Page 38 - Twin and Turbine September 2017

Cherry orchard plots covered by bird netting dot the Columbia River banks in eastern Washington.
The truth be known, most of us buy fancy flying machines more because we “want” them, rather than really “need” them. For similar reasons, we go out of our way to attend aviation events like Oshkosh. Once we give in to the “want” and actually own this expensive equipment, we then “need” to find some use for it that is at least halfway practical. Working on that particular problem is why I am flying a helicopter so early on this gray, wet morning.
As another example, when I initially purchased a Cessna 340 15 years ago, I planned to use it on some leaseback arrangement in which I could fly for hire, plus get use of the airplane
Air Capitol Dial Quarter Page t/C Ad
www.aircapitoldial.com
personally. And for the most part that lease idea, in addition to creating a separate LLC that allows me to bill for pilot time, has worked out well. However, I still find myself looking for opportunities to put the airplane to work.
Then about 10 years ago, under the theory that if you own one flying machine, then owning two would clearly be twice as good, we bought a Robinson R44 helicopter. Our idea at the time was we “needed” it for local transportation related to a family-owned construction business we were involved in. But when the 2008 recession brought that business to a halt, we kept the helicopter. Yes, I admit, it was a “want to” thing.
Thus, the helicopter was added to my search for activities with which to employ our (now plural) flying machines. As it happened, a couple of years later while on a Lear trip to Palm Springs, I was complaining over dinner about all this to Terry, a pilot and retired lawyer friend living a leisurely life on a nearby airport. He told me that he had given up his law practice in exchange for the fun (and surprisingly) profitable job of flying his Hughes 269 helicopter. Among the more gainful flying jobs he had devised was using his helicopter on a seasonal basis to dry cherries
Wait, I thought cherries simply grew on trees and, with the exception of occasional pruning, more or less took care of themselves? But as it turns out, cherry growing, particularly for the export market, is a big business near the Columbia River in eastern Washington. There is a whole science to making it very profitable. Among other things, if you can get the fruit ripen early and harvested before your competitors, the price is much higher. To do this, sunlight-reflective white plastic sheets are placed on the ground under the trees covering the entire orchard, causing large blocks of acreage to look from the air like it just snowed. Other plots are entirely covered by white bird netting. It is not only time-to-market and protection from hungry birds that makes a difference, but also the size of the cherries themselves, with big being better. So, a couple of weeks before harvest, a “growth accelerator” is sprayed on the trees, which makes the fruit very hydroscopic, growing quickly and often producing cherries nearly the size of golf balls. These have great value in the Asian market, with the best being flown in refrigerated containers on cargo 747’s directly to Japan.
The problem is that the area is infamous for summer thunderstorms that can randomly dump buckets of water onto relatively small patches of ground in a very unpredictable manner. And, if one of those areas happens to be the cherry orchard that was just sprayed with growth accelerator, the cherries quickly absorb that extra water through the stem, which promptly splits them open making the whole crop worthless. A 10-acre orchard of perfect fruit can be worth a high six-figure amount, so should they become wet, getting the fruit quickly dried off becomes of paramount importance.
Various kinds of post fans are tried, but they blow air mostly horizontally, and rarely do an adequate job. The better solution is to have a helicopter parked right in the orchard, with a pilot on 24/7 standby for the six to eight weeks of the harvest season. As soon as it stops raining, the machine is immediately put in the air and slowly flown over the orchard at about 10 knots and a
26
25
24
19
33
11
23
36 • TWIN & TURBINE
September 2017