Four Zero.

The He-Dog Run is an engine, I have learned, and it is fueled by money—it begs and wails for a firehose of cash that would knock Mr. Money Mustache straight into his plywood casket.

This I cannot yet provide it. And yet, nursed by occasional infusions, my one and only life goal continues its inexorable spool-up. The starter motor is driving this turbine of progress; but soon, I’ll twist on the throttle, light the fires, and coax the big machine through whines and bellows to a self-sustaining, jet-powered roar. And as with a turbine, this delicate start procedure will quickly give way to a mad thirst for fuel to sustain the burn—and, also, to new heights.

Allegorical flourish aside, it will surprise no one that this latest update must report no substantial progress toward the helicopter license. What progress does exist is fresh in mind, though, and brings new promise. Here’s why.

Full-Time Fortnights, and Other Options.

For much of this year I’ve pondered various possible avenues to finally make real headway toward a license. The default path remains to devote time weekly to flying at my local school, though this threatens to spread out over a year or more. At the other end of the spectrum, I’ve found particularly appealing the several-week intensive courses some flight schools offer. Not only do I typically learn well over shorter periods, but condensed training promises to fit better into time off work and cut down on overall cost by preventing skill decay between lessons. The problem is that any schools I’ve looked at that promises 40 hours in two weeks (or whatever) seem generally to: (1) fly Robinson R22s (for which I am too heavy), (2) be taught by fresh-from-CFI low-timers looking to build hours, and (3) vastly overstate the likelihood of actually passing a checkride within that period. I’m dubious that after years of pitter-patter I could suddenly emerge from a fortnight’s cocoon with a full-on helicopter license. But even as a quick way to build 30-or-so hours, these programs nonetheless appeal.

My neighborhood flight school, though it offers terrific high-time instructors, doesn’t do such programs – and it’d be quite costly anyway if they did, since they charge a fair bit for their R44s and instructor time costs an additional $100+ per hour. (Never mind monopolizing an aircraft for weeks on end – it’s hard enough to book a single flight hour with them. I’ve had to do so many weeks in advance.)

Could a condensed program be mixed with traditional instruction? Simon Jones thinks so. Simon is a high-time (c.9000 hours) pilot who runs Advanced Flight in Torrance, CA. Years ago I hired Simon for an L.A. tour with my sister, but his main business is providing advanced flight instruction, which includes patching the gaps left by low-time instructors. In September, having just toured the Robinson Helicopter factory next door, I swung by Simon’s office for a chat.

His advice was, if taking one of these intensive programs, to plan on at least three weeks to log the requisite hours, and not to worry too much about actually getting the license during that time. A better approach, he said, would be to treat the exercise as a solid chunk of time-building, and to finish the license separately – and to then train with Advanced Flight to learn the skills, like full-down autorotations, that most schools won’t teach.

Not a bad idea, but the R22 problem remains. Even if I (again) dropped below the featherweight seat limit, there’s residual concern with that model’s rotor system, particularly paired with lower-time instructors at the intensive schools. Another aircraft would be better for me.

Our Home and Native Land

The most appealing prospect so far comes from Abbotsford, British Columbia, home of Chinook Helicopters – one of the largest helicopter schools in Canada. Chinook offers a four-month, direct-to-commercial-license program for students seeking to fly for a living. The surrounding B.C. terrain is beautiful and wild, from high mountains to pine forest, logging roads, sandbars, and lakes. Weather runs the gamut, and they fly pretty much every day. With a large number of training aircraft, a focus on commercial helicopter training, and a deep bench of full-time and contract instructors—all of whom are very high-time pilots with extensive industry experience—Chinook seems like a serious school for serious flight training. They fly the venerable Bell 47 (a design dating from the forties and recognizable to many as the aircraft from M*A*S*H), Robinson R44, and turbine Bell 206 JetRanger.

The time and financial commitment of Chinook’s program is considerable: minimum four months full-time, and anywhere from fifty to over a hundred thousand bucks. But so, it seems, are the benefits. Graduates will have trained in challenging terrain, with experienced instructors, and emerge as commercially certified pilots. Chinook also is a dedicated facility: No tours, long-lining, or other commercial ops. (So while you may jostle with other students for flight time, training will never be back-burnered for a commercial mission.) In short, this is real flight school – not the typical weekend warrior hobby outfit with some nineteen-year old CFIs and a pair of R22s.

Also at Abbotsford airport is BC Helicopters, home base of YouTube star Pilot Yellow (Mischa Gelb); he and his brother Sancho run a smaller but very friendly operation across the runway from Chinook. They fly the Guimbal Cabri G2, the R44, and the turbine R66, and similarly offer a four-month full-time program.

Either program requires a Class I medical certificate and leads to a Canadian commercial helicopter license, which can be converted to an FAA commercial license with some time-building and further hoop-clearing.

At first glance, these Canadian options seemed to offer just what I was looking for: All the benefits of the intensive full-time programs I’d found in the states but with a variety of aircraft, experienced instructors, commercial-level training, the same advanced maneuvers Simon teaches, a helpful exchange rate, and a great natural environment. Of course, four months is a lot longer than two weeks, but they do seem worth checking out.

A Visit and a Plan

Last week I flew up to Vancouver to visit Chinook and BC Helicopters. While there, I met the instructors, toured the facilities, and flew three very different machines: The Bell 206, Cabri G2, and the Bell 47. (This alone was worth the trip: I’ve flown in the 206 before, but never at the controls – and the other two were firsts for me. I found the 47 to be the most acrophobia-inducing, particularly when crabbed into the wind and tossed about by gusts off the hills.)

My visit was terrific – everyone I met at both schools seemed very friendly and helpful. (Cathy, Clayton, Ray, Adrian, and Jacenta at Chinook were great; at BC Helicopters I particularly enjoyed shooting the breeze for an hour about helos and cars despite having done my best to kill Sancho and myself with hover practice in the G2). The scenery was majestic, and I got a good sampling of the weather – flying the first day in a bluebird cloudless sky, and the second in rain, low ceilings, and fog. I left with fresh hope for a way forward, and a little seedling of a plan.

While BC Helicopters maintains its small class size by mandating one of three fixed start dates throughout the year, Chinook has an open and rolling enrollment policy – start whenever, finish whenever. This allows flexibility for students who, like me, may not fit easily into preset start times, and more importantly may not be able to carve off the full four months at once.

The most promising avenue right now would have me take a “holiday” and go up to Abbotsford for a couple weeks of full time instruction at Chinook – a sort of mini-module of the overall program. Those hours will count towards my total, and although I’d surely backslide to some degree after the two-week session finished, my progress should at least mirror what I’d hoped to gain from the U.S. two-week programs—while also letting me properly evaluate the program before committing to a several-month hiatus from the law. In any case, the prospect of two weeks of full-time flying in B.C. is exciting.

C150-No.

Speaking of Canada, this summer, Canadian duo Bob and Steven Dengler flew a twin-engine Bell 429 around the world, which is of course big news in these parts. This trip, which they called C150GO, was billed as the first Canadian helicopter around-the-world flight as well as the first by a father/son team.

I devoured news of their trip, though my enthusiasm was quickly dulled by its presumptuous tie-in to Canada’s sesquicentennial.

Yes, the duo ostensibly styled their “Global Odyssey” as a manifestation of Canada’s 150th birthday celebration, which might be noble if it didn’t smack of appropriation. Who anointed these two as Canada’s global ambassadors? With a factory-fresh $7.5 million helicopter, high-end photo gear, sponsor decals, and custom flight suits – not to mention an eager annexation of Canadian aviation history (see their itinerary) – it comes off less as a public service and more as a couple of dudes trying to buy their way into Canada’s history books. I haven’t talked to the chaps and I could be way off, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they pulled a Ross Perot Jr. and aggressively pushed to donate their helicopter to the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, the better to mark the deep national significance of their trip.

I freely admit that buying a helicopter and flying it around the world for sport is, at its core, a fairly vainglorious bit of adventuring; some showmanship is to be expected, and I don’t begrudge these fellows their bites at what Sikorsky called “the cake of fame.”

But our national aviation heroes did more than just wrap a fancy aircraft with a maple leaf graphic before taking a high-dollar holiday.

Even if it was just a quirk of timing—which I doubt—I bristle at the inescapable conceit of styling a personal round-the-world trip as somehow representing Canada’s 150th.

All that said, the Denglers completed the circuit and by all accounts had an interesting trip. They chose to do the Northern Russia route (not what I’d select – it’s more like a tour of the North than a tour of the world). I enjoyed their updates, particularly the clashes that arose because one wanted always to press on, the other to stop and explore wherever they actually were. The He-Dog Run will fall squarely in the latter camp: We chase no speed records. What matters is the journey, not the destination – particularly then the destination is the self-same place you started from. (Come for the helicopter news, stay for the armchair philosophy.)

Vehicular Downsizing

Tacking for a moment to automotive updates: I renewed my SCCA competition license this year, but have not raced since Laguna Seca in 2016. I sold both the ’91 NSX and the ’07 Vantage in 2017, swapping them for a Fiat 500 Abarth: A smart little runabout that chews through resources at a more modest pace. Though built by the Wizards of Plastic at Fiat-Chrysler, the little 5-speed pebble-pot growls like a terrier, has a hearty turbo complete with boost gauge, and exhibits adorably energetic torque steer. It drives like a little hellion, despite its not-actually-that-quick performance.

And For the confessional: Forgive me, Father, for I have driven no Cobras since my last entry.

Forty.

One obvious scapegoat for the limited HDR progress this year was my fortieth birthday, which fell in June. This of course demanded a diversion of resources to an appropriately extravagant trip, one which included a trip on the Venice-Simplon Orient-Express, a chartered Riva boat in Venice, a private Vatican tour, and taking a two-pilot, twin-engine, IFR-equipped AgustaWestland AW109 to lunch on the Mediterranean coast; this was capped with a stretch in Paris, where I managed a nod to the HDR by getting fitted for a flight jacket at the little-known but thoroughly classic atelier CHAPAL (maker of the original flight jackets and still, to my knowledge, the only one with its own tannery). That jacket arrived on U.S. shores in October. Oh, and I wound up my long search for a new pilot’s watch with the Bremont MBii. I wore both to fly the JetRanger at Chinook.

Ever the Enthusiast

In other news, I’ve been consuming aviation books with some gusto – I’m currently reading The God Machine (2008) and Pioneering the Helicopter (1945) in parallel with Smithsonian’s excellent Flight (2002, updated 2017) and Chickenhawk (1983). I finally subscribed to Vertical Magazine, as well as Flying for good measure—though passed on Canadian Aviator when its publisher declined to answer my inquiry concerning their spot-the-difference photo contest.

In the past month, I’ve also returned to the Boeing Museum of Flight and checked off a first visit to the colossal Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson, AZ. Next on that list are the Vietnam Helicopters Museum in Concord, CA, the American Helicopter Museum in Pennsylvania, and a return trip to The Henry Ford Museum, where I seemingly somehow missed the display of Sikorsky’s VS-300. And I’m all signed up for the 2018 HAI-Heli Expo in Las Vegas. I also spent an hour yesterday on the phone with Merit Apparel, discussing the ins and outs of MSA Gallet helicopter helmets. Progress takes many forms.

Effective Translational Lift

With 40 out of the way, it is a promising time for the HDR – a good chunk of flight hours now seem very much within reach, hopefully (schedules permitting) to be flown in early 2018.

Toward the He-Dog Run!