The End Of The Line

Like a backsliding smoker, I've quit flying a number of times.

The first time was back in 2001 when I left my job at Petroleum Helicopters Inc. I'd been with the company for thirteen years...had been a professional pilot for twenty (and was involved in aviation full-time for even longer than that). Quitting PHI wasn't perhaps the smartest thing I ever did, but I wanted to see what else there was for me to do in life – other than be a damn pilot for a living.

Well...

Almost immediately I got hired into a management position with a company that was trying to restart the production line of a defunct 1970's-era helicopter. And although the amount of flying I did was reduced, I was still “in it.” That job lead to the flying job down in Honduras...which in turn lead to the job flying for the entrepreneur/rich guy in Alabama that owned a chain of mobile home dealerships among other things.

So nearly ten years after “quitting flying” the first time I quit flying again – told the rich guy I didn't want his job anymore. That time I was really done with it!

...And that was right when my friend Mikey called from Washington and suggested I come up there and dry cherries.

Seems that I'm not very good at quitting.

But now I think I'm done. Really done. As in, “done for good.” (Maybe.)

It's not that I don't like flying; I love to fly! I especially love getting paid to fly. But I'm kind of...you know...over it - at least, over helicopters. Flying is something I do and do well. But it is only one of the things in which I'm interested. And it has dominated my life for forty years. And I want to do something else. Do what? I'm still trying to figure that out.

Although our flying season in Washington is short (basically just two months), there is quite a lot of work that needs to be done both before and after the cherry season. Since it's pretty much just the boss (who's nearly 80) and his adult son, they need help. So they prevail on me to come up early and to stay after the helicopter flying has ended. I like both of the guys, and we have a lot of fun doing what we do, so it's been easy to say yes to staying longer.  I say no to moving up there full-time though.  The winters up there are just too damn cold.

And since I started my little summer gig up in Washington State in 2010, my time up there kept getting extended, until I was basically spending half of my life up there and half down here in Florida. The trouble is, I like Florida, especially in the summertime. Riding my motorcycle is important to me. And our riding season is when the days are long and warm – in other words during Daylight Savings Time.

Our typical winters down here are, like this one has been, dreary, rainy and cold. Well, “cold” for us means having to wear long pants and maybe a jacket. But the days are short and often wet. And I don't like riding when it's cold (below 60 degrees), at night, or when it's wet. By themselves, any of those items are deal-killers. Often, we'll have all three.

My boss in Washington keeps saying, ”Just bring your bike up here!” But that's not really a solution. I've had my motorcycle up there. There just aren't that many opportunities to ride, nor are there many places to go. Brewster, Washington really, truly is out in the middle of nowhere. To get anywhere interesting means a long ride. A dirt bike that could go off the paved roads would be sweet. But as it happens I don't own a dirt bike.

Plus there are the other things I like to do down here: Canoeing/kayaking, hiking and camping with my friends. These are, obviously, summertime activities. I haven't been able to do much of them for the past eight years. And hey, I'm not getting any younger. And so I've decided that I won't be drying cherries this summer – or any more. Which means it's the end of my career as a commercial/professional pilot.

Lately I hadn't really been flying much anyway. Mostly I do new-pilot checkouts. The pilots we hire are all Commercially rated and "current" (i.e. legal to fly for money). Showing them how to do the job is not hard; basically it means sitting there and letting them spend time “getting friendly” with our particular model of helicopter – a type which is not in widespread use anymore. Once they're comfortable, we go out into the orchards and I show them the most efficient speeds and altitudes at which we hover over the trees. It's all pretty basic stuff.

When it rains, it doesn't rain everywhere, so the entire fleet usually doesn't all fly at once. Low-time pilots who need to build time are always looking for any opportunity to grab the controls. And so if a ship goes out, they want to be in it. And me, since I've got all the flight time I'll ever need or want, I'm happy to let others do the stick-wiggling while I watch.

The amount of flying we actually do each year varies. The growing season for cherries is rather short (mid-June through the end of July). If that period of time is rainy we could be pretty busy. If it's dry – as it's been for the last couple of seasons – then we don't fly much. We get paid either way (more if we fly of course) but the boss doesn't mind too much if we don't have to put flight time on the helicopters (and their associated time-limited components) and burn expensive aviation fuel.

This coming season we will have a bunch of returnees – guys who've been with us before. They will require minimal training. And in turn, any of them could train up the new guys, if we even have to hire any. So the company can get by nicely without me – and without me feeling guilty about not being there.

Frankly, one of the reasons I've kept going back these last couple of years has been because actually facing the prospect of not being a pilot anymore is kind of ... I don't know, unsettling.  It's pretty much all I've ever known or done.  We don't like to think about The End, do we?

Oh, I'll still be a pilot – I'll always be a pilot. But getting paid to do it is special; it's what most pilots aspire to do. From now on, if I want to fly I'll have to pay to do it. Yikes!