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.

I stopped by one of the orchards I’m providing drying services for at about 2:30 PM this afternoon. A refrigerated tractor-trailer truck full of cherries was just pulling out. The grower was there, and he looked very cheerful. He told me I was too late; they start picking at 4:30 AM and finish for the day by 1:30 PM.

We talked for a while about the cherries and how they grow. He said the harvest was heavy this year and that he had about 3 times as many cherries as he’d harvested last year. He also said his cherries were, for the most part, nice and fat and that the buyers were going to love them.

He showed me how cherries have to be picked — by the stem to prevent them from going bad too quickly. He pulled a big fat bing off a nearby tree to demonstrate and handed it to me. It was beautiful.

We also talked about my flying. I’d flown over his orchard twice during our three-week contract and I wanted to make sure I’d done it the way he expected. I tend to fly a little low at times and I wanted to make sure I didn’t damage the cherries. Bings are pretty sturdy — he tried to find some blemishes on the one he’d picked for me but couldn’t. He said that when they’re really good and red, you can’t really see any damage. He said the wind damages them just as much as the helicopter most times.

He and his pickers had begun picking on Thursday. He’s got 30 acres of mostly mature cherry trees and expects to be done picking on Monday. That’s when my contract with him ends.

He invited me to come back earlier tomorrow to watch them pick and then process the cherries. He has some kind of cooling bin that brings the fruit temperature down near freezing before putting them into the truck. He says this keeps them fresher longer. He also promised to give me some cherries to take with me tomorrow.

I took a few photos in the orchard before leaving.

And, of course, I ate that big, beautiful cherry.

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.

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.

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.

You may have noticed that my blogging activity has dropped off again. There are two reasons for this:

• I’ve tried three times to write a blog entry and all three times the text is moving off on a tangent that leads to a dead end. I’m blocked.
• I’m working against three deadlines, only one of which is self-imposed, to get a bunch of stuff done. I can’t seem to work as quickly as I used to.

Whatever the reason, I’m blogging less and feeling more stressed. Some people might argue that those two things are not related, but I think they are, at least in part.

When I start my day with a blog post, as I did each day last week, I feel good about myself and ready to start the day. Maybe it’s because I’ve managed to produce something at the very start of my day, before most folks are even awake. Maybe it’s because it sets the pace of my day to get more done. Maybe it’s because writing in my blog often helps get things off my chest or out of my head, stored in a safe place so I can clear them from my mind. In any case, blogging helps me to think and to work better.

What’s on My Mind

This week I’ve got a ton on my mind.

My company was mentioned in Arizona Highways magazine and that has led to a dramatic increase in calls for my flying services. In the past two weeks, I’ve sold three 6-day excursions and have at least two other people seriously considering it. If this pace keeps up, I’ll be flying two to three excursions a month during the spring and autumn months. While this is a great thing, it also brings on a lot of stress — making reservations, worrying about customer satisfaction, thinking about weather and helicopter maintenance issues — the list goes on and on.

This stress is only complicated by the fact that I’m working on a book revision that I need to have done by mid-May. While the software I’m writing about isn’t technically even in beta yet, it’s pretty stable. But there are a few features that simply don’t work. I don’t have access to the bug reporter, where I normally contribute to the company’s efforts to identify and squash bugs, so I don’t know if they are aware of the little problems I’m seeing. And, in the back of my mind, is the possibility that the software’s interface might change. I’m 5 chapters into a 24 chapter book right now — a book rich with thousands of screen shots — and if there’s a major interface change tomorrow or next week or as I’m wrapping up, I’ll have to do the whole revision all over again. How’s that for a stressful thought?

And why do I need the book done by mid-May? That’s another stressful situation. I’ve been contracted for cherry drying in Washington State this summer. Unfortunately, I haven’t been given a start date yet. It’ll take me a week to get the helicopter up to Seattle for its annual inspection, come home to get my truck and trailer, and drive back up there to my contract starting point. But I don’t have any details about where or when I’ll begin work. I could theoretically get a call next week — while I’m on one of my excursions — telling me to report in on May 5. I’d have to scramble hard to make that happen.

Related to this is my need to fill at least one seat on the flight from the Phoenix area to the Seattle area. It’s about a 10 hour flight and the cost of such a flight is enormous. I need a couple of passengers or a helicopter pilot interested in building time to bring in some revenue for the flight. Trouble is, it’s hard to get the word out, few people who hear about it understand what an incredible opportunity the flight is, and those people who do want to go simply don’t have that kind of money. My summer profitability depends, in part, on covering my costs for the ferry flight with revenue.

And on top of all this is the video project from hell, which I prefer not to discuss here until it has been resolved.

So you can see why my mind might not be tuned in properly for blogging.

Taking it One Day at a Time

I know that the best way to work through this stressful time is to take one day at a time and get as much done as possible. My main motivation is peace of mind. The more things I complete, the fewer things I’ll have on my mind to stress me out. While some thing are out of my control — will they change the user interface of the software? will I be called to Washington before mid May? — others aren’t. I just need to plug away at them until I get them taken care of.

And I need to blog every morning. It sure does feel better when I do.

Yesterday morning, I received a fax I’d been waiting for. It was from a helicopter services company based in central Washington state, not far from the Columbia River. I’d worked as a subcontractor to a subcontractor for them last year to dry cherries with my helicopter. This year, with the middle man out of the picture, I contacted them directly, offering my helicopter and services.

And then I waited.

Normally, cherry contracts start going out in March. This year, with the economy so questionable, the contracts went out a month late. My buddy, Jim, got his on Friday. When mine didn’t arrive by Saturday, I assumed they had enough pilots. After all, there’s a glut of them without jobs and plenty of flight schools that are finding themselves with plenty of helicopters and CFIs but not enough students. I assumed they’d chosen someone else — likely someone closer to the orchards — instead of me.

But on Monday morning, the fax arrived. It laid out the terms for my minimum 21-day contract. The money offered was the same as last year. If fuel prices stay stable — rather than spiking to new highs as they did last year — I’ll do okay. If it rains a lot — and I have my fingers crossed — I’ll actually bring home a decent amount of money. Maybe even enough to pay off my camper loan.

The Logistics

Although a specific start date wasn’t mentioned, I could start the contract as soon as May 15. It’s more likely, however, that I’ll be starting around June 1, as I did last year. Apparently, the cherry crop is running late again.

I told them I need a week’s notice to get the helicopter into position. Because of the distance involved — I’m about 1,000 miles away — it’s a multiple-step process to get all my playing pieces on the board:

• Ferry the helicopter from Wickenburg to Seattle’s Boeing Field. I have two empty seats for this flight and am actively seeking one or two people to fill them. You can learn more about it here; I can’t exaggerate what an incredible experience this flight is — especially since I let my passengers choose the route. This flight will take 2 to 4 days, depending on what my passengers have in mind.
• Drop off the helicopter for its annual inspection. I use the services of Rich Carter, who is probably one of the top 5 Robinson mechanics in the country.
• Fly via airline back to Phoenix.
• Prepare my camper and truck.
• Drive from Wickenburg to my first base of operations in Washington State. If my truck behaves and the weather holds, I can do the 1,200-mile drive in two long days.
• Set up the camper in a campground or grower field.
• Take an airliner from Wenatchee, WA to Seattle, WA.
• Ferry my helicopter from Seattle to my first base of operations.

I figure the absolute quickest I can do all this is five days. I’m hoping I get seven.

Of course, I can do a lot of the preparations this month, so when I return from Seattle, I can just hook up the camper and go. The preparations include giving my camper a total check out, loading it up with the things I’ll need to live and work in it for up to eight weeks, and fixing a few little broken things, like the DC jack in the kitchen area, which I use to power my iPod. I’m also considering the installation of a satellite dish that’ll get me Internet as well as television — although I don’t usually bring a TV with me.

Well, at least I can try to do the preparations. I’m working on a book this month and promised my editor I’d be done by month-end.

The Ferry Flight

The ferry flight is the part I’m looking forward to most. Last year’s route took us due west across the Arizona and California deserts to the coast at San Luis Obispo. We then flew up the coast all the way to San Francisco, where the marine layer pushed us inland. We overnighted at the north end of Napa Valley, then pushed on to Portland the next day, doing a good portion of that flight over the coast, too. The last day, we made the quick flight to Seattle with a flyby of Mt. St. Helens, which was steaming. I still remember those towering waterfalls from snow melt off the cinder cone. You can read about each day of the flight and see more photos here, here, and here.

It’s pretty important that I get paying passengers on board for this flight, so I’ve cut my usual charter rate down to below my cost in an effort to attract deal seekers who want a once-in-a-lifetime flight experience. That’s my preferred approach.

Plan B is to offer the flight to helicopter pilots who want to build time in an R44. The trouble with this plan is the extra effort involved: I need to get the pilot on my insurance, which means he needs to have a certain minimum number of flight hours in R44s and has to have taken the Robinson factory safety course. The rate I offer these guys is lower than my charter rate, so I’d have to eat more of the ferry cost. And, of course, if someone is paying me for the privilege of flying my aircraft, I have to let him or her fly it. Frankly, I like to fly — even 10 hours worth — and would prefer to fly it myself. So Plan B, while certainly possible, is not my preference.

Plan C is even more distasteful. It means flying up there by myself. The good part of that is that I can do all the flying on whatever route I choose. The bad part is that I won’t get any of my ferry costs covered. And since my ferry costs are significant for a 10-hour flight, I’d rather get them covered than have the pleasure of a solo flight.

Besides, it’s nice to have company.

Settling In

Once all my tools are up there, I can settle in to wherever I’m based. I’ll likely spend 3 weeks at the first base and, with luck, get moved to another base farther north after that. Last year I started on the Columbia River near Quincy (south of Wenatchee), moved north to Pateros and Brewster, and then moved back to the high country around Quincy. Then I was done, having been on call for seven weeks with only two days of flying.

No, last year was not profitable. I just about broke even. But it was nice to get away from Arizona’s heat and do something that wasn’t tourism-related.

How much I “settle in” is questionable. While I had the trailer parked in the same campground spot for almost two full months last year (see photo) and spent 10 days at a motel in Pateros, this year I’m more likely to be moving the camper around. It’s pretty much self-sufficient — with solar panels that should keep the batteries charged on those long, summer days — but I’d like to get a full or partial hookup. I’m not opposed to parking on a grower’s property or even at an airport where the helicopter would be based.

I would like to minimize the number of times I have to move it, though. It takes about an hour to set up or break down camp, due to the nature of the pop-out beds. I don’t mind doing all this work, but if it happens to be a very rainy season, I’m not sure whether I’ll have time to do it. I’ve been told to expect 10-hour flying days if it’s a wet one.

Looking Ahead

I’m looking forward to the trip and the challenges it presents. I had a pretty crappy winter here in Arizona, dealing with a lot of bull that I’ll likely blog about sometime in the future, when it’s all a dim memory. While my company’s inclusion in the May 2009 issue of Arizona Highways magazine is already helping me book excursions for the upcoming fall flying season — and perhaps even one or two excursions before I leave for the summer — it’s not going to help me in the summer months, when I really do hate flying here. You cannot imagine the heat, and escaping the heat to the high country introduces all kinds of problems because of high density altitude. Cherry drying is challenging, tedious, and dangerous work, but it’s a change.

And I thrive on change.

Read More Posts about Cherry Drying:

• Drying Cherries with the Big Fan
• Getting Ready for this Year’s First Summer Job
• Cherry Drying 101 (with Video)
• Walking the Orchards
• The Story Behind Walking the Orchards
• I Dry Cherries
• Cherry Drying on Google Earth
• The End is Near

I forgot to mention this in my “Gratuities ARE Appreciated” post, so I’ll share it now.

In the summer of 2004, I was a pilot at the Grand Canyon, working for the big helicopter tour operator there. They’d often have 10 or 11 helicopters running at once, so when a tour bus pulled up, we could take up to 66 passengers at a time. Needless to say, just about all the tour bus operators used us. Very few of our passengers spoke English.

One day, they loaded us up with a Japanese tour group. I had a petite older Japanese woman next to me. She was probably in her 60s. She was very nervous. And she didn’t speak a word of English.

When we first took off, she grasped the bottom of her seat, like most nervous passengers do. And she continued to look nervous for the first part of the flight. But then we slipped over the South Rim and began our flight across the Canyon. Her eyes seemed to bug out of her head as she leaned forward to suck in the view.

After a while, I realized that she wasn’t nervous anymore.

When we landed and I cut the throttle to idle, she leaned across and hugged me — no small task, given I was wearing a shoulder harness, pair of headsets, a baseball cap, and sunglasses. Then she began rummaging around in her purse. She produced a plastic card and handed it to me with a great deal of excited blabbering in Japanese. She bowed repeatedly before the loader came to help her out.

I looked down at the card, completely puzzled. It had a picture of Mt. Fuji on it and was covered with colored symbols and writing in Japanese. There was a magnetic strip on one side. I put it in my shirt pocket.

During my lunch break, I hunted down Hajame, our Japanese pilot. I told him about the woman and then handed him the card. “What is this?” I asked.

He studied it for a moment, then broke out laughing. Apparently, it was some kind of bus pass for a mass transit system in Japan.

To this day, I prize that “tip.” Sure — it’s completely worthless to me. But it was the thought that counted. She, in effect, gave me a souvenir of the flight. And 4+ years later, I still remember her and the flight that won me such a prize.

I spent the July 4 holiday weekend at Lake Pateros in Washington State. Most of the time I wasn’t flying — I spent 3.1 hours on Friday drying cherries — I was holed up at the extremely pleasant (and helicopter-friendly) Lake Pateros Motor Inn. Mike and I lounged a bit on the upper deck patio walkway right outside our room. The lake was wild with boaters and jet skiers and wake boarders. On a whim, I took out my Nikon D80 camera and its 70-300 mm lens. I set the camera to continuous shooting, zoomed all the way, and started snapping photos.

To my surprise, a few of them came out pretty darn good.

I continued snapping photos throughout the weekend. On Saturday, Mike and I took a helicopter flight around central Washington and we took turns snapping photos out of the helicopter. (He’s a pilot, too, and we had the dual controls in, so I had a rare opportunity to use both hands and decent equipment for aerial photography with doors off.) Some of those photos were pretty good, too, like Mike’s shot of downtown Chelan.

This all goes back to my theory that if you have decent digital photographic equipment, are in a good place to take photos, have good photographic conditions (i.e., lighting), and enough storage space on your memory card that you don’t have to skimp on the number of photos you take, you have to get some good shots. Mike and I took over 200 shots from the air during a 3-hour flight the other day. I bet we only wind up with about a dozen really good ones.

Anyway, I put the Lake Pateros photos online on a new Web site I’m experimenting with: Flying M Photos. I’m hoping to build up a library of stock and fine art images, as well as event images like this, for sale. With luck, this will fund my photography habit, which is quickly becoming quite expensive.

Were you out on Lake Pateros during the July 4 weekend? Check the site to see if I got an action photo of you! If I did and you want to buy a copy to remember your day at the lake, use the coupon code LAKEP to save 20% on your photo order.

In my “I Dry Cherries” blog post, I mentioned a blower at work in two of the orchards when I arrived to dry. I didn’t actually see the blower; it was beneath the canopy of cherry tree branches. But I knew it was down there because something was disturbing the branches and leaves from below.

This morning, as we sat on the patio outside our motel room, waiting for the weather to worsen, we saw a grower go to work with a blower in his field across the river. I’m not sure, but I think he might be growing grapes over there. As I type this, he’s driving up and down the rows of his field, towing a very loud blower behind him. The blower is spitting out what’s likely to be some kind of pesticide, but, for all I know, could be fertilizer or pollen or anything.

The point is, it’s blowing big, as you can see here:

Now imagine the blower without whatever the grower is spreading. It’s running and its blowing air. Lots of air. It’s making a ton of noise — so much that the guy operating the equipment can’t hear the helicopter moving into position nearby. And he can’t see the helicopter because the tree branches are overhead, also hiding him from view.

But the leaves on the trees are going crazy. He’s drying them from below; I’m drying them from above.

I sure hope he wears ear protection.

Yesterday was the big day. After being on standby for about three weeks here in Washington State, I finally got to dry some cherries.

We were watching the radar via the Internet and saw what looked like a little “perfect storm” converging on the town of Brewster, just up the river from my motel in Pateros. Convective activity to the west, east, and south all moved toward each other, as if they were magnetically drawn together. But it was the thunderstorm cells from the southeast that actually hit the town, one after the other. The wind kicked up, lightning flared, and whitecaps appeared on the normally calm lake surface. Although not a drop fell on us eight miles downriver, we could clearly see that Brewster was getting dumped on.

My “boss” called. “It’s raining like hell in Brewster,” he said. One of the growers had called him to report in. I was put on “active standby.” Since it was only around 6 PM, that meant there was a pretty good chance I’d fly.

We waited, watching the storms move through. An Enstrom helicopter came upriver and slowly settled down over an orchard just south of the downpour, upriver from our position. Beyond him, the sky was dark gray and forked lightning bounced from cloud to cloud. He wasn’t there long. He departed to the southeast.

My phone rang again at about 7 PM. “I’ve got some for you,” the boss said. “Got a pen?”

“I’m getting one,” I told him, hurrying back to my motel room.

He listed five orchards. I wrote down their names. They were all within 10 miles of each other, starting just upriver from my position. By that time, the wind had calmed. Although it looked as if it might still be raining in Brewster and beyond, it had apparently stopped over my orchards.

“Okay,” I told him, “I’ll get started.”

I changed into my flight suit and put on socks and sneakers. Then I went down to the helicopter with Mike. We pulled off my door and the tie-downs. The motel guests saw what we were doing. There were some kids and they started asking questions. Mike told them he’d answer all the questions when I was gone.

I started up the helicopter and organized all my gear out on the passenger seat while I was warming up: my handheld GPS with coordinates for all the orchards and a looseleaf binder with marked-up aerial photos of all the orchards. I plugged my cellphone into the device I’d bought to enable cellphone communication in flight. I tuned the radio into the frequency Mike would be monitoring on the handheld: 123.45. Then I finished my startup process. I was about to take off when my cellphone fell off its mount and the communication plug game loose. I set it up again, amazed at how much it was vibrating while I was on the ground. Then I took off.

I was climbing through about 200 feet, heading upriver, when my phone rang. It was the boss. “C called and says its raining there,” he told me.

C was the second orchard I’d be drying. (I won’t use real names here for various reasons.) It was across the river from the first and not far from where I’d seen the Enstrom do some drying at least 30 minutes before.

I asked him what he wanted me to do. He responded that he was just letting me know. I ended the call. I was already arriving at the first orchard, M.

M’s orchard was snuggled into a strip of land between a rocky bluff and a road. The rows stretched across the field at an angle that went downhill toward the river. I got down low and flew around two of the main block’s three sides to get a handle on how I’d tackle the job. At that time, I also looked for obstacles. The only power lines were on the other side of the road and were not a factor. Other than that, there were three tall PVC poles that stuck up about 5 feet above the tree tops in various locations and, of course, that rocky bluff.

I started on one end of the block and worked my way down the first row, from the rocks to the road. I pivoted with a pedal turn over the road, pleased that the wind wasn’t going to fight me. Then I worked my way up the next row. At the top, I sidestepped to the next row, made a 90° pedal turn, and began flying sideways down the row. When I was sure my tail would clear the rocky bluff, I completed my turn with another 90° pedal turn and continued down the row.

I repeated this process at the top and bottom of each row, noticing a few things as I flew:

• There was enough wind to push the downwash I generated to the southeast side of the helicopter. So as I flew over one row, I was really drying the row next to it.
• When I flew downhill, I flew higher yet faster than when I flew uphill. Both made perfect sense, although the speed was sloppy flying. I had to fly higher on the way downhill to prevent my tail rotor from tangling in the trees uphill, behind me.
• It was extremely difficult to see the rows of trees. They were big and bushy and, from the air, there wasn’t much space between them. I had to rely on occasional views of the reflective material on the ground to remain lined up.
• I was generating a lot more downwash than I expected. I may have been flying a little low.

I was about a third of the way through the field when it started to rain. Keeping in mind that it was my job to dry the cherries, it didn’t make much sense to dry them when it was still raining. So I decided to call it quits and work on the next field, Orchard C. I flew across the river. It was still raining there, but much lighter. As I did my reconnoissance around the field, the rain just about let up. I settled down over the first row of trees and started drying.

This block was also on a slope, but a much gentler one. Its main obstacles included a tall fan in the middle of the field and a set of powerlines that ran across the upriver side of the block. Down below were numerous white picking buckets like the 5-gallon plastic “cans” filled with paint that you might buy to paint your house. The helicopter’s downwash sent most of them flying — in fact, if anyone had been down there, he would have been in serious danger. There were also some ladders, most of which were lying on the ground. The ladders must have been sturdy because my downwash did not knock over any of the ones that had been left standing.

I went up and down the rows, being careful to avoid the wires at the end of each row when I made my turn. When I got to the rows closest to the fan tower, I simply sidestepped around it, double-drying a set of trees a bit farther away and pretty much avoiding the ones closest to the tower. But I think that my altitude — 10 or so feet off the top of the trees — spread the downwash around enough to get most of the trees. I wasn’t going to get fancy with the maneuvers I’d learned in May — not on my first flight, anyway. I finished that field in about 20 minutes, then climbed and crossed the river. Then I restarted the first field, Orchard M.

In the meantime, I could hear other pilots on the radio. There was a group working out of Brewster Airport. One of them was flying a JetRanger; another was flying a big Sikorsky. They were working together, somehow. I didn’t see them. Later, I did see a few Sikorskys hovering over fields in Brewster. They looked like big bugs hovering 50 feet off the trees.

I finished the main block of Orchard M and repositioned over a tiny block of younger trees farther down the hill. The trees were smaller and I found that I could dry two rows with one pass. I finished them off quickly and pulled up, heading toward my next orchard. I’d finished 23 acres (including the re-do) in a little more than an hour. Not exactly fast, but with ferry time factored in, it wasn’t bad.

My next orchard was full of surprises. Only 3 acres in size, it was shaped kind of like an uppercase letter D, but backwards from my point of view. The rounded edge was lined with seven very large pine trees. Where the trees ended, a set of power lines completed the border of the field. There was a house at the top of the D and another house not far away on one of the rounded edges. I soon realized that I’d have an audience for my flight as I saw folks gathering along the deck of the second house.

As I approached the orchard and got ready to settle down to tree top level, I saw two areas where the tree branches were going wild, as if Big Foot were walking among them. It turned out to be ground blowers that the grower was using to get the drying process started. The first time I got into the wake of one of these blowers, I got pushed around quite a bit, but when the grower realized I was overhead, he repositioned to one end of the orchard and shut down.

Meanwhile, I’d begun drying. In this particular orchard, due to the shape of the block and the size of the trees, it was impossible to see the rows. I’d fly down what I thought was one row, make a complex turn at the end to avoid the big pine tree, and get ready to start up the next row only to realize that I’d either already done that row or I’d missed a bunch. Fortunately, my downwash was covering more than just one row at a pass and I had to satisfy myself (and the grower) with that.

Near the end of the block, while making a difficult turn to avoid a big pine, I heard a loud noise and felt the helicopter shudder. At first, I thought my tail rotor had struck the tree and I shot forward to clear it. But the helicopter seemed to fly fine and, as I continued flying, I figured I must have just overflown one of the bird cannons. Erik had warned that it would “scare the shit out of you the first time you heard one.” He wasn’t kidding.

As I neared the very last row of the block, I realized that it was uncomfortably close to the powerlines I’d noticed there before. Still a little frazzled by the loud noise I’d heard only minutes earlier, I decided I’d done enough. I lifted up and started toward my next orchard.

I’d climbed to about 250 feet to cruise to the next orchard when I consulted my list of orchards to do. I knew I had only two left. That’s when I realized that I’d forgotten to do the one near to the big D. The only problem I had with that orchard was that although I had a photo of it, I’d never actually seen it in person from the air. We’d skipped it during my preview flight and I didn’t have its coordinates. That meant I had to find it from the air while in flight, using the photo as my guide.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. There were orchard blocks all over the place below me. I had to get down low to look at the fruit on the trees. Most of them seemed to be apples and pears. When I finally found a cherry block, I assumed I had the right one and settled in over it. It was a block of young trees in a very easy layout with no obstructions. Nice and calming after the previous block.

I noticed my phone ringing and reached out to answer it. It was Jim, another pilot who is based in Chelan. “Dan’s on the phone with the grower. He says you’re dying the wrong block.”

I found that hard to believe. How many cherry blocks were out there?

“He says to go closer to the gray house.” What followed were instructions relayed by phone to get me in the right place. It was a lot like the game kids play when they’ve hidden something and give instructions to find it. “You’re getting warmer, it’s to your right, now it’s behind you.” You get the idea. I finally homed in on it. Jim had complained that he couldn’t understand me on the phone so we didn’t get the goodbyes done properly before I disconnected. I wasn’t about to let go of the collective while hovering 10 feet over cherry trees at 10 knots.

The block was easy and went quickly. I was definitely able to dry two rows at once and that really sped things up. I was making up for my earlier slow flights. As I flew back and forth, I caught sight of the people on the gray house’s porch supervising. Then I was done and climbing out for my last orchard.

I had the coordinates for that, as well as the photo. I should have followed the GPS until I got a bit closer before descending to look for the fruit on the trees. I was cruising over orchard blocks at about 50 feet when I saw a set of power lines crossing the road about 150 feet in front of me. I pulled pitch and brought the cyclic back smoothly. Two men walking on the road stared as I climbed almost straight up to clear the wires. Whew! Learned my lesson. I followed the GPS the remaining 3/4 mile to the field.

This last block also had blowers going. It was a nice 6-aqcre block with no wires and just one fan tower. I settled down 10 feet over the space between two rows of relatively young trees and followed them to the end at about 10 knots. When I got near the end, I spotted the grower watching me from a seat on an ATV. He gave me a thumbs up.

I can’t tell you how good that simple gesture made me feel. It was my first day on the job and I’d made someone — a man who had waited more than 90 minutes for me to arrive — happy. Maybe I’d saved his crop. Who knows? But it sure made me feel good as I cruised over every other row of trees, drying the whole block in about 15 minutes.

By this time, it was nearing 9 PM. The sun would be setting shortly. The storm had cleared out and the setting sun was casting an orange light over the Columbia River and mountains on the east side. It was beautiful. I climbed up to 400 feet and pushed a few buttons. Soon I had the boss on the phone. I told him I was done and asked if there were any others. He couldn’t hear me. Not at all. He told me to do the one I’d just finished, but if the grower waved me off, I should forget about it. But the grower had given me a thumbs up. I was done. Since I couldn’t communicate, I hung up. I figured I’d call him from the ground.

I got Mike on the radio and told him I was coming in. He met me on the lawn beside the motel, holding my door. I shut down and we buttoned the whole thing up, adding fuel to top the tanks and putting on the tie-downs.

That’s when I got a good look at the tail rotor. Although it was not damaged beyond a bit more paint worn off, it did have signs of something green on each blade. Maybe that loud noise wasn’t a bird cannon after all.

I’d flown 2.1 hours. Although I probably should have done the work more quickly, I now know what to expect and how to get the job done more efficiently.

I can’t wait until the next rain!

I relocated to Pateros, WA today. I’d been based in Quincy, WA for about three weeks when my contracts ended. My second batch of contracts had been pushed back a week, leaving me with 2 weeks with nothing to do. But I soon found another contract — this one 50 miles (as the helicopter flies) north at Brewster. Because the motel at Brewster was supposed to be pretty bad, they set me up at the Lake Pateros Motor Inn, right on the Columbia River, between Brewster and Lake Chelan.

I flew up to Chelan to meet with my dispatcher. He’s the guy who will call me and send me to the various orchards that need drying. I used my POV.1 camera to capture the highlights (such as they were) of my flight from Quincy Airport to Chelan Airport. You can view it here:

After filling up with fuel and killing time reading about the 100 Things to Do in Chelan, my contact, Dan, drove up. After a quick chat, he told me I should move my helicopter over to an area away from the pumps. That, of course, required that I start up the helicopter and fly it over. It was about 200 yards away, in a grassy area on the other side of a bunch of hangars. I suspect that Dan just wanted to check out my hovering abilities because there really wasn’t any reason for me to move. But I moved and made a nice smooth landing on the grass.

I got into his truck and he went over the paperwork with me. There was a lot of it, but not more than I can handle. Then he drew a map to show me where the motel in Pateros was and where I should land the helicopter beside it. We talked about where the orchards were. He said he’d send Mark, another pilot, out to fly with me this afternoon to show me the orchards. And that was it.

Well, he did tell me a funny story about what his one-year-old puppy did one afternoon when he left her home alone, but I’d better not repeat it here. Let’s just say it involved dirty laundry, a doggie pool, and the UPS lady.

I climbed back into my helicopter as Dan drove away. I fired it up and turned on the camera. I then proceeded to record the video embedded below. This video features a landing on the grassy spot to the east of the hotel, right along the river.

I have to say that I’m getting better at recording these things. Although I don’t like the mount I used for these flights — I call it the “wiggle-stick” because of the way it vibrates in flight — I am getting better at narrating what’s going on. I hope some of the people who visit the blog find them interesting. If you do, please use the Comment link or form to let me know so I keep delivering them.