Stirring Up Trouble On The Internet

I post on a couple of helicopter websites that have discussion forums. I generally post under my own name, or I make it clear in my profile who I am. Either way, I do not hide my identity. …Sometimes I probably should.

A month or so ago I made a post in one forum in which I’ve been known to expound on the always-controversial topic of helicopter pilots and faith. In the most recent post, I opined that the FAA should deny pilot medical certificates to those applicants who claim to be staunch atheists and who do not even allow for the possibility that a Creator exists. I said it demonstrated a defect in that person’s thinking. I left the post alone and did not check in on that board for a couple of days.

You can imagine the, um, storm that generated. When I did look back at it I saw that the thread had grown to nine pages! Most of it was the usual atheist rant against Christianity. It seems that many atheists are in a blind rage over Christianity. They reject all religion and with it the possibility that a Creator/God exists, which seems very illogical and narrow-minded to me. After all, Christianity is not the only alternative to atheism; there’s something like 11,000 religions in the world.

The atheist will tell you that only he uses his brain. He will tell you that he only believes in what Science! has proven…things that he can touch, feel, measure and quantify. On the other hand, the atheist will claim that the person of faith believes in “flying spaghetti monsters” or in some “invisible giant friend.” Both of these things misrepresent faith to a degree that is very disappointing to me. It’s as if atheists don’t understand faith at all.

As pilots, we go by certain books, and the rules published in them. First and foremost is the aircraft flight manual, given to us by the manufacturer and which tells us how to operate the helicopter in a safe manner. Second are the Federal Aviation Regulations, which come from the FAA and tell how we must operate the aircraft with respect to other aircraft and people. Third, we often are bound by a General Operations Manual, which is given to us by our employer and defines the way in which we will use the aircraft to conduct the business of the employer.

The trouble is, no book can encompass every single situation in which we pilots sometimes find ourselves. Sometimes we have to “make it up as we go along,” to get creative and come up with something that hasn’t been written in any book. Sometimes we have to rely on experience, intuition, or merely a gut feeling. In other words, we have to think “outside the box.”

Ironically the atheist, by claiming that he does not believe anything that cannot be scientifically proven, is telling the world that he cannot think outside the box…that his thinking is limited. Not the kind of pilot I want working for me!

I always challenge atheist to prove to me that love exists. Love is something we take on faith; we have no other choice. If we can have faith in love, then why not other thins? Well of course we do have faith in many things; for instance I have faith that my mechanic will do his job diligently to keep me safe.

I also ask the atheist where he/she gets hope from? My faith tells me that things can get better tomorrow, and so I can hope that they will be. But as I’ve said many times, hope without faith is merely wishful thinking. And I prefer to base my life on more than just wishful thinking.

The atheists choose to not address these topics.

My controversial posts in helicopter forums usually generate an amount of private conversation. Sometimes it’s verbal, with people I work with, but most often is in the form of emails and “instant messages.” This time, the back-and-forth I had with atheists was typically interesting. People do not like to be challenged on their beliefs!

But what I’ve found is that – if you press them - even those who claim to be the most-staunch Gnostic-atheists will allow that they might be wrong…that a Creator might exist. My follow-up question is always, “So why not describe yourself as agnostic then?” An agnostic disbelieves in God but does not deny His existence.

Calling yourself an atheist sends a very clear and definite message to the world. You’re raising one hand in the air, extending your index finger and saying, “I know best! I know that there is no possibility that God exists!” Which is just silly. Nobody knows for certain.

Atheists ask me if I know for certain that a Creator/God does exist? I say that nobody knows for certain, but that my observations and my brain and my faith tell me that universe was deliberately created…and for that to happen there had to be a Creator. I see nothing wrong with that logic, and I stop right there. I do not let myself get drawn into ridiculous and pointless arguments about religion, especially Christianity.

Look, I really don’t care what you believe. If you don’t believe in God, that’s fine. But please don’t try to tell me that God definitely does not exist. Because I think you’re wrong to assume so. (Remember, science once thought the world was flat.) I think that ruling out even the possibility of a Creator is horribly narrow-minded. And although my assertion that the FAA should deny pilot medical certificates to atheist pilots was only made half-jokingly, it’s not far from what I really think.

The thread in my most recent post on that helicopter forum got up to fifteen pages, with 284 replies and 5,500 views. Not bad, and way above what the average post on that forum generates. I have to admit that it’s fun to stir up a little controversy now and then.

You Want Flies With That?

The city of Brewster, Washington is in the middle of cherry and apple orchards. During picking season, when the fruit is ripe and the pickers are up on their ladders doing their thing, a lot of fruit (e.g. rejects, ones that get dropped) ends up on the ground. Where it rots. Rotting fruit attracts flies. And so, at certain times of the year, the city of Brewster, Washington is overrun by all types of flying pests. Fruit flies, “regular” flies…you name it - although this year the mosquitoes didn't seem so bad. It’s not like some of the third-world countries you see on TV commercials, but they do get pesky. The guy with the fly-swatter concession stand does a booming business.

For those of us who’ve grown up in cities, flies are a nasty nuisance. We most frequently associate them with steaming piles of dogpoop or dead stuff – not a pleasant visual, to be sure. But out here in farm country, there aren’t a whole lot of dogs per acre. Or cows or other livestock for that matter. So the flies are just…there…there for the fruit. You cannot avoid them. You get used to them.

The first year that I was here, I went into the local supermarket, in which resides a Subway sandwich shop. With two big sliding doors in the building, there was no way to keep the flies out. As I was standing there waiting to give them my order, flies were buzzing around the back of the counter where other customers’ subs were waiting to be dressed. There was a family ahead of me in line…tourists probably but in any case out-of-towners. The father was aghast that flies were landing and crawling around on the food his family would soon be eating. He didn’t say anything to the clerks, but I could tell he was disgusted and not pleased.

It sounds gross, I know: Flies crawling over your food? Yuck! And sure enough, it is disgusting at first. But like I say, for better or for worse, you get used to it. I look at it this way – whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. And I should be pretty damn strong by now.

Home For The Holidays?

The Columbia River between Pateros and Chelan, Washington. The dark part is a little canal that runs between a railroad track and the road.

As long-time, long-suffering readers of this blog know, in the summertime I travel up from Florida to Washington State to fly a helicopter that hovers over cherry trees after it rains. I usually come up prior to June 1st to help get things ready. By the end of July or slightly into August the cherries are all picked and there’s no need for us, so we pilots beat feet back to our regular lives, families, and jobs.

The company I fly for provides a decent salary, plus food and lodging. It’s not a bad deal, but then again once the farmers put us “on contract” we’re basically on continuous duty for the next forty-five days: We have to be ready to fly any time it rains. We can’t be goofing off over in Seattle. There are no spare pilots, so there are no days off. Hey, that’s the deal.

The good news is that it doesn’t rain much up here. The interior of Washington State is fairly dry and there are some pretty good rivers for irrigation, making it a great place to grow things like apples and cherries. So even though we’re kind of captive and on constant standby, we can have all kinds of fun – as long as we keep a close eye on the weather and don’t stray too far. Since we all have smartphones with apps that show weather radar, this is not hard to do.

This was an average year, as cherry-drying goes. I flew about thirty hours for the grower to which I was assigned, the same one I’ve been on since I got here three years ago. I like them; they like me. It’s a two-ship contract at a remote location north of town. The other pilot and I live in separate RV’s. We are handled on a daily basis by the farm manager, Joel. When he needs us to fly, we fly – simple as that. Otherwise, we run pretty autonomously which is how I like it.

When the cherries were all picked and our contracts were over, some of the pilots did leave. But Brandon, Chris and I hung around because…well, Chris lives pretty close, and Brandon and I just had nothing else to do. And it’s beautiful up here! Brandon set about to have the most fun possible (which is what he does). I just kept going to the airport every day to help out. Eventually the boss said he’d just put me back on the payroll.

There’s so much to do! The outfit I fly for operates eight helicopters and two airplanes, and they don’t just stick the things back in the hangar at the end of the season. There are always maintenance tasks that have to be performed. In addition there were two engine-changes to do on two separate helicopters (not exactly a simple procedure). We’ve also bought some other helicopters that have to be retrieved. Two are in Montana, there’s one each in New Jersey and New York City, and there’s one in Idaho. I’ve already been to Idaho once to get the parts associated with that aircraft; this coming week we go back to get the rest.

The boss and I get to the airport around 0730 to plan our day. Most of the time there’s plenty to keep us busy. But sometimes our biggest task is figuring out where we’re going for lunch. I feel a little guilty when I’m getting paid and not doing anything, so I try to at least look busy. I sweep, I clean up the place, I mow the lawn…stuff that nobody else wants to do and won’t get done by itself.

Me, washing N955TC before she goes into the hangar for maintenance/inspection

As I mention again and again, this part of Washington State is unbelievably gorgeous. There is a strong urge to move up here full-time. The deal-breaker of course is the snow. I can take the cold, just not the snow. My parents moved from California back to New York City when I was four years old, so I had to deal with winter snow just about all my life until I was 32 and finally moved south. Enough was enough.

I was hoping to get out of Washington and head back to Florida before the first snowfall, but now it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. But Thanksgiving! I’m definitely going to be home by Thanksgiving.

I hope.

My Very Last Blogpost....on the Trayvon Martin shooting

Astonishingly, Neighborhood Watch guy George Zimmerman was found not guilty of the murder of Trayvon Martin. Well knock me over with a feather! I’m just gobsmacked.

Look, here’s the thing about George Zimmerman: He was innocent…of murder. Lots of people wanted…dearly, dearly wanted him to be guilty of…”something.” ...Like that screeching British idiot who’s filling in for John Stewart on Comedy Central. What a friggin’ moron. Stephen Colbert too. Bleeding-heart liberals who’d already made up their minds on the case, and by God no jury was going to convince them otherwise!

What Colbert, the guy who’s filling in for Stewart, and many like them do not understand is that the State of Florida charged Zimmerman with murder for a reason…that reason being that they knew they could not win. Remember, the cops didn’t want to charge Zimmerman at all in the first place! They could see it was simple self-defense…no “stand your ground” needed. Neighborhood Watch guy, doing what Neighborhood Watch guys do, gets into an altercation with another man. This other man ends up knocking Neighborhood Watch guy to the ground and starts bashing his head against the pavement. Neighborhood Watch guy pulls his LEGAL pistol and shoots. Self-defense. End of story.

But no, Florida’s governor told the State Attorney Angela Martin to charge Zimmerman. And charge she did! With murder. If the state had gone after Zimmerman for a lesser charge, they would have looked weak and soft in the eyes of the black community, which we all know is vehemently anti-racist. And what if the state couldn’t even prove manslaughter? What then? Come on, they knew they did not have a strong case. Better to go for the gold, and charge Zimmerman with a crime they knew they couldn’t prove. Either way, they still looked good. “Hey black people, we tried!”

Also, people still believe that Zimmerman hunted down…chased down Trayvon Martin and shot him in cold blood. Nothing could be FURTHER from the truth. As soon as Zimmerman got out of his vehicle, Martin took off at a high rate of speed. “He’s running,” Zimmerman says on the tape. “He’s gone.” But Martin doubled back. And that’s when the fatal confrontation happened – NOT when Zimmerman got out of his truck.

And another thing: It's not against the law to be a racist or for a citizen to do racial profiling. It's not nice, and we might not like it, but it doesn't automatically make you guilty of murder if you kill someone.

Here’s yet another thing…and possibly the most bizarre thing about this whole case. Many people want Zimmerman to be guilty because if he’d been black instead of Hispanic he would have been found guilty. In other words, if the shoe was on the other foot (or the gun was in the other hand), the black guy would’ve been convicted and not set free, and on the basis of that, Zimmerman should have been found guilty. THIS MAKES NO SENSE. In this case the justice system worked correctly. Why hold it against the guy who was found innocent? Ohhhhhh, that’s right! Because a lot of people already had their minds made up that Zimmerman was guilty!

Only George Zimmerman knows what really went down that night (other than Trayvon Martin). Nobody denies that Zimmerman shot and killed Martin. He’ll have to live with that for the rest of his life.

My takeaway from all of this is simple: In Florida, be careful about with whom you pick a fight. They might very well have a gun. Normal citizens are allowed to own guns in Florida. If you have a big, big problem with this, then do not live in Florida. There are plenty of other states in which only the criminals have guns. Feel free to pick one and move there!

Technology Troubles: The Cell Phone

One thing about being up here in central Washington State is that I’m rather isolated from civilization. The other pilot (my friend Brandon) and I spend our days at our landing zone (“LZ”) where we babysit our helicopters and wait for rain. This LZ is…well, if you can imagine the middle of nowhere, this is close.

Washington is an incredible state – strikingly, surprisingly beautiful. The trouble is, nobody lives in the middle. Either they live on the coast, like over in Seattle…or they live on the east side in Spokane. I’m “near” the town of Okanogan, which is kind of in the middle. Actually I'm up the hill between Okanogan and Twisp.

Brandon and I are living in RV’s provided by our employer and hooked up to connections provided by the farmer to whom we’re contracted. Internet service is not provided with these hookups. We rely on our phones for contact with the outside world…like watching the weather radar.

In choosing a cell phone carrier a year and a half ago I looked at both AT&T and Verizon’s coverage maps. Both are a little vague in this area, but both depicted 4G service. I went with Verizon and an Android phone because I’m not one of those annoying Apple converts. It was a Big Mistake, as my annoying iPhone-owning friends are quick to point out. Where I’m at here, Verizon actually has only 3G service no matter what it says on their coverage map. Sometimes it shows 3G with two little gray “up and down” arrows underneath that should be red and green but aren’t. Sometimes it’ll show 3G with a little capital “D” underneath, whatever that means. Often it just shows Zero-G.

Note to Verizon: Your service sucks. Your company sucks too, as do all of your employees, and their ancestors back to time immemorial, and all their future children. Everyone associated with your crappy company sucks.

Note to self: Switch to some other carrier…ANY other carrier when this contract is up in six months. I’ll go with one of those pay-as-you-go phones, I don’t care.

But even when we do have 3G service, using a phone for internet is not all that great. Some websites either do not have a mobile app, or just don’t run well on that tiny screen (compared to my laptop). In the beginning I was able to “tether” my computer to my phone and get online properly. But boy did that cause problems!

My phone had been acting up anyway. (Which friggin’ phone on this planet lasts as long as the two-year contract they make you sign?) In addition to that, right after I got up here, tethering my computer to the phone caused the battery to overhead and quickly die and not accept a charge. It would hover around 9% capacity, allowing me one short phone call or a very brief text message exchange before dying again. Disconnected from the charger, it would die immediately.

I'm ashamed to admit how dependant some of us (e.g. me) have become on our phones. We really feel crippled and isolated when the phone is dead. A simple 20-minute drive to the Walmart in Omak becomes a panic-inducing stress test: "What if the car breaks down along the way? What WILL I do?? I don't even know anyone's phone numbers anymore - they're stored in my broken damn phone!" Which is both true and sad.

Using Brandon’s iPhone (which doesn’t have this battery overheating problem) I went online to a discussion forum and found out that, yep, my Samsung “Piece of Shit” model is prone to this very type of thing. (And other maladies as well – can you say “Rush a product to market?” I knew you could.). Have you tried to buy a cellphone battery locally? You cannot. You have to buy them online. It’s quite a racket.

I found my battery on eBay and ordered it. In the process I had to change my shipping address from Florida to Washington. Okay, no big deal there, I expected that. With that change made I hit “pay” and sure enough my PayPal account popped up. I hit “pay” again and got a nice message that said, “Congratulations! Your purchase will be shipped to…” my address in Florida. D’OH! It seems that when making a purchase on eBay, you have to change your shipping address on BOTH eBay and PayPal. Which is quite a lot of bullshit to go through just to buy a damn phone battery.

Anyway, right away I emailed the seller, asking him to PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE ship the battery to my Washington address. No response. Couple of days later my friend, Gene who’s staying in my house while I’m gone messaged me on Facebook: “Hey, a package came for you.” So I said, “Screw it” and just ordered a whole ‘nother phone from eBay (yes, the same crappy Android – at least it was cheaper than buying Verizon’s expensive insurance). This time I made sure that all the shipping address fields were correct.

So now I’ve got my “new” phone, and a “new” battery, but I’m still saddled with Verizon’s crappy service. Sometimes you can’t win. At least I'm reconnected with the outside world.

2013: The Summer Of Bob

Boy-oh-boy, does time fly! I apologize for not keeping this thing more up-to-date.

I left Pensacola during the first week of June, headed for my usual summer gig flying helicopters up here in Washington State. I came solo this time, in my own car. Stopped in to see my friend Taylor Rohde who's flying tours around Mt. Rushmore for a company called Black Hills Aerial Adventures.

I like doing sightseeing rides like those. For most passengers it is their first time in a helicopter - which let's be honest is pretty awesome! And most tour operations are at places that are pretty visually dramatic. So as the pilot you have this incredible opportunity to give the passenger(s) a literally magical experience they'll never forget.

One of my first jobs as a commercial pilot was flying tourists around New York City back in 1984. I'll tell you, that job never got old; I loved it. In fact, it is the one job I would go back and do in a heartbeep. The look on the faces of the passengers as they got out of the machine at the end of the ride was priceless.

Nowadays, I hover over wet cherry trees, and the cherries don't seem to appreciate my efforts very much.

I'm back up at my same spot, living in the same RV, flying my same ship, working for the same grower as the past two seasons. This year however, I'm paired with my good friend Brandon Arago, who is one of the most incredible pilots (and people) I've ever had the pleasure to work with. This kid has more talent in the fingernail of one pinky than I've got in my whole body. At the controls, he makes me look sloppy and rough and careless...and that's when I'm trying to be good!

We had some really rainy days right in the middle of the June. The orchard owners thought there'd be a late start due to the chilly, elongated Spring and so had held off on starting our "stand-by" contracts. But the rains came and panic ensued: We were all put on contract at about the same time as last year. There was a mad scramble to get ships and equipment into place all at once.

I walked through one of "our" orchards this morning. The cherries are not quite ready to be picked yet. Soon, though. We'll probably work through the end of July and I'll go back to Pensacola sometime in August...maybe...I've got plans of stopping in and seeing friends on the way home, one of which is west of here over on the coast.

2013 Cherry Drying Season Start

Everyone has been complaining about the late start to the 2013 cherry season here in the Brewster, Washington area. The weather has been very moderate (and beautiful!): absolutely clear and comfortable (70’s) during the day and downright chilly at night – a far cry from the heat we’d usually expect up here by now. Some farmers are hedging their bets, gambling that they might not need to be dried at all. Heh. If they wait too long to put us on contract they may find that our ships are committed to others who know better.

The contract I’m assigned to normally begins in the middle of June. We supply one helicopter for the first two weeks, then a second ship joins the fun and we both dry until all the cherries are picked.

This year, the orchard owner said that the contract for the first ship would begin around June 20th. Other growers were saying the same thing. So there was not the usual pressure to get things ready – and you wouldn’t believe the amount of logistics that goes into fielding seven helicopters working out of four locations. There are fuel trucks and service trailers (for oil, grease, tools, etc.) and RV’s that have to be positioned. The landing zones (LZ’s) have to be prepped (mowed) and tie downs for the aircraft hammered into the ground.

Suddenly it rained the other day – big storm came blowing through! And just as suddenly, all the farmers who’d been putting us off went into Panic Mode, ringing our phone off the hook. The orchard owner I’m assigned to called up after lunch and said, “How soon can you be here?” This did not take us by surprise. We had already positioned “my” motorhome and a fuel truck at the orchard (where the owner has graciously installed hookups for power, water and sewer).

When the rain stopped and the wind finally died down I climbed into the same ship I’ve been flying for the previous two seasons, N955TC and headed out. With me was my friend Brandon, who spent the past two seasons with us as a trainee and who will be a Command Pilot this year on the second ship with me. Brandon was taking the opportunity to get familiar with "my" fields, which will soon be "his" fields too, which he'd not previously worked. We ended up drying until it was so dark we could barely see to land back in our LZ. Hey, it gets dark in these orchards!

So I’m ensconced in my RV at the LZ, looking at nothing but clear skies for the next several days. Orchard owner: happy; his cherries are looking good. My boss: not so happy if we don’t fly; we obviously make more money when we do. Brandon: not so happy as well; he’d appreciate some more flight time. But me? I'm happy! ...Happy to sit here with nothing to do and get paid for it. In fact, that is one thing that I do really, really well. Brandon and I both brought our guitars up, and so this year the hope is that I arrive as a helicopter pilot and depart as Eric Clapton. Hey, a guy can dream, can't he?