World Scenic Flights by HeliGraphix

Personally, I've been to the USA quite a number of times and visited something between 10 and 15 states. Last time I was in the Los Angeles area is exactly 9 years back; the focus wasn't on R/C helicopters then, but the trip was lots of fun nonetheless. Actually Hellman and I (watch the famous "Tool Time" video on the HeliGraphix website in case you really don't know who this guy is!) had toured quite some part of the west coast and visited Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon. Those were the good old days … :-)



We arrived in L.A./California at 5 AM and had to wait 6 hours until we could collect our rental car; getting it earlier meant returning it earlier on the last day (which was no option for us) or paying an extra day. So we waited patiently at the LAX airport and were positively surprised that after sunrise it got significantly warmer than expected.
We finally got the car and – after a lengthy procedure of another 3 hours! – also got a GPS (that's what they call the sat navigation systems here). The first thing we did was to get us something to eat; right after this we drove to a supermarket parking lot and slept for two or three hours. We had tried to find some better location first, but we were so worn out that we just had to stop and get some rest immediately.

Los Angeles is an amazing city and certainly one of the largest in the world. While still driving to downtown we could already see the famous Hollywood sign in the hills. One of the original ideas was to find the sign and to fly there. Despite 4 to 6 freeway lanes for every direction (!) traffic was bad and by the time we got to the area it was already dark; the sun goes down around 5:30 PM. Unfortunately, the big white letters are not lit in the night, so the only thing left to do was to find a motel and sleep the sleep of the just.



The next morning we drove through Hollywood and some of the famous streets and took in Beverly Hills along the way. This is definitely a nice place to live, at least if you have the necessary pocket money to buy or rent one of the villas there. Many celebrities live here; however, you won't get to see anyone – they all hide behind big walls and the signs leave no doubt you aren't welcome. Quite understandable, though.
Since we are notoriously pressed for time we were quite happy that none of the famous guys came around the corner and spotted us. Imagine a similar scene like in the Australian hobby shop: We drive happily through Beverly Hills, and all of a sudden Bruce Willis jumps out of his driveway, dressed in pants and wearing a bloody shirt. He then limps to our car, rolls over the hood, stares at us through the windshield, frowns and shouts: 'Hey, aren't you those crazy German helicopter guys?!' Thank goodness he stayed at home so we didn't have to sign autographs and lost more time. ;-)

Finding the Hollywood sign was a nightmare. If you get closer you cannot see it anymore because buildings and trees obstruct your view. We went to nearby Griffith park, and while Saskia was busy to pull some thorns out of her hand after falling into a huge cactus I climbed two impressive hills to get an overview. BAD idea – the way up is always one thing, but the way down … Saskia decided to look away to not see me fall down. Anyway, after quite a while I made it without injuries; and the good thing was: We'd gotten a pretty good idea where to find the sign!

Our GPS this time was a lot better than the Australian one; still we've seen better devices. Driving through the hills of Hollywood was the next nightmare. It's all narrow streets, sometimes one way, and it takes you ages to reach a certain point. It reminds you of driving in Oslo (Norway), and there is also a remote similarity to the part of Zurich (Switzerland) situated on the hillside. Driving from there to work every day will cost you lots of time, and the view isn't that good either – quite often you just see the roofs of other houses and the horizon lies in the haze (another serious problem when trying to get good pictures in the Hollywood bowl!). We had no idea why someone would want to pay a million dollars or more for a small home in this area.



In the late afternoon we had finally gotten as close to the Hollywood sign as one could get. It is not allowed to hike up or do anything else except taking a picture. Lots of full-size helicopters are circling over the area all the time. We especially liked the above information sign: If you try to reach the big letters, they will either arrest you or/and you will have to pay $103. Not $102 and not $104, but exactly $103! :-) We could name more such cases where every last dollar matters.

To tell you the truth, the big white letters and the scenery around are nothing to really get you excited. Since there was not much space for flying anyway we decided to only take a couple of cool pictures rather than a video. The result was nice and worth all the trouble, but the film sequence would never have made it into the final WSF movie. We therefore put the machine away right after the flight – a good decision since not much later one of the air patrol helicopters came looking, and another few minutes later a patrol car showed up. This was exactly the time we left, so they just talked to a couple of other tourists which happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. :-) Having said this, we don't think it was us who attracted the air patrol.



Yesterday evening and the whole day today we drove a total of 800 km through the Mojave Desert. Currently we are close to the Grand Canyon national park and hope to get some impressive footage there; fortunately no snow yet!

This evening I finally found the time to replace the Three Dee MP-XL's old main drive wheel; it looked as if bigger load changes would have killed the remains of what used to be its teeth. Let's hope the problem is gone now, at least for the second part of this world tour.