The Rain Came

With apologies to Ray Charles… Oh, it’s drying time again, we’re going to fly now…

Yeah we finally got some rain today! All five of our contracted helicopters flew. All of our low-time pilots are happy. The boss is happy. I’m happy.

We have two S-55’s now at the orchard in Malott, Washington, north of Brewster, where I'm staying. Travis is flying one and I’m flying the other. The second ship arrived just yesterday. Timing, as they say, is everything. Although I’m comfortable in the helicopter, I was initially supposed to fly with Travis as “copilot” in order to get some actual drying experience before going out on my own. It did not work out that way. Instead, since both helicopters had to fly, the boss came up and flew with me this morning. Tomorrow I'm on my own.

Here’s the deal with cherry drying – it’s not that hard: A hovering helicopter produces a downward-moving, vertical column of air. The pilot hovers slowly along the rows, using the downwash to blow the water off the branches. Hover too low or too slowly and you risk damaging the trees. (A big helicopter like the S-55 puts out a lot of downwash.) Hover too high or too fast and you won’t be shaking the branches enough to get the water off. There is a “sweet spot” that varies depending on the size of the trees and the wind. Wind blows your downwash around.

We have detailed maps of the groves that show us which fields are cherries and which ones are apples and pears. Apples and pears do not need drying. Travis will go hit some fields; I’ll get others. Together, we put in about two hours apiece with a break for fuel in the middle.

Beginning in early morning, rain blanketed the area today, from as far south as Chelan, where we have a ship, north to Malott. In between, two other aircraft flew around Brewster. Even Mikey flew!

But now, this evening as I write this, the clouds have moved off and it’s another spectacular sunset. There’s only a 30% chance of rain tomorrow. So who knows. At least we all flew today. It felt good! And we all needed it. We pilots prefer to fly, not sit around and look at each other.

Brewster,Washington: The Weather Here

See that picture above? It contains four (of six) flyable Sikorsky S-55 helicopters under the clear, blue sky that exists above us every day here. The helicopters are waiting to go to work, as are the pilots who fly them. All we need is rain. And we're not getting any. It has been a cool, dry summer, with no rain so far and none in sight. My boss is really, really depressed. I try to sympathize, but I’m really digging this weather.

When I first got here, one of the first things I noticed was the low humidity compared to back home. People think that the entire state of Washington is as rainy and dreary as Seattle, but I’m here to tell you, it’s not. It is unbelievably dry here. So pleasant! I’d kind of gotten used to the hot, humid weather in Pensacola. Now I’m wondering if I even want to go back.

One afternoon Mikey and I had nothing to do and were hanging out at a little beach along the Columbia River on some property his boss owns just downstream of the Chief Joseph Dam. The water was very cold, and we could only stand to be in it for short periods. You know how sometimes you think the water is cold at first but once you get in, your body gets used to it and it’s not so bad? It wasn’t like that at all; it was freezing! So we did a lot of hanging out on the bank in just our bathing suits.

It was an absolutely cloudless day, and even with a SPF 8 sunscreen I thought I was going to be sunburned to a crisp, which would have been the case in Florida. To my surprise, I didn’t get burned at all. Not even the tops of my feet, which are usually the first to go along with my ever-expanding forehead.

The next day a bunch of us went up to Soap Lake and again I hardly got any color at all. I guess the sun is weaker this far north, which is logical.

I'm happy to report that the weather is very nice up here. They keep telling me about how hot it gets in July – and perhaps it will. Meantime, I’m just thankful I’m not down in the southeast. When this gig is over, I think I’ll take the long way home, and get back there in September when it starts to cool off.

Fun

I was thinking about my last blogpost, the one just below this. And I was thinking about fun, and how important it is to me.

A long, long time ago I was visiting with a guy who was my first real mentor in this business. In fact, it is his name that is on the first line of my very first student pilot logbook. Although retired now, his name would still be familiar to many within the helicopter industry. I will not name names, because what I’m about to write might seem critical or harsh although I most sincerely do not intend it as such.

Anyway, I had been a commercial helicopter pilot for a while, and as I said went to this man’s house to visit. In turn, we went to the house of a neighbor of his, a Captain for TWA (a now-defunct airline) who flew jumbo jets across the Atlantic and had been doing it for a very long time. I was impressed! I’d always wanted to be an airline pilot, but somehow got diverted into helicopters and my fate was sealed. However, this airline captain was an interesting guy, and along the way I asked him if he still found the job fun?

I remember that he thought about it for a bit before answering. I don’t recall his exact words so I won’t pretend to quote them although that would be the typical literary technique at this point. The gist of his reply was that no, it was not fun; it was merely a job. Some aspects of it were more enjoyable than others, but for him flying had ceased being “fun.” I was a little disheartened, being at the start of my career at the time and having a whole lot of fun flying helicopters. Would it ever not be so?

After my mentor and I left, we were in his car when he turned to me and said, “Bobby,” in that rather stern voice that he used when he was displeased with me. I braced myself for a lecture.

People don’t generally call me Bobby. My family does, and certain close friends do, and I do not mind it. But I am not really a “Bobby.” It’s kind of the reverse of how we’d never think of calling Bobby Kennedy “Bob.” He was always a Bobby to everybody.

My mentor said, “You shouldn’t have asked that question back there about whether he still had fun. Fun is an immature concept.” (I do remember those exact words quite clearly.) “When you’re paid to do a job, it’s not fun. And it shouldn’t be.” Ouch! He had made me feel like such a child.

I was stung by the criticism. Up until that point, life had been nothing but fun for me. I was having a blast flying helicopters, and I couldn’t imagine doing something for a living that wasn’t fun. What kind of life would that be? Drudgery, that’s what.

Over time I came to understand my mentor’s point. I don’t agree with it, but I understand it. For some people, work is serious business. It is not fun. Because fun is an immature concept. For some people.

I may die a poor man. I may never attain great wealth, or achieve "success," or own a business, or own beach houses here and abroad, and multiple hunting camps like my former boss in Alabama. I will probably never get married, and I sure don’t plan on having any kids to carry on a legacy of any kind. I may never cure cancer, or write the next Great American Novel, or become POTUS, or for that matter do anything truly “great” with my life. I admit that I’m a pretty irresponsible guy, one who puts more value on riding motorcycles like a madman and chasing strange helicopter jobs around the country (the next one will be even stranger still…if it actually materializes).

But when I get to the Pearly Gates, I’m gonna wipe the sweat off my brow and tell St. Peter, “Holy cow, that was fun!” And I think he’ll say, “You sir, have learned the true meaning of life. Come on in. Welcome home!”

But he might not.

This Crazy Business (Flying)

My friend Mikey and the two helicopters he flies.

It’s a nutty business, this aviation. I wonder if people in other occupations have as much fun as we.

On Wednesday there wasn’t a cloud in the sky (rats!), so I hopped in the car and went down to the airport. Dave Smith Sr., owner of Golden Wings Aviation provides lodging and two meals per day for his pilots. My intent was to get lunch but I knew I would probably have to cook it, which is fine by me. Sure enough, most of the guys were out doing stuff and none of the remaining ones were in a mood to do anything (people much prefer to eat than cook), so I fired up the charcoal grill just outside the hangar door. Funny, how everyone seemed to break loose of what they were doing to come eat. Soon we had burgers, chips, macaroni and potato salad. Basic, yes. Filling, very. Lunch is something we do very, very well around here.

Mikey called right at lunchtime as he sometimes (read: usually) does. He flies for a grower who owns his own ships. Mikey has flown up here for three seasons now, and all the Golden Wings guys treat him like he’s one of their own. It doesn’t hurt that a) he’s a great guy, and b) he and I are good friends. We are all like a big, happy family. I’ve had the terrific pleasure of working with some great groups of people in my life, and I’m thrilled to see this has not changed. We have a ton of fun at the Brewster Airport.

Because we are all technically on stand-by to dry cherries, Mikey normally spends his days at their very remote company hangar which is in a big grove up on the side of a hill about 8 miles south of town. After all, it can rain on any day and we have to be ready to pull the trigger and go dry. For him, it can be an isolated existence. Luckily his generous boss lets him take the ships out and “stretch their legs” whenever he wants. Sweet deal, if I do say so myself. So anyway, Mikey asked what we were doing for lunch? I told him I’d throw an extra burger on the ‘barbie if he wanted to come down.

“I’m firing up the Huey…be right there!” he said.

I laughed. I thought to myself, "Sure, just jump in your helicopter and come visit for lunch." How many people get to do that?

Soon, we all heard that iconic blade-slap sound that lets everyone know a Huey is approaching. (Actually, I can usually hear the equally-distinctive growl of the tail rotor first.) Under the scrutiny of eight other hyper-critical professional helicopter pilots (no pressure!), Mikey shot his approach cross-wise to the runway (as per the federal regs governing such things), then hovered into the ramp and set down, just as smooth as can be. (That boy can fly! a damn helicopter, and I love watching him do it.)

These S-55’s, with their big, Curtiss-Wright radial engines need to be run-up every three days if they don’t fly. See, over time all the oil drains out of the single, humongous main bearing in the engine. If you let it sit for a while and then go to start it up, that bearing can get damaged before the thick, 120-weight oil makes it up there from the oil pump. The “simple” solution in that case is to hook up a portable pressure-lubricator device to an oil line on the engine utilizing a quick-disconnect fitting, and then pre-oil the bearing. To prevent having to do that rigmarole, if we haven’t flown we merely start ‘em up every three days to circulate the oil. And “my” ship was due for a run-up…my ship which is located in a cherry grove about 8 miles north of town.

Pilots LOVE getting “stick time” in different aircraft. The plan was for Mikey to fly young Brandon up to our field in the Huey. Travis (who was already there) would then fire up our S-55 and take Mikey (who hasn’t flown an S-55 yet) for a ride “around the pattern,” which is pilot-talk for “going up and having a little fun for no good reason.” Then Mikey would take Travis up and let him fly the Huey back to his hangar. Three guys would get a little stick-time in two ships on an otherwise no-fly day. (And I wasn’t one of them, dammit!)

Brandon’s face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning when Mike offered to let him fly the Huey. He quickly grabbed his headset and bounded out to the ship with an enthusiasm that caused us old-timers to smile, remembering back to when we were at that stage. Mikey hovered it out to the runway, set it down, and then gave the controls to Brandon. Never having flown one before, Brandon did a nice job of lifting it off the ground into a stable hover. I could just imagine the grin on his face as he pulled up on that big collective lever by the side of the seat to increase power, nudged the cyclic forward and eased into forward flight.

Later, Travis had asked me to pick him up at Mikey’s hangar, so I drove up to be there before they landed. The wind was really ripping by the time I heard them coming, so Mikey did the actual landing in their tight LZ (landing zone). Nevertheless, Travis had gotten enough time in the ship, including a landing up on the beach at Soap Lake, to give him the perma-grin.

I love flying, I love aviation, and I love people who fly. We have this neat opportunity to see the world as few others do, to master these wacky machines, and to make a living at it. As I've said before, I'm one of the luckiest sons o' bitches on the planet. I didn’t fly at all on Wednesday, but it was one of my best days ever in this crazy business

Me and Mikey out messing around in "his" Bell 206B

Cherry Drying By Helicopter

Well the big cherry drying adventure isn’t going so well. I’ve been up here in Brewster, Washington for a month now and we haven’t dried a single cherry yet. Normally we’re drying by now. Blame it on the weather, which is gorgeous. The early spring was unusually cool...or wet...or hot...or dry...or something. I'm a city boy; I don't know anything about cherries. The end result is that the cherries are late. Problem is, July can be hot and dry. If there’s not much rain we won’t be flying much. Good for me, since I’ve done just about all the flying I ever want to do in my lifetime. But bad for the boss. Standby time is good, but he relies on the extra revenue that the flight time would generate.

The contract I’m on is for a grower just north of Brewster. I’ve got a motor home parked right next to the helicopter. Everything is in position and we’re sitting on “go.” A young pilot named Travis will be flying with me for the first week or so, when a second helicopter comes online for this customer. Then he’ll fly one and I’ll fly the other. Travis has done this before. With just 1,200 hours he’s relatively low-time compared to me, but he’s a very competent, professional pilot who knows the ropes and can show this old timer how to do the job.

It’s a little odd being the new guy. I may have a lot of total flight time, but very little time in the S-55, which to my surprise and dismay turns out to be a fairly unpleasant helicopter to fly. (Let’s just say helicopter design has come a loooooong way in 50 years.) Every new task brings with it a learning curve. I don’t like being on the upside of it before it levels out. Don’t get me wrong - cherry drying is not difficult. I mean, all we do is hover over the trees and blow the water off. But you can’t hover too high or move forward too fast. You have to find a “sweet spot” where you’re shaking the water off the cherries without damaging the branches. The farmers usually watch and bark higher!/lower!/too fast!/too slow! orders at us over a portable two-way radio.

In this regard, the Sikorsky S-55 helicopter is perfect for this job: It’s got tons of spare power, and the big, slow-turning three-blade rotor produces a gentle downwash. We can dry up to four rows of trees at a time. There are bigger and smaller helicopters employed by the growers. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. Although one wonders just how effective the miniscule Robinson R-22s and R-44s (trainer helicopters) can be, drying one row at a time, if that. I guess they’re good for small groves, or perhaps for farmers who like to waste money. The roaring S-55 puts them all on the trailer.

So that’s where we stand. I’ve had a great month of goofing off and getting paid for it (which is my specialty, of course), hanging out with my friend Mikey and the great people I work with, and riding my motorcycle on some wonderful roads through some of the most gorgeous scenery ever invented. Now it’s time to get to work, I guess.

Travis flying the S-55 back to Brewster from the radio shop in Wenatchee, Washington.

The S-55 in a field by a road where it'll spend the next 45 days.

Florida To Washington By Motorcycle: The Home Stretch

The third and fourth days of my trip from Pensacola to Brewster were, shall we say, challenging. But that’s part of being a motorcyclist. If you’re going to call yourself one, then you cannot restrict your riding to nice, sunny days. Sometimes you’re gonna get wet. And cold. Goes with the territory. I was actually prepared for such conditions. But the best rainsuit and the warmest clothes are of no use if they’re packed away in your luggage when the weather changes. I had kept my rainsuit handy, and in fact did need it often, but I hadn’t dressed nearly warmly enough when I got to the Rocky Mountains.

After freezing my ass off most of the way through Montana, Wyoming and Idaho on Tuesday, I corrected that for the final stretch. I knew it wasn’t going to get any warmer until I got west of Spokane. And it didn’t.

Butte, Montana to Brewster, Washington is only 450 miles. Wednesday morning dawned cloudy but reasonably rain free. The weather forecast was good. Despite the trials and tribulations of the previous day, I was actually in a pretty good mood. Leaving the rainsuit off, I put on my appropriate cold weather gear and headed out fairly early. Such a difference from the day before! Even though we were still 5,000 feet or so above sea level and the temps were down in the 30’s, I was toasty and comfortable, making good time and having a great time. I was able to remember why it was I took the bike on this trip and not the car. I called Mikey from Missoula and told him I’d be at his place around 4:30. This was one estimate I was confident I could make.

The route to Brewster passes the Grand Coulee Dam and, further downstream, the Chief Joseph Dam. Because dams fascinate me for some reason, I had to stop at both. Luckily there were some showers in my way that needed some waiting-out anyway. Not big enough to have to put the rainsuit on, but big enough to hang out and let them move on.

As it turned out, even with my lingering at the two dams, I pulled into the Brewster Airport right around 4:15. I was tired and glad to be at the destination. It had been a hell of a trip. Mikey met me at the airport and we went out to the Sweet River Bakery in Pateros, the next town over for a celebratory meal (with maybe a little too much wine). As you can imagine, I slept like a log that night.

And so the Summer of Bob begins!

This is me, standing in front of one of a Sikorsky S-55 owned by Golden Wings Aviation, my employer for the summer. It is one year older than I am. It is the same type of helicopter my father flew in the 1950's when he was in the U.S.M.C.

Florida to Washington By Motorcycle: Over The Peaks And Into The Depths (Part 4)

So the tale of this trip is taking longer to tell than it was to actually do. If you’ve read the first three installments, you’ll know that I had pretty good weather for the first half of my trip from Pensacola, Florida to Brewster, Washington. Then things kind of went sour. The bike, which I had been worried about, performed flawlessly. The weather and the roads, which I had not been worried about, turned nasty. How could it get worse, you ask? Ah, I’d forgotten about those dang ol’ Rocky Mountains…

I knew Tuesday (my third day on the road) would be rainy, but I naively did not expect it to be very cold. So when starting out from Gillette, Wyoming I didn’t dress as warmly as I should have. Turned out to be a near-fatal mistake. We got diverted off the Interstate and through the Bighorn National Forest and I found myself riding across snow-covered passes. Damn, it was cold. Finally back up and westbound on I-90, it poured rain but the temperatures didn’t seem so bad. It was 3 p.m. or so when I stopped for gas in Big Timber, Montana ("A" on the map below) and I had 260-something miles to go to Missoula ("B" on map below). Four hours, maybe five. I could make Missoula by sunset, and then it’s an easy hop from Missoula to Brewster.


Now, in this area of Montana I-90 generally rides along a plain that is about 3,500 to 4,500 feet above sea level. We all know that temperature drops the higher you go, and it was getting noticeably “chilly.” I probably should have been paying more attention to the topography. My bad, as the kids say.

Once you get past Livingston, Montana you have to cross over a little mountain range where the peaks are up around 10,000 feet. I went through Bozeman Pass, which the FAA chart says is at 5,718 feet, and it was cold. Really cold. You only drop down a little into the city of Bozeman, which sits at 4,820 feet. Not quite as high as Denver (5,130 feet), but almost. I should have stopped there for the night, but stupidly I pressed on.

West of Bozeman, the terrain gets higher. The cold was starting to get to me. The face shield on my helmet began fogging up badly on the inside. Opening it even a crack was extremely uncomfortable due to the cold. The steady rain was putting water on the outside of the shield as usual. The combination of water on the outside and fog on the inside was making it really hard to see. My “waterproof” gloves turned out to be not-so and my hands were freezing. The road through the mountains was challenging, and I was concentrating hard on not crashing. The best speed I could maintain was around 60. Faster than that was just too damn cold. I knew I had screwed up.

After crossing the Continental Divide I was going down this one hill/curve – a long, sweeping right-hander just east of Butte – when I inadvertently allowed the bike to drift wide into the left lane (no turn signal, of course). I was not riding well. Correcting as best I could, I eased back toward the right lane – again, no turn signal – just as a pickup truck came roaring down the hill to pass me on the right. I looked in my left mirror, which I could barely see anyway, thinking I would get back in the left lane, but there was a car right there that was about to pass me on the left. These guys were hauling ass too. The guy behind me jammed on his brakes, but I wasn’t at all sure he was going to be able to slow down in time. I thought it was all over. At the last second, the car on my left eased by and the pickup truck swerved over into that lane, missing me by inches. I’m telling you, it was close. My heart was in my throat.

At the bottom of the hill I took the first exit. I had to get gas anyway. At the pump, I could barely get my Visa into the card reader, my hand was shaking badly. I thought at first it was because I’d just scared myself, but I soon realized that my whole body was convulsing uncontrollably from the cold. I went inside to warm up, but the shaking would not stop. I was having trouble moving, and my brain didn't seem to be working right (yes, yes, you're asking "How could you tell?"). I don’t think I’ve ever been colder in my entire life – and I grew up in New York City so I know a thing or two about cold weather. In Butte, I was experiencing mild to moderate hypothermia. The clerk said, “Dude, you look terrible. Get a cup of coffee or something and warm up.” I abandoned any thought of going further, the one good idea I'd had all day.

It took about thirty minutes or so before I warmed up to even be functional enough to get back on the bike. The gas station clerk let me drink as much of his coffee as I wanted and - again - wouldn't take any money. It turned out there was a Days Inn right next to the gas station. I stumbled in and luckily, they had an indoor hot tub and a guest laundry, and I took full advantage of both. Then I crashed for the night - in a bed and not on the highway. It had been one friggin' rough day.

And there was still one more to go.