Discouraged by reports of low clouds at various points along Interstate 10 and Interstate 20, but encouraged by forecasts of improving conditions, we launched from El Paso (KELP) to Van Horn, Texas (KVHN). The airport was deserted, but we managed to get the FBO guy on his cell phone and he popped right over to help us fuel the R44 from the pumps. The big users of this airport have been the U.S. Army with some drones and Blue Origin/Jeff Bezos with Gulfstreams and helicopters coming to see rocket launches (not stopping to chat with anyone at the airport).
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We departed after refueling and, sure enough, the forecast great weather hadn’t materialized. As the highway climbed, the cloud deck didn’t move, which meant that the ceiling kept getting lower and lower. We hadn’t gone more than 10 minutes from KVHN before making the decision to do a 180-degree turn. We then called our FBO guy back to get the keys to the crew car and went into town for a truly great early dinner in a classic hotel:
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After dinner… the same damn clouds. But they certainly didn’t look very high. Maybe we could go over them at 7,500′ and… we did! It’s unusual to fly over a cloud deck in a helicopter and if we’d had to do an autorotation to the highway it could have been challenging, but I have done autos on instruments in training. Anyway, the faithful Robinson never hiccupped so we made it over the last of the mountains and the broken cloud layer without incident and landed at Abilene just as it was getting dark. Abilene Aero lent us their crew car for the overnight hotel stay.
What would it cost to ship an R44 from Los Angeles to Miami on a truck, vs the cost of flying it with pilots + hotels + food + fuel + engine time?
About $20,000… take helicopter apart and put it into crates. Truck. Reassemble at destination. That might be the pre-Biden price (or maybe not; the Robinson web site says $8,000 for crating). Trucking an assembled R44 is not authorized due to the vibration.
AI says: “Shipping the R44 by truck from Los Angeles to Miami would likely cost only $2,000 to $4,000, a fraction of the potential flight operating expenses. The fuel, engine overhaul, pilot, and lodging costs for such a long cross-country helicopter flight would be exorbitantly higher than trucking.”
Wouldn’t have the patience to enjoy a truly great early dinner in a classic hotel, every 500 miles. Once you go across the country non stop in a 737 Max, everything changes.
What an adventure, thanks for sharing. No rainbow flags/decals in Van Horn? I bet you were very disappointed.
Paul: Indeed, I hope that the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community of El Paso offers to make a field trip to help their brothers, sisters, and binary-resisters in Van Horn paint the sidewalks.
🤣🤣
Another amazing post and testament to your flying skills to determine you would have “clear” skies above ‘7500.