The Deadman’s Curve

Why helicopter pilots balk when asked to hover at 50 feet.

Last year, I joined a listserve group of professional aerial photographers. These folks, who are based all over the world, have been working at their profession for years. I’m a relative newcomer to the aerial photography scene and arrive as a pilot — not a photographer. (I want to take photos, but it’s tough when my right hand is stuck holding the cyclic during flight.)

I introduced myself and an engaging conversation about flying helicopters ensued. As you can imagine, many of the photographers had worked with helicopters. One of them was even on board during a crash!

One of the photographers in the group told a story about photo flights he’d taken with helicopter flight school instructors. He included this comment:

I was shooting a lot of sailboat races at the time, so where I wanted it turned out to be in a hover at 20 to 50 feet above the water which made some of the instructors nervous. I told them to get over it.

A lot of pilots won’t work in what’s commonly referred to by helicopter pilots as the “deadman’s curve.” All helicopter pilots should know what this is, but here’s a brief explanation for those of you who aren’t familiar with helicopter flight.

Shadow Takeoff

A late afternoon takeoff from the helipad on the west end of Wickenburg Airport’s ramp. On board with me are three wranglers from the local guest ranch — each on their very first helicopter ride. But the shadow steals the show.

Aerial Photos from Our Las Vegas Flight

Better late than never.

Back in the beginning of March, while my mother-in-law was visiting us from New York, I flew the three of us from Wickenburg to Las Vegas by helicopter.

I chose my favorite route for that flight: straight to Lake Havasu City and up the Colorado River all the way to Lake Mead, then west to McCarran Airport. The flight went well, but strong headwinds turned what should have been a 1.8 hour flight into a 2.5 hour flight. (It also made the flight a bit rough in some places.) Mike, sitting in the back, had my old PowerShot camera. Here are a few of the photos he took along the way. I chose the ones where you can see details within the cockpit to put the scenes in perspective. It’s also kind of cool (at least to me) to see the instruments and gauges in the panel.

Here’s Lake Havasu City. That’s London Bridge below us — the real thing, brought over from England in the 1970s. I always start my upriver flights with an overflight of the bridge.

21 Lawyers and a Mansion on a Mountainside

Two flying jobs in one day.

I spent most of yesterday flying — and that’s not an exaggeration. I was in the cockpit almost nonstop from 8 AM through 5 PM. During that time, the helicopter was on the ground waiting for less than two hours — and most of that time was for either fueling or waiting for passengers.

The Plan

I’d been booked to fly a series of 30-minute tours for a bunch of lawyers in Phoenix for a conference. The woman who made the arrangements started a dialog with me about it at least four months ago, and I admit I didn’t think the job would happen. But about a month and a half ago, she finalized. There would be 21 passengers — that meant 7 individual flights of 30 minutes each. Three and a half hours of flight time. That’s the kind of job you just don’t want to turn down. Best of all, I received payment by check a week before the flight. So I was booked for 12 noon out of Deer Valley Airport in Phoenix.

The day before that flight, I got a phone call from a local video producer. He needed a helicopter to fly a job on the same day. (Why does this always happen? Nothing major for a week or two and then two job possibilities at the same date and time?) I explained that I was only available before 11:30 AM or after 5 PM. He said he’d call back. When he did, he said the morning slot would work best, since the home he needed to video from the air faced east. After a few more phone conversations with him and his camera guy, I was booked for 8:45 AM out of Falcon Field airport in Mesa.

What I Want in a Summer Job

Evaluating job opportunities.

Let’s face it: summer in the Phoenix area is brutal, as far as weather is concerned. Temperatures reaching triple digits every day from June through September. Humidity kicking in with the monsoonal rains in July and August. Everything slows down as half the population goes back to the midwest and northwest. Business — especially tourism-related business — dries up.

It’s idiotic to stay in the area if you don’t have to.

How I Spent My Last Four Summers

Back in 2004, I had a summer job as a pilot up at the Grand Canyon. It was a relatively convenient job for me, with a 7 on/7 off schedule that enabled me to go home every other week and work on whatever book projects were on my plate. The Grand Canyon area gets warm in the summer, but it’s nothing like the Phoenix area so it was a good escape from the heat. And the flying I did there was challenging, helping to improve my flying skills and knowledge. In other words, it was a good job experience.

I took the summer of 2005 off from flying. That was the summer I did my “midlife crisis road trip” — 16 days driving around the northwest, looking for a better place to live year-round or in the summer months.

In the spring of 2006, I made contact with another Robinson operator based in Washington State. He introduced me to the world of cherry drying, which looked like a good opportunity. Although he said he might have enough work for both of us, that didn’t pan out. So I stayed home that summer, doing a few flights here and there.

In the spring of 2007, my cherry drying friend was certain that he had work for both of us. With his guidance, I submitted a bid to a grower who showed a definite interest in both of us. In the end, he accepted a bid from a turbine helicopter pilot who promised him stick time in his aircraft. That’s a perk I wasn’t willing or able to throw into my bid package. By then, it was too late to find other work. So I stayed home for most of that summer, too.

Except in June.

Landing at PHX Terminal 3 Helipad

Well, I finally worked out the kinks in my POV.1 camera. This time, I mounted it to the outside of the helicopter on my door pointing forward, slightly right, and slightly down. I took this video while coming in for a landing on the Terminal 3 helipad at Phoenix Sky Harbor airport (PHX). The helipad is on top of the parking structure beside the tower, between the north and south runways. It was a quiet morning; not much traffic at all

Flight to Sky Harbor…at Night

A pickup at the Terminal 3 helipad.

Last week, I had my first passenger pickup at Sky Harbor’s Terminal 3 helipad. This was an unusual gig for several reasons:

• I’d only flown into the Terminal 3 helipad once before, and that was with a flight instructor. I’d asked for the flight so I could learn the approach in case I ever had to do it. A full year went by before I had a call for a pickup there.
• The Terminal 3 helipad is on top of Terminal 3 (hence the name), in an area that’s in the middle of the top level of a parking structure. To reach it, you have to cross one runway (from the north) or two runways (from the south) where commercial airliners are landing and taking off. (The airport diagram below shows its location beside the Control tower in the middle of this busy Class Bravo airport.)
• This particular pickup was at 8 PM. Since it was February, that means it was night.

So I was going to land at a helipad I’d landed on only once before, at the top of a 6-story building, in the middle of busy airport, at night.

VFR on Top

Fog in Wickenburg makes for an interesting departure…or two.

On Saturday, I was scheduled to appear at the Buckeye Air Fair in Buckeye, AZ to give helicopter rides. This would be my fourth appearance at this great family event.

The weather on the days leading up to the event was overcast with scattered rain. While rain isn’t too common in the desert, it’s not unheard of. The weather forecast for Saturday was clear with temperatures around 65°F. That’s unseasonably cool, but I’d take it. Winds in Buckeye were forecast at 7 knots from the east shifting to 5 knots from the southwest. Nice.

Fog in Wickenburg?

What the weather forecast didn’t mention was fog. Fog is only slightly more common here than snow. While we can get snow about once every 3 to 5 years, we can get fog once or twice a year. This year’s first encounter with fog was Saturday morning.

Chasing Desert Racers

At the Best in the Desert/BlueWater Parker 425.

I spent this past Saturday doing one of the things I really love to do: chasing racecars with a helicopter.

The venue was the Best in the Desert Racing Association’s BlueWater Resort & Casino Parker 425, which featured highly modified trucks, cars, and buggies racing on a 140+ mile dirt track through the desert. My client was a television producer who videos these events from multiple cameras and turns them in TV shows. For this event, they had a total of 15 cameras, includibut thingsng one in my helicopter and several in the trucks out on the course.

I flew the helicopter with the cameraman, Fred, and my husband, Mike, working as a spotter, on board. Fred sat behind me with his door off. Mike sat beside me.

We started before dawn at the Parker Airport. I started up at 7 sharp and was warmed up and ready to fly by 7:15. The police escort was leading the 300+ participant vehicles to the starting line on Route 95 in downtown Parker when we began circling about 500 feet overhead. Fred had a list of 15 targets he needed to video. The first one was the 15th truck in line at the start. Racers were released 30 seconds apart. When our first target was released, the fun began.

I chased the car down the paved road and onto the dirt track, descending as I left the downtown area. Soon, we were racing beside it just 70 feet up on the long straightaway that heads due east. Mike kept an eye out for wires, calling them out as he saw them. My attention was split between the truck, the wires, and the track in front of me. I worked the cyclic and collective hard, climbing, descending, slowing, speeding up. Both arms and legs worked automatically to make the helicopter do what I needed it to do. Spectators below me went by in a blur. The track made a 90 degree turn to the left and I paused at the inside of the curve just long enough to pivot so Fred could keep the camera on the target. Then down the short straightaway to the edge of a steep drop with high wires on one side. The truck descended the hill while I climbed over the wires. I met the truck on the other side and we raced together through a tree-filled dry wash.

Flying for Bowl Games

And keeping very busy.

My cell phone started ringing on Saturday and it didn’t stop. By Sunday afternoon, I was booked with a Grand Canyon day trip (from Phoenix Sky Harbor) on Monday, a one-hour Phoenix Tour from Scottsdale on Tuesday morning, and a 1-hour charter from Wickenburg on Wednesday. On Monday afternoon, while I was at the Grand Canyon with my passengers, the Phoenix tour turned into another Grand Canyon Charter. I turned down four Grand Canyon day trips and two Sedona day trips from the Phoenix area for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday because I was already booked. I couldn’t keep up with the messages that came in while I was airborne on Monday and Tuesday and on Tuesday morning, while at the Grand Canyon, I had to shut my phone off because my battery was nearly dead.

Why all the sudden interest in helicopter day trips and charters?

The bowl game that was held in Glendale on Monday night. Don’t ask me which Bowl game it was — I don’t follow football. I only know who played (Florida Gators and Ohio State) and who won (Florida) because my Monday passengers were Gators fans and my Tuesday passengers were disappointed Ohio fans.

Like so many Phoenix area businesses, I feasted on the influx of big budget tourists, folks who think nothing of dropping $2K for a day’s entertainment. In the case of the Grand Canyon day trips, both parties wanted to get to and see the Grand Canyon but had limited time for the visit. They simply didn’t want to make the 4-hour (each way) car ride from Phoenix. So they hired me to take them by helicopter — 1-1/2 hour from Scottsdale (each way) and 1-3/4 hour from Sky Harbor.