husband, he told me I needed to have a talk with the grower. I told him I’d do no such thing. I explained that I was on standby and that the grower had paid me good money to worry along with him about his crop of cherries. If it made him feel better to wake me up to discuss the weather once in a while, that was fine with me.

As long as he didn’t do it every morning.

Last year, when I was in Quincy for cherry drying season, I was fortunate enough to get a hangar for two months. Having a hangar can be a pain in the butt when you have a helicopter, but I was prepared and had my tow bar handy. Weather was [too] good and I didn’t fly much. It was nice to keep the helicopter out of the sun.

This year, I didn’t bother trying to find out if the hangar was still available. I doubt it is — someone else was moving in the day I moved out. And since I don’t have my tow bar with me, moving the helicopter in and out would be nearly impossible by myself anyway.

Quincy airport is about 4-1/2 miles from my living space at the Quincy Golf Course. That isn’t very far. But there were other, closer options for parking the helicopter. One was the Ferguson Flying Service right across the street from the golf course. I stopped by there on Monday, before bringing the helicopter in from Seattle, to see if I could park there. They very graciously said that I could.

My parking space at Ferguson’s Flying Service in Quincy, WA.

So I’m parked on one of the concrete tie-down pads they used to use for their crop dusters.

For those readers who are not familiar with agricultural aviation, i should probably explain what a flying service is. A flying service is a company that provides crop dusters and related agricultural aviation services for farmers and growers. Quincy is farm country, full of wheat, corn, alfalfa, potato, and other crop fields, as well as fruit trees and even some grape vines. There are at least two flying services in the area. Each has its own scrawny paved runway and a small handful of crop dusters.

Another view of my parking spot and the plane beside me.

Now, if you look closely at the biplane in these photos, you’ll probably notice that it doesn’t look “airworthy.” It’s not. For one thing, it’s missing it’s tail — or “tail feathers” as one of the local pilots referred to it. Its big radial engine also needs some work. It’s apparently bled out, too — the engine needs some serious TLC.

But Ferguson’s has other airplanes it flies. This one is parked until it’s repaired and ready to fly.

I want to thank the folks at Ferguson’s Flying Service for allowing me to park at their facility. It’s great to have the helicopter so close and it’s great to chat with the guys when I go over to check on it or prepare for a flight.

One of the growers I’m working for this year asked me if I’d add another 5-acre block to the list of cherry blocks I’m drying in June. The block in question was in Wenatchee. Not the outskirts of Wenatchee, like another block I’m doing for him. This one is in Wenatchee.

I got directions and drove out there yesterday. It wasn’t easy to find. That could be because it was in the middle of a suburban neighborhood. The cherry trees were surrounded by taller trees and houses. One of the cherry trees actually overhung the garage of a house on the border of the block’s property. I saw all this from the one street where I could see the trees from my truck. I didn’t see if from the air.

I wasn’t happy about the location. There were power lines and too many houses. I wondered whether the town had any ordinances that prohibited low-flying aircraft. After all, I’d have to fly just 5-10 feet above the trees. About equal with the rooflines or second-story windows of some of the adjoining houses.

I got back to my camper and called the Wenatchee police. A dispatcher took my info. An officer called me back about an hour later. I explained the situation.

“Are you definitely going to do this?” he asked.

“I don’t want to,” I admitted. “This is what’s going to happen. About half the people around there will think it’s really cool. The other half will call you or the FAA to complain. And if it rains overnight, I fly at dawn. That means 5 AM.”

“We have a noise ordinance,” he offered.

“That’s good,” I said.

“And what about safety? Aren’t you worried about crashing into houses?”

“I wouldn’t crash into houses if I go down,” I assured him. “But I would go into the trees. And things would fling off. It wouldn’t be pretty.”

“I don’t think you should do it,” he said.

“Works for me,” I replied.

We wished each other a pleasant evening and hung up.

This morning, I was in the area with my helicopter and another pilot on board. That’s when I got the full picture of the orchard and its odd shape. I asked the pilot with me to take some photos. So here’s the orchard I won’t dry:

There’s a video that’s been making it around Twitter and the blogs of professional photographers lately. It’s called “The Vendor Client Relationship — In Real World Situations.” I’ve embedded it here, just in case you haven’t seen it yet. It’s worth a look if you’re either a service professional or someone who uses service professionals. In other words, it’s worth a look for anyone.

The problem is, too many people try to save money by trying to cut special deals with service professionals. Sean Cayton, for example, is a professional photographer who blogged about this topic. In his article on Black Star Rising called “Five Tips for Dealing with Unreasonable Client Requests,” he reported:

I met recently with a prospective wedding client who was on a very tight budget. The groom, an art director, asked if I would allow him to help with the photo editing in order to save some money. I had to tell him no. I operate a full-service studio, and letting the wedding couple do their own editing just isn’t an option for me.

As a helicopter pilot, I’m often asked to provide flying services at locations an hour or more away from my base. Not only do the potential clients try to get a lower hourly rate from me, but they balk when I explain to them that they have to pay the cost of getting the helicopter to the operating area and back. In their mind, I’m not providing a service to them when I’m not flying with one of their people on board. But the simple reality is that I’m working for them from the moment I begin my flight planning and pull the helicopter out of its hangar to the moment I put the helicopter back.

They’re fortunate they’re only paying for the time on the Hobbs meter. I put at least an hour more of unbillable time into every single flight I do.

Why We’re In this Mess

I believe that one of the reasons service professionals have to deal with clients like this is because too many other service professionals have said yes to their unreasonable demands.

I’ll admit that I used to be one of them. When I first started my flying business, I was so hungry for work that I’d do almost anything to make a client happy. That sometimes included trading services (usually advertising space) for all or part of my fee, waiving ferry fees, or dropping my rates just to better meet my client’s budgetary needs. Then one day I started looking at the numbers. While the revenue I was bringing in usually covered the variable expenses of flying — the actual flight cost per hour — they didn’t come anywhere near covering my fixed expenses, including hangar rent, advertising, and insurance. I realized I was working at a loss.

And I realized that I’d rather not work than to lose money doing it.

Just Say No

So I started saying no.

I said no to local flying jobs less than 30 minutes long and other flying jobs less than an hour long. It simply wasn’t worth the trouble of taking the helicopter out of the hangar for the profit I’d make on these short flights. (I did, however, encourage longer flights by introducing rate reductions for flights over 5 hours and 10 hours.)

I said no to free ferry flights for repositioning the helicopter. I was not going to fly for free anymore. Not only was there a helicopter cost involved, but a trained helicopter pilot was at the controls. Didn’t she deserve compensation for her time?

I said no to any barter offers — I can’t fuel the helicopter with a free ad in a publication no one will read or pay my insurance bill with a photo taken during a flight.

I said no to flights that required me to spend more than 15 minutes in flight planning before I had a signed contract and deposit in hand. I was tired of doing someone else’s homework in the hope of getting a flight they were probably too cheap to pay for.

I also started saying no to all charity flights, including raffle prizes. They’d promise a mention in the charity publication, etc., but these free pieces of paper were usually discarded, unread. Zero advertising value — instead, all it’s good for is more requests from more charities. And for a while, i was getting more charity requests than calls from paying clients.

The Importance of Screening

I also started screening my clients during their initial contacts with me. Did they sound like they were going to try to wrangle a deal with me? Were they making unreasonable requests? Did they have a clue about what they wanted? Were they trying to use me as a tool for getting information without utilizing my services? Did they have the ability to pay at the conclusion of the flight? Did they understand what they were getting for my hourly rate?

If I got any indication during the phone call that they could be trouble, I actively began discouraging them from flying with me. I’d state minimum fees and make it clear that I wouldn’t budge on my rate. I’d tell them that what they wanted was beyond the capabilities of my aircraft. And sometimes, if I got a gut feeling that flying for them would be more trouble than it was worth, I’d tell them I wasn’t available on the day or time they wanted me, even if I was.

Snobby? Elitist? I don’t think so. Just protecting my interests.

We Need to Stand Firm Behind Our Experience, Expertise, and Skills

I’ve been in the business for eight years now and have a wide range of experience completing many different missions. I’ve decided to stand behind my experience, expertise, and skills. That’s what my clients are paying for and despite what they might think, they’re getting a lot for their money.

I probably have more knowledge and experience for photo flights over Lake Powell than any other helicopter pilot flying today. You want an experienced pilot to take you on a photo flight over the lake? Then you’ll pay the 4 hours of ferry time to get me up there and back. Hint: there’s no other helicopter pilot who will fly up there for free.

I happen to have a good amount of skill chasing race cars and boats, low-level and high speed. I can put a still or video photographer right where he needs to be in these action photo shoots. Is your race an hour away? Then you’ll pay the 2 hours of ferry time to get me there and back. And you won’t load up the helicopter with unnecessary “observers.” You’re not just paying for a helicopter and a skilled pilot — you’re paying for a safe flight.

An off-airport landing zone.

I’ve probably flown over and landed at more remote, off-airport locations than any other commercial helicopter pilot in Arizona — other than medevac pilots. You want to see some “air park” property in northern Arizona, east of Wikieup? Or a bunch of land north of I-40, east of the Colorado River? Or a vacant steel plant outside of Kingman? Or the side of a 40-mile long cliff north of Seligman? Or a powerline stretching from Forepaugh to Bagdad? Or a pipeline stretching from Tucson to the New Mexico border? Or a stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border from Yuma to Nogales? Or some other equally weird or remote place? Then you’ll pay for a pilot who knows where to find fuel, who to contact for permission to fly through restricted areas, where to find a landing zone where you can get out and take pictures or soil samples or a leak. And don’t expect to trade that flight time for a mention in the credits of your video or annual report or promises of more business in the future.

I’m not going to sell myself short — even if it means losing out on business.

Frankly, if a client doesn’t pay me what I’m worth, I’m losing out anyway. And I may as well lose out in the comfort of my office or home than flying a mission for someone who doesn’t appreciate the value of what he’s getting.

What do you think?

I’d love to read your stories of how clients have tried to deal you out of what you think you deserve. Not just from pilots or photographers, but from any service professional. Use the comments link or form for this post to share your stories or links to them on your own blog.

And if you think I’m wrong about this — that we should allow potential clients to cut whatever deal they like with us — I’d like to know why. Maybe there’s something I’m missing here.

But after years in a very expensive and highly specialized business, I don’t think so.

Just a quick note here…I just read “Air France jet’s flight-control system under scrutiny” in the Los Angeles Times. These two paragraphs reminded me what bothers frightens me about today’s airliners:

One of the messages reported that one of the plane’s navigational control units had failed and that, almost simultaneously, the autopilot system had disengaged.

The sequence of events forced the crew of Flight 447 to fly the jet manually, a difficult task on an Airbus traveling at high altitude near its maximum speed, aviation experts said. Any significant change in airspeed could have caused the plane to lose lift or stability, both potentially deadly conditions.

There’s a lot in these two paragraphs, but the two points I take away is:

• Airliners have automated systems that pilots rely on during flight — even “straight and level” flight.
• Pilots could lack the skills necessary to fly the aircraft if those automated systems fail.

Isn’t anyone else bothered by this?

Thanks to @MattHammer on Twitter for sharing the link.

One of the problems with this blog — at least as far as blogging experts are concerned — is that it covers too many topics. Blogging “experts” agree that to have a “successful” blog, it should concentrate on just one topic. That will attract people interested in that topic and keep them coming back for more, since it’s just what they want. A while back, I tried this by spinning off all the book support blog posts to a separate blog — Maria’s Guides — and leaving the rest behind here. I changed the name of this blog to An Eclectic Mind to help communicate the fact that there’s a lot of topics covered here. I refuse to spin off each major topic to its own blog — at least right now — because there’s so much overlap in the topics and because I simply can’t be bothered managing more than the 5 or so blogs I’m already dealing with. So this blog covers all kinds of things, from flying to photography to life in a tiny desert town to travel to politics to…well, you get the idea.

Finding Content with Categories and Tags

I’ve made content easier to find by embracing WordPress’s category and tag features. Categories are broad topics, tags are narrower ones. For example, you’ll find Flying as a category, but you’ll find helicopters, airplanes, airports, aviation, helicopter video, etc. as tags. The idea is that if you’re interested in flying but don’t give a hoot about helicopters, you can click the airplanes tag and zip right in to content that discusses airplanes. (Don’t expect much; I’m a helicopter pilot.) You can find all categories listed in the sidebar’s category list and all categories assigned to a post in the post’s footer. You can find the most popular 75 tags in the sidebar’s tag cloud and all tags assigned to a post in the post’s footer. All posts have at least one category; all recent posts have at least one tag.

(You can also use the Search box in the header to find content on the site, but even I don’t have very good luck with that. Too many results. This blog has nearly 2,000 posts and unless you’re looking for a topic with a very unusual word — for example, “cauliflower” — you’ll likely come up with more results than you’ll want to wade through.)

Which brings me to the real topic of this post — getting the content you want delivered right to you.

Using RSS to Subscribe to Categories or Tags

A friend of mine who is always sharing aviation photos and videos by e-mail recently discovered my “nosecam” helicopter videos. I create these by fixing a POV.1 video camera to the nose of my helicopter when I go flying. The resulting video can be tediously boring or extremely interesting or somewhere in between. I take the best videos, process them a bit, and put them on Viddler, a video sharing site. (And no, I really can’t explain why I don’t use YouTube. I should probably rethink this a bit if I want the videos to be seen by more people.) Once online, I usually create a blog post with the video embedded. Those are categorized Flying and tagged helicopter video.

Now WordPress has the incredible ability to generate an RSS feed based on any category or tag. The formula for creating the feed URL is very simple:

• For a category on this site, http://www.marialanger.com/category/category-name/feed/rss where category-name is the abbreviated name of the category. You can get the exact category name by looking in the address bar after clicking the category’s link in the sidebar. So the RSS feed for the Flying category would be: http://www.marialanger.com/category/flying/feed/rss
• For a tag on this site, http://www.marialanger.com/tag/tag-name/feed/rss where tag-name is the abbreviated name of the tag. You can get the exact tag name by looking in the address bar after clicking the tag’s link in the sidebar. So the RSS feed for the helicopter video category would be: http://www.marialanger.com/tag/helicopter-video/feed/rss

Of course, knowing in RSS feed URL is one thing, but using it is another. You’ll want to put this URL in your feed reader. If you don’t have one — or don’t even have a clue what I’m talking about — check out Google Reader. It’s a pretty popular feed reader that starts you off with a complete explanation, with video, about RSS feeds and how it works. Perhaps some of the more knowledgeable folks reading this post will share their favorite readers; I’m not big on feed readers and do all my feed reading from within Apple Mail.

Getting Helicopter Videos by E-Mail

Now back to my aviation video friend.

After looking at a bunch of my videos on Viddler, he e-mailed me and asked me to include him on my mailing list to be notified when new helicopter videos come out. Well, I don’t have a mailing list. I’m not one of those people who sees something cool on the Internet and e-mails it to half the people in my address book. In general, I don’t like to receive e-mails like that, so I certainly don’t like to send them.

But I realized that there were probably a few people who were interested in the videos, had no patience for RSS, and couldn’t be bothered manually checking this site periodically. So I whipped up a Feedburner subscription feed specifically for the helicopter video tag. Folks who want notification of the latest helicopter videos published on this site delivered directly to their e-mail in boxes can subscribe using one of the following methods:

• Enter your email address:

  Fill in the form in the box to the right.

• Click this link: Subscribe to “An Eclectic Mind | Helicopter Videos” by Email

Either way, you’ll be sending your e-mail address to Feedburner. Feedburner will send you a confirmation e-mail to assure that you really want to subscribe and this isn’t an attempt by someone else to add you to the list. You will get that e-mail message almost immediately. You MUST follow the instructions in the confirmation e-mail message to complete the subscription process. If you don’t, the subscription will not start. If you can’t find that e-mail message in your in-box, check your spam filter.

Once the subscription is activated, you’ll get an e-mail message only when there’s a new helicopter video on the site. That could be once a month or it could be three times in a week. I tend to release them in batches.

I use the Feedburner service because it’s good. It does not generate any spam. Your e-mail address is not shared with others. I know this because I also subscribe to several of my own feeds, just to make sure spam isn’t going out with the feed content. It’s also really easy to unsubscribe from; just click the link in the bottom of the e-mail message you get.

Getting All Content by E-Mail

You may have noticed an E-Mail Feed link at the top of the sidebar on this site. That’s for all site content. If you subscribe to site content using that link, you’ll get everything, including the helicopter videos. If you’re only interested in the helicopter videos, unsubscribe from that feed and subscribe to this one instead.

I hope this long story (as usual) gives you the information you need to subscribe to the content that interests you most here.

My helicopter is sitting in a hangar at Boeing Field in Seattle, WA, being tended to by a team of experienced Robinson helicopter mechanics. There’s nothing wrong with it — well, other than a few minor squawks. It’s in for its annual inspection.

I, on the other hand, am in Wickenburg, AZ, finishing up some work before I head northwest for the summer.

So, for a while, I’m helicopterless.

Of course, now my phone is ringing with calls from folks who want to fly. Tours of Phoenix, day trips to the Grand Canyon, photo flights west of Sedona, and even a tour around Wickenburg (if you can believe that). Sorry folks. No can do. Helicopter is out-of-town and I’ll be joining it shortly.

We flew it up last week. I took Alaska Air back to Phoenix. Next weekend, I’ll hook up my travel trailer to my husband’s pickup truck and drive up to Quincy, WA. Although I might spend a few days in the campground on Crescent Bar, it’s more likely that I’ll simply return to the Quincy Golf Course and set up camp in one of its five full-hookup sites. The manager there is looking forward to my return — isn’t that nice?. He was pleased to tell me that they fixed last year’s Internet problems and now have WiFi on site. Sometime the second week in June, I’ll hop a flight on Horizon from Wenatchee to Seattle, hitch a ride to Boeing Field, and climb aboard my helicopter for the flight across the Cascades and back to Quincy.

I might even take one of my Twitter friends along for the ride.

But until then, I feel strangely grounded in Wickenburg, with nothing to fly.

It’s odd. I hardly flew at all in March and April, yet I didn’t miss the helicopter. After all, it was nearby, in its hangar. I flew quite a bit in May, covering it with dead bugs on that last flight into BFI. Now, with May drawing to a close and the helicopter 1000+ miles away, I miss it.

I’m already looking forward to that flight in June.

And hoping for a rainy cherry season in central Washington, so I get plenty of time to fly.

Just thought I’d take a moment to share this photo with blog readers. It was taken by Bryan using my Nikon D80 and 10.5mm fisheye lens. He was sitting in the back seat; I was sitting up front with Ryan at the controls. Bryan snapped this shot from between the two seats as we were flying over Lake Shasta in northern California.

Yes, I know we look a bit distorted. That’s the lens in action. But can you get an idea of the view? Huge front bubble window, big side windows. Even the back seats have a great view.

Yet people still take tours of places like the Grand Canyon in airplanes, where they’re lucky to get a limited view out one window.

Go figure.