HELI-EXPO 2019

Back in early March of this year I was in my Jetta, steaming along at a high rate of speed on northbound I-85 through Alabama.  I was getting better than 38 mpg, headed for Georgia. Above and somewhat behind me, my friend Nate was aboard a north-eastbound Delta Airlines jet out of New Orleans. Further west, my buddy Brandon had left the left coast and was streaking across the sky eastbound in an American Airlines 767.

We three were converging on Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport. Nate would arrive first. I’d pick him up and then he and I would go check into the Airbnb house we’d rented to make sure it was satisfactory. It was. Then we’d go back to the airport and fetch B-boy. We did.

The purpose of the trip was for us to attend an annual event called Heli-Expo, which is a convention put on by the Helicopter Association International. And it is the show to go rub elbows with the big shots of the helicopter industry.

Initially it seemed implausible that Brandon, Nate and I would all be free on this particular week. But the stars aligned and both of them got the time off. I, of course, can take time off as I please, being the self-employed man of leisure with the easy-going boss.

The annual HAI convention is always a big deal. They’ve been holding them since the organization was formed in 1948. I’ve wanted to go to Heli-Expo for a long time. But it’s usually held inconveniently far away from me, either in California, Dallas, or somewhere down in South Florida - too far for me to drive.  On the other hand, Atlanta is only a five-hour drive. This year I had no excuse.

Had I gone alone I could have stayed with my buddy Matt, which would’ve been nice. But he has a teenage son. I couldn’t inflict the three of us on him during a work and school week. So we did the Airbnb thing.

The convention was held in the Georgia World Congress Center in downtown Atlanta. The place is huge. The convention occupied two ginormous exhibition halls. As you’d expect, there were helicopters and vendors galore.

While Heli-Expo used to be the place that airframe manufacturers would unveil their new designs, things at that end of the spectrum have stagnated. There really wasn’t much new. But technology-wise, the advances in navigation, systems-monitoring, and other ancillary equipment (e.g. camera mounts, hoists, fire-fighting buckets) have made tremendous advances.

No longer do the helicopter builders make major sales announcements or unveil new designs, along with rosy projections of overall growth in the near future. Things were much more subdued as sales in most non-airline segments of aviation have been fairly flat.

Ironically, it was reported that this was the "biggest" Heli-Expo show ever. Perhaps they meant it in terms of size of the arena.  Because then I don’t doubt it – I nearly walked my dang feet off. In dress shoes. Man, my dogs were barking! I had been warned, and had I had been smarter I would’ve worn more comfortable shoes. Even though David Letterman pioneered the suit-and-tennis-shoes look (which never really caught on), I just could not “rock it” as the kids say. However, there were people who did!  I'll know next time. 

Honestly, the show was not for me. I’m nearly retired now – I’m not looking to buy anything for our fleet of elderly helicopters in Washington, nor am I looking for a job. I did see and meet up with some people I’ve known over the years, which was nice. But talking with them on Facebook has been okay too.

The boys, Brandon and Nate, who are much younger than I, drank a lot and stayed out late, partying with their friends, old and new. Me, I’m way past those kind of shenanigans. So I turned in early every night, leaving them to Uber back to the house.  It's funny to think about how much I used to drink.  There was a time when those boys would've had trouble keeping up with me.

Never mind the helicopters; on any given trip, you know I’m all about the food. One night we met up with my buddy Matt and his wife Alisha, who took us to a really great Peruvian(!) restaurant called The Freakin’ Incan. Those Peruvians really do know how to cook some tasty meat! We were all sticking our forks in each other’s plates. Next night we went to a German restaurant in town called Der Biergarten, where the sauerbraten was wonderful and they serve their beer in quart-size steins. For me, those were the highlights of the trip.

Although the show ended Thursday afternoon, we stayed over until Friday. The plan was to do some sightseeing before the boys flew out in the afternoon. But they got something of a (ahem) late start that morning and were really in no shape to wander around some dumb aquarium for a couple of hours, much less take the tour of the CNN Center or Coca-Cola headquarters.

We went out to lunch, and then I dropped them back off at the airport before heading southbound back to Florida. We helicopter pilots get scattered to the winds as we pursue our various jobs around the country.  It was great seeing Brandon and Nate again, and doing it in conjunction with the helicopter convention was as good an excuse as any.

A Bad Uber Passenger

There’s a blogger by the name of Matt Hauger who writes about technology…mostly computers and cell phones. I know, I know…join the club. It’s why I stay away from technology on this blog. There are already a gazillion guys who write about it…and it changes too fast to keep up unless you’re a real techno-geek who lives and breathes the stuff. And that ain’t me.

In October of 2017 Matt made a post about his Uber experience. Somehow that blogpost made its way to me the other day. I don’t know how things like this work. We are overwhelmed with information from so many sources. It’s hard to remember where one tidbit of info came from.

Anyway, Matt’s blogpost was about how he is apparently a bad Uber passenger. The realization came to him when an Uber driver asked him why he had such a low passenger rating? Matt was shocked and doubly unaware that not only was his rating only 4.33, but that such a rating is considered bad by us drivers. Very bad. 

It’s true: My cut-off is 4.5. It indicates a "problem passenger."  If I were ever offered a trip to pickup a passenger with a 4.33 rating, I’d decline it. No sense in asking for trouble. We are not required to accept all trips, nor are we penalized for not accepting trips.

With his powers of rationalization in high-gear, Matt went on to opine that his low rating was probably due to a couple of things. First of all, he admits that he doesn’t tip Uber drivers in cash and felt as if they were taking it out on him for that. This is nonsense. Most people do not tip in cash. Who carries cash anymore? Not me.

If we get tips, they’re usually added to the fare on the app after the fact, after we complete the trip and rate the passenger. We have no way of knowing whether or not a passenger adds a tip on the app. Tips do not show up immediately; sometimes we get notified a day or two later. So we cannot (and do not) penalize someone for not tipping us in cash.

Secondly, Matt Hauger thought that drivers down-rated him because he himself didn’t often give five-star ratings. He thought a four-star was perfectly fine. (It isn’t.) Matt says, ”It’s at least possible that my past drivers noticed when I gave them less than five stars; they might have marked me down in revenge.”

Nope! We rate you before you rate us. We cannot even accept another trip until we rate the last passenger.  And with Uber, once we rate a passenger we cannot go back in and change it. (With Lyft we can.)

The way it actually works is this: When we get to the destination, an end-trip screen pops up. It asks us to swipe- right if we’ve completed the trip. Once we do that it brings up the “Rate Passenger” screen. If we simply swipe-right it automatically gives the passenger five-stars. You can rate somebody with less than five-stars but if you do, Uber asks you to provide a reason. It’s time-consuming.  Unless the passenger was a real shit-bag I just give them five stars. And if we do down-rate someone, they will not know right away. Uber delays delivering that bit of bad news.

Similarly, as drivers we can never tell who gives us what ratings. Anything less than five-stars deliberately won’t show up right away. Like tips, it can be the next day before a driver discovers that he’s been down-rated. Uber does this so we don’t retaliate against a rider.

Having said that, I’ve been given some less-than-five-star ratings. I can usually figure out who gave them to me because I work part-time, and I do few trips in any given day (usually only half-a-dozen or so). A driver in a busier city would never know who gave him the low rating.

So it’s not that Matt doesn’t tip, and it’s not that he doesn’t routinely give five-star ratings. What could it be…what could it be? Leave it to ol’ Matt to get to the crux of the problem. Early in his blogpost, he wonders of the drivers, ”Why didn’t they like me? Was I oblivious to my own obnoxiousness? Did I have a subpar personality?”

Bingo!

I don’t know what the particular reason is that Uber drivers rate Matt so poorly, but I’m sure he earned it. It’s something. It could be his breath…it could be his attitude, or general demeanor. As I mentioned, I give most people five-stars…but not everyone! Sometimes we are not even aware of how we’re coming off to others.

Hauger’s solution is to be the perfect Uber passenger: To tip every driver and to rate every driver five-stars. But that just subverts the system and renders it meaningless. Look, you’re paying for this service, right? If the ride was fine…if the car was clean, the driver showed up in a timely manner, was pleasant, didn’t get lost and got you to the destination safely, then give him five-stars. But if there were…umm..."issues," then rate accordingly. That’s how it works. Or how it’s supposed to work.

Nobody is perfect. Not me. And not Matt Hauger.

You can read his blogpost HERE.

I Wish I Smoked Pot

I recently went to a music festival called the Suwannee Spring Reunion. It was held in a big place called The Spirit of Suwannee Music Park (and campground) in the woods along the river immortalized by Stephen Foster* in north Florida. It was one of those events with multiple stages and acts spread out over three days.

The type of music played was “country”…but not mainstream Country. There were Bluegrass artists like the up-and-coming Billy Strings, non-mainstream Country artists like Marty Stuart, and a band called Donna The Buffalo that plays “Americana” music.

Americana is a hybrid genre. It’s weird. Wikipedia says that it’s, “…an amalgram of American music formed by the confluence of shared and varied traditions that make up the musical ethos of the United States, specifically those sounds that are merged from folk, country, blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, gospel and other external influences.”

So…a little of everything. Needless to say, radio stations don’t play a lot of Americana music.

Fronted by Jeb Puryear and Tara Nevins, Donna The Buffalo has been around since 1990. I only discovered them in 2000. They write and play wonderful songs. I’ve wanted to see them in concert ever since.

As it turned out, the three bands I really wanted to see (the aforementioned three) were all playing on Saturday. So I hopped in the Jetta and took off eastbound on I-10. I'd booked a motel room near to the venue.

Like all of these events, there were vendors galore. You know the type: Gypsies that live on the road, going from festival to festival. Lots of jewelry…polished stones made into necklaces and things. Some good stuff, some crap. What is up with hippies and tie-dyed clothing? Is that still a thing? Evidently so. And oh man, the overpriced food! Luckily, the park has a pretty good diner-type restaurant right on the premises with food that was better and cheaper than the vendor trucks.

The first band I wanted to see (Billy Strings) went on at 3:30. Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives went on at 8:00 pm, and Donna The Buffalo went on at 10:30. There were really no places to sit and chill, and so I spent a lot of time walking and standing around. Kinda hard on this old man’s feet. But it was well worth it - the music was awesome!

I love live music to begin with, and each band just blew me away. I don’t know why this type of music affects me so deeply. I was never exposed to Country music as a kid growing up in New York City. But no matter how Bluegrass found me, this music speaks directly to my soul, much more powerfully than rock and roll ever did.

One big takeaway from the festival was that I wished I smoked pot. Being in aviation all my life, I’ve stayed away from drugs. Okay, I admit that I briefly got high in my teenage years. But honestly, nowadays I detest even the smell of marijuana. And of course at the music festival you could not escape the wafting aroma of weed permeating the air.

And that’s when it hit me: I might have enjoyed the music a whole lot more if I’d been stoned. You might disagree, especially if you’ve never been high. But I can remember being…what, fifteen?...and laying on my bed, headphones on, listening to Santana’s “Black Magic Woman” (the long version) while stoned out of my mind. It. Was. Incredible. Nowadays, every time I hear that song it takes me right back to that time in 1970.

Damn, if I hadn’t decided on a career in aviation, who knows how big a pot-head I’d be right now! I stopped smoking right after that time when I was fifteen but had I not, it might have made a huge difference in how I enjoyed a concert nearly fifty years later.

*The Steven Foster song we familiarly know as "Swanee River" was written in 1851 and was originally called "Old Folks At Home."  Since 1935 it has been - and still is - the state song of Florida.