A fellow helicopter pilot and I often debate the merits of the current system of pilot experience building.

In the U.S., a pilot generally gets his (or her) private, commercial, and CFI ratings, often picking up an instrument rating along the way. He then spends the next 500 to 1000 hours as a flight instructor, teaching other people how to fly under the close supervision of a chief flight instructor. With the golden number of hours — 1,000, for most helicopter pilot jobs — logged, the pilot goes on to an entry level position in a company where he’s closely supervised by a chief pilot who calls all the shots. Through the logging of time in various aircraft, the pilot works his way up to better-paying, more challenging jobs.

My helicopter, parked beside a pond in an orchard, waiting for rain during cherry season.

My friend and I didn’t follow this typical career path. Instead, we learned to fly, bought our own helicopters, and started our own flying businesses, learning through more varied experiences in a much shorter time. We both worked closely with the FAA to get our Part 135 certificates and pass annual check rides and inspections. And we generally agree that the hours we’ve logged are “worth” more than those logged by a typical pilot on the typical career path.

Now I know that the mere idea that all logged hours are not the same will bother a bunch of readers who are pilots on that typical career path. So I’ve decided to provide a comparative list of experiences based on real-life pilots so you can objectively consider my argument.

I recently had the opportunity to fly with two relatively new helicopter pilots. And a year ago, I flew with another one. I spent more than 14 hours of flight time with all three of them. Here’s how their experience stacks up against mine.

What bothers me most is that limited experienced pilots are the ones teaching people how to fly. Then, after logging hour after hour of doing the same thing in the same basic conditions, they’re more qualified for a job than someone else with “better” experience but fewer hours.

Is there something wrong with this situation?

I’m not complaining about not being able to teach. I don’t want to. I like life far too much to put it into the hands of someone who doesn’t know how to fly. I just question the wisdom of using our least experienced certificated pilots to teach non-pilots how to fly.

An experienced agriculture pilot sprays wax on Apple trees from a JetRanger in Washington state.

When I was an 800-hour pilot, it bothered me that a typical 1,000-hour pilot on the typical career path was considered more experienced than I was. I was willing to prove that I was an as good — if not better — pilot than he was, but no one wanted to give me the opportunity. Sure, he can do autorotations better than I could — after all, he’d been doing them every day for much of his 1,000 hours of flight time. But how was he on off-airport landings? Planning cross-country flights? Landing at unfamiliar airports? Flying around or under or through weather? Managing power with a full load of full-sized passengers at high density altitude? Simply feeling the aircraft as an extension of his body that gave him the ability to fly?

That’s water under the bridge now. I’ve built my time and now qualify for a wide range of jobs. And if I get my CFI — which I expect to this winter — I could probably be a pretty good flight instructor.

But for now, I’ll just continue on my own career path. It may not be typical, but it’s challenging. And every flight offers the possibility of a real learning experience.

Yesterday, after doing some cleanup in my camper, which is now parked at the orchard near my helicopter, I took a drive up the hillside behind the orchard. The road winds up and around, though thousands of acres of fruit trees. When I reached the tall antenna with its scary guy-wires, I spotted a trail from the main road. I parked the truck, grabbed my camera, and went for a tiny hike.

The goal was to shoot the orchard from the hillside behind it. I found a perfect spot and took this photo.

In the foreground, you can see the orchard’s upper reservoir. Farther down, beyond many cherry trees, is a smaller, algae-covered pond. There’s a parking area on the close side and you can see my trailer parked there. On the far side is a tiny, bright red speck. That’s my helicopter.

To be fair, my helicopter’s cockpit cover is on it, so it’s not fully exposed. I assume it would be a lot easier to see with the cover off. Before I relocate, I’ll pull the cover off, drive back up to this spot, and get a shot. Hopefully, it’ll be a crisper day and I’ll get up there while the light is still good.

In the close-up, you can see the taco truck that arrived not long after I left the orchard. The folks quit working at 10 AM (they start at 5 AM) because of excessive heat. It got up to 107°F in Wenatchee yesterday; I assume it got up to at least 100°F at the orchard some 1500 feet higher in elevation. The guys — mostly Mexican farm workers — were quitting for the day. The grower offers them soda pop and beer at day’s end; I assume they get lunch from the truck.

The helicopter is parked at the edge of the pond with one skid on the gently sloping embankment. A nice easy slope landing site. (And no, it won’t fall into the pond.) There’s a road between it and the shelter (dark reddish). They use the area for staging the cherries — loading them on a flatbed truck for transport up to the chillers and refrigerator truck in the main packing area. I’ll probably get some video footage of the operation later in the week for anyone who is interested. It’s amazing how much work goes into bringing cherries to market. Hard to imagine how anyone can make a profit with prices this year as low as $1/pound.

Last week, I was very surprised to get a phone call from a grower I’d contacted back in May and June about late season drying. I’d called him several times to leave messages and managed to connect with him sometime in June. At that time, he said he was interested in hiring me for about 10 days starting at the end of July. Then nothing from him at all for weeks. I assumed he’d either changed his mind — we had a long dry spell here — or that he’d found someone else. So you can imagine my surprise when he called last week and said he’d like to sign me up for three weeks starting August 1.

Yesterday morning was overcast here in Washington. My phone rang at 6:55 AM. It was the grower. He was certain it would be raining over his orchard within an hour. Could I start that day?

I could. Technically, my other contracts in Quincy had all finished. The last one had ended the day before, although that grower was still picking. I wanted to keep myself available for him that day, but I’d go where I was needed. I was thrilled by the idea of my contract starting a week earlier.

So I suited up, grabbed my paperwork, GPS, and a book to read during downtime, and headed out to Wenatchee airport in the helicopter. I landed by the fuel pumps, topped off the tanks, and looked out toward the hills where the orchard was. No rain. I called the grower to let him know where I was. Then I grabbed the airport courtesy car, drove down to McDonalds, and grabbed some breakfast at the drive-thru. (I don’t eat much fast food, but I do like those damn bacon, egg, cheese biscuits.) By the time I got up to the airport, there was sun out toward my orchard. I checked the radar. The big cell that had worried the grower so much had drifted due south, missing his orchard by about 2 miles.

I waited while the weather cleared even more. Back at my trailer in Quincy, my computers were cued up with the software and files I needed to complete my work on Chapter 19 of my Snow Leopard book. At the Wenatchee Airport, I was completely unproductive. And a deadline clock was ticking.

When it became clear that no rain was likely fall within the next two hours, I called my grower and left him a message, telling him I was flying back to Quincy. I told him I could be back within 20 minutes if he needed me. Then I took off, overflew his orchard to get a GPS fix on it — I’d forgotten to bring my GPS when I got an orchard tour during the week — and returned to Quincy.

I spent the entire day working on Chapter 19 and watching the weather radar. My new orchard dodged the bullet (so to speak) at least five times. I can’t tell you how many times I almost suited up or called the grower. A storm cell would approach and then either go around or dissipate before reaching the orchard. This happens to me all the time. I joke with my growers that putting me on contract is better than getting cherries dried — it virtually ensures that it won’t rain on the trees.

The orchard is 86 acres in the hills. This GoogleMaps satellite image doesn’t clearly show the hilliness of the area. The two red outlines indicate the blocks of trees. There’s a small one to the southwest but most of the trees are in a series of blocks all bunched together around roads, buildings, and irrigation ponds on the sides of hills. This is not the easy rectangular blocks of uniformly sized trees I dried in Quincy. This would be more challenging. Not only would I have to come up with a dry pattern that was efficient, but I had to make sure I didn’t miss any of the blocks.

The red X in the image is where I’ll be parking the helicopter. After about seven weeks living in my trailer at the golf course, I’ll be relocating to a motel in East Wenatchee, not far from the bridge I’ll need to cross to get to the orchard. It would take roughly the same amount of time to get to the airport as it would to get to the orchard, so I decided to base the helicopter at the orchard. There was a nice, flat grassy area that would make a perfect landing zone. It was far enough away from the packing area, trees, and roads to ensure that heavy equipment wouldn’t be a threat. The grower agreed to let me park there. In fact, I think he was glad I’d have the helicopter on-site.

I’ll also be bringing my trailer up there, parking it nearby. I have to park it somewhere and I rather like the idea of using it as a base near the helicopter. On a day when rain is very possible, I can drive up there and settle into the camper for the day, getting work done on my book projects while waiting to be launched. I’ll stay warm and dry if it rains. I can be airborne within 5 minutes of the launch call. But what’s more important to me is that I won’t have to wait around in my truck, bored out of my mind, while waiting for rain to come or stop. I can be productive, listen to music, even watch DVDs from Netflix on a laptop if there’s no writing work to do. I won’t extend the camper’s beds, but I will put out the slide-out to make room. I’ll have access to a clean bathroom, refrigerator, and stove if I need it. The microwave and A/C won’t work without an electric hookup, but the solar panel on the roof should keep the batteries charged enough to power my computer(s) with an inverter.

Meanwhile, Alex the Bird and I will move into a motel in East Wenatchee. I’m really looking forward to a shower that lasts longer than 5 minutes. I got a great rate on a room at a nice place. There’s WiFi and a pool. Free breakfast, too. I’ll be there for three to four weeks.

In the meantime, today’s goal is to knock off Chapter 20 on my book. I’ll finish the remaining chapters — Chapter 25, Appendix A, and the Introduction — on Monday or Tuesday. The book is scheduled to go to the printer on Wednesday. Talk about taking it right to the wire!

I slept like crap last night. The wind was blowing hard and the awning of my camper was out, acting like a big sail. It caught the wind and tossed around the camper. Around 2 or 3 AM, it started drizzling just enough to make me wonder how hard it would rain. I dozed fitfully in all of this until around 4:30 AM, when the drizzle turned to a steady rainfall. It started getting light and I knew my phone would ring. I wanted to make sure I had some coffee in me before I had to go out.

I was contracted to dry cherry trees for three growers in the Quincy area. One grower had a “priority contract,” which meant he’d get dried first — if he called. He had 47 acres in Quincy and another 10 acres in East Wenatchee, a 10-minute flight away. The other two growers with their total of 27 acres would get dried afterwards in the order they called. And if I finished that, there was another 50 acres up for grabs in one 10-acre block and one 40-acre block.

My big worry was that I’d have to dry the 47 acres in Quincy, then shoot over to East Wenatchee to dry another 10 and shoot back before drying the 27 total acres belonging to the other two growers. I figured that with drying and travel time, I probably wouldn’t be able to get to that 27 acres for a good two hours after my start.

That was the worse case scenario. It’s also part of what kept me up last night — worries that I wouldn’t be able to provide prompt service to my growers. But, in my defense, the two non-primary growers knew what they were getting into when they signed the contract with me. They were paying considerably less in standby monies to be second and third on my list. They were willing to gamble; I’d just do my best to make everyone happy.

I thought about this as I made my coffee and fired up my computer to check the weather. I also thought about the other ways the drying flight could play out — ways that were better for all concerned.

Radar showed a line of heavy rain moving west to east across the area. A big yellow blob was sitting right on top of my location at Quincy — which would explain the sound of heavy rain on the roof of my camper. The storm had already mostly passed through Wenatchee. I peeked out the window at the brightening sky and could clearly see where the storm front ended. Beyond it was clear sky. The wind had already died down.

I was sipping my coffee when the first call came. It was the orchard manager for a grower with 15 acres in Quincy. He was also the owner of the 10+40 additional acres that were at the bottom of the priority list. He told me it had stopped raining at the orchard and they needed me to dry. But they’d already picked most of the bings, so the only thing they needed drying in the main block was the sweethearts. He described where they were in relation to a house on the property. It was about 5 acres. When I was finished, I could do the 10 acres near his house. I told him I’d be at the orchard within 15 minutes and reminded him that his 10 acres needed to wait until I’d filled all the other requests. He understood.

I pulled on my flight suit and tank top. It was cold, so I zipped up securely. Then I grabbed my GPS, paperwork, and telephone and headed out the door. It had stopped raining by the time I got out of the truck at the helicopter and started pulling off the cover and tie-downs. It was already preflighted and fueled, but after putting the truck away, I did a good walk-around anyway.

That’s when the second call came. It was a grower with 12 acres in Quincy. I knew he’d started picking, and asked him where I should dry. He said that I may as well dry it all; the trees they’d picked were mixed in with the ones they hadn’t picked. He asked if the priority grower had called. “Not yet,” I said.

“Call me when you’re on your way,” he said. “I’ll have my wind machines running until you get here.”

They all knew that I wouldn’t start drying a block if wind machines were operating in it.

We said our goodbyes and hung up. Now I had two growers with 3 blocks in Quincy: 5 + 12 + 10 acres. The blocks were less than 2 minutes apart. This was looking good for everyone.

Unless the priority grower called.

The first orchard I dried today. The black border indicates the entire orchard block. The blue is the area I understood needed to be dried. The rest was apparently already picked.

I climbed on board and started the engine. While the engine warmed up, I hooked up my cell phone to the intercom system and pulled on my helmet. I punched in the waypoint identifier for the first orchard. A few minutes later, I was climbing out, heading northwest. Within 6 minutes, I was dropping back down at the first orchard, setting in to begin my drying runs.

This first orchard had mature trees of mostly uniform height. I settled down between the first two rows with my skids about 5 feet over the tops of the trees and flew at about 5 knots. I twisted my head around to see where my downwash was going — it was covering the trees nicely. There was no wind — at least not enough to bother me — and I had no trouble turning at the end of the row and coming up the next row.

On the ground, I could see workers waiting by some storage sheds and the road. No one signaled to me or called me, so I just ignored them and and kept working my way back and forth, up and down the rows. I was at it for about 15-20 minutes. Then I was done.

I lifted off and headed in the direction of the 12-acre block. I punched it into the GPS so I could zero in on it without having to waste time looking for it. I had it in sight when I remembered to call the grower. “I’m coming in,” I told him.

The second orchard block I dried today. You can see the pole for the wind machine in the middle of the block.

He had a wind machine running in the block and he hurried to shut it down. As I came down, I watched the pattern of the wind machine’s output on the tree tops. I chose the northwest (lower-left in the photo) corner of the block to begin. These trees were densely planted, but not quite as mature. I could tell from the start that going up every other aisle would throw enough air to dry them. The trouble was, the rows were so close together that I couldn’t always see the gap between them. That cleared up when I’d gotten about 10 rows into the orchard. Suddenly, there were long, white tarps in the empty space between the rows of trees. Well, most of them, anyway. It made it a lot easier to find where I needed to fly.

I was about halfway into it when my phone rang. It was the orchard manager, the guy with 10+40 more acres to dry. He wanted to know if the priority guy had called yet. I told him he hadn’t and that I’d do his 10 acres next.

“How about the North 40 block?” he asked. That was his 40 acres, which was about a 5 minute flight from where I was.

“If I don’t get any other calls, I can do that, too,” I said.

“What about the J and R block?”

He was referring to a 40-acre block owned by another grower. This other grower had another 40-acre block, bringing his cherry blocks to a total of 80 acres. I knew where they were and had their GPS coordinates. But I’d already warned him that I couldn’t take on that much more work. If he wanted those two blocks dried, he’d have to get on contract. I’d find him a pilot, and he’d have to pay standby costs. When I called and told him all this, he said he wasn’t interested. Now, true to form, he was trying to get drying service without being on contract. This really pissed me off and I wasn’t about to let him get away with it without paying a hefty premium.

“I spoke to him,” I said into my helmet’s microphone (and, hence, cellphone), “and told him he’d have to get on contract. He didn’t want to. If I have time, I can dry it, but he’ll have to pay more.” And then I quoted him a rate that was nearly three times what my contracted growers were paying. “It he wants to pay that,” I said, “let me know and I’ll go dry it.”

He told me he’d call back.

I finished up the orchard, being careful to avoid the wind machine tower and powerlines along the last row of trees. Then I pulled up and made the 60-second flight to the 10 acre block.

The third block I dried.

The wind machine was still running when I arrived. I stayed high and called the grower. After a bunch of rings, it went through to voicemail. I was leaving him a message when I saw someone speeding to the base of the wind machine on a quad. A moment later, the blades slowed and stopped.

This block had big, wide aisles between rows of youngish trees. I could easily dry them by flying over every other aisle. The only obstruction was the wind machine tower in his block and another tower in an adjacent block that might be a bit close to my tail rotor when I turned. When I got close, I flew sideways down the aisle until I knew I’d cleared it, then turned and continued, pointing in the direction I was flying. I was finished in less than a half hour.

The grower called again. He wanted to know if the primary grower had called. He still hadn’t. But I wasn’t about to head on out to the North 40 block until I’d spoken to him. We discussed this and hung up as I left the block and started flying towards North 40. I called the primary grower. He said he was on his way to the orchard, but his manager said he didn’t think his cherries needed drying. He’d let me know.

So I flew out to the North 40 block. It was quite a distance from town — a good 15-minute drive on dirt roads — and I don’t have a photo of it. It’s basically an 80-acre block of well-irrigated land with cherries on the north half, apples (I think) on the south half, and a line of windbreaker trees between them. There’s a mobile home on part of the cherry block’s land and a 5-foot fence around the whole block.

The trees are very young and very widely spaced. I could fly up every third aisle at about 8-10 miles per hour and still get them all covered. Because there were no obstructions, the work went quick. I was on one of the last passes when a deer ran out from a row of cherries. It was inside the fence. I made a note to myself to tell the grower.

Then I was done. I’d flown nearly 2 hours straight and had about 1/3 tanks fuel left. I decided to refuel and give the primary grower another call. It was a 6-minute flight back to my base where I shut down, pulled my helmet off, and went about the task of adding 15 gallons of fuel to the main tank. I wanted to have enough fuel on board in case the primary grower needed me to dry all his blocks. But when I called him, he confirmed that the trees were okay. He was worried about the cherries getting beat up more than necessary and decided to take his chances with the moisture on them. And in East Wenatchee, it had hardly rained at all.

I thought I was done, but then my phone rang again. It was the manager for the first orchard. He told me I’d forgotten to dry three rows of sweethearts on the west side of the wind machine. His description confused me. He’d originally told me the cherries were behind the house. It wasn’t until I was airborne over the orchard again that he called and directed me to the orange shaded area shown in the first photo here. I hadn’t “forgotten.” He hadn’t told me they needed drying. It was a shame because it took another 1/2 hour to start up, fly out there, dry it, and fly back. If I’d known about the rows from the start, I could have probably knocked them off in 1/10 or 2/10 hour.

The sun had broken through the clouds by the time I landed back at my base. I made a beeline back to my camper for a bathroom, change of clothes, and cup of coffee. Outside, it was shaping up to be a very nice day.

I was done flying for the day. I’d logged 2.5 hours. It was 8:35 AM.

Later in the day, I spoke to the owner of the second block I’d dried. He complemented me on my flying and said he liked my helicopter. He said I’d done a great job and that I’d arrived at his place faster than any other pilot he’d ever hired. Then he said what they all say: “I hope I don’t have to call you again this season!”

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.

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.

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:

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.