Ehud

The other day I awoke to the sound of jackhammers pounding away at something.  It turns out the neighbors were having some work done around the house, and after asking them about it they said they're redoing their pool.

I volunteered to take a picture of the new pool from the air, but my first time out I was flying and didn't describe the property well enough to Carl, my CFI/Co-pilot.  We ended up with pictures of the wrong pool at the wrong house.

Today we went to clear that up.  This time I brought my OnePlus 7Pro phone with the "good camera" and Carl took the controls to orbit around the property while I took the pics.  They came out great!

We then headed south to see the Aircraft Boneyard — never a bad sight — and then back to KRYN.  It was a very relaxing flight with the temperature hovering around 18°C (64°F) and nongusty easterly winds at 8kts (10MPH).  The aircraft was raring to go and it was a fun ride.

Startup on a hot engine was 1 second of priming, then mixture full lean and start it.  That's different than cold start which is 4 seconds of priming, then leave mixture full rich to start.  Every one of these Lycoming piston engines (IO-540 in this case) is temperamental in its own way... and the worst thing you can do is overcrank the starter (did that in Wickenburg coming back from Vegas) or flood the carburator (did that in Las Cruces ferrying N4204X from Orlando).  So, better to err on the side of lean and mean.

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Having gotten a decent amount of sleep, I went in to work with certificated flight instructor (CFI) Tyler from Volare Helicopters https://www.volarehelicopters.com/.  They used to be based out of Marana Regional Airport https://www.maranaaz.gov/airport which was a pretty decent trek — 20 minutes from home to freeway, and another 15 minutes to the airport.  Now they're based out at Ryan Field https://www.flytucson.com/ryan/ and that trek runs 40-45 minutes each way.  I'd say you have to be pretty dedicated to drive an hour and a half back and forth, but hey, nobody said helicopter pilots were lazy sloths!

I learned a lot of things from Tyler as we started with 1+ hours of ground review.  First, the review is now called a "Flight Review" and the "Biennial" part has been deprecated.   The idea is to encourage pilots to maintain currencies by having reviews as needed and not necessarily waiting two years in between review.  I'm a big fan of this, and in fact my previous BFR was done many months early just because I needed a refresher after not flying for a while.  I'd sold N4204X and Cactus Helicopters had closed so there were no rentals available in the Tucson market for three years.

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Another hiatus gone by the wayside...

On February 29th of 2020 I did my last flight before my Biennial Flight Review (BFR) expired.  While I was planning to have a new BFR in March of 2020, COVID-19 exploded and no vaccinations were available.  So I delayed.  In mid-March 2021 I got my first of two shots but before I could schedule that flight review, I was in an accident and ended up out of commission for two months... then PT and weaning off meds for another 6 months.

So today I went down to Ryan Airfield, and met up with Volare Helicopters, who are now sporting a newish R44II that has a lot of cool toys like an Aspen primary flight display (PFD which is also called part of a "glass cockpit" because it's an electronic display with lots of useful information than the old analog ("steam") gages.  It also has a working radar altimer, which I've missed since I sold N4204X.  There are some other neat things like a pilot's console with a Garmin GTN650, a touch-screen modern navigation GPS, traffic information system ("TIS") data, and lots more.

We did a bit of catching up in the office, and headed out to the aircraft to perform the preflight check.  As I'm not yet fully walking right, Tyler climbed up to check the main rotor hub, and we went through the rest of the checklist together.  Most I remembered, the rest came back to me.

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So I was going to type in a post here, and my ad-blockers and tracker-blockers showed me a blank page.  I had to disable them (Ghostery and uBlock Origin) to post here.  The good news: disabling them allowed me to post.  The bad news: LiveJournal is using trackers and I'll have to avoid using LiveJournal going forward

Next step: figure out how to export my entire LJ to a forum where I don't get tracked.  TU, LJ.

I'm not even going to discuss why the date above is in cyrillic font: Draft saved 25 июля 2018 at 19:51:26  .

Anyhow, this was going to be about helicopters (of course) so let's get right on that.

Thursday the 19th Tyler from Volare Helicopters and I were scheduled to meet at 0800.  We did exactly that, and in the 90°F+ heat I did the preflight inspection in the hangar.  Tyler had already checked out the main rotor hub which is good because we can't rotate the main rotor inside the hangar to check it, and I hate climbing a perfectly good aircraft.  ABF (All But Fuel) having been checked, we rolled it outside, aimed it away from the sun, and called for fuel.  The fuel truck came, fueled us, I checked the two tanks and the gascolator to find them free of particulates, water, rust, or magic, and we were ready to go.

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December 2016 was a dreary month.  During one such gray cloud-covered sky hinting at rain and often delivering, my job was to drive to the hangar to hand over the keys to Tango Three's last remaining aircraft asset, N4204X.  The buyer had come over from Louisiana earlier, test flew the aircraft, and was willing to meet the requested price.

People have asked why we sold the aircraft.  Our promotional efforts on social media and Groupon were not generating any instructional activity, the backbone of break-evenness for these kind of operations.  Our occasional semi-monthly photography flights and tours were simply not covering the monthly payments on our mortgage of this quarter million dollar asset.   So we sold it.

When I first started flying in Tucson there were several options for instruction in helicopters.  The first choice was Voyager which had two R-22  B2s and one R-44 II.  (N991KE, N164LE, and N881KE respectively).  If you'll note that the tail numbers end with "1KE" that's homage by Voyager's original owner, the owner of the Voyager RV center, to his grandsone Ike Isaacson, who also has a helicopter private pilot's license.  At this point in his life Ike is working with his dad, Isaac "Buzz" on real-estate deals, and also has a very successful retail coffeehouse network called... "Ike's."

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The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is charged with a variety of duties, which if you've watched police shows on television usually means investigating crime. Lately the FBI has changed its focus from law enforcement to national security. That means they too are locating the elusive terrorists. So far, the only terrorists the FBI has caught are the ones they created.

As someone who is responsible for a great number of public Internet¹ network assets including IPv4 addresses, IPv6 addresses, ASNs, and network elements I often get queries from law enforcement personnel (LEP) to help them track down a particular offender. Usually it is someone on an IPv4 address consuming or producing child pornography. As always both I and my various employers are happy to assist, cooperate, and with proper legal documentation (subpoena, warrant, or other court order) respond with full detail.

That is why I was not surprised to get a call last Tuesday afternoon from an agent who identified himself as FBI Special Agent Edwards². Edwards let me know he wanted to speak to me and he and a fellow agent I already knew wanted to show me some things. I was happy to agree to help and he said I could meet at their office, my office, or "a neutral location". Seeing as I don't like going downtown I suggested a nearby coffee shop. We were supposed to meet up at 1000 but for some reason the agents were delayed and showed up at 1016.

I met SA Edwards and an unnamed badass agent with a sharp hawklike appearance. After some back and forth chitchat about various things, Edwards told me that he was part of the FBI's terrorism investigation unit. I retorted jokingly that "I really would love to see the President removed" with my usual "Who voted for this clown?" smile. Edwards' face tightened up and his eyes got big and he asked what I meant by that. Seeing as his sense of humor and mine were not aligned I got serious and quickly replied that I'd be happy if he was impeached or resign or whatever... I don't care how he's removed from office :)

He then let me know that he was there to interview me. That was rather surprising. As in shocking. While I have nothing to hide, and we all know not to talk to the police this was more of a dog's-ears to the side Rrrr? moment.

Edwards explained that their analysts worked from two datasets and the nexus was me and he'd like to ask me some questions. Hawk-faced Special Agent #2 was observing me as well this whole time. The first four questions were factoid: My name, address, birthdate (he had it wrong³), and SSN. When you work with larger datasets that either means you can drill down to absolute facts, or explode outward in many fantastic directions. I remarked that if they started out getting simple verifiable facts wrong it was only going to get worse. He said 75% wasn't bad. We discussed upping that score because elements of the birthdate were 66% correct but I'm a binary kind of guy when it comes to factual numeric data and "birthdate" has three elements all of which must be correct.

He indicated that the original dataset included web searches from various IPv4⁴ addresses as to things that the FBI was interested in. Specifically these addresses searched for information on hurting law enforcement, hurting the President, and later I also learned they included search on IEDs, shrapnel, drugs that allow a sniper to focus, etc. All these IPv4 addresses were part of an assignment ("block") of 8,192 addresses for which I'm responsible. That block is just one of several blocks for which I'm responsible for nearly 33,000 addresses, which are assigned to hundreds of organizations, companies, and individuals, all of which are located in many US States from California to Alabama. My knowledge of content these addresses connect to or my control of this is exactly near zero. (I say "near" because my own house from which I use the Internet uses one of these near 33,000 addresses.)

So apparently the analysts saw these searches of material of interest to the FBI, then noticed my email address from which I was the point of contact ("POC") for these networks was at Wetwork.Net. Recognizing that Wetwork implies murder that raised red flags for the FBI and the investigation went further.

The analyst(s) searched for any contributions I have made on the Internet. Sadly they did not find my contributions to Internet stability or my contributions to making the perfect French-dip sandwich. Instead they found various posts like here and various others. This convinced them that I am anti law-enforcement.

I explained to them that I always sign everything I write, that if it's not signed by me I didn't write it. They asked me if I ever used the alias "Email". I laughed incredulously and asked "E-male"? The agent affirmed it. I explained that it was my response on a thread about fraudulent-inventor Shiva Ayyadurai claiming to invent email... and we forum readers were all joking about that. The context was fairly easy to read but apparently FBI analysts trying to tie a Wetwork guy to national security harms can't be bothered to read the whole article.

Now at this point they began to see that maybe the two datasets (1: IPv4 addresses search for bad stuff, and 2:What this Wetwork guy posts on the net) may only have one nexus - me. There was really nothing tying me to anything nefarious. As you all know, I keep my nose clean to keep my FAA Certificate. That means no drugs, no moving violations, nothing!

We talked a little bit about law enforcement and why I have disdain for how it's currently doing civil forfeiture, unlawful searches, the request to have Apple decrypt the iPhone, etc. (I didn't mention stop-and-frisk or StingRays because time was short and I wasn't going to convince anyone of anything...) I did mention that the FBI used to ENCOURAGE ENCRYPTION OF PHONES but now they and their wannabe-feds friends at the NYPD talk about going dark. Seriously.

They ended with some formal questions:
"Do you intend to harm the President?" Me: "No"
"Do you intend to harm any US citizen?" That was much tougher, and as I explained, if someone cuts me off in traffic and I want to go yell at them I'm not going to inquire as to their US Citizenship status first ;) Plus, let's face it, anytime I go do some consulting I'm taking money away from the $10/hr Winderz-"consultants" and that could be considered causing them harm.

At the end we parted ways 1119, a full 63 minutes of chat and just a bit of stress ("Wait, you think I'm a terrorist?!!?"), and me leaving with their assurance I was not going to be on any no-fly list. That's good because I love to fly. Also I want to keep my Global Entry access!

What did I learn from this? I need to assign networks to customers so that they get the LEO contact instead of me. I thought I should be less flippant when someone says they investigate terrorism, but my friend Charlie Morriss reminds me not to give into to chilling effect of mass surveillance. I will, however, continue to post my frank and free thoughts on wonderful sites like TechDirt and others.

I'm happy to live in a country where if the Federal Government suspects I'm a threat they want to come talk to me over coffee at Bruegger's Bagels instead of haul me downtown (parking is a bitch) or to some interrogation room. Thank you Special Agent Edwards and Special Agent Badass⁵!

Best wishes from sunny and not warm Tucson Arizona US!

Ehud

¹ I understand that some think Internet should not be capitalized, but I and the APA Style Manual beg to differ.
² Don't confuse FBI Special Agent Edwards with the other Agent Edwards
³ Upon further reflection it occurred to me that in asking the factual questions, having one be wrong would give them a good baseline on how I react to incorrect information. SA Edwards assured me that was not the case and it was just a copy and paste error. If any of my readers are LEO interrogators who want to weigh in on this, please do.
⁴ During our discussions nobody ever said IPv4 or IPv6. We only talked about IP addresses and a /27 address block (which I later had to explain was a "sequential set of addresses, which we call a block" and not that anything was "blocked"). However, for completeness I want to make it clear that I'm responsible for IPv4 and IPv6 assets and this conversation was limited to IPv4.
⁵ Full disclosure: I do know SA Badass. We've met several times on various occasions when bad people were doing bad things to networks we have. He added credibility (and some comfort) to the meeting.

On Halloween 2008 I took my demo ride/. Five years later to the day I picked up N4204X at Orlando Executive Airport and CFI Kent Stevens and I had an adventure piloting it back to Tucson. On our four day trip we hit a sudden squal line, set down in Tallahassee, which was overbooked due to an NCAA men's basketball game. We made the best of it, got motel rooms, and had some awesome seafood.

During those three years of helicopter ownership I graduated from being a private pilot certificate holder to a commercial certificate holder. Although it actually happened the day before, it took so much out of me I couldn't even begin to post about it until the 13th.

I turned my fun of flying a helicopter and discussing all things helicopter into a job. I made the helicopter available for photography flights. We partnered with Groupon to make 30 minute "Tour of Tucson" flights. At first I would schedule them whenever people wanted to fly and I'd do the preflight inspection, wheel the aircraft out, fuel it, and do a thirty-minute flight. Eventually I got smarter and booked them in blocks of three on weekend mornings. I had managed to turn fun flying into a chore that destroyed my ability to go out Friday or Saturday nights -- and I couldn't go out Sunday because the next day was the day job. We had a company ("Tango Three") and business cards, and T-shirts, and caps, and a web-site and all manner of cool things.

However, all good things must come to an end. The Tucson market did not provide sufficient income opportunities to pay for the daily depreciation (aka "mortgage") of the helicopter. It was draining money faster than we were making it, and when it was making money I felt like it was draining my free time and my enjoyment of flying.

Having owned a helicopter -- something I'd never dreamed I could ever accomplish -- for three years, in late October we put it up for sale and in November had a buyer lined up. December saw the buyer fly out to test-fly it. He liked it. One of the photographers, a guy out of Reno, had a flight scheduled for December 30th and I knew he'd not be happy the helicopter sold out from under his reservation. I wanted to fly to Inde Motorsports Ranch but I also didn't want to destroy a quarter of a million dollars of a potential pending sale.

The buyer bought. The funds transferred. I towed the helicopter out of its hangar one last time on a cold foggy morning in mid December. He wanted me to do the start but I wanted him to do it so he'd be confident at the very next fuel stop two hours later. He did fine. It was going to Louisiana. There was supposed to be a CFI buddy who chickened out at the last minute. The buyer was a pilot with 130+ hours in helicopters but over 5,000 in fixed-wing aircraft. He was planning to fly at 8,500 feet. Us helicopter pilots wouldn't do that... but I can see a fixed-wing guy wanting to do that.

I had given him a briefing of the area. I told him they'd likely send him out to The Fairgrounds, fly heading 120... and then I listened to LiveATC as he made his call to Clearance Delivery and then to Tucson Tower. Sure enough they asked him if he was familiar with The Fairgrounds... and he said no. Wait, what? I just briefed... oh never mind. Anyway he took off, flew away, and I listened while he was still in Tucson airspace.

That was the last I've seen of N4204X. He made it home safely, and as I drove home I took the opportunity to let the broker know the aircraft and buyer had left, and cancel the insurance. It was the saddest day I've had -- especially because it has to do with something that's always made me happy -- helicopters.

The market didn't just not support us... it did not support helicopter flight training or rental in Tucson. When I started in 2008 there were several flight outfits. When we ended up in December we were the last one. Now unless you want to pay $900-$1300 for a Bell Jetranger (sightseeing, not instruction nor rental) you will not be flying in a helicopter in Tucson.

I look forward to flying in North Las Vegas with 702 Helicopters or in Scottsdale.

It's been a trip. It's not over... but it's the next phase.

Ehud

Sunday the 11th we talked about the weather.  The Navigator had been looking up stuff on Skyvector and NOAA and other sites and said Tuesday was going to really be a windy horrible day.  We'd been planning to leave Monday so that seemed fine.  I should have checked to see HOW horrible Tuesday would be and what that would be on Monday.  My previous lookup of the weather had shown some pockets of wind but nothing major.  I should have checked first thing Monday morning.  Clue.

We went to the airport (KVGT) to find our aircraft was ready and called in for fuel.  As they had not stored my previous credit card info (thank you for caring about my privacy?) I had to read it back to them on the phone.  While I did that The Navigator told Brian and his crew that Tuesday was going to majorly suck.  They looked up the weather and started calling flights off left and right.  Clue.

We took off and headed toward the BofA building in North Las Vegas (leave KVGT head 220) and when instructed called Las Vegas.  We were approved for entry into Class Bravo airspace and approved for the Boulder Highway transition.  We were asked to go particularly low to avoid other helicopter traffic and given we were over a 4-lane highway I obliged.  The controllers were super-nice to us after that.

The plan was to take a new route back, going through Prescott Arizona, Ernest Love Field.  Along the way we'd pass by Kingman (KIGM).  I noticed that the headwinds were pretty rough... and were getting buffetted a bit (20sG30s) so I said why not stop at Kingman for fuel.  Smart move.

On our way to Kingman it was pretty windy.  Those 20sG30s were kicking us around a bit and I had to slow us down to 70-80 knots of airspeed.  That's brutally slow but at least it made things palatable.  Mostly.  Just outside of Kingman is a pass where the road goes between two mountains and I should have been way above them... realized it maybe seconds in time... and climbed climbed climbed but we still got hit hard a couple of times.

Then we went into Kingman, 20ktsG30s winds ... a friendly local was on the frequency advising us of the FBO being willing to deliver fuel.  I didn't want to set down next to the self-serve fuel ramp with those winds.  We landed, cooled off, got out, the local offered us a ride, we were wet with sweat and declined, and walked to the FBO with 20kts+ wind howling at us.

At the FBO I looked up distances and figured out while we could normally make Tucson just fine (I've made KTUS<-->KHII<-->KVGT many a time and KIGM is just as far as KHII...) but figured planning for another Wickenburg stop wouldn't hurt.  We topped off... I sampled the fuel... (as I had all times except for Wickenburg the first time) and we took off into the 20kts wind and then southeast toward our destination.

It was a great flight.  Except we were getting seriously buffeted the whole time and again it was 70-80ktia and ugly.  Ground thermals were not helping.  I hated it.  The Navigator was powering through it.

Wickenburg.  We started to see white fluffy clouds.  That means things are good.  We got in, landed (The Navigator pointed out where the fuel ramp was because I had the airport map 180° off in my mind) and fueled up.  Then we went to start it.  No start.  Again.  No start.  Again.  Got a start... but it died.  Again... but now no reaction from the starter.  That's right.  One hope away from hope the starter was DEAD DEAD DEAD.  I said something positive, I'm sure.

Got out of the aircraft, called Dave the mechanic.  He said it would take 60-90 minutes to get there.  I thought he was kidding.  We went to hang in the (empty) FBO during that time.  When I say empty I mean the only things in there were magazines, a toilet, an empty fridge with stale donuts, and no ice or cold water.

Then Dave showed up, having flown R22 N164LE (in which I'd trained!) to the ramp.  He had his toolback out and everything.  Panel open he asked me to start it up.  I expected -zero- from the starter but lo and behold it ALMOST started.  I could have cried.  We both sighed deeply and I tried again.  This time it DID START so I said I was not going to turn it off and would he get The Navigator.  Dave volunteered to take the controls from the left seat while I did so.  Gladly.  He did.  I did.

I brought out The Navigator and explained how Hot Loading was going to occur
o Stay beyond this line
o Dave will come get you
o Hand on your head not only to hold hat on but to remind you to bend down
o Get in, seat belt, Dave will help with this
o Headset, Dave will help or I will
o Dave will depart without getting decapitated
o We depart

The plan worked according to... plan.  and we departed for Tucson.  One and a half hours.  Forecast less winds, just some rain.  That was also not to be.

We went by Buckeye so I could listen to their AWOS.  I didn't mention before but I'd read their NOTAMs and there was nothing there about no fuel... so I wanted to see if they'd fixed that.  Also there was going to be a TFR over downtown PHX for a baseball game... so going by Buckeye meant we'd ignore all that.

We went by Buckeye... all runways and taxiways closed till the end of the month.  WHAT????
Then Estrellla.   Ak Chin.   Casa Grande....
At this point we're seeing huge storms southeast of us so we're not heading to the I-10 freeway... which means we have to stay way west to avoid Pinal Airpark (KMZJ) parachute drop zone "Kodiak".  So we're over the desert... everything's just gotten soaked, and then we get hit with a rainshower.  Fortunately it was only water.

We continue on in southbound and west of Tucson and around Maran (KAVQ) I'm thinking we could go back to the freeway... but... no... Marana says "The storm is on top of us".  We keep going south.

We ended up going toward KRYN and 5 miles out I called them... winds at 19kts... no breaks to be caught today.  There were rays of sunshine to the east so we headed to Tucson and landed with plenty of fuel with our health, lives, and safety preserved.

If I had to do it over:
1. Fuel to full at every point
2. Have ALL alternate airports on the kneeboard, not just the near ones, also the ones you may strive to get to
3. If there's going to be 20g30 winds then stay in Las Vegas for another two or three days and make it a great time!!!

The last conclusion I think best represents "get there itis".  We didn't have a "get there itis" of getting home... but one of beating the storm... and that's stupid... because storms don't build up in a minute... they take days.

The aircraft was great.
The Navigator was great.
The pilot needs to do a better job of planning (and also of sampling fuel)
Don't abuse the starter.  (Since then the aircraft got a 100hr/annual and fuel issues were addressed for easier starts)

Whew.

hardest flight I've ever had... and the only way to have made it better was not to have done it that way.

E

When I first started flying I was told that there were "plateaus", much as there are in working out, losing weight, etc. and at those plateaus people who know things turn into complete idiots.  I was told pilots make huge mistakes at about 100 hours... 200 hours... 500 hours.  I could not imagine that I would ever do any of those things, and when I passed 100 hours without a major mistake I was pretty happy with myself... and same at 200 hours.

This weekend was a trip to Las Vegas.  It's either a long trip or a short trip depending on your point of view.  The short part of it is that it's a 3.2hr trip with one fuel stop.  The long part of it is that most of the flight is over sheer Arizona desert without any cities, water, or fuel to be found.  Good planning is a must.  I've done this flight several times before and this time would be a little different.

First, I brought a friend to keep me company and to navigate -- Respectfully, henceforth, The Navigator.  Second, this time instead of giving someone my flight plan and saying "Hey if I don't call you by such-and-such time call 911" I file a flight plan.  Flight plans are not required for visual flight over land not crossing the ADIZ (Air Defense Identification Zone - AKA the border).  I've only once filed a flight plan while doing a Stage-3 check with CFI James and we didn't close it out prior to setting down... and he turned the radio off to debrief me... and long story short it's a good thing a Company pilot was on the ramp next to us to let Tower know we were on the ground OK or it would have been search and rescue (SAR) dispatch time.

This time I filed a flight plan that allowed for a delay of 30 minutes in leaving (0900MST schedule 0930 communicated to Flight Services) and 4hr for a flight time that normally takes 3.2hrs.  I did it using Skyvector (http://www.skyvector.com) and once you set up a flight plan you can click on a link to file... they send you a link to activate it... and you also get a link to deactivate it.  Awesome.

I fueled up for the first leg to Buckey AZ (KBXK) and added an additional 30 minutes.  That's the flight, the reserve (20m), and another 10m.  I should have topped off the tanks -- two people, not much weight, no reason not to.  I got all NOTAMs all TFRs all PIREPs and everything else necessary to make a safe flight.  We took off at 0920 and headed to Buckeye.  Everything was copacetic until we got close and their AWOS announced a NOTAM that "Drew is unavailable Thursday through Sunday."  I don't know who Drew is or why he's not there.   Poor guy.  As I called in on the CTAF saying that we're going into the fuel ramp another pilot on frequency radioed helpfully that "Fuel is unavailable."  Oh.  Fuel.  Not "Drew".  Got it.  I had alternates picked out but... instead of going to Goodyear (KGYR) which is going backward... but 4.6 miles away... I wanted to go to Wickenburg which is continuing along the way.  The problem is that I hadn't put Wickenburg on my kneeboard so didn't know its IATA/ICAO code (E25) nor the distance.

The Navigator pulled out the Phoenix Sectional Chart, and despite my incorrect instructions on how to flip it (keep in mind I'm flying the helicopter... flying first... aviate, navigate, communicate) found it and at the same time Helpful Other Pilot helped me out when I asked and said it's E25.  I punched it into the Garmin GNS530 and the distance/timing looked reasonable so I headed there.  So... mistake#2 is not listing alternates I'm *likely* to *want* to go to... not just list alternates that I *could* go to but wouldn't unless things are bad.

We headed to E25 and when we were 2 miles out the low fuel light came on.  I hate that light.  It means I messed up.  It should never ever come on in flight.  It's a failure of the pilot to anticipate flight conditions and properly plan the flight.  I flew in a way that would give us a place to set down if we had to and we landed at the fuel ramp in Wickenburg.

We then fueld up and I made mistake#3.  I did not sample the fuel.  Seriously, here we are in the middle of northwest Phoenix, having exhausted most of our fuel supply (we had 12 minutes of fuel left) and I just took on a full load and didn't sample it.  We then flew toward Las Vegas although at this point I realized the aircraft was consuming more fuel than I had anticipated based on past experiences and was planning a POSSIBLE precautionary stop at Laughlin/Bullhead City (KIFP) along the way.  We headed to the Colorado River and there were magnificent sites, mesas, mountains, rivers, and of course The Colorado.  I believe we would have made it to North Las Vegas with no issues but already recognizing that poor planning/possible ego had caused one error I decided to do the stop to ensure there were no issue.  I had KIFP on my kneeboard and an airport diagram ready for use.  This turned out to be useful as the tower controller wanted us on a left downwind (fixed-wing aircraft pattern) for the runway until he saw us... Good planning here.

We stopped at KIFP, refueled the aircraft, and got back in.  An MD-500 landed so we watched him come down, then headed north, up the river, toward Hoover Dam.  This segment was amazing, with great scenery of water-cut mountains, the dam, the new bridge, and Lake Meade all around.  At Boulder City (KBVU) I announced our presence, and went through Railroad Pass higher than ever before -- actually above the pass -- to get Las Vegas and North Las Vegas ("Northtown") ATIS.  Called into Las Vegas helicopter control on 123.82 and they vectored us over the Boulder Highway to Northtown.

We landed at Northtown, perfect setdown along the middle of the H of the south helipad at the west ramp and got our stuff... said thank you to the people inside.  By prior arrangement Brian and Bianca of 702Helicopters (http://www.702helicopters.com) let us park there and are very nice about providing any resources/facilities necessary.  It's a lot better than going to a random FBO and being told to "park away from the Cessnas."  The Navigator picked up her gear and we headed for the gate to call a rideshare driver and go unwind.


--That was Thursday.  KTUS-->E25-->KIFP-->KVGT--
Coming up next, the return trip, which was a LOT hairier.   No fuel light tho.

E

The six Ps: Piss Poor Planning Prevents Proper Performance.

Better put: Plan to succeed, and your plan will succeed.

One of the things we're taught (and it's true!) is that everything in a helicopter is a tradeoff.  We use lightweight materials because heavier ones cost more to lift, hover, suspend, and move.  We use the smallest engine that will work for the same reason.  We take the minimum necessary fuel+reserve to do the mission for the same reason.

In fact when planning a flight, having reviewed all the external paramters like weather, forecast, TFRs, NOTAMs, charts, etc., it's crucial to calculate several things.  We do a planned flight to figure out fuel burn and then figure fuel loading and weight.  We then do a load calculation to figure out how we fare compared to maximum take-off weight (MTOW).  Then we do a center of gravity (CG) calculation to ensure that at the start of the flight (full fuel) and end of the flight (only reserve left) we are still within the manufacturer guidelines for proper CG.

In addition to those hard rules, we also have some other rules we use.  One of them is "performance is affected by loading so minimize your loading."  Our biggest loads are passengers and fuel.  While we can't slim down the passengers, we can plan for minimum necessary fuel to complete the mission.  That means if we're planning for a 1.0hr flight, load up fuel for 1.333hr (1.0hr flight+20min helicopter day VFR reserve).

On today's flight I was flying a photographer who takes pictures of 25-27 sites throughout the Tucson valley and surrounding area.  Usually it takes 1-2 orbits to get all the shots he needs of each site, and we're off to the next.  The typical flight time has been as low as 46 and as high as 56 minutes.  For this flight the winds were 16G23 (16 knots gusting to 23 knots) so figuring we'd be working against the wind half the time I budgeted for more fuel and took on enough for 1.5hrs.  The photographer is a light person and there were only two of us, so I could have put more in but was minimizing weight as per standard operating procedure.

As we started doing the orbits we needed more work to get the pictures.  The wind wasn't just pushing us away on the one side and closer on the other, but because the aircraft was pointed mostly toward the wind ('in trim') we just didn't have 90° shots from all four sides.  Eventually though we got them all.  Over time that extra orbit here and there added up and I started to watch as we hit an hour of flight time and still had a few sites to do.  The site before the last is the furthest out... and then we cut 20 miles across the desert to the last site... and then 20 miles back to the airport.  With the door off for the photographer our speed is limited by the factory recommendations to 100 knots, so that is 24 minutes of cruise for those 40 miles.

As we headed southwest to the last site we passed a construction site and the photographer wanted to do that one too... but being concerned about our airtime vs fuel I said we couldn't afford to do it.  As it was not on his list (nor was he getting paid for it) he was fine with that.  We cruised across the desert toward the northern side of the Tucson Mountains.  As we crossed, the wind compressed between the hills hit us like a hammer and I had to yank us back from 100 knots to about 60 while the clutch belts tightened after the main rotor experienced the hit as well.  That was the only real turbulence we felt but yeah we felt it.

At that point we were three miles from Marana Regional Airport (KAVQ) and I pondered the possibility of stopping there for some AVGAS.  Sure, we'd lose 30 minutes, but it would remove any question of sufficiency of fuel.  In the end I decided that as we only had one site to do we should be fine.

We hit the last site immediately, he got the pictures done in 1.5 orbits, and we headed toward Tucson.  Since I'd mentioned the fuel when rejecting the construction site, he noticed the needles were getting really close to the E.  I pointed out the low-fuel light and said that when that thing came on we'd still have 20 minutes (give or take) and we were showing 12 minutes to the airport.  However, that's because had we flown line-of-sight it would have been 12 minutes.  In reality we had to go east to cross back to the east side of the Tucson Mountains, and that meant that for a good 5-7 minutes it remained showing 12 minutes to the airport while we transitted the mountains.

Finally on the east side, we picked up Tucson ATIS and called Tucson Approach.  They had us IDENT and located us on radar.  They directed us to A-Mountain which was conveniently right along the direct flight path so no objections came from us, and then they turned us over to Tucson Tower.  Tower was equally accommodating, advising us to proceed direct.

A couple of minutes later, with 7 minutes showing enroute to Tucson the low-fuel light came on.  I let the photographer know that we were well within parameters.  We then flew in at top speed, and did the fastest approach I've done in a while.  Soft set-down, called tower to let them know landing assured, and proceeded to do the cooldown.  The cooldown proceeded for 2+ minutes and I shut the engine off when that was over, never having ran out of fuel.

There was no accident or incident here, but there certainly was an educational event.  I made a series of judgment calls that could have led us into a serious situation.  These led me to reflect on how to better handle this next time -- not just for photo flights, but in general.

1. We've been taught to always take on minimal fuel for the mission plus the reserve.   Going forward I'm gong to take maximal fuel to keep us right below MTOW unless we need high density-altitude (DA) operations requiring a lower weight.  (For example, in-ground-effect (IGE) hover can occur at higher DAs with lower weights).  That means that for this flight instead of taking less than 2hrs of fuel, I'd have taken the full 3hrs of fuel (depending on altitude, pressure, humidity, etc.)

2. When fuel is low, DO DIVERT TO A NEARBY AIRPORT.  It would have been a one-time cost of 30 minutes of my time to divert to Maran (or Pinal Airpark, KMZJ) but I didn't make that choise.  Next time I will not take that risk and I will do the safe thing.  Safety first is not just about "on the ground" or "in the air" but also about resource planning.

3. When a strong wind is in effect, add a wind-factor to expected times.  Particularly in a photography situation where we can't just orbit and keep the body of the aircraft perpendicular to the target, it will take longer to do the shoot.  Also as half the time we're in a headwind and half in a tailwind, but you can't win back in a tailwind what you lose in a headwind, remember we are going to be
effectively traveling SLOWER.

I have worked with some excellent certificated flight instructors (CFIs) and they have taught me a lot.  It would be nice if I could return the favor by letting them know that as they instruct other "newbies" they should focus on these real-world situation.  It could waste someone's 30 minutes or so... and gain them a lifetime.

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