An Eclectic Mind

Too weird for words.

You might think that Norbert is a pretty unusual name. In this country, it is. But it’s also the name of my father and brother. In the tiny NJ town where I spent many of my early years, there were four Norberts — two pairs of fathers and sons — among the 2,000 or so residents.

But that’s not what I’m blogging about. I’m blogging about Hurricane Norbert, which is currently off the west coast of Mexico, heading north. It’s a hurricane with the same name as my brother.

What’s weird is that the previous Pacific hurricane was named Marie, which is pretty darn close to my name.

Okay, you’re saying. That’s an interesting coincidence. But it’s not exactly your name so it really isn’t worth blogging about.

True. But an earlier Atlantic hurricane this season was named Laura. That’s exactly my sister’s name.

So you tell me: what are the chances of three named hurricanes, all happening one after the other, being named almost exactly for all three of the kids in a single family?

Too weird for words.

Scud-running, defined.

In a recent post titled “Almost Scud-Running,” I recounted a flight through Snowqualmie Pass in Washington with low clouds and limited visibility. I said that was “almost” scud-running. But what we did on departure from Seattle’s Boeing Field (BFI) on Saturday was definitely scud-running.

So I guess a definition is in order here. This is my definition — other pilots might define it differently.

To me, scud-running is flying in weather that is so questionable that you’re required to alter your course to get around it. I’m not talking about an alteration planned before takeoff — we did that, too. I’m talking about multiple in-flight course changes to find your way around weather you can’t fly through. And that’s what we did on Saturday morning.

The original flight plan had us going through the pass again and, from Ellensburg on the other side, to Walla Walla and down into Oregon. But there were low clouds over Seattle that morning and a check with Duats and the Seattle FSS confirmed that Stampede Pass had just 1/4 mile visibility. Stampede Pass is one pass over from Snowqualmie and roughly the same altitude, so if it were fogged in, Snowqualmie probably was, too. (Stampede has an ASOS; Snowqualmie does not.) We could wait for the weather to lift - which might not happen that day at all — or take another route. Since I was suffering from severe back pain due to a possibly herniated disk, I wasn’t interested in waiting around. I wanted the flight over with. So we planned to go due south and find a path around the west side of Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens.

Louis was flying and would do 95% of the flying for the entire ferry flight from Seattle to Page, AZ (Lake Powell). He’s familiar with BFI and handled the radio communications with the tower there before guiding us through the narrow corridor between Renton and Seatle airspace. Then we were heading south with the clouds just above us. We had perfect visibility ahead of us, but the mountains were obscured to the east.

How I Run the Scud

I have a technique I use for scud-running in mountainous terrain. This is a technique that’s easy in a helicopter — which has the ability to slow down, stop, descend almost vertically, and make very tight turns. I do not recommend using this technique in an airplane. Actually, I don’t recommend doing any kind of scud-running in an airplane.

In my technique, I fly as close to the desired course as possible as long as I can see the next upcoming ridge or mountain top. When I get near that ridge, I peek over the top of it. If I can see the top of the next ridge, I cross over and continue. If I can’t see the top of the next ridge, I fly parallel to the ridge in the direction of clearer skies, which is normally opposite the direction I really want to go. As soon as I can see the next ridge, I hop over the one beside me and head to it.

Of course, if the skies aren’t clearer in any direction, I just look for a landing zone, preferably an airport where there’s a lounge, restrooms, and vending machines or a restaurant. I do not want to get boxed in by the clouds with no options except down in mountainous terrain. And I’m not stupid enough to fly my helicopter in clouds, even if I wanted to punch out through the top.

I’ve used this technique safely in an attempt to get across the pass at Tehatchapi at the southern end of California’s Central Valley. That attempt was not successful — the pass was completely fogged in — but it did allow me to get close enough to make an informed decision without putting myself in any danger. I subsequently crossed out of the valley at Grapevine after landing at an airport and talking to the local FSS.

On Saturday

That Saturday, I guided Louis on a scud run using the technique discussed above. I had a sectional chart with me and always knew exactly where we were. There were lots of valleys that looked promising, but in quite a few cases, the chart clearly showed that these valleys would simply climb up toward either Mt. Rainier or Mt. St. Helens, both of which were hidden in the clouds. Sucker valleys. It was a good thing that there were two of us up front. If I’d been alone and unable to really study the charts as I flew, I would have tried more than a few of them and wasted a lot of time.

Mike took this photo from the back seat when we were nearly out of it. It was pretty bright at this point and easy to see that the cloud tops weren’t far above us. It was tempting to punch out through a hole to the top. But I don’t like flying when I can’t see the ground. If the engine quits I want to see my spot right after entering an autorotation — not seconds before we hit the ground.

The result of all of this was that we wound up going nearly due south to avoid the weather. Here’s the track from my SPOT Messenger; ignore the numbers and just follow the track from Seattle south and then east:

All this groping around added an hour to our flight for the day and shifted our flight path to the south. The weather was still iffy with low clouds in the Columbia River Gorge between the Cascade Locks and Hood River. You can get an idea of the situation in this photo of the Bonneville Dam that Mike took when we flew by.

But by the time we got to The Dalles, it was clear and sunny — another beautiful day on the east side of the Cascade Mountains. We left the Columbia River behind and headed toward our first fuel stop at Pendleton, OR.

Flying through a mountain pass in marginal conditions.

Louis and I flew from Wenatchee (EAT) to Seattle’s Boeing Field (BFI) yesterday afternoon. The flight required us to cross the Cascade Mountains. There are two passes to choose from: Snoqualmie, which I-90 goes through and Stevens, which State Route 2 goes through. I’d wanted to take Stevens — I’d already traveled Snoqualmie once and wanted a change — but the decision would not be mine.

It was a weather issue, of course. After weeks of picture-perfect weather here on the east side of the Cascades, a cold front had moved in. Rain clouds were coming over the Cascades. It even drizzled in Quincy.

As I flew out of Quincy Airport for the last time this season, I took a good look at the ridge between Ellensburg and the Columbia River, where all those windmills are lined up. The sky was dark out that way, with thick gray clouds. Although the windmills were clearly visible, I could also see the vertical streaks of falling rain. It looked as if a flight up I-90 was out of the question.

But the picture was worse when I reached the Wenatchee area and could see out toward Stevens pass. The sharp, rocky mountains are closer there and the clouds clung to them like cotton balls rubbed across coarse sandpaper: lots of wisps in an 8 to 10 knot breeze. The clouds were definitely lower; the pass was definitely higher.

It looked as if scud-running would be in my near future.

If you’re not a pilot, or you’re a very new pilot, you might not know the term scud-running as it pertains to aviation (or anything else, for that matter). I define scud-running as flying in variable visibility conditions, when you have steer around low clouds or fog enroute to get to your destination. Scud-running is never a good idea. In fact, it’s usually a bad idea. More than a few pilot have met their end hitting a “granite cloud” while attempting to run the scud.

Helicopters, however, are uniquely suited for scud-running. We normally fly low, so the clouds have to be really low to affect our flight. We can travel at a wide range of speeds, from 0 to (in my case) 115 knots, so we can take our time and really look at what’s around us before committing to a path. And if that path turns bad, we can make a 180° turn to get out of it in a very narrow space. Best of all, if things get really out of hand, we can always land in a field or parking lot and wait out the problem.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not recommending scud running to any pilot. It’s dangerous. I’m just saying that if you’re flying a helicopter and the clouds start to close in, you’re more likely to live to tell about it — if you handle it right — than someone flying a plane.

In Wenatchee, I checked the weather. I used Duats to get conditions in Stampede Pass, which is just south of Snowqualmie pass, and every other place along the way on both routes. There was no information handy for Stevens Pass, but my eyes had told me enough. Stampede pass had ceilings of 6000 feet. That was more than enough for me. Then I checked the radar in motion to see which way the rain I’d spotted near the windmills was going. It was driving northeast. We were north of the rain; it would pass to the south of us if we flew direct to Ellensburg or Cle Elum. It was cloudy and raining on the other side of the cascades, with 4,000 foot ceilings. Wind was light everywhere, so turbulence wouldn’t be an issue.

I decided to take Snowqualmie Pass.

We started up and I took off on a steep, 1,000 foot per minute climb from Wenatchee Airport. We had to cross the river and then cross the high ridge on the other side. To our left, the rainclouds were moving east. To our right, the low clouds were stuck on mountain peaks. The ridge was clear; the clouds were at least 1,000 feet above it. I aimed slightly to the south of the GPS’s direct-to Ellensburg, pointing the helicopter at the friendliest piece of sky.

I gave Louis the controls when we reached the ridge. He continued the climb, but adjusted our route to intercept with Ellensburg. We climbed closer to the clouds. I thought for a while about how I use a GPS for en route navigation — as a sort of general guide. Louis was putting us on the GPS track. Whatever.

We topped the ridge and the land dropped down toward Ellensburg on the other side. We stayed pretty high. Didn’t seem any reason to descend to a 500-foot cruise altitude when we’d just have to climb again. I set Cle Elum as the next go to waypoint in the GPS. Louis adjusted course to head west.

Ahead of us, the mountains closed in. I-90 threaded its way through them in one narrow valley after another. Although we still had at least 2,000 feet of cloudless sky right above us, the clouds dropped up ahead. The entrance to the mountainous area looked shrouded in a white haze. It didn’t look good.

I dialed in the Stampede Pass ASOS. It assured us that the ceilings were 1700 feet. Plenty of space for us. But we weren’t going through Stampede Pass. We were going through Snowqualmie Pass. They were very close, but would they have the same conditions?

We continued on. I paid close attention to the high-tension power lines that ran along the side of the road. If we had to descend and turn, I wanted to make sure I knew exactly where those wires were.

The road climbed into the mountains. We stayed at pretty much the same altitude until we were about 500 feet above the road. Then we climbed with it. We slipped into the white haze, which turned out to be a light mist. Tiny raindrops covered the helicopter’s cockpit bubble. Visibility was still okay, but there wasn’t enough moisture to bead up and run off the window, so we had to look through all those little droplets. Still, so far, so good.

We passed the two little airports at Cle Elum and I punched the next airport into the GPS: Easton State. If I have to make a precautionary landing, I like to do it at an airport, so I like to keep an airport dialed into the GPS. Sure, we could land in a big parking lot or field, but that’s a good way to get unwanted attention in these little towns.

Meanwhile, the clouds continued to come down. My internal alarm systems came to life when we started flying between low-hanging wisps of clouds. The last time I’d done that, I’d flown into one I hadn’t seen. That produced about 2 seconds of terror before I made a descending 180° turn to get out. I didn’t want to be there again. I told Louis, who was still flying, about my experience.

We passed Easton State. The next airport was Bandera, on the other side of the pass. I punched it in. We were now flying in a deep canyon, about 400 feet over a lake and I-90. The wires were not an issue anymore. At the west end of the lake, the highway made a sharp turn to the left into what looked like a cloud bank.

I listened to the Stampede Pass ASOS again. Now the ceilings were 1400 feet — still not bad. We weren’t far from there. We continued to the end of the lake, where we could see into the next canyon. Visibility was still okay, so we went in. This was the narrowest part of the canyon with very little room to maneuver. The clouds stayed high enough. The misty rainfall continued. We were okay, but I knew it could turn bad at any time.

Then we were through the pass and the road started to descend. The clouds went down with it. So did we. We’d made it through the pass but I still wasn’t sure whether we’d have a clear enough shot out of the mountains. We could never see more than a few miles ahead of us because of the mist and the twisty turns of the canyon.

But by the time we passed Bandera, it was obvious that we wouldn’t have to turn back or land. As the road continued to descend, the clouds stayed put. I tuned in the ATIS for Boeing Field and heard 10 miles visibility with 4000 foot ceilings. We landed there about 20 minutes later.

Here’s our entire route, laid out on a sectional chart;

I wouldn’t call this experience scud running, but it was about as close as you could get. I don’t think too many airplanes would have made this flight successfully without getting into the clouds — granite or otherwise. Although something small and slow like a Piper Cub could have handled the altitude and airspeed, the uncertainty of what lay ahead, coupled with the extremely narrow spaces that would make it impossible for an airplane to turn around, would make this a very dangerous flight for any plane.

I’ve been in worse weather situations than this one, but I don’t think I entered into this one lightly. The entire time we were in the mountains with low clouds, I kept thinking about escape routes, landing zones, obstacles to turning, and what could happen if we let it. In Arizona, I don’t get much practice flying weather. While I think that what we experienced yesterday was marginal VFR at best, other pilots more accustomed to weather flying might think I was taking the whole thing too seriously.

But it’s when you let your guard down that Mother Nature sometimes steps forward to slap you in the face.

Final chapter of my Las Vegas travel saga.

When you last heard from me here, I was stuck in Las Vegas, victim of a shattered alternator belt. My helicopter was sitting on the ramp at McCarran International Airport and I was sitting in a recliner in front of an HD TV, contemplating whether I should order a pizza while I waited for a mechanic. (I know. Not exactly a tough situation.) In case you’re wondering, I wound up ordering an eggplant parmesan sandwich (which was excellent) and a minnestone soup. That was at about 3 PM local time, a full 3 hours after my aborted departure from Las Vegas.

By 4:30 PM, the mechanic still had not come. But he called. He wanted to know if the helicopter was in a hangar or could be put in one. It wasn’t and it couldn’t. He was concerned about light, since the sun would be setting soon. I was equally concerned. I didn’t want him working in questionable lighting conditions. I’d already lost one part in flight; I didn’t want anything else falling off the helicopter on the way home.

So we agreed that he’d come first thing in the morning. To him, that was 6 AM. I’m an early riser, so that wasn’t a big deal to me. And the sooner he started, the sooner he’d finish. There was weather on the way.

Sleep Like an Egyptian?

I tied down the helicopter’s blades, rented a car, and got a room at the Luxor. That’s the pyramid-shaped hotel, which is currently sporting a huge ad for Absolute vodka on its front (east) face. I’d stayed at the Luxor when it was brand new and it was a very nice hotel. Now it’s 12 years old and it’s really showing its age.

Twelve years ago was the start of that confused period in Las Vegas when hotel/casino designers thought they could attract more people by including family-friendly attractions in their hotels. (This is something Circus Circus had tried years and years ago and evidently found some success with.) So the original Luxor included an indoor boat ride (with a river that wound around the entire inside edge of the building), virtual reality games and rides, an IMAX theater, and other amusements. The river was the first to go; a Las Vegas local told me that it leaked when the riverbed started cracking as the building settled. (Oops!) Since then, like most other Las Vegas casinos, they’ve been reinventing the interior. Right now, the emphasis seems to be on bars or what they call “ultra lounges.” There’s a ton of construction going on on the main level.

My biggest gripe with the hotel is that I simply can’t find my way around. It’s got four sides, right? You’d think they’d identify them somehow from inside so you can figure out where you are.

Another gripe (but not mine this time) is the elevator system. The hotel has what are called “inclinators” in each corner of the pyramid. An inclinator is an elevator that climbs on an angle. This is necessary due to the shape of the building and the fact that the entire interior is a huge atrium. There are four inclinators in each corner. Unfortunately, each one only goes to 8 to 10 floors. So you have to walk to the correct inclinator and take one of its four cars to get to your floor. Then, once you get to your floor, you have to walk to your room. This has the potential to mean a lot of walking. Imagine you’re at the southwest corner of the hotel and your inclinator is at the northeast corner. Even if you cut through the middle of the main floor (winding your way through the construction zone), you’ve got a long walk. Now suppose your 5th floor room is near the southwest corner. You go up 5 flights, then have to walk two sides of the pyramid (no cutting across the open atrium) to get to your room. Because you’re on a low floor, each side is still quite long. (The upper floors have very short corridors.) You could easily walk a half mile on this journey.

The reason this didn’t bother me on this trip was because my room was in the corner, right by the elevator. What luck!

Of course, the hotel did have three separate Starbucks coffee shops. (I can’t make this stuff up.) One of them was open 24/7. Whoa!

I had what they call a “jacuzzi suite.” This is a two-room room that includes a large jacuzzi tub right by one of the windows. (Think honeymoon or romantic getaway.) I love a good soak in a deep tub, so this was a nice feature for me. Back when the hotel first opened, you could get one of these rooms on a weekday night for $79 (if nothing else was going on in Vegas that week). Nowadays, it’s a bit more. It’s a good party room, with plenty of space, two TVs, and a fridge. Way more than I needed for an overnight stay. The room’s layout is pretty dumb, though and because of the sloping side of the outside wall, it’s sparsely furnished with a few Egyptian-themed pieces. No heavenly bed.

After checking in, I went down to the bar for a martini. I tried Ciroq vodka this time. It was so-so. I still like Ketel One better. They serve martinis in 10-oz glasses and my glass was full. The drink cost $14, but since it was like getting at least two drinks in one glass, it didn’t seem outrageous.

Afterwards, I went for a walk toward Mandalay Bay. There’s an inside corridor, lined with shops, that goes from Luxor to Mandalay Bay. I spent some time in Urban Outfitters, just looking at all the weird stuff they had. Then I browsed the rather excellent little bookstore on the main floor near Mandalay Bay’s entrance. I walked away with two books. One shows “then” and “now” photos of Las Vegas and the other is a history of Las Vegas. I’ll be sure to bring them with me on my next trip so when I get stranded again, I’ll have something to read.

Back at my room, I spent some time browsing the photo book while soaking in the tub. Sadly, the lighting over the tub isn’t very good — probably so you don’t illuminate yourself (or your tub activities) for the benefit of the folks in the high-rise tower across the road. My middle aged eyes struggled with the tiny print in the book, so I soon put it aside and got into some serious soaking. I felt like I needed to get my money’s worth from the tub.

I set the alarm before going to bed at about 10 PM. I spent some time watching a TV show about Area 51 on the Las Vegas visitor center channel. It was a History Channel presentation created in the days before documentaries were filled with repetitive fluff and weird camera angles. It was very good. Oddly enough, the airplanes that fly back and forth between Area 51 and Las Vegas were parked right down the taxiway from my sick helicopter.

A Morning on the Ramp

I was up before the alarm. About an hour before it. So I took my time getting my act together. By 5:15 AM, I was downstairs, buying an eggnog latte at the all-night Starbucks.

A note here: there’s nothing quite as surreal as a Las Vegas casino floor in the predawn hours.

After getting directions to the west side of the hotel, I tracked down my rental car and headed out to the airport. I brought along my laptop, figuring I’d use the FBO’s Internet connection to do my e-mail and perhaps write a blog entry.

The mechanics, Luis and Alex, showed up at 6:30 AM. I had just finished checking my e-mail (and deleting pingback spam). I soon learned that because the FBO’s main office didn’t open until 9 AM, we couldn’t get them a ramp pass. That meant I’d have to stay with them out on the ramp while they worked on the helicopter. Not exactly my idea of a good way to use my time, but what could I do? Who knows what havoc two helicopter mechanics could wreak out on the ramp with a handful of wrenches and a 15-volt Dewitte cordless drill?

[Of course, I didn't expect to be hanging around the ramp, so I didn't bring my good camera. The photos that follow were taken with my Treo so they're pretty bad. But they do show the scene reasonably well.]

The folks at the FBO drove us and the tools out to the helicopter. Luis and Alex wasted no time setting up a work area on the pavement. They spread blue shop towels on the ground and neatly arranged their tools. Then they got to work removing the rear panel of the helicopter.

Let me take a moment to explain this operation.

Robinson makes a great helicopter, but it doesn’t make it easy to replace something as simple as an alternator belt. To get this job done, you need to take off the rear panel and the fan scroll it hides. There must be at least 100 screws involved in this process. The panel comes off quickly but the fan scroll doesn’t. It must have taken them the better part of 45 minutes to get the damn thing off. Then they had to loosen all the clutch belts (there are four) before they could get the alternator belt in place. This photo shows Luis at work with the clutch belts just before putting the alternator belt (being fetched by Alex) on. Then put everything back together. And when they’re done with the fan scroll, they have to balance the fan, which requires hooking up specialized electronic equipment, starting the helicopter, and if necessary, adding weights to the fan’s blades.

On an R22, many mechanics fasten a spare belt in the engine area just beyond the belt in use. Then, when your belt breaks, you can just slide the replacement belt into place and be done. Evidently this isn’t possible on an R44.

Also, on an R22, there’s a maintenance procedure that requires the fan scroll to come off every 300 hours. The mechanics for helicopters operating in hot, dry environments (like Arizona) usually replace the alternator belt then. Sure, you spend $40 on a belt, but you save $1,000+ in the labor to pull all that stuff off, since it’s already off. It’s preventative maintenance.

My helicopter’s rear end has been off twice: once for a clutch down-limit switch and once for a starter and ring gear. I don’t think my mechanic in either instance replaced the alternator belt. (Need to check my log book to see for sure.) So it might have had 580 hours on it. In Arizona. Luis says the belts at his organization rarely last more than 300 hours. No wonder the damn thing shattered.

I spent much of the time standing around, holding the rear fairing so it wouldn’t get blown away by passing helicopters, chatting with the few people who came by. First, it was the FBO line guy. Then the mechanic for one of HeliUSA’s Astars, which needed its blades balanced. Then the pilot for the helicopter getting its blades balanced. All the while, the clouds built. The sun disappeared and it got cold. This photo shows the view of the ramp from the helicopter. HeliUSA is getting a batch of tour passengers while the mechanic works on the blades of one of its helicopters. You can see the Luxor in the distance.

One of the highlights of the repair — at least for me — was the giant torque wrench. This is the legendary tool that separates wannabe Robinson mechanics from real Robinson mechanics. The reason: it supposedly costs a small fortune and it only used for one thing: to tighten the giant nut in the middle of the fan. The wrench comes in a red plastic case and sits, in two pieces, on specially cut padding. When assembled, the thing is about 4 feet long. They put a socket wrench head on the end of it to use it. It’s a two-man job, with one man wielding the wrench while the other uses a 3-foot bar of aluminum set up as another wrench to hold the bolt (or whatever is back there) in place. It took them four tries to get the bolt lined up just right so they could put the safety wire in place.

Three hours after they started, they neared completion. The only task left was to balance the fan. They hooked up their wires to the outside of the fan and ran them into a special electronics box that sat on the front passenger seat. Alex and I moved all the loose tools and parts 20 feet back on the ramp. Luis started up the helicopter and warmed the engine. Soon he had it at 100% RPM. He even did a mag check. For a minute, I thought he was going to fly away.

Alex and I watched. I held the rear fairing so the downwash wouldn’t blow it away. Then Luis was looking at us, grinning, giving us the thumbs up sign. The fan was in balance and wouldn’t need any adjustments. They — and I — had lucked out.

That’s when it started to rain.

We gathered the tools together and flagged down the FBO van. It was raining pretty hard by the time we got inside the van. The driver took Luis and Alex to their trucks. I helped them offload their gear. Then I shook their hands and slipped Luis a folded bill, telling him to split it with Alex. At first he didn’t want to take it. Then he tried to pass it to Alex, who wouldn’t take it. Finally he said, “We’ll go out to lunch.”

“You’ll have a good lunch,” I told him. I don’t think he realized that the face on the bill was Ben Franklin’s. I really appreciated them coming to help me out, working on the ramp, in the cold.

IFR to Wickenburg — Sort Of

I went back the FBO and used their computers to check the current weather. The radar showed a nasty picture of heavy rain coming our way from the southwest. The ceilings had dropped, but the visibility was still good. I could wait it out or try to get ahead of it. But since I hadn’t packed — after all, I expected to have all morning to do that — I still needed to get back to the hotel to fetch my stuff. By the time I finished doing that, the worst of what was coming would be upon us.

So I went back to the hotel, had a good breakfast (since I’d be skipping lunch), and went back up to my room to pack. Somewhere along the line, I remembered that there was a one-hour time difference between Arizona and Nevada. So when I reached McCarran and returned my rental car, it was 1 PM back home, even though it was noon in Las Vegas. If I didn’t get my butt out of Las Vegas within an hour or so, there was a chance I wouldn’t make it home before sunset. And the only thing worse than flying in weather is flying in weather at night.

I checked the weather again. It looked as if I’d be in the relatively clear if I followed route 93 from the Hoover Dam to Kingman; the rain stopped halfway down that route. Following roads would be a good idea. In fact, that was a joke among pilots: IFR means “I Follow Roads.”

(For those readers who are not pilots, let me explain the joke a bit. There are two ways to fly, as far as the FAA is concerned: VFR or IFR. VFR stands for Visual Flight Rules. It means you’re flying with visual references to the ground, horizon, etc. In other words, you can see where you’re flying. My helicopter is VFR only, meaning even though I have enough instruments to get me out of trouble if I lose visibility, it’s not legal for me to fly IFR. IFR, on the other hand, stands for Instrument Flight Rules. That means you’re flying by referencing your instruments only. All aircraft above 18,000 feet in the U.S. (and probably worldwide) fly IFR. You also must fly IFR if conditions are IMC (Instrument Meteorological Conditions) or poor visibility. There are a bunch of rules that define IMC. The joke comes with IFR meaning “I Follow Roads” — which, of course, is not what IFR means. But VFR pilots do follow roads on occasion. I was going to follow roads in case I had to make a precautionary landing; I wanted to be near a road in case I needed a lift somewhere. Other times, VFR pilots follow roads simply because they lack navigation skills or equipment and don’t want to get lost.)

So I called Mike and told him I’d follow route 93 all the way to Wickenburg. I hate that route, primarily because it’s so boring, but it is relatively direct from Las Vegas. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have many airport landing opportunities: just Boulder City, an unnamed dirt strip about 40 miles south of the dam on 93, Kingman, and Bagdad. Of those, only Boulder City and Kingman had amenities like fuel, food, or lodging.

Then I went out, started up, and prepared to leave Las Vegas. Again.

The tour helicopters were all on the ground and there wasn’t much jet traffic. I saw one jet depart on Runway 25 and disappear into the clouds. My helicopter bubble was spattered with raindrops, but that didn’t worry me. I knew that as soon as I started moving, they’d roll off and I’d have no trouble seeing.

I did take a moment to rig up my camera with the 18 mm lens on the tripod. I figured I’d take a few shots to show how bad the visibility was. As it turned out, the camera didn’t actually snap photos most of the time I pushed the cable release button. When set on autofocus (as it was), my camera simply won’t take a photo unless it can focus the shot. And with all the rain on the bubble, it wasn’t sure what to focus on. So I only got about 25% of the images I expected to have.

I took off, tracing my route from the day before. I almost expected the Alt light to go on again. But it didn’t. I headed east on Tropicana to Lake Las Vegas and then Lake Mead.

I was near Boulder Beach at 2500 feet (see photo), surveying the low clouds in front of me when I spotted a helicopter a bit lower to my right. I made a radio call on the tour pilot frequency. The pilot responded, saying he was at 2000 feet, landing at the Hacienda (a hotel near the dam where a tour operator does 8-minute dam tours). If he was doing dam tours, I figured, it couldn’t be too bad at the dam.

The clouds ahead of me looked low and nasty. I unexpectedly flew right into them just when I caught sight of the dam.

For a VFR pilot, there’s nothing quite as unsettling as flying into clouds. Although I never completely lost sight of ground references, I lost enough sight of them for that 2 seconds of IMC to feel like 2 hours. I cut power to slow down and started a left descending turn. I popped out of the clouds and kept descending, just to make sure I didn’t pop back into any.

So following 93 from the dam would not work. I couldn’t even see route 93 beyond the dam, where it climbed into the mountains on the east side of Black Canyon.

The way I figured it, I had three choices:

1. I could go back to Las Vegas, and wait it out, perhaps for another day.
2. I could land at Boulder City and wait it out, perhaps for another day.
3. I could try flying down route 95 past Boulder City, Searchlight, and Kidwell, to Bullhead City.

Option 3 looked to be the best. If things on 95 looked bad, I could always come back to Boulder City. So I punched Boulder City into my GPS, tuned into its frequency, and headed south.

I won’t bore you (any more than I already have) with the details. I flew south along 95, keeping 300 to 500 feet off the ground. The clouds were right above me and, between Searchlight and Kidwell, were actually scattered below me for a short time. I never lost sight of the ground and could always see a few miles ahead of me. The rain came and went. I listened to my iPod and kept the heater on. At one point, the outside air temperature was 6°C.

When I reached the California - Nevada border, I turned right, following the road that led to Bullhead City. I called the tower there as I crested the ridge and began my descent into the Colorado River Valley. It was remarkably clear down there, although low clouds hung in the mountains to the east of Lake Mohave, north of Bullhead City. As usual, there was nothing going on at Bullhead. I got clearance to follow route 95 (now on the Arizona side) south.

Conditions, in general, were much better as I made my way to Lake Havasu City. I even departed from the road route for a 10-mile stretch between Topock and Lake Havasu. I got some so-so photos of London Bridge as I passed over town. (It’s nice to have 10 megapixels when you need to crop an image.)

When I reached the Parker Dam, I had to make another decision: go the direct route or continue following roads? As much as I wanted to go direct, I couldn’t. Mike thought I was on route 93 and I wasn’t. If I went down somewhere in the desert, they’d never find me because they didn’t know where to look. If I followed 95 and other roads, if I went down, it would be near a road and I’d be found. So I didn’t really have a choice. I continued south over 95, over the river.

When I neared Parker, I realized that I might not have enough fuel to make Wickenburg. Well, let’s put it this way: if I went direct from Parker, I’d make it, but it would be close. A smart pilot flying in weather does not make foolish fuel decisions. I landed at Parker to fuel up, since it was my last chance for fuel until I got to Wickenburg.

Parker’s airport is on the Colorado River Indian Tribe (CRIT) reservation. Usually, its fuel prices are outrageous, but since there’s no place else around to get fuel, people pay. But that day, fuel was $4.52/gallon. That was cheaper than Wickenburg. I told him to top off both tanks.

Unfortunately, his fuel truck had a problem. When he drove it, AvGas leaked out. For a tense moment, I thought he was going to tell me he couldn’t fuel me. That would mean a detour to Blythe, which was seriously out of my way. But when he turned on the fuel pump for the truck, the leak stopped. He topped off my main tank with 19 gallons of 100LL and gave up. I was satisfied.

I called Mike and told him where I was. I said I’d either go direct to Wickenburg or follow roads. When I got airborne, I made my decision: direct.

(This photo, by the way, is of what I believe is called the Cactus Plain. It’s an area of old sand dunes with sparse vegetation. Patton trained his tank forces in this area in the 1940s before sending them to battle the Germans in north Africa. In some places of this huge training area, you can still see the tank tread tracks from the air.)

It turned out to be not such a good decision. When I reached the valley just north of the Harcuvar Mountains, I started hitting turbulence. There was a cloud sitting on top of the mountain, but Cunningham Pass, where the road to Alamo Lake runs, looked clear. I headed toward it. The turbulence got stronger. I was being tossed all over the sky, 500 feet off the ground.

I was in a pinch. If I went higher to try to avoid the turbulence, I’d get close to the clouds and could get pushed into them by an updraft. If I went lower to try to avoid the turbulence, I’d get close to the ground and could get pushed into it by a downdraft. If I tried to land and there was a lot of wind shear, the landing could get ugly. So I had to stay right where I was and ride it out.

Once thing was for sure: I wasn’t getting through Cunningham Pass. That meant flying east in the valley north of there until I could round the side of the mountains and head southeast.

It wasn’t pleasant. The turbulence was bad, even worse than what I’d encountered on the east side of the Sierras on a trip in my R22 years before. It would be very rough for about 5 minutes and then calm down. Then, just when I thought it was over, it would start up again. This happened about five times. I was flying at about 80 knots, just trying to get out of that valley. I was convinced the turbulence were caused by wind coming over the Harcuvars.

I was 30 miles out from Wickenburg when I started calling for an airport advisory. I figured that if the wind was howling there, I’d detour to Alamo Lake or the Wayside Inn and wait it out there. I didn’t get an answer. I kept flying, making a call every 5 miles. Visibility varied ahead of me. The turbulence stopped as I chose my route carefully to avoid low clouds.

I crossed over my first paved road since leaving Parker: route 71 from Congress to Aguila.

I finally got a response to my call. Winds at 2 knots and the usual inaccurate altimeter setting. (At least, I assume it was inaccurate; it always is.) I asked about visibility and was told it was “about two miles.” It was better than that where I was, so I kept coming. The FBO guy got on the radio and said that he thought the visibility might only be a mile. By that time, I was only 3 miles out and I could see the airport. I thanked him and kept coming.

A while later, as I shut down the engine, I thought about how good it was to be on the ground.

As seen from Wickenburg.

Wickenburg is in the northern Sonoran desert, at an elevation of around 2000-2400 feet. It’s cooler here than in Phoenix, but not nearly as cold as it is in higher elevations.

Once in a while, in the winter, a wet cold front will come through. It’ll be cloudy, with low clouds that make the distant mountains impossible to see. It might rain on us or maybe even snow a tiny bit. But it’s rarely cold enough for any snow to accumulate or even stick.

What’s magic, though, is when the clouds lift or clear and the mountains to the north are covered with snow.

That’s what this photo, which was taken from Wickenburg Airport, shows. The snow-covered mountains are the Weaver Mountains, about 15 miles north. Although I can’t remember exactly when I took this photo, I do remember that the snow remained up there for us to see for a few days. Mike and I even drove up to Yarnell, in the mountains there, to see it close hand. It had been plowed to the middle of the road — an odd thing they do in Arizona small towns. Mike made a snowball and threw it at the truck.

I miss snow — but only a tiny bit. I’m looking forward to seeing it firsthand this winter at our Howard Mesa camp. But I’ll rest easy with the thought that all it takes is a drive back down to Wickenburg to return to mild winters.