An Eclectic Mind

The third of a four-part series about flying at Lake Powell.

Although Lake Powell is simply a beautiful place to overfly, it does have a few specific points of interest that you may want to check out from the air. I’ll cover them in this part of my series, beginning with the downlake points and moving uplake as far as the tour planes go on their standard tours.

To help you locate these places, I’ve included several maps, each of which has letters corresponding to their descriptions here. This first map is for the downlake points; the map you’ll find a bit farther down in this article is for the points that are farther uplake.

Horseshoe Bend

The first point isn’t even on the lake. Horseshoe Bend (A) is a horseshoe-shaped curve in the river a few miles downstream from the dam. It’s often photographed from the viewpoint at the outside “top” of the bend, which you can walk to from a parking area right off Route 89. Here’s a photo I took today from the overlook.

From the air, however, Horseshoe Bend takes on a completely different look, since you can see all of it at once. There’s an excellent photo of Horseshoe Bend from the air, taken by Mike Reyfman, in Part II of this series.

Keep in mind that this is one of the points visited by the tour planes. They’re normally flying a right hand turn around the bend at about 5500 feet, so be listening for them if you overfly.

Glen Canyon Dam

The Glen Canyon Dam (B) is the dam that keeps all the water in the lake. It’s accompanied by a bridge a few hundred feet downstream that crosses Glen Canyon. From the air, you can get good views of both.

Again, remember that the tour planes are also showing off this area. They tend to fly past between 4800 and 5500 feet, right after climbing out from the airport.

Wahweap Marina

Just past the dam, to the northwest, is the Wahweap area of the lake. It’s off the main channel and is home to the Wahweap Resort and Marina (C), currently managed by Aramark Services for the National Park Service. It includes a marina with slips and buoys, a tour boat dock, a rental boat dock, a resort hotel with two pools, and a campground. You can’t miss it.

The tour planes fly in the vicinity, usually at 5500 feet.

Navajo Canyon

Navajo Canyon (D) is an extremely long lake canyon that winds its way to the south. Outlined in white by the “bathtub ring” water line, it makes a fine subject for aerial photography early in the morning and late in the day. What sets it apart from other long side canyons on the lake is its width — it remains quite wide for miles. There’s also a huge sand dune against one canyon wall that’s a popular houseboat overnight spot.

The tour planes overfly this canyon, descending from 5000 feet (or higher) as they return to the airport.

Tower Butte

Tower Butte (E) is the iconic symbol of Lake Powell that you’ll see on various logos, etc. throughout Page. I don’t think it’s anything special, other than the fact that its top would make an excellent (but illegal) landing zone for a helicopter. It’s not even that close to the lake. But at sunset, it makes a good foreground subject for the illuminated cliffs and buttes behind it.

And if you’re flying low-level (think helicopter or ultralight) you might be able to spot some of the ancient ruins along the base of the butte — although I haven’t been able to find them lately.

This is a reporting point for the tour planes, which begin their descent for the airport right around here. Uplake beyond this point, the tour planes are on the uplake frequency (122.75).

Gunsight Butte

Gunsight (F) is a large rock formation that resembles a gun sight. It’s just uplake from Romana Mesa, which is one of the tour plane reporting points. Beyond the butte is beautiful Padre Bay, which has some interesting history and is popular with houseboats.

This photo was taken from the top of Romana Mesa on one of my 4WD outings. In it, distant Navajo mountain is lined up in the “sight” of Gunsight Butte.

Gregory Butte

Gregory Butte (G) stands out in my mind primarily because of its photogenic qualities. If you’re flying uplake early in the day and take a photo up Last Chance Canyon with Gregory Butte in the foreground…well, you get the photo you see here. It’s one of my favorite views of the lake. This shot was taken by my husband on one of our first helicopter trips to the lake together. The water level is a bit higher right now. If it rises some more, Gregory will become an island.

This is another tour plane reporting point, as they fly downriver at 5000 or 6000 feet.

Rock Creek

The mouth of Rock Creek (H) is also an extremely photogenic viewpoint. Whether you’re looking up Rock Creek’s three separate canyons or up Lake Powell itself, the view from the air at this point is magnificent. I usually see it from around 4800 feet, which is admittedly low — remember, I’m doing photo flights — but it’s also good from above.

This is one of the turnaround points for tours, so expect a lot of tour plane traffic here. Listen in on 122.75. Traffic coming downlake will be at 5000 or 6000 feet. Traffic turning downlake here will be descending in a right hand turn from 5500 to 5000 feet.

Dangling Rope Marina

Out in the middle of nowhere, on the north side of the lake, tucked into a canyon, you’ll find Dangling Rope Marina (I). This is an important fuel and supply stop for boaters on the lake. What’s odd about it, however, is that it’s only accessible by water. There’s no road in or out of this place. Supplies are brought in on barges and garbage is taken out on the same barges.

Rainbow Bridge

Everyone wants to see Rainbow Bridge (J) from the air. Everyone, that is, except those who know better.

The truth of the matter is, Rainbow Bridge is much better seen from the ground. The trouble is, it’s tucked into a relatively deep canyon that aircraft simply cannot get into safely. From a moving aircraft, you just get a glimpse of the bridge. And if you go too early or too late in the day, the whole thing is in shadow. Not the best experience.

If you’re serious about seeing Rainbow Bridge, get on a boat and take the 2-hour ride from Page to see it from the ground. You won’t regret it.

The Tour Points

Those are the basic downlake points of interest from the air. There are others, but I’ll let you discover them for yourself. As you’ll see when you overfly the lake, the entire lake is magnificent from the air. If it’s your first time visiting, you’ll be too awed to bother tracking down specific places to see. Just take it all in and enjoy.

In the final part of this series, I’ll tell you about some of the interesting points beyond Rainbow Bridge. If you’re flying in the area and aren’t on a schedule, you might want to check them out as well.

Flying, Travels with Maria airplanes, aviation, Horseshoe Bend, Lake Powell, Rainbow Bridge, tourism

Realistic? Are they kidding?

Yesterday, I received a flurry of packages delivered by USPS, FedEx Ground, and FedEx — all within 30 minutes of each other. Inside were Christmas presents from my family.

The Benefit of Having an Amazon.com Wish List

I maintain an Amazon.com Wish List. I use it primarily to store the items I’d like to buy but don’t want to buy right now. But it also makes a handy way for family members to send me gifts at Christmas time. There are items there ranging in price from about $10 up to $200 or more, and ranging in type from books and music to movies and electronics and housewares. So whether someone is shopping by price or by type of item, they can find me something I really want.

This year, my mother, sister, and brother decided to dip into the list. And because I told them not to pay extra for shipping if free shipping was available, most of my Christmas gifts arrived after Christmas.

Yesterday, in fact.

My First Computer Game in 10 or More Years

Among the items on my list was Microsoft Flight Simulator X Deluxe. On the surface, that may seem like a pretty average gift for a pilot. But I’m a helicopter pilot and I normally use Mac OS computers. FSX (as it’s apparently nicknamed by its cult of users) runs on a Windows PC.

I’d asked for this to help me with my instrument rating, which I’m working on this winter. A flight instructor had suggested it to help me with my “scan.” The scan is an important part of instrument flying — it involves scanning a certain group of instruments in a certain order or frequency to maintain situational awareness and keep the aircraft from doing aerobatics in the clouds with you on board.

Although I’m a Mac user, I do have a PC. Each year for the past 10 years, I’ve written a book about Quicken for Windows. [Greetings Google Alert scanners at Intuit!] I did a Mac version for a few years, too, but sales weren’t impressive enough for the publisher to keep doing it. I’ve also used PCs when writing about Microsoft Office products. In fact, I did two Microsoft Office Excel 2007 for Windows books in 2007. So although I don’t really like using PCs, I have one — a Dell laptop everyone who knows about PCs seems to be impressed by — and I do know how to use it. And since it’s sufficiently loaded to run Vista in all of its questionable glory, I didn’t think it would have any trouble with FSX.

My brother and his wife got the software for me. This makes sense. My brother is a big Windows PC gamer and spends hours fighting wars on the Internet. (Ah, if only that were enough to satisfy world powers!) He’d asked for a bunch of components to load up his PC, but I was a more practical gift giver this year and sent him and his wife Home Depot gift certificates to help them fix up their kitchen, which really needs work. Oddly enough, I’ll probably give him this game when I’m finished with it.

I mentioned in the subhead that this is my first computer game in 10 years. I’m estimating. My first computer game was Myst, which I found interesting, if not a little spooky. I followed that up with the sequel, which I don’t recall actually playing. That’s the extent of my game experience. I’m not a gamer; I don’t believe in spending hours in front of a computer entertaining myself. I’d rather read a book or do something more constructive with my time.

The Flight Simulator

I installed FSX last night. It took nearly an hour to copy the 15GB of data from two DVDs to the Dell. While it installed, I perused another gift from my Wish List, Microsoft Flight Simulator X For Pilots Real World Training. My mom sent me that one and it arrived yesterday, too.

This book is a big, fat, extremely well thought out volume that explains how to fly, using FSX as a training tool. It assumes you know nothing about flight but want to learn. It then teaches you from the ground up (pun intended), using accurate descriptions, illustrations, and features within FSX. It has chapters that take you through all the ratings you might want: sport pilot, private pilot, and instrument rating. It’s the instrument rating chapters that interest me and they look very complete.

The only problem is, the book — and the software, for that matter — assumes you want to fly airplanes.

I don’t fly airplanes and I don’t want to learn.

FSX comes with two helicopters: a Robinson R22 Beta II (which I’ve already customized with the N-number of my old helicopter) and a Bell 206B JetRanger. So rather than mess around with the airplanes, I went right for the R22.

And crashed it numerous times.

I have to mention here that when you’re a 2,000-hour pilot and you’re manipulating the controls of a virtual aircraft and can’t keep it in control, you can get pretty freaked out.

The problem is, the controls are not sufficiently realistic. In a helicopter, when you move the cyclic, you get immediate feedback. Push it forward, the nose immediately dips. Push it to the right and the aircraft immediately starts to bank. And you don’t have to push very much, either — a little dab will do ya (with apologies to Brylcreem). Although there might be delays of a fraction of a second in different helicopters depending on hydraulics or rigging, a pilot can get the “feel” for these minor differences within a few minutes and be able to fly.

But these delays were not fractions of a second. The delays between control input and aircraft reaction had to be at least two or three seconds. While a non-pilot might think that two or three seconds delay isn’t such a big deal, it really is — when it’s not what you’re accustomed to. I’d make a control input and, when nothing happened right away, I’d make a bigger input. By that time, the first input was just starting to take effect and the second would send the aircraft careening out of control. Too much correction and it would be headed the other way.

If I climbed into the cockpit of a real-life helicopter today and it had lag time like FSX’s R22, I’d crash it, too.

The details inside the cockpit, on the other hand, are amazingly accurate, from the vertical card compass (not shown here) on the split cockpit bubble to the instrument panel — although this particular configuration is not one you’re likely to find on a real R22. (The instrument in the bottom center is normally found on Instrument trainers, which have a larger panel with more instruments.) The realism of the scenery, airports, etc. is also pretty good. This screenshot has everything set to low quality graphics — I’m trying to realistic performance — but when you crank it up a few notches it looks pretty darn good. (Of course, there aren’t any houses near the runway at Phoenix Sky Harbor.)

As I type this, I’m downloading a 213MB update to the software. I’m hoping that the update, as well as finding the power cord for the Microsoft Force Feedback Joystick we have (from Mike’s old Flight Simulator days) will work together to make these aircraft fly more realistically.

I’m simply not willing to re-learn how to fly just to get practice on a computer — when I can go out and fly the real thing for a lot more benefit.

Call Me a Geek, Flying airplanes, computers, Flying, helicopters, Microsoft, software

When will they learn? If they live near an airport, they’re going to hear aircraft noise.

Yesterday, while wandering Las Vegas Boulevard with my husband, taking in the outrageous sights of the mega-casinos with my husband, I got a phone call from the guy I sold my FBO business to. He’s still there and apparently only calls me when he has something to annoy me about.

Yesterday was noise. “A guy called and said you flew over his house three times yesterday.”

I explained patiently that that was not possible. I’d left Wickenburg at 7 AM that day and hadn’t been back.

The conversation didn’t take long to turn ugly. Apparently the complainer didn’t think it was important to provide his name and phone number or even the location of his house. Perhaps he thinks I shouldn’t overfly any house anywhere in the world. I told the FBO guy that it obviously wasn’t me and that I wasn’t about to take the rap for every helicopter pilot in Arizona who happened to fly near some unidentified guy’s house in Wickenburg. I told him that it wasn’t his problem — he ran the fuel concession and had no other management responsibilities at the airport — and that he should have the complainer call me directly.

But that wasn’t enough for the FBO guy. He started recycling earlier parts of the same conversation. He said he might have to take it to the Town — clearly some kind of threat in his mind. I told him to go ahead. I told him that I was following FAA regulations regarding minimum flight altitudes. I added that as a business owner, it wasn’t in my best interest to annoy the public. This guy obviously had some kind of axe to grind and he was attempting to grind it with me.

But that still wasn’t enough for this FBO guy. I had no idea what he wanted me to say because he never suggested anything. He just kept recycling points from earlier in the conversation. We’d still be talking if I hadn’t cut it short by saying goodbye and hanging up.

He called back moments later. I pushed the Ignore button on my phone. He left a text message saying it was last week, not this week. Yes, let’s get the facts after we make the complaint. And make sure the facts fit the story.

I texted back, telling him to have the complainer contact me directly. That’s the last I heard from him.

One Complainer I Do Know

There’s only one guy in town who has ever complained to me about noise — and I’ve been flying helicopters out of Wickenburg since 2000. It’s a guy who lives in the Country Club area, which is conveniently located just southeast of the approach for Runway 23 (see satellite image below). He showed up at the airport one day right after I landed, steaming and ready to make a fight. He complained that I’d flown over his house too low and that I should not fly over Country Club when I came into the airport.

I said, “Okay, I’ll keep that in mind.”

That took the steam out of him. He had nothing else to say, so he left.

I began following Sols Wash into the airport when I arrive from the east or southeast and winds are favoring Runway 23. That path has me descending from about 700 feet AGL over town to about 300 to 400 feet at Vulture Mine Road over an empty wash area that no one lives in. So I don’t fly directly over any homes from the point where I pick up Sols Wash in downtown Wickenburg. An easy enough solution.

But a few weeks ago, I talked to Dave, another local helicopter pilot. He said he’s spent over an hour on the phone with what was likely the same guy. The guy told him that helicopters should avoid the Country Club area by flying 3 miles north or south of it on their way in. Dave pointed out that that simply wasn’t practical. Country club was about 3/4 mile from the airport. Why would anyone fly 3 miles out of their way to land at the airport?

When Dave told me about this, I pointed out that a 3-mile diversion would have us flying over other houses that weren’t within the normal aircraft traffic area. As people who buy homes close to an airport know, they’re required to sign an easement with the town that shows they understand their proximity to an airport that’s likely to generate noise. Why should we make a practice of overflying the homes of people who were smart enough to buy outside the airport influence area?

Stupid Planning, Stupid Development, Stupid Home Buyers

It all boils down to sheer stupidity.

The town takes a generous land donation years ago to build a very nice little municipal airport. At the time, the nearby Phoenix metro area is small and the town is tiny. The airport gets use primarily from a few hobbyists. But as the town grows, the planners don’t realize that more people means more airplanes. And if you want nice resorts, you’re going to get corporate jets. Blind — or perhaps I should say deaf — to the noise issues of an airport, they allow development to get ever closer to the airport. Soon, there are homes on three sides of the runway.

Then the town and planners, in their infinite wisdom, take a very large grant from the Federal Government to stretch one end of the runway 1500 feet toward the Country Club that has sprung up on its approach end. So now planes are taking off and landing 1/4 mile closer to these homes. And heck, just for the fun of it, they approve Hermosa Ranch, which will put another 34 homes right at the end of that runway, less than 3500 feet from the runway’s centerline.

The following image from GoogleMaps shows the reality of the situation. I purposely left the scale indicator in the image to show how close everything is.

Meanwhile, greedy developers hop onto the real estate boom and build as many homes as they can get on that land. The town obliges by changing the zoning from one house per acre to two or three or four houses per acre, just so they can cram them in.

Then the Realtors come in and sell these homes to unsuspecting — or maybe unbelieving — home buyers. I spoke to one realtor when “Traffic Pattern Acres” (our name for Black Mountain Ranch) went up for sale on the west side of the airport, right under the airport’s traffic pattern. “There’s never any planes at that airport,” he told me angrily.

Hmm. Tell that to the flight schools from the Phoenix area who use it for landing practice every day: Pan Am Flight Academy, Westwind, Embry Riddle, Silver State Helicopters, Universal Helicopters, Lufthansa, and Sabena. And what about the L39s that come up from Deer Valley for practice landings and 120-knot flybys? I bet they really rattle the china.

So people are told, “Sure, there’s an airport over there. And you need to sign this piece of paper. But the airport’s used by just a few local pilots and isn’t very busy at all. Sign on the dotted line.”

And people sign it.

And when the jets come in and out, and the flight schools practice takeoffs and landings, and Embry Riddle does an all-day spot landing competition, and the helicopters practice autorotations they start to complain.

The Mystery Complainer

I don’t know who’s been complaining about me lately. I’m pretty sure it’s the same guy. He’s the only guy that ever does. (I really do fly neighborly whenever possible.) And, if it is, I know I’m not flying over his house. (But yes, I am flying within 3 miles of it and I will continue to do so until they move the airport. Hell, I fly within 3 miles of my own house!)

But I won’t know who it is unless he comes forward and tells me where he lives. What is he afraid of? Does he think I’ll land in his backyard? How does he expect me to identify his home as a “noise sensitive” area if he doesn’t tell me where it is?

And what does he honestly expect? If he lives near an airport, he’s going to hear aircraft noise.

Period.

Flying airplanes, airports, helicopters, politics, real estate, Wickenburg