Tag Archives: tourism

Required Reading for Helicopter Tour Pilots

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Two accident reports that clearly demonstrate how “hot dogging” can get you — and your passengers — dead.

On Wednesday, a Sundance Helicopters AS350 with a pilot and four passengers on board, crashed in the mountains near Boulder City, NV. It was on a “twilight tour” of the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead.

At this point, there’s no speculation about how the accident occurred. But, as usual, the media is dragging all the dirt they can out into the limelight to sensationalize the event and give people potential places to point blaming fingers.

One of the things the media has brought up is another Sundance Helicopters crash that occurred back in September 2003. I was unfamiliar with this crash — it must have occurred before my regular reading of NTSB accident reports began. Unsure whether I was confusing it with another crash, I looked it up today. But no, this was yet another instance of stupid pilot tricks becoming deadly pilot tricks.

I thought it was worth reviewing this case and another I’ve covered in the past and urge pilots to read both of the final reports carefully to see how reckless flying can kill. What’s interesting to me is how similar these two cases are — heck, they even took place within 30 miles of each other.

LAX01MA272: AS350, August 10, 2001, Meadview, AZ

I covered this accident briefly in Part 5 of my “So You Want to Be a Helicopter Pilot” series. Here’s the NTSB summary:

On August 10, 2001, about 1428 mountain standard time, a Eurocopter AS350-B2 helicopter, N169PA, operating as Papillon 34, collided with terrain during an uncontrolled descent about 4 miles east of Meadview, Arizona. The helicopter was operated by Papillon Airways, Inc., as an air tour flight under Code of Federal Regulations 14 (CFR) Part 135. The helicopter was destroyed by impact forces and a postcrash fire. The pilot and five passengers were killed, and the remaining passenger sustained serious injuries. The flight originated from the company terminal at the McCarran International Airport (LAS), Las Vegas, Nevada, about 1245 as a tour of the west Grand Canyon area with a planned stop at a landing site in Quartermaster Canyon. The helicopter departed the landing site about 1400 and stopped at a company fueling facility at the Grand Canyon West Airport (GCW). The helicopter departed the fueling facility at 1420 and was en route to LAS when the accident occurred. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed, and a visual flight rules flight plan was filed.

The pilot had a reasonable amount of experience with nearly 3,000 hours of flight time, all of which was in helicopters. He had CFI and instrument ratings.

The pilot, however, also had a reputation for hot-dogging. From the NTSB report‘s interview with previous passengers:

According to the passengers, once the tour started, the pilot was talking all the time. He was very informative, and they felt he knew his history and geography very well. They went over the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead. About 20 minutes into the flight, the pilot turned his head toward the back and was talking to the passengers as the helicopter flew toward a cliff. The people in the back were trying to get the pilot’s attention and point out that he was flying toward a cliff, but he pretended he did not understand what they were saying, as if this was all being done on purpose. All this time, the pilot was turned around and talking to the passengers in the back seat, while the passengers were all pointing up trying to get him to climb. One witness said she finally picked up the microphone and said, “they are really scared…turn around and pull up the helicopter,” and he did. She could not estimate how far they were from the cliff when the pilot terminated the maneuver.

One of the passengers stated that there were particularly exciting episodes during the tour that were frightening to some of the others. As part of the tour, they flew over a site that was used in the commercial motion picture film Thelma and Louise, and the pilot pointed out the cliff. The pilot stopped for fuel before he landed in the canyon for the picnic lunch. After lunch, no more stops were made. During the return to LAS, the pilot asked if they wanted to know what it was like to drive a car off of a cliff. She stated that they all said “no” to this question; however, he proceeded to fly very fast toward the edge of the cliff and then dove the helicopter as it passed the edge. The passenger reported that it was “frightening and thrilling at the same time but it scared the others to death.”

Both of these incidents — heading directly for a cliff and then diving like Thema and Louise over a cliff — were confirmed in a video tape provided by the passenger.

Crash Site
I don’t think the pilot expected to end up like Thema and Louise, too.

Evidence at the crash site indicated that not only was the helicopter’s engine producing power at the time of impact, but the collective was full up. The debris field was compact, indicating very little forward movement when the helicopter hit the ground. There was no evidence of any mechanical failure immediately before the crash. The NTSB ruled out many accident scenarios based on mechanical malfunctions before concluding:

In the absence of any evidence to indicate a preimpact mechanical malfunction, and given the density altitude, helicopter performance considerations, and virtually all of the signatures evident at the IPI and in the wreckage, the investigation revealed that a probable scenario involves the pilot’s decision to maneuver the helicopter in a flight regime, and in a high density altitude environment, which significantly decreased the helicopter’s performance capability, resulting in a high rate of descent from which the pilot was unable to recover prior to ground impact. Additionally, although no evidence was found to indicate that the pilot had intended on performing a hazardous maneuver, the high rate of descent occurred in proximity to precipitous terrain, which effectively limited remedial options available.

In other words, he most likely performed his Thelma and Louise maneuver, dove off the cliff, and because of high density altitude, was unable to arrest the decent rate before hitting the ground.

LAX03MA292: AS350, September 20, 2003, Grand Canyon West, AZ

This case is a lot worse. I’ll let the NTSB describe what happened briefly:

On September 20, 2003, about 1238 mountain standard time, an Aerospatiale AS350BA helicopter, N270SH, operated by Sundance Helicopters, Inc., crashed into a canyon wall while maneuvering through Descent Canyon, about 1.5 nautical miles east of Grand Canyon West Airport (1G4) in Arizona. The pilot and all six passengers on board were killed, and the helicopter was destroyed by impact forces and postcrash fire. The air tour sightseeing flight was operated under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 135. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed for the flight, which was operated under visual flight rules on a company flight plan. The helicopter was transporting passengers from a helipad at 1G4 (helipad elevation 4,775 feet mean sea level [msl]) near the upper rim of the Grand Canyon to a helipad designated “the Beach” (elevation 1,300 msl) located next to the Colorado River at the floor of the Grand Canyon.

You need to read the NTSB’s full report to fully understand what happened here. You can download it as a PDF (recommended) or read it online.

The pilot was experienced. He was 44 years old with an ATP certificate for multiengine airplanes and for helicopters. He had CFI and instrument ratings for a variety of aircraft. He’d logged nearly 8,000 hours of flight time, nearly 7,000 of which was in helicopters. He had a clean record with the FAA.

But the pilot had also earned the nickname “Kamikaze” because of the way he flew. (And you can bet your ass that the media is having a field day with that in its coverage of Wednesday’s accident.)

99° Bank Angle
55° Pitch Angle
Two images from the NTSB report, calculating angles based on photographs and videos shot during other flights.

With a great deal of supporting evidence from the pilot’s previous passengers that same day and earlier, as well as photographs taken during flights with the pilot, the NTSB concluded that the pilot had a history of risk-taking behavior. Photographic evidence showed him flying at bank angles exceeding 90° with nose-down attitudes exceeding 50°. It’s estimated that he typically reached speeds up to 140 knots and rates of descent of 2,000 feet per minute.

With passengers on board.

For comparison’s sake, Sundance policy limited bank angles to 30° and pitch angles to 10° — both of which are very reasonable. Other pilots typically flew that portion of the flight at 110 to 120 knots, descending at 1,000 feet per minute.

Yet the report cites one passenger story after another of the pilot diving into the canyon and flying close to canyon walls. One former Sundance employee who had flown with him stated he “flew very close to the canyon wall” and “banked off one wall and then turned the other way, almost upside down.” One passenger claimed that his friend’s wife was screaming throughout the entire descent.

Sundance received at least two formal complaints about the pilot. There’s no evidence that anything was done about the first. The pilot was suspended for a week without pay after the second, but since Sundance was short of pilots, the penalty was never enforced and the pilot continued working with pay.

It should come as no real surprise that the pilot ran out of luck. According to the NTSB, on that September day:

The helicopter’s main rotor blade struck a near-vertical canyon wall in flight. The resulting damage to the main rotor system likely rendered the helicopter uncontrollable, and the helicopter subsequently impacted a canyon wall ledge.

There was a fireball when the helicopter exploded on impact. There wasn’t much wreckage. You can see for yourself; there are photos in the report. I wouldn’t even know it was a helicopter if it weren’t for the arrows pointing out parts.

Probable cause placed the blame on the pilot, as well as Sundance and the FAA:

The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the pilot’s disregard of safe flying procedures and misjudgment of the helicopter’s proximity to terrain, which resulted in an in-flight collision with a canyon wall. Contributing to the accident was the failure of Sundance Helicopters and the Federal Aviation Administration to provide adequate surveillance of Sundance’s air tour operations in Descent Canyon.

Disregard of safe flying procedures. That’s a bit of an understatement, no?

What We Can Take from This

If you don’t get the message I’m trying to convey here, you probably shouldn’t be flying anything — let alone passengers for hire in a helicopter.

It’s a fact: many of us fly a little nutty once in a while. Maybe low and fast over flat desert terrain. Or maybe threading our way though empty canyons at high speed. Or performing some other maneuver that takes all your attention and can easily turn into a disaster.

But when does “a little nutty” turn into pushing the aircraft beyond company or manufacturer limitations?

And who in their right mind would fly so dangerously with passengers on board?

You?

I hope not.

The point is that flying like a stunt pilot can get you killed. And if there are passengers on board, you’ll kill them, too.

Is that something you want to be remembered for? Do you want to be the subject of another pilot’s blog post about flying like an asshole with passengers on board? Do you want a derogatory nickname like “Kamikaze” brought up by the press eight years after your death when another pilot who works for your company is killed in a crash with his passengers?

How do you think the “Kamikaze” pilot’s family feels about his accident being brought up again? And again?

Think about why these pilots flew the way they did. Were they showing off? Or trying to get a rise out of their passengers?

In both instances, passengers made it clear — verbally, during the flight — that they didn’t want the pilot to fly the way he was. Think about the people pointing to a cliff face or the woman screaming throughout the descent. Why did these pilots treat their passengers with such disrespect? Scare them for no reason? Put their lives in danger? Was this fun for them? When is fun an excuse to risk other people’s lives?

Do you do this? If so, why? When will you stop? When your crash makes a big fireball like the ones in these stories?

Do you understand what I’m trying to say?

Read these accident reports. Two pilots are responsible for the deaths of eleven people with a twelfth person permanently disfigured.

Isn’t that enough to convince you not to fly like an asshole?

I only hope that Wednesday’s accident report isn’t another example for this blog post.

And my thoughts go out to the families of the victims of this stupidity.

Farm Stand Fruit Isn’t Always the Best

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Look before you buy.

When I was a kid, when the harvest months rolled around in northern New Jersey and Upstate New York, my family would take Sunday drives to farm stands and apple orchards. The drive was the activity, the destination was the excuse. The destination also had the rewards: fresh-picked apples, fresh local corn, fresh-made donuts, cider, soft-serve ice cream. The smell of apples and cinnamon and donuts brings back memories of those days.

Just a Memory

A regular destination was Tice Farm, which was founded in 1808. It was torn down in the late 1980s so a mall could be built in its place. This article on NorthJersey.com offers a look back at two of the farms we visited when I was a kid.

It’s this fond memory of farm stands that has always remained with me. It’s no wonder I began visiting a handful of farm stands in Washington State where I spent much of the summer. But I soon realized that today’s farm stands cannot be compared to the ones we visited 30+ years ago.

Today’s farm stands are mostly tourist attractions. Sure, they have some produce (more on that in a moment), but they also seem to sell an awful lot of non-food items that can’t easily be connected with a farm. Things like candles and scarves and t-shirts. Things like made-in-China “crafts.” Stocking and selling these items must be more satisfactory for the farm stand owner. After all, they’re cheap to buy, don’t need to be refrigerated, and don’t spoil. Sure, they’re usually the same kind of crap you can buy in any mall — even Tice’s Corner Mall — and probably even in a local Walmart. But tourists don’t care. They come, they buy, the farm stand owners keep them stocked.

Reject Fruit?

It’s the produce that upsets me, though. I visited a farm stand in Quincy, WA several times early this summer, attracted by its handmade signs for whatever “fresh” produce was currently available. What I found was often produce that was bruised or otherwise damaged, days old and, surprisingly, often not local.

I bought my first cherries of the season there and was disappointed to find that nearly half the bag’s contents had to be discarded because of splits and bird pecks. This is the fruit that the packing companies reject.

I suspect that the cherries I’d bought were from orchards in Mattawa that had lost 60% or more of their crop in heavy rains early in the season. (That’s what the helicopters are for, folks — to keep those cherries dry so they don’t split.) When the grower decides not to pick and take a loss for the season, the pickers will sometimes go into business for themselves, picking fruit and selling it directly to farm stands.

Rainier Cherries

These organic Rainier cherries, although ripe and tasty, were flawed for two reasons: they’re slightly bruised by the wind and there’s not enough red on them.

I saw this first hand at one of my client’s orchards this season. He had several acres of Rainier cherries that didn’t get enough color. (50% of a Rainier cherry needs to be red to meet standards.) The fruit was good — I picked at least 15 pounds for my own consumption and they lasted two weeks in my fridge — but the packing companies wouldn’t take it. The grower didn’t pick but the pickers descended on the orchard anyway, taking away a lot more fruit than I did. Was it a coincidence that local Rainier cherries appeared in the supermarket for 99¢ a pound that week? I don’t think so. I’m sure that farm stand got their share, too.

Fresh, Quality, Local Produce? Not Always

And that’s the point: the farm stands don’t always get quality produce. It’s not always local. It’s not always fresh. It’s whatever they can get cheap and sell at premium prices. The tourists don’t know any better. They see farm stands and they think fresh, local, organic. They don’t realize that they’re often buying the produce that the packing houses don’t want.

Is all this produce bad? No. The cherries pictured above were sub-standard for the packing houses, but they were perfectly good to eat. (And it’s good to see that someone was picking them and making them available for consumption — I picked so much primarily because the idea of all those cherries going to waste was very upsetting to me.) Still, a farm stand might charge a premium for them just because they’re Rainiers and just because they’re at a farm stand. It’s the sucker tourist who doesn’t know any better who is paying a premium price at the farm stand when they might get better fruit at the local supermarket.

As for local…well, I’ve never seen an orange grove in Washington State. Lemons, limes, kiwis — these are all produce you might find at a farm stand. If you’re looking for local produce, think of what you’re buying and ask if it really is local.

And fresh? Here’s a secret: apples are picked in the late summer and early autumn. If you buy an apple anywhere in the U.S. in May, it’s either not fresh or it not local. Now I’m not saying you shouldn’t buy apples off season — apples are one of the few fruits that we’re able to preserve for up to a year and maintain in near-fresh condition. I’m just using apples as an example, since apples appear at nearly every farm stand you might visit.

Look before You Buy

My point: don’t automatically think that the best produce can be found at a farm stand. Not all farm stands are created equally. Look before you buy. Ask questions. Don’t buy pre-bagged items — remember my bag of bad cherries? Make sure you get what you’re paying for.

And support the good farm stands — the ones really delivering produce right from the local farms — by visiting them often.

The Window of Opportunity

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Sometimes you just get lucky.

This is a follow-up to the post that appeared here on Friday, “The Tour Operator’s Fly or Don’t Fly Decision.” In that post, I explained why I wasn’t going to take a party of three passengers on a 3+ hour scenic flight in northern Arizona in Thursday’s high winds.

It was a very good decision. We flew on Friday instead. What a difference a day makes! The skies were completely clear and winds seldom topped 10 MPH anywhere on our route.

We had a smooth flight up the Verde River before climbing over the Mogollon Rim west of Payson to Meteor Crater. We passed a herd of buffalo just southwest of the crater and I was able to do a low-level circle around them for the benefit of my passengers.

Here’s a quick video of the Meteor Crater overflight, taken from a camera mounted inside my helicopter’s bubble. Narration was added afterward.

It was a bit bumpy from there to the Grand Falls of the Little Colorado River, which were flowing but not exactly “grand” that day. (We need more snow melt to really get them going.)

This video shows the no-so-grand Grand Falls of the Little Colorado River. Look closely and you’ll see a truck parked along the right rim of the canyon; gives you an idea of scale.

Then south of Flagstaff Airport to Oak Creek Canyon and into Sedona. My passengers had lunch at the airport restaurant while I arranged for fuel and chatted with the folks at the terminal. On the way back, we did a quick flyby of Montezuma’s Castle, climbed up the mountains southwest of Camp Verde, and followed the Agua Fria River to Lake Pleasant. I showed them the ruins atop Indian Mesa and one of my passengers spotted some wild burros, so I swung around to give them all a good look. From there, we returned to our starting point at Scottsdale Airport.

I logged 3.4 hours of flight time in the nicest of conditions. My passengers — and I! — really enjoyed the flight. And it was nice to put a little cash in Flying M Air’s coffers.

On Saturday, the wind kicked up again, although not as bad as it was on Thursday. Then storms moved in. It rained almost all day in the Phoenix area (and Wickenburg) and snowed up north. There were low clouds all day Sunday and even now, as I write this around dawn on Monday, I can see low clouds out my window. (Oddly, I got a call from a Phoenix area concierge asking if I could do a nighttime tour of Phoenix last night; what kind of scenic tour did they expect when you can’t see more than a mile or two in mist? Sheesh.)

Of course, all this rain is very unusual for Arizona. We’ve had more rain in the first two months of this year than we did all 12 months of last year.

In general, I consider myself (and my passengers) lucky to have slipped into that narrow window of opportunity for such a long flight. It worked out great for all of us.

The Tour Operator's Fly or Don't Fly Decision

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It should be about client experience, shouldn’t it?

Yesterday, like all other days I’m scheduled to fly, I faced a pilot’s usual weather-related fly/don’t fly decision. While the weather in Arizona is usually so good that flying is possible just about every day of the year, yesterday’s weather forecast was different. It required me to make a real decision.

SDL to Meteor Crater

As this marked-up WAC shows, the most direct route I’d take for this flight has us spending extended periods of time at high elevation over mountains.

I was scheduled to do a custom tour of Meteor Crater and the Grand Falls of the Little Colorado River in northern Arizona with a lunch stop on the return trip in Sedona. The total flight time would be about three hours, with much of it conducted over mountainous or high altitude (or both) terrain.

The Weather

I’d been watching the weather forecasts for Winslow (east of the Crater), Flagstaff (between the Grand Falls and Sedona), and Sedona for a few days. Earlier in the week, there had been a 10% chance of snow in the Flagstaff area. That wasn’t worrying me much. What did worry me was the wind forecast: 20 mph plus gusts. That would make for an uncomfortable and possibly very unpleasant flight.

On the morning of the flight, the weather forecast had taken a turn for the worse. According to NOAA what I was looking at for the places we’d fly over:

Phoenix: Sunny, with a high near 64. Breezy, with a south southwest wind between 7 and 17 mph, with gusts as high as 28 mph.

Sedona: A 10 percent chance of showers after 11am. Partly cloudy, with a high near 58. South wind 6 to 9 mph increasing to between 18 and 21 mph. Winds could gust as high as 33 mph.

Flagstaff: A 30 percent chance of snow showers after 11am. Partly cloudy, with a high near 43. Breezy, with a southwest wind 8 to 11 mph increasing to between 20 and 23 mph. Winds could gust as high as 37 mph. Total daytime snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible.

Winslow: Sunny, with a high near 58. Breezy, with a south wind 8 to 11 mph increasing to between 25 and 28 mph. Winds could gust as high as 44 mph.

To be fair, we weren’t actually flying to Winslow. But we’d be about 20 miles to the west, on the same big, flat, windswept plateau.

But if that wasn’t bad enough, there was also a Hazardous Weather Outlook for entire area:

A VIGOROUS PACIFIC LOW WILL BRUSH NORTHERN ARIZONA BRINGING SOUTHWEST WINDS OF 15 TO 25 MPH WITH LOCAL GUST TO NEAR 40 MPH AND COOLER TEMPERATURES. IN ADDITION…PARTLY TO MOSTLY CLOUDY SKIES WILL SPREAD ACROSS THE AREA WITH SCATTERED SHOWERS DEVELOPING FROM ABOUT FLAGSTAFF NORTHWARD TO THE ARIZONA…UTAH BORDER. THE SNOW LEVEL WILL RANGE FROM 4000 TO 5000 FEET BY THIS AFTERNOON

Flagstaff is at 7000 feet.

I know from 2,300 hours experience flying helicopters all over the southwest that when the winds get above 20 mph and you’re flying over mountainous terrain, you’re in for a rough ride. A 15 mph gust spread in the mountains can make you feel as if you’re riding a bull at a rodeo.

And a 10% to 30% chance of rain or show showers didn’t make the situation any better. I’ve been in snow showers in the Sedona area that cut visibility to less than a mile in localized areas. Not very scenic.

The Decision

There are three ways I could make the decision:

  • Do I have to go? The simple truth is that if I had to make the flight — for example, if it were a matter of life and death — I could. I’ve flown in high winds before and although it caused white knuckles and a lot of in-flight stress, it was doable. But this was not a “must go” situation.
  • If paying passengers weren’t involved, would I go? The answer to this one was no, I wouldn’t. If this were a personal pleasure flight, I simply wouldn’t make the trip that day. I don’t take much pleasure in a rodeo ride 500-1000 feet off the ground.
  • Would passengers enjoy the trip? I’d guess the answer would be no. I fact, I’d expect the passengers to actually experience fear at least once during the flight. Turbulence are scary, especially when you seldom experience them — or have never experienced them in a small aircraft.

So the decision was actually quite simple: I would call the client and advise that we not make the trip that day. I could offer a tour of Phoenix (relatively flat, a shorter flight, much lighter winds) or the same trip the next day when the weather was expected to be much better.

I’m Selling an Experience

This is what separates me from the tour operator I worked for at the Grand Canyon back in 2004. In the spring, we routinely flew in winds up to 50 miles per hour, with fights that were so bumpy that even I, as the pilot, was starting to get sick. (Puking passengers was a daily occurrence.) Keeping in mind that we did “scenic” flights, near the end of the season, we occasionally flew in conditions with minimal visibility due to thunderstorm activity and smoke from forest fires (planned and unplanned). After one flight, when the visibility was so bad that I had trouble finding my way back to the airport, I asked the Chief Pilot why we were flying. After all, the passengers couldn’t see any more than I could. His response was, “If they’re willing to pay, we’re willing to fly.”

I don’t have this same attitude. My passengers are paying me for a pleasant, scenic tour. While I can’t control the weather, I can control when we fly. If I suspect that the weather will make the trip significantly unpleasant — or possibly scare the bejesus out of them — how can I, in good conscience, sell them the flight?

I’m not saying that I won’t fly in less than perfect conditions, but if the conditions are downright horrible for flight, why should I subject my passengers — or myself — to those conditions?

I called the passenger and explained the situation. He consulted his wife. They agreed to do the flight the next day. He seemed happy that I’d called and given him the choice.

I’m sure we’ll all have a great time.

The Parasites of the Tour Industry

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One reason it’s so hard for small companies to get ahead.

The other day, I got another call from XYZ Company. That’s not their real name, of course, but it’ll do for this article.

XYZ has been calling me occasionally for the past four years. It’s a tour packaging company based in the eastern United States. But it doesn’t sell itself as a packager. Instead, its ads lead clients to think that it’s a huge tour company with offices all over the country.

How does it do this? By advertising the services of small companies like mine, Flying M Air, as its own.

Now I don’t want to say that they are deliberately misleading the public. I’m sure the ads have fine print somewhere that makes it clear that they are not providing the services. After all, I’m sure they don’t want any liability if something should go wrong. And I’m pretty sure that if a client asked straight out who would be providing the services, they’d admit that they used subcontractors. But I’m equally sure that the client would have a difficult time finding out exactly who was providing the services until they had paid for them.

What They Do

Here’s how it works. XYZ calls me to ask whether I can perform a specific tour or other helicopter charter service. When I say that I can, they ask about my rates. I give them an hourly rate. They then go into some detail on exactly what they’re looking for and ask whether I can do it.

Off-Airport Landing

Mine sites can be tight to land in. I’d be hard-pressed to fit my helicopter in here.

In some (few) cases, the job is simple: a helicopter flight from point A to point B in my area. But in many cases, the job is more complex. A recent job query, for example, would require me to fly to a location about 100 miles from my base and spend three days there. While there, I’d take two passengers over some nearby mines they apparently own, landing if requested so they can get out and do mining-related stuff on the ground. Then, if they need help, I’d go back and fetch two companions and bring them to the site. I’d then wait around for them to be ready to move on and shuffle them to the next site.

As you might imagine, this isn’t as simple as quoting an hourly rate. I have to get compensated for the trip from my base to the client location and back and the cost of spending the night away from home. I also need to get a minimum number of hours of flight time each day to make it worth keeping my helicopter unavailable for other work.

I get calls like this from people quite often. Not exactly this scenario, of course, but other work that’s equally weird and/or time-consuming. In so many cases, the callers clearly have no idea about the cost of using a helicopter for their task. They figure they’ll need about three hops from point to point and that surely can’t take more than an hour or two. They don’t see the ferry time (three hours, in this case), the overnight fees (at least $250 per night), or the need for daily minimums. They think I’m going to provide them with three days of service, putting my aircraft at their whim, for the cost of two hours of flight time. As you can imagine, I don’t do much of this work.

In this particular case, it took two phone calls (so far) to discuss the job and an argument about how long it would take me to fly from my base to the client’s. I’ve underestimated ferry flight time enough times to know that it’s better to overestimate and be able to charge the client less than he expects. The project is still in limbo, but I don’t expect it to happen. In most cases, a call from XYZ means nothing more than time wasted on the phone.

Dealing with a Middleman

There are two differences between dealing directly with a client looking for a quote and dealing with the telephone jockeys at a middleman company like XYZ:

  • The client knows exactly what he wants. He tells me, I ask questions, he answers them. Within a few minutes on one phone call we zero in on a complete description of the job and a pretty solid estimate of costs. This results in sticker shock for the caller, an agreement that we can’t work together, or a tentative reservation. The telephone jockeys for companies like XYZ, on the other hand, have very little idea of what the client wants or needs or the kinds of services a helicopter operator can provide. After all, the last call they took was for a boat ride around Manhattan or a train ride to Denali or a bus tour to the Grand Canyon. They get just the basic client needs, search their database for possible providers in an area, and call a company like mine. They don’t know anything about my aircraft or its capabilities. Not only do they not know answers to my questions — how much flight time per day? do they own the land I have to land on? how much does each passenger weigh? are they carrying equipment? is there any flying time at night? are the mines anywhere near the restricted areas in that part of the state? — but they don’t know what questions to ask me on behalf of the client. They are middlemen. As a result, most queries take more than one phone call.
  • Companies like XYZ need to make a profit. Rather than be satisfied with a commission that I’m willing to pay, they jack up my rates and charge that to the client. How much do they add? In the one instance I was able to discover the rate they charged a client, it was 30%. So my clients are paying a 30% premium for my services when they book with a company that has no clue about the kind of services I offer. As a result, companies like XYZ often price me out of the market. I don’t get the work because I cost too much. But those aren’t my prices. They’re they premium prices charged by XYZ. What pisses me off the most is that my margins are so thin that XYZ would likely make more money on a job than I would — and I’m the one doing the work.

In the past four years, I’ve been contacted about a dozen times by XYZ. Occasionally, I get a telephone jockey who seems to know what he’s doing. But in most cases, the guy calling is pretty clueless and I have to list the questions I need answered to provide a quote. I almost got work with XYZ twice.

They Promise Services I Can’t Deliver

Meteor Crater

Meteor Crater is amazing from the air, but don’t expect me to land inside it.

Once, a UK-based television company wanted to get some aerial footage of Meteor Crater in northern Arizona. What a lot of people don’t know is that Meteor Crater is privately owned. The whole damn thing is on someone’s property. They’ve put in a very nice museum and walkways to overlook the crater. It’s a cool place to visit and I highly recommend it, especially if you have kids interested in space.

The best views, however, are from the air. Television people know this. They wanted to hire me to take them around the crater and get footage. At least that’s what XYZ told me.

It took three or four phone calls to get the information the client and I needed to make sure we were on the same page. We agreed on rates and times and even a date.

Then I got a call from the UK company. They wanted to talk to me about landing in the Crater. Whoa. I can’t do that. I’ve talked to the Meteor Crater folks and they won’t even let me land at their helipad, let alone inside their tourist attraction. I can’t get the amount of insurance they need (which is an unreasonable amount, but we won’t go there). Turns out that XYZ had told them I could land anywhere. Reality bites us in the ass.

They’re Too Anxious to Sell, Not Interested in Providing Service

Zero Mike Lima at Marble Canyon

One flight I almost did for XYZ would have been above the cliffs in this photo.

Another time, a Phoenix-based company needed to do an aerial survey west of Page, AZ. I know that area very well; in fact, I’d been flying over the same spot less than a week before the call came and was excited about the possibility of flying up there again so soon.

The XYZ guy had a decent handle on the job and we were able to make arrangements with only three phone calls. Of course, one of the last phone calls concerned the date — XYZ had been so concerned about my ability to get the job done and the rate I’d charge that they neglected to tell me the date of the job. I was already booked for a flight that day. The client scrambled and offered a different date that worked for me. We booked the flight.

XYZ requires the client to pay, in full, at booking. The client did this, paying for a total of 5 or 6 hours of flight time. At XYZ’s rate for my services — 30% more than I charge. I didn’t see a penny of this money, but was assured that I’d be paid before the flight.

The client called me. They were having trouble getting landing permission from BLM, which they’d need for me to land. They were good people and did not expect me to land without permission. The flight would be delayed, possibly beyond their window of opportunity.

I didn’t hear anything more. A day before the flight I called the client to see what was going on. She was baffled. “Didn’t they call you? We had to cancel.”

They hadn’t called me.

“We couldn’t get our money back,” she added.

This bugged me. Someone had paid for my services and wasn’t getting what they paid for. I told her I’d try to get her a refund. I called XYZ and spoke to the guy we’d been dealing with. He told me, in no uncertain terms, that their payment and refund policy was none of my concern. I hadn’t provided any services, they weren’t going to pay me. (I would have turned the money over to the client.) If the client rescheduled — and they had a year to do so — they might call me back.

Competing with Myself

One of the things that annoys me about XYZ is its ability to be at the top of search results for any Google search where my company might appear. They do this with AdWords — paying Google to put them at the top of search results. It costs a fortune — I know because I used to use AdWords. I threw a bunch of money at Google for about six months and got absolutely no business from it.

XYZ, however, has 30% net on any booking and can throw that at Google or anyone else it needs to. So it comes to the top of the search results. People click that “sponsored ad” and two things happen:

  • The folks at Google hear a little ca-ching!
  • The person who clicked the ad sets himself up to deal with someone who knows little about the service he needs, pay a 30% premium on any tour he books, and lose the ability to get a refund if the project gets cancelled.

And when the price is too high for the market, I lose the business I might have gotten if they clicked the link to my site instead.

Parasites of the Tour Industry?

Parasite is a strong term and likely not as accurate as it could be. Companies like XYZ might believe they’ve got more of a symbiotic relationship with service providers like me. They might think that their advertising and ability to take calls in their call centers gets me more business.

But it doesn’t. It’s been four years since that first call and I have yet to get any work from them. Instead, they’re inaccurately representing my company and its rates to potential clients. I’m losing business because of them.

You might ask, then why not tell them to take a hike and stop calling?

Obviously, I can’t do that. After all, there is an off chance that they might actually get me some business. And in this market, it’s better to let a parasite suck some of your blood away than be blacklisted by a company that could throw you the few crumbs you need to stay alive.

Deal Direct, Not with the Middleman

The more important question is, why would people seeking tour or charter services be lured in to booking with a parasite company like XYZ?

I suspect there are multiple reasons, but the top one would be laziness convenience.

Consider the way you search for goods and services. You fire up your Web browser and enter a search for the service you need. A first page of search results appears. You see XYZ company right near the top. They’re also one of the “sponsored links.” You figure they must be big and have great service. You click the link. You make contact. Sure, they tell you, they can do that. Just give us a little more info so we can get you a quote.

Pretty easy for you, huh? One search, one click, one e-mail form or phone call. You don’t have to talk to more than one person. (Well, maybe you have to talk to him a few times while he gets all the information he needs.) You’re getting real service from a big company with locations across the country, right?

Wrong. You’re getting a telephone jockey who barely knows what you’re talking about. He’s picking up the phone and making some calls for you. He’s finding the deal that he thinks might meet your needs. He’s getting ready to lock you in on a no-cancel, no refund deal.

And he’s charging you a 30% premium for the work you could have done yourself, had you just looked past the first three search results.

You want to help small companies while helping yourself? Deal directly with the service provider and tell those parsites to take a hike. You’ll get the same — or better — service for a lot less money.