Grand Canyon from the Air, The Sunset Part

Coming on to the edge of the Canyon, I was very happy to be in a helicopter as we were very close to the ground. Much closer than that the airplane would be. Soon, we came over the northern ridge and saw the canyon and the river in their full grandeur. Sun was stating to set and the colors were very warm although the contrast between shadow and light was still quite dramatic.

Following the river, we descended into the canyon and landed on a plateau about 2/3 of the way up. It was a snack stop and while everyone else was snacking and drinking champagne, we were running around with the cameras trying to get as many pictures as possible.


Time flew by and soon we were piling back into the helicopter for a return flight back with a tour of a night Vegas. The pilot suggested that the couple that was sitting up front swap places with the two skinniest people from the back seat (that included me and another lady). The couple upfront gracefully accepted and soon I was strapping into the prime real estate in the heli – right front seat (the heli seats 3 upfront, pilot on the left and then 2 pax).

The flight back was even better as the canyon was basking in the low reddish light of the setting sun and the colors of the desert repeating all hues on the color wheel.



Sun was setting quickly and soon we were approaching the night-time Vegas.



This blog got its start after my first night flight over downtown Toronto that just blew me away. In a way, flying over night-time Las Vegas, I came full circle. That expedience was unreal. Exciting, exhilarating, with a complete visual sensory overload! Trying to hold the camera steady in the shaking helicopter was challenging, but I managed to get a few shots. They of course pale in comparison with how it felt being there, but at least give a hint of what a magic experience that was. And of course the only thought I had as we hovered to a landing spot was “ I got to finish that night rating!!!!”.

Grand Canyon from the Air

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions Las Vegas? Well, gaming of course. The whole place is purposely built in such way that casinos are unavoidable. Unfortunately, they still allow smoking in the casinos which makes them off limits for me. Looking at what else was there to do in Vegas, I discovered so many options that we would have to stop sleeping for the duration of our four day trip to do them all. Shows, restaurants, shopping, spas, golf and all the day trips to Hoover Dam and Lake Mead.

I was browsing the site offering various day tours when I saw something that made me sit up and pay attention: there were words “Grand Canyon” and “by air” in one sentence. Blame it on my Russian-taught American geography, but somehow, I did not realize that Grand Canyon was within easy reach from Vegas by airplane or helicopter. Having finished jumping up and down screaming: “we are going to see the Grand Canyon” to the great surprise of my office colleagues, I set upon deciding on how exactly to accomplish that goal.

Flying by myself was out of question. I never flew in the mountains or high density altitudes and was very out of currency to even attempt a checkout. I then considered taking an airplane tour until I realized that, well, it was a CANYON, meaning that commercial tours would have to stay high above it and probably would be too fast. I then looked under ‘helicopters’ and the “sunset tour with a landing inside the Canyon” captured my imagination right then and there and I booked it in the spot.

As the day of tour drew closer, I got a bit antsy remembering my past helicopter experiences in Russia. I used to work for a small charter company and flew on my fair share of old and incredibly noisy helicopters, so I was not sure what to expect. As we got out of the limo that picked us up at the hotel and walked into the helicopter company office, I was instantly put at ease by the atmosphere which reminded me of my flight school, except instead of student flights, there were tourist flights and instead of Cessnas and Pipers there were nice looking helicopters.

Depending on the configuration, the sitting capacity in the helicopters varied from 4 to 6 pax. We were in the larger one. As photographers, we were hoping to get a front seat, but unfortunately, due to Weight and Balance concerns, the combined weight of me, my boyfriend and our camera bag delegated us to a backseat. Luckily, side windows were rather large as well.

As we hovered off and started moving in the direction of the Grand Canyon, I congratulated myself on a right choice. Helicopter moved slower than the airplane and we were flying very close to the ground, much closer than any airplane would allowing for some neat pictures of Vegas suburbs, golf courses and Lake Mead. The views were incredible and they were only going to get better!


Last time I visited Vegas, 8 years ago, I visited the Hoover Dam by bus. This time, we had a chance to see it from air and what a sight that was! It was massive even from the air. What was also very obvious form the air were very low water levels in the Lake.

Leaving Hoover Dam, we headed towards the Grand Canyon. I was looking at the multicolored mountain ridges, blue water of the Lake Mead and the desert that was in between when suddenly I saw something that made me sit up straight bumping my headset off. Grabbing a headset and aiming the camera at what appeared to be a mountain dirt strip, I managed to snap the shot that showed about half of it.

I later asked the pilot was it was and he said it was Pearce Ferry airstrip (L25). It was a back up CAA landing strip in the in the 1930’s but was deserted later. There is no operator on that field, but the one of the Runways is still open. I found a better picture of it here:

http://www.airphotona.com/image.asp?imageid=3752&catnum=0&catname=All%20Categories&keyword=&country=&state=&pagenum=148

As we flew towards the Canyon, the amount of helicopter traffic around us was astounding, even for someone like me, used to busy training airspaces back home. There were at least 7 or so helicopters in our group and there were a few all around us. I figured there must be special rules for flying in that area as well as transit corridors like we have around Niagara Falls and true enough, there were – found this presentation when I get back home. http://grandcanyonairspace.iat.gov/generalportion.swf Very interesting read even for those who never going to fly there by themselves.

Grand Canyon and more in the next post…

Las Vegas and the Airplanes

The waiting lounge of Las Vegas McCarran International Airport faces the hotels on the strip with one of the runways in between the lounge and the hotels. We were getting out of our airplane, having just landed at Vegas, when i noticed that the in between Rwy was in use and provided some unreal shooting opportunities.


So, instead of getting our of the airport and getting to our hotel, we instead spent the next hour glued to the windows with cameras in our hands. Mandalay Bay and Luxor pyramid hotels provided a shooting background that has to be one of the best in the world.

Life after Citabria

The title says it all. By late September, it was confirmed that my favorite taildragger in the world was damaged and, combined with the engine coming to its TBO limit, she was not economical to repair, so my aerobatic activities ground to a halt. As did my personal flying. But I did fly a lot on commercial airliners between then and now, visiting Heathrow, Cancun, Las Vegas and Calgary.

In early October I flew to UK to spend 5 days in the freezing quarry to get trained on a new diving equipment. In flying terms, it was like making transition from twin engine propeller plane to a modern jet. Following that training, i needed to spent a lot of time in the water practicing, which i did through out October and November and then flew to Mexico for a week of fun diving.

I did a half-hearted attempt to resume my night rating in December-January and even got it to a point when i only need a dual night x-country and 1.5 hrs more solo night time to finish, but then my instructor left, Wx quirks stripped me of both day and night currencies and I moved in to a new house on Feb 1 (anyone who moved would know that a few weeks after can be chaotic) and then went on a back to back trips to, respectively, Las Vegas (for fun) and Calgary (business).

So my life after Citabria was exciting, colorful and crazy busy, but a big part of it was missing -personal flying. My recent helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon (post coming soon), made me realize how much i missed flying, even if it has to be straight and level for a time being until i find another taildragger to rent or recover from the house purchase and buy my own. I even know which one I want.

Highs and lows.

It was one of those rare early fall days that are so perfect, they seem unreal. The sky was bright blue and visibility unlimited. The leaves that just started to change colors hardly moved in a light breeze. The air was light and crisp and the temperature just right, not too hot, not too cold.

I drove to the airport anticipating my flight. With storms, low ceilings, high winds and everything in between, it had been a while and I was due for a nice flight. I was going through all figures in my mind imagining flying through that crisp blue air and looking at the sea of colors underneath.

The plane is tied in a grass, so I normally check gas and oil (she needed both) and then taxi to the pumps and do my walk around there. Trying to screw the fuel cap on the right wing, I realized that it felt differently – it seemed to have sunk into the wing and the fabric edge was sitting higher than usual, mixing up with the thread. At that point, I knew that something was not quite right, so I decided to do the walk around right there.

The rest of walk around went fine until I got to the tail assembly and discovered a long gash in a fabric on the vertical fin with the part of the structural frame sticking out. Staring at the tear that was close to 10 inches long I knew that I was not flying that day and probably that week and possibly that month and I still could not believe it. It was a perfect day and everyone was flying. Everyone, except me. I was talking to my instructor and snagging the plane. I hope what ever it was is easily fixable and my little Citabria comes back soon.

And going from low to high, couple of days ago, I did a night flight in a Piper Warrior piloted by a friend of mine whom I met in the ground school for my PPL. My first ever time in the low wing plane (well, aside from commercial airliners) and my buddy’s first non-family passenger. We started and received our PPL tickets within weeks of each other, but I dropped the night training in April while he persisted and finished.

Even though my buddy did all communications, I surprised myself by remembering all the frequencies at Buttonville and most of the communication procedures. My friend did the take off and landings (and did a great job at both) and I got to fly the airplane straight and level. It felt very heavy and stable, quite a difference from the Citabria.

The skies were clear and we could see the stars and Toronto Pearson planes in a distance. We decided to fly north instead of downtown tour and ended up flying circles over Newmarket where I spend my weekends and my buddy lives full time. Time flew by. I enjoyed that flight so much that I decided to re-start my night licence training next week. And now, with Citabria off-line, I it might be the only flying I’d do for the next couple weeks.

Surrounded by the Clouds

The night before my scheduled Saturday morning flight, we had a massive front pass through the area with lots of thunder and lightning and very heavy rain, so I was not very optimistic about my flying prospects.

I did not get to fly the previous week and I knew I would be away for the next two weekends, so I needed at least a few circuits to make sure my skills did not deteriorate. Actually, I needed circuit practice regardless as I spent too much time enjoying acro flying and not enough time doing circuits.

Ready to leave for my 5 min drive to the airport, I checked the METARS for airports north and south of my field and all of the airports reported very low ceilings, embedded TCUs and rain, some heavy. It was also started to rain a bit outside my house.

My hopes very low, I decided to drive to the field anyways, thinking that I’d take a look. Arriving at the field, I saw that one of my school’s Cessna’s was in the air and raised them on my handheld radio to ask about the ceilings. They reported that right over the field it was over 3,000 ft but looked low all the way around it. That was all the info I needed – I decided to go up and just do circuits for 0.5 hr.

As it happened, I also had my own personal photographer with me, who took lots of pictures of me prepping the plane and practicing.

The plane is tied up in a grass field during the summer, so I normally check fuel and oil and, in case more fuel is needed, I them start it up, do a quick mag check and then taxi to the fuel pump. We had some magneto troubles lately, so I usually also do a quick mag check while on the grass so that if it drops too much, then I do not even need to move the plane.

This time, the check went fine and soon we were off to get some fuels. I did my walk-around as plane was being re-fuelled. Conscious of the heavy rain the night before, I made sure I checked all the fuel drains for water. Everything was fine and soon I was in the run up area.

As I did my run up, the Cessna in the circuit announced final, so I waited for them to land and take off and then backtracked. Wind was 5-10 kts, almost down the Rwy. The Cessna I was sharing the circuits with flew much larger circuits that I normally do, so I had to play with some power/ pitch settings that would get me on a nice stable approach at the speed that I wanted. My first approach ended up a bit low and I had to drag it in with power, but I figured it out and second approach was much more stable. At that point the Cessna was done for the day and I had the circuit to myself.

Turning from x-wind into downwind and not having to keep my eyes on a Cessna in front of me, I finally had a chance to look around and was surprised to see that I seemed to be flying in the middle in inverted hole. All around my airstrip were low hanging clouds, but they seemed to have parted right over my field leaving my circuit completely open with very decent ceilings. It was amazing.

I worked on my landings trying to make sure I do a nice 3-pointers with no bounces and also tried to stay right in the middle of Rwy. This mostly worked. The Rwy 26 that I was using is upsloping with a couple of bumps in the end that seemed to have gotten bigger over time. I would typically land and roll early enough to be airborne before the bumps, although one time, I was not airborne, but was above the flying speed, so that when I bounced off the bump, I just stayed in the air. I believe we also got that on camera.

I had the circuit for myself for a couple more approaches and then a helicopter announced his downwind as I was in the crosswind. My field is owned by a helicopter company, so we have more helicopters than planes. I quickly scanned the sky, located the heli and told him that I was behind him x-wind turning downwind. He flew a fast circuit and I did not have to extend mine at all.

On my last circuit, I got rained on while in the downwind and figured it was time to do a full stop. I got off the Rwy, taxied through the grass and tied Citabria down for the day as no one else booked it after me.