Suppose you were a helicopter pilot. And suppose you were offered a job flying helicopter tours over the Grand Canyon.
That’s what happened to me.
Of course, I took the job. It’s a 7-days-on/7-days-off schedule, so I can keep writing. When I’m working there, I live in a trailer on 40 acres of land I own north of Williams, AZ. It’s a 36-mile, door-to-door drive. That’s 45 minutes by Jeep. Or a 25 nautical mile, as the crow flies, flight. That’s 20 minutes in an R22 helicopter.
I just got finished with just over two weeks of training. I got my turbine transition to a Bell 206L-1 C30P Long Ranger. It took 4.9 hours of flight time. I took and passed my Part 135 checkride. I learned the routes, then took and passed three SFAR checkrides. I started flying tours this past Monday and did 21 of them by the time high winds shut us down for the day on Wednesday afternoon.
I work for Papillon and hope anyone who reads this who comes to the Grand Canyon takes a tour with us. Papillon is a great outfit, extremely safety conscious, and pretty good to their pilots. They’re based at the airport, where they have an 11-pad heliport. If you take a tour, do the Imperial Tour. It really is worth the extra money. And if I’m there when you stop by, try to say hi.
On my off days, I’ll be back in my office, working on books. I have a revision (which I can’t talk about) lined up and two brand new Mac titles in the works. When I’m camped out in my trailer with my laptop, I’ll be working on a book about the things you see on Grand Canyon helicopter tours.
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