Logging country, Vernonia Oregon

Flight #: 083 [Commercial VFR61]
CFI: Kristie E.
Aircraft: Robinson R22 Beta II
Aircraft ID: N2356T
Duration, as PIC: 1.4hrs
Cumulative Time: 100.4hrs

The flight to Vernonia was a blast. Mainly because it is beautiful country and it was a perfect day. Sky was clear, had a nice breeze from the west, and I happened to be going out as the temperature was cooling down in the evening. Also, a few milestones for today's flight.

• first flight to Vernonia, OR
• first flight in to true logging country
• first real off airport landing
• first real pinnacle landing
• first "brown out"
• first maximum glide configuration auto-rotation

I kind of have mixed emotions about flying to airports for the first time. You are challenged by the fact that you have never found them before, and it takes some real looking to find the them.

The larger airports, with towers and multiple runways are easy to find. You can seem them for 5+ miles. Their sheer size is the win here. Obviously runway lights are good too. Terminals, ground crews... like Portland International - PDX. Can't miss that puppy.

Mid-size airports, like Aurora - UAO, paved with one runway are pretty simple as well, but you generally can't see them until you are about 3 miles away. Sometimes they can be tricky because they often look like roads, or parallel big roads. Some have lights, others do not... so you need to focus to get on these.

Small airports are tricky, Twin Oaks - 7S3. They are generally paved, but very small. They really look like driveways. Usually the give away for these puppies are the kind-a-hanger looking buildings on the side. Beat up tarmac, faded paint, etc. Tough.

The micro-airports, like Vernonia 05S, if you can call them airports, are impossible to find. Grass strips, is more like it. These things cannot be see until you are on top of them. Literally the change in color of the grass helps you find the runway, if they have grass, that is. Most of them are dirt road looking things with a faded orange rag blowing in the wind, rather than a wind sock. Man, they can be tough. Vernonia was not too bad because it was the only flat area witin 5 miles that was not covered in clear-cut tree stumps.

Anyway, found it and our first approach was aborted because there were kids, on their 4 wheelers, playing on the runway. So, went around for another approach. This time they were running back on to the runway to pickup something they had dropped/left earlier. Ugh. We did an approach and then just headed north for an off airport landing. Not our average, "hey, go land in the field" off airport... a real live one.

This was incredibly cool. Kristie picked out a clearing on a pinnacle and asked me to land. Took a little maneuvering on my part, but once we got lined up and headed in... it was very impressive. 100ft drop down a slope on my left. 50ft on the right. If you watch Ax Men, this is the place they would put the yarder.

Anyway, came in for a landing, and at about 10ft we kicked up a cloud of dust... causing a mini-brown-out. Generally you would come all the way to the ground here because in a real brown-out your visibility is gone and your last known spot is safe... down.... so you go there. In this case, it was just a little bit obstructed so we immediately took off. Altitude over airspeed in this situation, so you "fall" off the pinnacle into the valley a bit to get some air under you in case of an emergency. Plus, it looks really impressive when you do it.

Tooled around a bit more in the area, and headed back for HIO.

Along the way, Kristie asked if she had shown me a max-glide... she had not, so we set up for it. Situation is this... you get an engine failure and you can't find an open spot anywhere near you... only way far away. How do you get there? Set up for a maximum glide configuation auto rotation. 75knots, 90% RPM... and you literally glide/float to your point. Just the aerodynamics of the helicopter taking over, really, but you can extend your point quite a bit. For every 1500ft in altitude you can glide over a mile. Impressive, right? Did one of those... to test it out. I was a little bit un-nerved during this because <97% rotor RPM, your low rotor RPM warning horn is going off. Ever try to do someting physically/mentally demanding with an horn balring? Remember, I'm wearing a $1000 noise cancelling headset in the helicopter and this thing is LOUD! Anyway, with a little help, Kristie got me to my setup and it was pretty impressive.

After that, headed back home. Nothing to interesting to speak of, honestly... a pretty standard approach and landing. Although I don't undestand why they put the sun directly in your eyes like that when you are trying to land.



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