The He-Dog Run lives! Or at least it persists in a proto-lifelike state, capable at any moment of powering up and getting on with it–like a hibernating laptop or latent viral DNA in a genome. Or a spore.
If you’re reading this, you should know that I do appreciate your continued interest and support of my spore-like life goal, despite my molasses-grade progress and sporadic updates. I do try not to post chatter on here just for the sake of it, though having said that I’ll now break that rule—because this is the second anniversary post, a time for ’spection (some intro, some retro) and for taking stock of progress. #sorrynotsorry, as the kids now say.
Turns out there’s a fair bit to cover, so I’ll bin this update and use headings like a big boy.
Brand identity, if you like
For starters, He-Dog Run branding went up a notch. (Now it’s at notch one.) Specifically, last fall I designed a basic logo for the undertaking (see image at left), which I’m for some reason now tempted to describe in heraldic language. (“Argent, globe azure and argent, two cowbell devices tenne, sans-serif bleu-celeste thereby surrounding, and one rotorcraft rampant.”) Early and key supporters of the HDR received a large personalized cowbell bearing not only the logo but also the soon-to-be valuable signature of yours truly. These bells are meant to be brought to and rung at waypoints, or rung whenever the He-Dog Run is underway, or rung just in general life.
If the He-Dog Run was a Disney-funded boy band or a Silicon Valley startup, branding would be all I’d need and my work would now be done. But alas.
Oh, on the topic, I’ve taken the bold (if inexpensive) step of reserving three potential tail numbers for my future HDR bird. Turns out the FAA allows private individuals to search for available combinations of identification numbers, and book ones they like for something like $30 per year. I got various versions of my initials, birthday, and similar. Cart quite nicely before horse.
Helicopters
Since this time last year I’ve flown some and hired some—more the latter than the former, though I did get about six good flight hours in last fall before spending all my money on cars again. (Happens every so often.) While flying I made good progress with hovering with all three controls, and was practicing moving around a square pattern when I stopped. Also did some cool night flights, which I enjoy because they’re quite pretty and make me feel like I’m in Blue Thunder and also because, if the landing lights are on, the rotor disc is lit up against the sky and you can actually see it tilt and shift with your control inputs.
Notable charters included hiring an AS350 in New Zealand with my father—flying from Queenstown to Milford Sound and landing on a snowy peak en route (at left)—and also a Bell 206 in Halifax for a tour with the family (at right). Before the Halifax flight, I showed the pilot our summer place, and we determined it is indeed possible to land on the lawn by the sea, which confirms my long-standing suspicion and makes that house a particularly appealing stop on the HDR (provided we still have the place in a decade, I guess).
Another interesting tidbit: My first ever helicopter flight (shown in the introductory post, two long years ago) was in Halifax in 1984, with a helicopter owned by an outfit called Cougar. I contacted Cougar (which is now an offshore company, it seems) last year to find out what became of that helo, but never heard anything back. Well, turns out that Vision Air Services, the folks I chartered from, spun off from Cougar a couple decades back and are the direct descendants of the very same fleet of JetRangers I flew in back in the day. The one we hired 
was a mid-1970s example, and I briefly enjoyed the notion that this could be the very same one I flew in as a kid—until I showed the pilot the photo and he said that that helicopter had crashed during a sling-lift operation ages ago. Guess I can never fly in that one again, but I did come pretty much as close as can be.
One nice thing about helicopter flight time being so expensive is by comparison, a great deal of other stuff suddenly seems cheap. “Hey, in place of two flight hours, I could get …” and off you go. Well, one such thing is a helicopter simulator setup. It’s actually quite useful, since particularly early on there’s a definite learning curve to the eye/hand/hand/feet coordination, and it’s helpful to mimic the controls at home. I built a housing for them, so now have a fairly accurate Bell 206 control setup. I may or may not also have bought an HTC Vive VR headset for the thing. Still trying to get the VR to work with DodoSim, though. In short, the aim is to fill the gaps in my actual flight hours (of which, this year, there have been none) with simulator time, although so far that’s been quite light, too. We’ll see how it goes.
Cobras
For pure He-Dog Run purposes, there’s no reason to buy a Cobra much in advance of the event itself; it’s probably the easiest part of the whole thing to line up. But I must say I’ve always considered getting one sooner, because I do just really like them. Getting a Cobra now would actually have relatively little to do with the HDR, since there’s little chance I’d still have the same one in ten years—it would be mostly about driving a car I’ve always admired. Every now and then I come close.
Further to my monstrous Cobra-themed megapost a couple years back, I can report that in practice the options I’d consider are pretty narrow: Either a Superformance Shelby-licensed replica, or a Shelby CSX continuation car. The former runs $85k-plus new (and can be had in the mid-$50s if you buy used and shop around), whereas the latter seem all to be $120-180k and up these days. With originals on automatic pilot to the moon, both are appealing options.
T
he main news on the Cobra front, aside from the fact that I got and read every word of Colin Comer’s excellent Shelby Cobra 50th Anniversary book, is that I visited Hillbank Motorsports in Irvine, CA and met with Lance Stander, CEO of Superformance. The Hillbank showroom is a Cobra nut’s dream, and also nicely equipped with GT40s and Caterhams. Lance and I took CSX6113 out for a drive—a beautiful, lightly used, roadster-style Shelby car in Guardsman Blue with undercar exhaust, bumpers, no hood scoop, and no roll bar. Almost exactly how I’d get it myself. It was great blasting around in it.
I also decided that I’ll get a fiberglass car. Nothing to do with authenticity or lack thereof. (The originals all were aluminum-bodied.) But what I didn’t know until talking with Lance is that the aluminum used in Cobra bodies is hand-rolled and awfully thin, meaning it’ll dent just from someone leaning on it or poking it roughly—at which point it’s very 
difficult (or impossible) to fix. It’s not like mass-produced aluminum bodied cars, like my ’91 NSX, which are sturdy. If you’re collecting it, says Lance, get aluminum. If you’re driving it, get ’glass. He’s the guy who knows, and having felt how thin the metal panels are I tend to agree.
To the Hazy Oracle
Every year around this time, I try to make a brief pilgrimage to the Udvar-Hazy Center of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport outside Washington, D.C. This houses not only the Spirit of Texas, Ross Perot Jr. and Jay Coburn’s 1982 record-setting first helo around the world, but also Jennifer Murray and Quentin Smith’s Robinson R44 Astro “G-MURY”, which set the same record for piston-powered helicopters in 1997.
I made the trip last week. I mean, it’s not flying around the world, but it is something—and it’s interesting how just seeing those birds always reignites urgent interest in this project.
I’ve also been in email contact with the pilot who holds the world record for fastest circumnavigation by helicopter—turns out a work acquaintance flies 206s for fun and knows this chap; I told him about the HDR so put us in contact. There are only a handful of folks who have done the trip to begin with, and only one current record holder. What are the odds?
Stairway to the Heavens
The next steps toward the HDR are quite straightforward, but that doesn’t mean they’ll get done anytime soon—after all, the same steps were no less straightforward last year and instead of flying however many hours I bought an Aston Martin. Priorities, I know. (Great car though, even if fixing a burnt-out taillight does cost more than a nicely optioned Mac.)
I must say, there’s a lot of short-term stuff to distract from these big, vague, long term projects. Next summer is my 40th birthday, which demands some fittingly momentous behavior to mark the occasion. I’m reasonably sure this will involve spending many flight hours’ worth of funds on travel elsewhere, but hey—this kicks off an important decade, one that will culminate with the He-Dog Run. Gotta ring it in right, cowbell style. Again, priorities.
That said, I’m not grumpy. It’s tempting to get down on yourself when you set a grand goal with a far-off timeline and then don’t do an awful lot in a given year to shepherd it along. But there’s no requirement that equal progress be made each year. And the early stages—which these are—won’t be glamorous and they won’t be particularly busy. Once this thing picks up momentum in a few years, I suspect I’ll have the opposite problem.
Interim Goals
Going forward, I’ll identify things that ought to happen before the HDR itself. Before undertaking these, I’d like to knock out a couple of high priority but unrelated things that are beyond the scope of this update, but have been precluding me focusing resources effectively on helo flight. Once those are finished, I’ll aim to start my helicopter time in earnest in 2018, and have the PPL by 2019. I’d like 100 hours by 2020. I will try hard not to buy a Cobra until after I’m licensed to fly helicopters. (Just keep repeating it, like a mantra: Will not buy a Cobra yet.)
I’ll also do a few smaller trips to keep interest up and have something nearer-term to work towards. I’m calling each of these a Pre-Dog Run because why not:
- Steve McQueen honorary road trip (SF, Tahoe, Death Valley, LA) (~2016-17)
- Half-way across US and back, by car (~2017-18)
- Cross-US drive (~2017-19)
- California-based Gumball-type rally (TBA)
- Helo to LA and back (~2019-20)
- Helo to Texas and back (~2021)
- Helo across USA and Cobra back (~2022)
So, that should give a couple things to work towards–assuming, of course, I don’t promptly forget them all and buy more cars.
Toward the He-Dog Run!