An Eclectic Mind

Not the most fuel-efficient ride.

I had a conversation with a friend of mine the other day about the fuel burn rate and “mileage” of my helicopter. It’s actually an interesting calculation.

First, consider my “best range” cruise speed. According to Robinson Helicopter Company (RHC), the best cruise speed for a Robinson R44 Raven II is 100 knots or 115 miles per hour.

Now consider the fuel burn rate. RHC claims 14 gallons per hour, but I’m getting closer to 16 these days. When you do the math (115 ÷ 16), you come up with 7.19 miles per gallon.

Now that doesn’t sound very good, but there’s another calculation to do to equate this to car miles. That’s the “straight line” factor — as I like to call it. RHC, in its Operating Costs document, estimates that because a helicopter can fly in a straight line and roads over long distances are seldom straight line routes, each air mile is equal to 1.5 road miles. I think this is pretty reasonable as an average. On certain routes, that number would be smaller while on other routes, it would be much larger. So if you do the math (7.19 x 1.5) you come up with 10.79 miles per gallon.

This isn’t much worse than my redneck truck, which gets about 15 mpg.

Of course, 100LL fuel, which the helicopter burns, costs anywhere from $4.50 to $7.00 per gallon. Regular gasoline, which my truck burns, is currently about $3.50 per gallon.

I just flew from Wickenburg, AZ to Seattle, WA by way of the California coast. We covered the estimated 1,500-mile distance in about 13 hours of flight time. I spent over $1,000 on fuel. Not exactly a cheap trip, but with highlights like an overflight of the Golden Gate as the marine layer moved in, it’s one I’ll remember for a long time.

A quick report, with photos.

Louis and I flew from Wickenburg, AZ to Ukiah, CA yesterday. It was a very long but also very enjoyable flight.

We got off the ground around 6:15 AM, which Louis says is a big accomplishment for him. He’s not an early riser like I am and waking up at 5 AM was a bit of hardship for him. But an early departure was vital. Temperatures in the Arizona and California deserts were expected to reach 100°F. We were flying west, so the sun would be mostly behind us during the 4+ hour flight. That was a good thing. But midday, the sun would be shining into the cockpit and no amount of forward speed would get cool air moving through the ventilation system. I wanted to be on the coast by noon. We met that goal.

Louis did most of the flying, I did all the navigation and radio work. I also took photos, although I didn’t take as many as I could/should have.

From Wickenburg, we headed almost due west to Parker, AZ. I’m very familiar with this stretch, having flown to Parker many times. It’s a pretty dull flight across the desert. We crossed the Harcuvar Mountains at Cunningham Pass, crossing one of the empty valleys where Patton once trained his tank corps. Patton’s training area stretches for well over 100 miles between the area north of Chiriaco Summit on I-10 in California to the area north of Bouse, Arizona. From the air, you can still see the faint double lines of tank tracks criss-crossing the empty desert.

I took this shot over the Cactus Plains east of Parker, deep in the old training area. No tank tracks here — the ground is a sea of old sand dunes finally stabilized by the growth of small desert bushes and other vegetation. You can clearly see the patterns of the shifting sands. I included part of the instrument panel in this shot to give an idea of scale; we were flying at about 1,000 feet up, where Louis seems to be most comfortable. This shot also shows how barren the area is.

A short while later, we reached Parker, AZ, along the Colorado River. This shot shows most of the town. The end of the airport’s new runway is on the right. The mountains in the distance are in California. The river is always beautiful and blue here because of the filtering action of the Parker dam less than 20 miles upriver that forms Lake Havasu.

This shot is a view looking south from just south of town. The area along the Colorado river is a heavily farmed on the Arizona side here; farther south near Blythe, CA, the farming activity is primarily on the west side of the river, in California.

From Parker, we continued west toward Twentynine Palms, CA. This was probably the most dreary part of the flight — mile after mile of empty desert. I didn’t take many photos. This shot of Iron Mountain gives you an idea. The cluster of buildings is a “substation” (according to my charts), but I don’t know what kind of substation it is. The open canal winds its way to the base of the mountain and enters it there, coming out of the mountain on the opposite side. Are they generating electricity there? Or is it a pumping station? Either way, Louis and I agreed that it was weird for the canal to take a detour through the mountain when it could have easily followed the road. I’d love to learn more about this if anyone has info; I came up blank on a quick Google search.

I stopped taking photos soon after that. We continued through Twentynine Palms, then headed northwest around the mountains of Big Bear to our first fuel stop at Hesperia. I’d never been there before; I usually refueled at Apple Valley. But with a 50¢ per gallon price difference, I’d rather buy at the cheaper stop, which was only about 10 miles away. Louis landed on the runway and I hover-taxiied us through the dusty ramp area to the self-serve pump. We worked together to fuel quickly. It was getting hot — near 90° at about 9 AM — so after a quick bathroom break, we took off again. By that time, a bunch of small airplanes were coming in, probably to fuel up. Hesperia is the cheapest fuel around at $4.56 per gallon.

We continued west. The area beneath us was now densely packed with homes. We passed south of Palmdale Airport, flying between the canal and the main road. A while later, we were climbing into the foothills of the mountains. We passed just south of the Gorman VOR at Grapevine and continued on up a valley. It was a pleasant flight between rolling hills covered with green and tan grass and billions of orange flowers. Beneath us were ranches and small lakes — and the same road Mike and I had driven on two years before on a trip to Napa, CA.

Soon we were headed down the opposite side of the mountain toward the Pacific Ocean. I dialed in the ATIS and Tower for San Luis Obispo and started a dialog with the tower controller. She directed us to park in an area marked “No Parking” (which I still think is funny). We shut down and went into the restaurant there for lunch. I was surprised to see four airliners stop there during the short time we were there: American, Delta, US Airways, and United. They were all small commuter planes, although one of them was a jet. I didn’t think San Luis Obispo was that popular.

After lunch, I made my first mistake of the trip: I decided to save 50¢/gallon (again) by repositioning the helicopter to the self-serve fuel area on the other side of the runway instead of buying it from the truck. It was a mistake because the tower made me sit for at least 10 minutes before repositioning and then at least 15 minutes before departing after refueling. I figured that I probably burned off my savings, just sitting there on the ramps.

Once away from San Luis Obispo, we headed northwest, intersecting the coast at Morro Bay. Anyone who has driven the Pacific Coast Highway (the PCH; Route 1) can tell you how incredibly beautiful it is from the road. But that’s nothing compared to the view from 1,000 feet up, just off the coast. I took quite a few pictures; this is one of the funkier ones I took with my fisheye lens.

A while later, we took a detour past Hearst Castle at San Simeon. My camera was having trouble focusing through the Plexiglas — I really should have taken the door off — but I managed to get a pretty good shot of this monstrosity, despite the glare. Mike and I had visited it years ago and it really is amazing inside.

We continued north, hugging the coast. Although we were wearing life jackets — which insisted on — I didn’t want to be beyond gliding distance of shore. Louis, who lives and trained in Seattle, is used to flying over water; I’m not. If we had a problem, I wanted to come down on dry land. Of course, for much of the distance, the only suitable landing zone on the coast was the thin ribbon of the PCH. An emergency landing would not be pretty.

I made my second mistake as we approached Monterey’s class C airspace. We needed to go through the airspace, with the permission of the tower, to stay on our coastline course. Unfortunately, we were flying at 1,000 feet with 2,000-foot mountains between us and the tower. Instead of climbing right away as I should have, I waited until we were only 7 miles out. We still had to climb to talk to the tower. The tower told us to call NorCal approach. I did and received a transponder (squawk) code. But they didn’t tell us we could enter. So we circled around just south of Monterey’s airspace, waiting. Finally, when they figured they’d punished us enough, they got on the radio and told us to talk to Monterey tower. I gave them my request and was approved. We went back down to the coast to transition at 1,000 feet. The entire process took a good 15 minutes, but I learned my lesson. I’d call NorCal approach in the future.

We flew past Monterey and Pebble Beach, cutting across the peninsula to save time. On the other side, the tower instructed us to head due north, right across the bay. We were about three miles offshore, only 1,000 feet off the water, when I started getting nervous. I asked the tower if we could either come in closer to shore or climb. (I really do hate flying over open water.) The controller sounded annoyed, but let us come back to shore. Then he cut us loose, telling us to call NorCal Approach. I was glad to be rid of the Monterey area.

A while later, when we were still about 40 miles short of Half Moon Bay, we saw the marine layer starting to build along the coast. This was a bad thing for navigation. We’d planned on hugging the coast all the way to the Golden Gate so we wouldn’t have to talk to San Francisco tower for a transition of the area. But with very low clouds blanketing the coast, that would not be possible. Louis wanted to climb above the clouds and follow the coast anyway, but I was definitely not interested in that. My VFR on Top experience is limited and it never included large bodies of water. Besides, what was the sense of flying above the clouds when we could fly somewhere else with a better view?

So we climbed to 2,000 feet and I managed to get the Flight Service Station on the radio. I asked if the low cloud condition persisted all the way to the Golden Gate. She told me that her satellite image was not that detailed. So we decided to take a more inland route. When she told us she couldn’t give us flight following at our altitude, I volunteered to climb to 3,000 feet so she could see me on radar. I don’t think she was happy about it. She turned us over to NorCal Approach just as we passed Half Moon Bay. I was glad we hadn’t landed there for fuel, since the clouds had already covered half the runway.

NorCal approach gave us a squawk code and confirmed that it saw us on radar. Then it turned us over to San Francisco Tower. They asked us to climb to 3,500 feet. That’s like nosebleed territory for me, but we complied without complaint.

The view from up there was absolutely amazing, with the marine layer coming in from the west like a thick, white, wooly blanket. To the east, however, the airport and city remained perfectly clear. I got a few good shots as we flew through.

I also got a chance to show off my traffic information system (TIS), which only works in Class Bravo Airspace. It clearly identified a number of targets that we were able to see in the air. With the fog coming in through the Golden Gate, all the sightseers were out in their planes. The tower warned us about a small Cessna at our altitude as we approached the bridge area. He recommended that we climb, but since we were already a bit lower, I told him we’d descend. Louis dropped us down another two hundred feet and we passed behind him. I don’t even think he saw us. I really don’t like flying high because of the planes that are up there. There are seldom any planes down at 500 to 1,000 feet AGL.

San Francisco handed us off to Oakland Center as we continued up toward Sonoma Valley. We’d planned to refuel at Healdsburg, but the delays at San Luis Obispo and Monterey had eaten into our fuel reserves. We decided to stop at Petaluma, which was at 20-30 miles closer. When I told Oakland Center that we wanted to discontinue radar coverage because we needed to make a fuel stop at Petaluma, he asked if we needed any assistance. I guess he thought we were really low on fuel. I told him we were fine and squawked VFR.

Petaluma is a very pleasant airport. Louis set us down right in front of the self-serve pump and we shut down. Then we got right to work. We were both very tired and I know I just wanted to finish up for the day. It wasn’t far to our overnight stop at Ukiah. We took off a while later and the heat hit us soon afterward. Inland, California was suffering a heat wave. We’d avoided the bad heat for most of the day, but it had finally caught up with us at 4 PM in that valley. The OAT hit 101°F at one point. The sun was coming in through Louis’s side of the bubble. It was hot.

But we reached Ukiah quickly and without incident. The FBO guy topped off the fuel tanks and helped us get rooms and a cab. We wound up with a pair of “King Suites” at the local Comfort Inn for the astoundingly good price of only $89. Free Internet (WiFi or Ethernet), free breakfast, a pool, and a StarBucks right across the parking lot. Who knew traveler heaven could be found in Ukiah, CA?

We’ll be hitting the skies again by 9 AM to complete our flight to the Troutdale-Portland Airport. It’s only about 4-1/2 hours of flying with just one fuel stop. I hope to share more photos in the next entry.

A fisheye photo of my companion for the flight.

Say what you like about my goofy fisheye lens, but it does make it possible to take a photo of my flying companion, Louis, seated beside me at the controls in a relatively tight cockpit. Here we’ve just reached the coast after leaving San Luis Obispo.

Would love to write more about Day One, but I’m too pooped. Perhaps in the morning; we don’t meet until 8 AM and I’m a very early riser. I have more photos to share, too.

I may be off the grid for a few days.

Just want to let readers know that while I’m traveling for the next five or so days, I might not be able to check the site regularly. Since all comments must go through moderation, posted comments may not appear for a few days. Be patient; I will eventually get around to it.

I look forward to posting updates about my trip and reading your comments.

Planning the flight, packing the helicopter.

Tomorrow, my “co-pilot” and I start our journey by helicopter from Wickenburg, AZ to Seattle, WA. If everything goes according to plan, Louis will be doing most of the flying while I sit back and enjoy the ride as a passenger seated in the pilot seat. I won’t fly from the right seat, but Louis, who is a certified flight instructor (CFI) has no qualms about doing so. In fact, he might even prefer it.

I plan on having my door off for at least a few legs of the flight so I can take photos of the interesting things we pass. I also have the POV.1 camera hooked up to the helicopter’s nose and hope to get some decent video.

The Route

There are at least three ways to make this trip. I’ve sketched them in on this map for reference:

• The direct route (red on the map) would take us northwest through Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and Oregon before hitting Washington state. I think it calculates out to 9 flying hours. The big problem with this route is that there’s nothing along the way — just a lot of barren desert. The airports are few and far between and the fuel stops are even more rare. In fact, if we went that way, we’d be basically flying from one fuel stop to the next with few, if any, other landing opportunities in between. If we had a problem and had to land off-airport, we’d be in the Middle of Nowhere (note the capitals — I’m talking about the actual place) and it could take a while to get help. Think Steve Fossett.
• The common route (for lack of a better identifier; green on the map) would take us west until we passed the southern end of the Sierra Mountains, then north over the pass at Tehatchapi or Grapevine into California’s Central Valley. That’s the route I have most experience with. The Central Valley isn’t terribly interesting after the first ten minutes of flight since the whole thing is just a bunch of farmland. My experience there has usually included some pretty dismal visibility with lots of haze that gets worse the higher you go until you pop out the top, where it’s crystal clear but you can’t really see the ground. If you stay low — maybe about 500 feet — you have to worry about towers and cropdusters appearing suddenly out of the haze. Beyond that, the flight crosses some small mountains on its way into western Oregon, crosses the Columbia River east of Hood River, and passes Mt. St. Helens on the west side. This route calculates out to about 10 hours of flight time.
• The scenic route (blue on the map) starts out the same as the common route with a trip west across the Arizona and California deserts. But it keeps going west near Grapevine, straight to the coast. It then pretty much hugs the coast all the way up to the middle of the Oregon Coast before heading northeast through Portland and then on to Seattle. Highlights of this trip include Hearst Castle (San Simeon), Monterey, Half Moon Bay, the Golden Gate (and San Francisco), Mendocino, etc. This route calculates out to just over 12 hours.

We’re planning on the scenic route. Of course, if visibility on the coast turns bad, we’ll head inland and wind up in the Central Valley anyway.

The Plan

The flight plan for a trip like this might seem daunting, but as Louis pointed out, it’s just a series of shorter flights. I figure we can fly for about 3 hours on full tanks of fuel, so I like to plan my fuel stops no less than 2-1/4 hours and no more than 2-3/4 hours apart.

There are lots of good fuel planning tools on the Web for small aircraft. 100LL.com is one of my favorites, although AirNav, which I don’t particularly care for because of its commercial policies — when I ran the Wickenburg FBO, AirNav would not include us unless we paid to be included, so it’s not complete — usually has more up-to-date pricing.

For actual route planning, nothing beats a world aeronautical chart (WAC) for the areas you plan to fly through along with AOPA’s Airport Directory and Duats. Here’s how I plan for flights:

1. Use the WAC to get an idea of the route you want to fly.
2. Identify possible obstacles like Restricted areas and mountain ranges that might get in your way.
3. Identify possible refueling airports.
4. List the identifiers of the airports along your route of travel.
5. Use Duats to create a flight plan with the airports you noted.
6. Check the amount of time the route will take to fly.
7. If necessary, adjust the route to stretch it out or shorten it up to within 20 minutes (for a helicopter) of your expected endurance. That becomes a flight leg.
8. Use AOPA’s Airport Directory to check for facilities at potential fuel stop airports at the end of the route. (Restaurants are important.)
9. Use 100LL.com or AirNav to get the best pricing for fuel at the fuel stops.
10. Repeat this process for each leg of the trip, being sure to consider alternates along the way.

I figure this 12+ hour trip will consist of six legs. The first is Wickenburg to Apple Valley or Hesperia, CA. (Hesperia has much better fuel prices.) The second is from there to San Luis Obispo on the coast, which has good fuel prices and a restaurant. Next is from there to Healdsburg, CA, just north of San Francisco in Sonoma Valley. Good fuel prices and not far from our coastal route. That’s about as far as I’ve gotten as I type this. We’ll plan the rest later today.

Some other things to consider include:

• Detours because of weather. Weather is a wildcard when you fly up the California coast. We have to be prepared to detour inland if the fog rolls in.
• Places to spend the night. We’ll stop somewhere in northern California — hopefully with a hotel within walking distance or a courtesy/crew car we can borrow for the night. Then Portland, because I have business there the next morning.
• Emergency landings. I follow roads for a reason. If we have to make an unexpected off-airport landing, I want to do it someplace relatively close to a road, where we can hitch a ride to a place we can find help.
• Water crossings. My helicopter does not have floats. That means we need to be within gliding distance of land or have floatation devices on board. The only place I expect that to be a problem is at the Golden Gate. I’m packing two life jackets and I expect us to wear them during coastal flying.

Other Things to Bring

In addition to our luggage for the 3-day trip, I’m also bringing a few extras for the helicopter:

• Blade tie-downs. We’ll be tying down the blades each night. I have a collapsable step-stool that’s just high enough for me to reach the blades. Louis is very tall, so it should be perfect for him.
• Oil. I usually carry a spare quart, but I’ll bring along four quarts on this trip. I expect to use 2 or 3 of them.
• Ground handling wheels. I don’t usually bring them because they’re so darn big and heavy, but they’ll be on board for this trip. I’ll also be bringing a custom front wheel that Walt at N & W Helicopter Wheels made for me.
• Bubble cover. I’ll probably use this to cover the helicopter so I don’t have to remove the camera on its nose. Out of sight, out of mind.
• Door cover. This is a fuzzy fabric cover I made for the doors on my old R22. I’ll bring one along to cover my door when I stow it in back during the flight. It’ll help protect the Plexiglas.
• Life jackets. See above.
• Small cooler with snacks and lots of water. I prefer chilled water over warm water, so I’m more likely to stay hydrated if I have the water on ice.
• iPod. Hey, it works with my audio system, so why not?

I’ll also have the usual collection of first aid and survival gear on board, as well as a complete set of charts and Airport/Facilities Directories for all the airspace we fly through.

Follow Me on Twitter!

I’ll have my Treo along and since it doesn’t interfere with the navigation equipment, I’ll be tweeting my progress. Look for the L: tweets — for example, L:Parker, AZ, L:Rice, CA. I might even send some pictures taken with the phone. The quality won’t be the best, but it should give you an idea of what we’re seeing. Just keep in mind that if I’m out of cell phone coverage area, the tweets might not appear in the proper order. If you follow along on a map, don’t think we’re zig-zagging around.

On Twitter, I’m mlanger.

And, as you might expect, I’ll be blogging each night, with better quality photos to show off the highlights of the trip.

My Longest Cross-Country Flight So Far

This is my longest cross-country flight so far. Before this, my longest flight was to Placerville, CA, which I did twice; it took 6 hours in the R44. I’ve also gone as far northeast as Farmington, NM, which is about 4 hours away.

I’m extremely excited about the flight and despite forecasts of wind and hot temperatures, I’m really looking forward to it. I hope I have some good experiences to report here.

Stay tuned.

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