An Eclectic Mind

Makes me glad I never had kids.

The title of this post says most of what I want to report, so I won’t stretch this one out longer than it needs to be.

About two weeks ago, I booked a Phoenix Tour with a woman. The flight, which lasts 50 to 60 minutes, circles the Phoenix area and includes incredible views of north Phoenix, Peoria, Lake Pleasant, Glendale, downtown Phoenix, Scottsdale, and Deer Valley. The tour was for her grandson, who was celebrating his eighth birthday. I wasn’t available on the day she wanted to book, so she booked for the following Saturday, a week after the boy’s birthday. Cost of the flight: $495 plus tax for up to 3 people.

I met the family at 11 AM sharp yesterday. It was Grandma (who booked and paid for the flight), Grandpa, Mom, and The Kid. Everyone looked happy and excited. Mom reported that The Kid was so excited that he’d run into the car, still carrying the TV remote.

I walked them all out to the ramp where the helicopter was waiting. I’d just repositioned it there from its hangar. Three small airplanes were parked nearby. They were surrounded by kids. Apparently, some lucky Boy Scouts were getting airplane rides.

We reached the helicopter but The Kid stopped eight feet short. “I don’t think I want to go,” he said softly.

Over the next ten minutes, that small statement ballooned into yelling and screaming tantrum that even included knee shaking (think cartoons, possibly Sponge Bob). I struggled to complete a safety briefing, wondering why I was bothering. Surely this wasn’t going to happen. But Mom and Grandpa climbed in, leaving Grandma to reason with The Kid. A Sheriff Department helicopter landed on the pad next to ours and I hustled them to the other side of my helicopter for added safety. The other helicopter hot-fueled while Mom climbed out and managed to convince The Kid to board.

I did not want the child beside me. Normally, an eight-year-old is fine up front — hell, I had my first helicopter ride at age 8! — but this kid was a complete unknown. What if he grabbed the controls or opened his door? I wanted no part of that. So he sat in back beside his mother. Grandpa sat up front beside me.

I reached back and locked The Kid’s door.

The Sheriff Department helicopter lifted into a hover, then took off. The kid screamed. “DON’T TILT! I DON’T WANT TO TILT!”

I assured him I wouldn’t tilt, wondering how I was going to make turns without banking.

I started the engine. The Kid started yelling again. He didn’t want to go. He wanted to get out. I left Mom to reason with him. I listened to the ATIS and tower as I warmed up. I chatted with Grandpa, trying hard to ignore the monster sitting behind him.

The Kid refused to put on his headset. I was kind of glad about that. I wouldn’t have to hear him.

I called the tower and got a clearance. I picked up into a hover. The Kid started screaming that he wanted to go down.

“Is he okay?” I asked. I repeated that question four times. Mom and Grandpa ignored me. So I took off.

I wanted to depart to the north, across the runways. My instructions had been to depart to the south, turn to the left (The Kid’s side), and cross the runway midfield at 2000 feet. Normally, I’d make the 500 foot climb in a tight climbing turn. Because of The Kid’s tilt restriction, that was not an option. Instead, I swung way wide in a gradual climbing turn. The kid was still screaming, but I had managed to tune him out. I leveled out over the terminal and crossed the runway at exactly 2000 feet MSL, heading north.

We were a half mile north of the airport when The Kid’s tantrum switch apparently turned to the OFF position. Unfortunately, his screaming switch was apparently non-functioning, because he kept yelling at the top of his lungs. “LOOK! A TRUCK! LOOK! WATER!”

At least he wasn’t afraid anymore.

I headed out toward Lake Pleasant. New River and a bunch of streams were flowing. After a few minutes, The Kid put on his headset and I now had his screaming piped directly into my ears, courtesy of the voice-activated intercom. “LOOK! A COW! LOOK! A STREAM!”

I had two options. I could flick the pilot isolation switch and rudely ignore him and my other two passengers or I could turn down the intercom volume. I elected to turn down the volume. Sadly, I could still hear him.

We circled over the New Waddell Dam and headed south toward Glendale Stadium. I chatted with Grandpa. Somewhere along the way The Kid removed his headset again. Whew!

Things had pretty much settled down and it looked as if the tour would finish fine. I actually forgot about my troublesome passenger, who was still pointing out things he saw on the ground to Mom. But then I made a fatal error. I turned to the left.

My normal tour route takes me past Glendale’s University of Arizona Stadium (where the Cardinals play) along the Loop 101 and turns to the left at I-10 south of there. I normally bank at least 15 degrees to make the turn. Since I thought the kid was okay, I did the turn as I usually did.

And he started screaming again.

I changed my route. Instead of making another left turn to go up Central Avenue — normally the highlight of the trip — I told Phoenix Tower I would transition east along McDowell. That removed two 90° turns from the tour without significantly changing the total time in flight. The kid calmed down a bit along this 5-10 minute stretch. But when I turned left at the Loop 101 to head toward Scottsdale, he started screaming all over again.

Fuck this, I thought to myself.

Instead of overflying Scottsdale Airport (as I usually do), I punched Deer Valley’s identifier into my GPS. I adjusted my course, told Scottsdale Tower I’d transition through the southwest edge of their airspace, and cut about 5 minutes out of the tour time.

By this time, the kid was out of control. Any movement whatsoever was enough to get him screaming. We flew right past his house — Mom and Grandpa both saw it — but The Kid was more interested in screaming his brains out than looking.

I came in for a landing at the helipad where we’d started 45 minutes before. Even when we were on the ground cooling down, The Kid was acting up. He insisted we were moving backwards.

I shut down, got the blades stopped, and walked them back to the terminal building. Grandpa handed me some folded up paper money as he shook my hand. “Thanks for your patience,” he said.

While I appreciated the $20 tip, it would take a lot more money — and a gag — for me to take that kid flying ever again.

Flying helicopters, Phoenix, tourism

Did you enjoy this post? If so, please comment on it or share a little link love:
 Add to Del.icio.us     Technorati This     Digg This     Stumble it!     Tweet This

I show a fellow pilot my favorite LZ at Sky Harbor.

It’s a little-known fact that there’s a helistop atop the Terminal 3 parking structure at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. This is where I pick up passengers for Flying M Air’s multi-day excursions. It’s extremely convenient, not only for my passengers, but for me.

This diagram of the Terminal 3 Helistop refers to the old tower, but it no longer exists. This is part of the Sharp Echo letter of agreement for helicopter pilots operating at Sky Harbor.

I’ve been landing at the helistop since it reopened in 2007. It’s been there for a long time but was closed while they built the new FAA tower beside it. When the new tower opened and they took down the old one, they opened the helistop back up.

I blogged about landing there at night. I also put a video of a daytime landing there on this site and Viddler.

When I say few people know about the helistop, I’m not kidding. The last passengers I picked up there said they’d asked at least six people at Sky Harbor how to get to it and every one of them had told them it didn’t exist. Then they followed my instructions to go to the top of the Terminal 3 parking structure and there it was. Just as I’d told them.

I don’t think too may pilots know about it either — and that’s okay with me. There’s only room for one helicopter up there and if someone’s already there when I need to use it, I’m out of luck until it leaves. It’s not a parking spot — it’s a landing spot. That means that although I can land there, I can’t leave the helicopter there for any extended length of time. I also can’t just walk away. That’s why it’s up to my passengers to find it without my help. I simply can’t leave the helicopter to find them.

My friend, Don, who also flies an R44 Raven II often needs to pick up his wife and other family members at Sky Harbor. When I mentioned the helistop to him, he wanted to know more. So I explained the intricacies of flying into Phoenix Class Bravo airspace in a helicopter, which is much easier than you might think. I also told him how I make my approach to and departure from the helistop. The conversation ended with me promising to fly with him for a landing there.

Are we a bunch of tourists or what? Mike jumped out to take this shot of us when we landed on the helistop. Don’s flying; I’m in the front passenger seat.

We made the flight yesterday afternoon. My husband, Mike, came along for the ride, too. I recommended to Don that he not do the trip with a heavy load. The landing is a confined space pinnacle — yes, there are such things — so it needs to be approached with care. As shown in the diagram above, there’s only one way in and out. A heavy load on a hot day — or with a tailwind — could make for a dangerous situation.

Anyway, the flight was uneventful. The airspace was pretty quiet. Just one Southwest Airlines 737 landing as we came in; Don slipped in behind him. He came into the pad a bit lower than I would have, but the landing was smooth. Mike hopped out to take this photo. Then he climbed back in, Don called the tower again, and we took off right behind the next landing 737.

I just hope that Don’s helicopter isn’t sitting on that helistop the next time I need to land there.

Flying helicopters, landing zones, Phoenix

Did you enjoy this post? If so, please comment on it or share a little link love:
 Add to Del.icio.us     Technorati This     Digg This     Stumble it!     Tweet This

Frightening at night.

Arizona is known primarily for one thing: its brutally hot summers. To be fair, it’s only 110°F + for a few months and only in the lower elevations of the state. The rest of the state has much milder weather — at least in the summer. In the winter, places like Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon can get the same kinds of winter storms that caused me to flee the New York metro area years ago.

Our house in Wickenburg is at a slightly higher elevation than Phoenix: 2200 feet vs. 1000 feet in the Valley. Because of this, we get just about the same weather as Phoenix, although we tend to run 5°F cooler year-round. (This is one of the reasons I escape to northern Arizona or Washington State every summer.)

The autumn, winter, and spring weather, in general, is a monotony of perfectly clear sunny days. In the height of winter, nighttime temperatures might dip to below freezing, but it general climbs back up to the 60s or even 70s once the sun rises high into the cloudless sky. Rain is a welcome treat. Storms are a rarity.

We had a storm yesterday, however. A low came in from the Pacific coast, dragging along tons of moisture as it moved in from the southwest. We had low clouds all day long — it was one of the 10 or so days each year when it’s impossible to fly VFR. The rain came and went — a good, soaking rain that the desert really needs. The radar showed various shades of green throughout our area, with pink and blue (icy mix and snow) in higher elevations just 10 miles north.

It got dark and the rain continued into the night. Then the wind started. The weather forecast warned of a Wind Advisory with winds gusting as high as 58 mph throughout the area. It even suggested that vehicles stay off of I-10, which runs from the Los Angeles area through Phoenix and then south to Tucson before turning east again toward New Mexico.

I was alone at home last night with Jack the Dog and Alex the Bird. Jack wanted no part of the outdoors yesterday and it was tough just getting him out there long enough to do his business. We closed up the house around 7 PM, shutting off the lights downstairs so Alex could sleep. I watched a movie on our DVR while the wind started to whip up around the house. By the time I climbed into bed to read, the storm was in full swing.

It was the sound of the wind that prompted me to write this. I want to remember, in the future, how it sounded, so I figured I’d write it down in my journal — after all, that’s what this blog really is.

The wind had an otherworldly sound. It was the low frequency moan of a male voice, almost ghostly, rising and falling in pitch as as the wind’s intensity rose and fell. Rain pelted the flat roof and big windows. All this noise was accompanied by the rattling of the french doors that lead from our bedroom to upstairs patio and the pulsating of the window panes. More than once, I got up to check the doors to make sure they wouldn’t suddenly blow open.

Sometimes I heard a deep rumbling sound off in the distance. I’ve read time and time again that tornadoes sound like freight trains. I wondered whether there was any danger of that. Nothing in the forecast; I told myself not to worry.

Occasionally, the house shook on its foundation. It made me wonder what the wind speed really was. I dialed up the AWOS for Wickenburg Municipal Airport (E25) and listened to the automatically generated recording. Winds from 220 at 26 gusting to 39. I thought about how hurricane force winds would sound and feel against the house. I resolved yet again not to move into an area likely to get hurricanes or tornadoes.

I grew tired of reading and turned out the light. But I lay awake for a long time, listening to the sounds around me, comforted by the steady drone of the heat pump keeping the upstairs warm until its set-back time at 11 PM. Just as I was thinking about how unusual it was that we hadn’t lost power, the power failed. The heat-pump went quiet and the ambient light from my neighbor’s yard went dark. Now the only thing to hear and feel was the wind and the vibrations on the house.

I fell asleep a while later and slept remarkably well until 4 or 5 am. I woke suddenly and looked out the bedroom door toward the big window facing southeast. A bright splash of moonlight illuminated the shelves and floor there. The storm had cleared out. The waning moon, approaching its last quarter, was shining like a beacon over the desert.

Outside, the wind still howled. I fell back to sleep.

Days in My Life Arizona, Phoenix, weather, Wickenburg

Did you enjoy this post? If so, please comment on it or share a little link love:
 Add to Del.icio.us     Technorati This     Digg This     Stumble it!     Tweet This

Another episode from my Truth is Stranger than Fiction files.

Yesterday, I picked up a charter flight from Scottsdale to Grand Canyon and back. The client’s agent booked the flight at 11 AM and I was supposed to pick up the client in Scottsdale at 12:30 PM. This is far less advance notice than I want, but pre-Christmas business is always slow — other than gift certificates, of course — and I wasn’t about to turn it down. Instead, I hustled my butt off and, at 12:30 PM, was walking into Scottsdale Airport terminal while a Landmark Aviation fueler topped off my helicopter’s tanks.

My passengers were not around. I had a voicemail and it was from them. They were at the FBO at the other side of the airport. Scottsdale has a terminal building and two FBOs. For some reason, no matter how much I stress that I meet passengers at the terminal, they always wind up at one of the two FBOs. In the background of their second voicemail, I heard the FBO staff member explain how to get to the terminal.

I figured I had about 3 minutes to hit the ladies room. I was just finishing my business there when my phone rang. Expecting my passengers, I answered it.

“Flying M, Maria speaking.”

“Is this Maria?”

I don’t understand this. I answer the phone the same way all the time and 50% of the calls start out with “Is this Maria?” Does anyone listen when they make a phone call?

I replied (as I always do), “Yes, this is Maria.”

“My name is Jean. Steve Smith told me to call you.”

So far, this meant nothing to me. I didn’t know a Steve Smith. I didn’t reply, as I let my brain work on this information.

My caller hurried on. “Steve Smith worked with your husband Mike about two years ago.”

At first, nothing. Then a glimmer. “Steve? The guy who makes the ribs? From Texas or someplace?”

“Oklahoma,” she replied, sounding relieved.

Steve deserves his own entry in my Stranger than Fiction files. The poor guy moved from Oklahoma to Phoenix to take a job with my husband Mike’s company. The first night he’s in town, staying at a hotel, thieves steal his truck with all of his belongings in it. Mike, who didn’t know him before that, is one of a few people to help him out as he recovers from that and settles into his new apartment. He came to our house one weekend and made us the best smoked ribs I’ve ever had from our smoker. But he’d left his wife (and kids?) back in Oklahoma and he missed them. One Monday morning, he simply didn’t show up for work. When they checked where he had been living, it had been cleaned out. He basically disappeared and we never heard from him again.

Until yesterday.

Jean was talking again. “I just moved into the Phoenix area. Steve said I should give you a call. I’m looking for a job and I was wondering if you knew of anything.”

WTF?

At this point, I was washing my hands, speaking to her from the inside of the ladies room at Scottsdale Airport’s main terminal through my Bluetooth earpiece. I was expecting my passengers to appear any minute. I had to brief them and hustle them out to the helicopter so they could catch a tour at the Grand Canyon in less than 90 minutes.

And this stranger, referred by a missing-in-action friend, was asking me if I could help her find a job?

“I don’t know of any jobs,” I said. “And I think it’s pretty strange that Steve gave you my number, considering he disappeared off the face of the earth two years ago and we never heard from him again.”

This seemed to surprise her. “Oh, well he always said such nice things about you.”

Like that mattered to me?

She was talking again, but I cut her off. “Listen, I’m waiting for some clients and I really can’t talk now. I can’t help you. Good luck with your job search. Goodbye.”

I heard her say goodbye as I pressed the disconnect button.

Thinking back on this, I’m amazed that it happened at all. This woman relocates into the 5th or 6th largest city in the country. A city with newspapers and Craig’s list and employment companies. But rather than tap into the wealth of all the job listings available to her, she cold calls a “friend” of a friend looking for help finding a job? Even if I was hiring, I wouldn’t hire her (unless I was hiring someone to make cold calls; she seems to have some skill at that). She’s obviously not interested in finding her own job and would prefer to have someone else find a job for her.

A stranger.

Maybe she thought I had a job to offer. Maybe that’s why she didn’t offer any details on the kind of job she was looking for. Hell, she didn’t even say what kind of work she did! Was she a secretary? A lawyer? A hair stylist? Who the hell knows? Maybe Steve told her I had a successful helicopter charter business and needed help. By being vague about the kind of job she was looking for, she thought she could wrangle an offer or interview out of me.

Not likely, for so many reasons.

I’m also left wondering if this was some kind of scam. (New Yorkers really can’t help wondering this when something strange happens. It’s in our blood.) Maybe she didn’t even know Steve. Maybe she found (or stole) his address book. Maybe she thought she would wriggle into some kind of friendly relationship with me. Maybe she thought I could help her find a place to live — or that she could move in with me. Or that she could get financial support from me with some kind of sob story.

If any of that is true, she really called the wrong person.

Days in My Life careers, friends, Phoenix, stranger than fiction, weird

Did you enjoy this post? If so, please comment on it or share a little link love:
 Add to Del.icio.us     Technorati This     Digg This     Stumble it!     Tweet This

New client, new equipment.

I got the initial call about a month ago. A videographer from the east coast had to shoot aerial video footage of two properties in the Mesa/Chandler area of Arizona. Was I available?

There was more to it. The videographer was looking for someone who could fly 20 to 40 knots sideways so he could get point of view (POV) footage out one of the rear doors (which would be off, of course). He planned to use a Tyler Mini Gyro and would likely be dangling his legs out the helicopter door while shooting. He had his own harness and had worked with R44s before. This, however, was his first experience with the Tyler mount.

I met him at Falcon Field in Mesa, AZ last Tuesday. We met at the Heliponents ramp. I knew Barry from Heliponents from a shoot he’d done at Monument Valley about two years before. He’d been flying either a JetRanger or a LongRange helicopter and they’d put a full-blown Wescam ball with counterweight on his ship. I’d been based at Monument Valley, at the Goulding’s airstrip to provide helicopter flight services for aerial photographers at the valley for a few days. We chatted briefly. I remembered him; he remembered me.

The Tyler Mini Gyro and its packing case, along with its run-up battery and the camera used with it. The mount can support much larger cameras.

Heliponents has a Tyler Mini Gyro that it leases out by the day. This $30K+ device is kind of like a monopod with a heavy duty, gyro-stabilized mount on top. There are springs in the monopod base, which is short and designed to sit on the user’s lap or between his legs in use. A large battery box provides 28 volt power. There are two adjustable handles to hold the entire thing. The camera goes on top. The two main parts — base and tripod leg– get tied off to the photographer or aircraft so it can’t fall out during flight.

I should mention here that I’ve done some work with video and gyros and wrote a lot about it here. We’d used a much smaller mount from Blue Sky Aerials called a Micro Gyro Mount. Our conclusion was that the best solution would have three gyros. This Tyler mount, although much more difficult to work with in a tight space, had three gyros. I was very interested in seeing the results.

Here’s my client, posing for a photo before we started up and took off.

Barry and my client got the system set up. Barry ran up the gyros using one battery pack but planned to send us on our way with another, fully charged pack. I pulled both back doors off the helicopter. My client climbed into his harness. We brought the equipment out to the helicopter and wedged my client into the seat behind mine with it. We secured the big battery on the floor, then tied off my client and his equipment to the helicopter. He put his seatbelt on, too. I shot this photo before climbing in to start up. A while later, we were headed southeast, toward the first of two targets. I’d prepped in advance by converting the addresses to GPS coordinates using GoogleMaps, so we didn’t waste any time looking for the spot. We were on point within minutes of taking off.

The first site was difficult, with lots of high tension power lines. We needed to get footage of a golf course and two different clubhouses. My client likes sweeping, point-of-view shots, which meant I needed to do a lot of sideways flying while he shot straight out. The area was too confined to do any fast flying, but we did the best we could. One of the better series, which we repeated several times, had me flying sideways from north to south with the late afternoon sun at our tail. I’d start relatively high, off property, and come down lower as I flew in, breaking off near the clubhouse. The whole time, I was monitoring Falcon Field’s frequency, since we were right on the edge of its airspace.

We made quite a show for the folks on the ground, which is unfortunate. The video is supposed to just show the place from the air — but not with people gawking or waving (or perhaps shaking their fists?) at the camera.

For me, it was great, challenging flying. Sure, there are challenges in the other kinds of work I do, but aerial photo flying with a professional photographer who isn’t afraid to tell me exactly what he needs me to do is the most challenging of all. It forces me to really work for my money and it gets me in “the zone” — that place where I become one with the helicopter. And there’s nothing more rewarding than doing precision flying to complete a pass and having my client complement me when I’m done.

Of course, I have to admit that it was also easy. There was very little wind — less than 5 mph — and my single passenger weighed roughly what I do. The temperature was in the 80s, so density altitude was not an issue. I had no trouble flying sideways or even maintaining a lengthy, completely motionless, out-of-ground-effect hover. I couldn’t have asked for better precision flying conditions.

After spending at least 30 minutes over that property, we broke off to do the second property, which was farther south, in Phoenix Mesa Gateway (formerly Williams Gateway) airspace. As I was making contact with the controller, my client realized that the power cord had pulled out of the camera and the gyros had spun down. We flew lazy circles around the property for a good 10 minutes, giving the gyros a chance to spin up again. Then it was back to work shooting a clubhouse and some sports facilities. I think a shuffleboard competition was going on because the courts were full. The shiny court surfaces reflected the colors of the flags that flew on poles above them. And we realized that the folks waving to us from the pool might just be good footage to meet the marketing requirements of the videos.

We left Gateway’s space, then returned to our first property to redo a bunch of footage. We weren’t quite sure when the gyros got disconnected, so we redid most of it. Then we headed back to the airport. We’d flown over an hour on the mission; I’d also be billing for about a half hour or ferry time from my base in Deer Valley. (I’d like to note here that if I were still based in Wickenburg, I probably wouldn’t have gotten the job at all; no one wants to pay more for ferry time than mission flight time.)

Back at Heliponents, my client didn’t waste any time reviewing the shots he’d taken on a small video monitor he’d brought along. Most of them were great. He was very pleased. And I felt the kind of pride I usually feel when I realize that my helicopter and I form an important part of a photography client’s equipment.

As for the Tyler Mini Gyro, it costs roughly the same as the Blue Sky Aerials Micro Gyro Mount to rent (when you factor in shipping) and has the additional benefit of being available locally. I’m not sure, but it might be easier to use, too. While I think it’s overkill for my own little HD video camera, it’s a good match for the camera this client used or even larger models. I’m hoping I have an opportunity to recommend it to clients in the future.

Flying aerial, helicopters, Phoenix, photography

Did you enjoy this post? If so, please comment on it or share a little link love:
 Add to Del.icio.us     Technorati This     Digg This     Stumble it!     Tweet This