Writers Harbor

Photo: One fine Helicopter Sunset, somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. A long way from home, my friend.
CLICK HERE FOR MUSIC WHILE YOU READ    THREE E-BOOKS AVAILABLE  CLICK HERE   3 MORE COMING

WWW.CHOPPER STORIES.COM or WWW.TUNABOAT HELICOPTERS.ORG
“A certain type of chopper jockey tells you about his mistakes with a smile. You know why? It keeps him humble.”
“The Wind and the Flower are old friends.”
“Fly softly, for our friends lie below.”
“Good words are like the winds: they carry the seeds of wisdom, or blow right past your ears”
Also: Airplane stories, Skydiving, Aerobatics   Links to chapters below   Latest Update January 24, 2016    
(a cyber portal into 99% TRUE aviation and other short stories, including the series “Helicopters and Humans”, “A Blip on the Radar”, “Cops and Robbers”, and  “Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual”)
Welcome…
Our stories and tales on the subject of ‘Helicopters’ (technical) and ‘Life’ (environmental, philosophical, humanitarian, scurrilous & obscene) are available here, and are often based on my little travels around this threatened, fragile, but infinitely beautiful Space Ship Earth. Sofar, our only home. Threatened. In many ways. I often feel sorry for her. All Our Mother. I understand the need to eat, and I know fishing has always been a human pursuit. It needs to be ‘sustainable’ though. Is it? Or is it short term plunder?
As per requests from my regular readers (all 2 of you, Lotty has joined a convent), and in order to facilitate searches, and to simplify locating the relevant articles, we now offer this intermediary ‘reference page’, a ‘cyber portal’ as it were, which will give you direct hyperlinks to the chapters, aswith a brief or description of what you can expect to find there. We hope that Helicopter pilots, mechanics, and other funky Humans will enjoy some of our articles, and in turn provide us with your feedback and first person Life Experience anecdotes. About anything. Just write it… scroll down for the ‘Fixed Wing’ & Aerobatics stories.
I love to fly, and dream. I wish to save the world. Unfortunately, seems I’m better at causing chaos. Heck, Saint Peter, I meant well…
(click here to read entire introduction)
DON’T FORGET TO LIKE www.tunaboathelicopters.org ON FACEBOOK THAT HELPS US ! 801 LIKES!
Learning to Fly Helicopters           $$ Sales Pitch $$                  Philosophy of Life
(It was an accident)              (none) (keep yer money)       Beauty and the Wind     = “keep on trucking”
Red Dust (1) “If you need a Teacher”
Red Dust (2) “In the Shadow of the Turtle, Meditation”
The Road of Light     The Blade of Damocles
My Dance in the Clouds     Starry, Starry Night       Manifesto
On Holding Hands & Smoking Pot   Caution – Small Man Rhyming    All Our Mother
A) Part 1: “Seduction”   
Part 2: “Do I trust this thing?”  
Part 3: “First Solo”  
Part 4: “Auto-tribulations”        NEW 10/13/2015
Part 5: “Oh, oh, Oops! Sorry!”           NEW 10/15/2015
Part 6: “The General Flight Test, and Dreams Beyond”         NEW 10/17/2015
Part 7: “Joy, Caution, and Tragedy”              NEW 10/17/2015
Part 7B -(alternative version)- “The Dark Side of the Sun”

B) A Blip on the Radar         FOR E-BOOK CLICK HERE  
(anecdotal, wild tales, lies, culture shock, and the pursuit of chaos)
= humor,fun  = human, feeling  =flying  =danger =stupid, me  = don’t do this     = my favorites   = audio
Click on any link
A Blip on the Radar (part 1) “Staying with the Herd”    
A Blip on the Radar (part 2) “Running the Gauntlet”    
A Blip on the Radar (Part 3) “Sunshine”    
A Blip on the Radar (Part 4) “Apples and Pears”   
A Blip on the Radar (Part 5) “Near-Miss”   
A Blip on the Radar (Part 6) “Backflips”   
A Blip on the Radar (Part 7) “Routine and Sudden Terror”   
A Blip on the Radar (Part 8) “Eyes of Dead Man”    
A Blip on the Radar (Part 9) “Deck Boss have Big Problem”   
A Blip on the Radar (part 10) “The Garbage Can; Moggy, Moggy, what you DO??   ”

                           “Hovering? It’s easy, see? Easy…. Easy…!??”

A Blip on the Radar (Part 11) “Plastic, War, and Manta Rays”  
A Blip on the Radar (Part 12) “No Man is an Island”    
A Blip on the Radar (Part 13) “The Lady in Blue”    
A Blip on the Radar (Part 14) “On Holding Hands, and Smoking Pot”   
A Blip on the Radar (Part 15A) “Beautiful American Film Star”   
A Blip on the Radar (Part 15B) “Beautiful American Film Star”   
A Blip on the Radar (Part 16) “Shithouse Etiquette; Moggy, Moggy, what you DO??”    
A Blip on the Radar (Part 17) “Barking Mad; Moggy, Moggy, what you DO??”    
A Blip on the Radar (Part 18) “Starry, starry night”                keep scrolling down, there’s more…

Nous sommes tous… PARIS…     

WE BLEED WITH BRUSSELS+++    

A Blip on the Radar(Part 19) “Pilot-not-in-command; Moggy, Moggy…what DID I just do??”    
A Blip on the Radar (Part 20) “Only the Idiots”    
A Blip on the Radar (Part 21) “Flipping the Bird”   
A Blip on the Radar (Part 22) “He not like to eat with Crew…”   
A Blip on the Radar (part 23A) “Birth of a Psychopath”   
A Blip on the Radar (Part 23B) “Eggs and Psychopaths”   
A Blip on the Radar (Part 24A): “I have Control!…. JESUS!”   
A Blip on the Radar (Part 24B) “What I mean is that some people do stupid shit”  
A Blip on the Radar (Part 24C) “A local jolly over the Rain Forest”   
A Blip on the Radar (Part 24D) “I’m good. I don’t need your help. Can’t you see that, numb nuts??”        
A Blip on the Radar (Part 24E) “What did you do THAT for?”
A Blip on the Radar (Part 25) “Floored by a Russian Hooker”      
A Blip on the Radar (Part 26) “The Funny Guy”   

A Blip on the Radar (Part 27A) “Musing about Mother Earth”
A Blip on the Radar (part 27B) “The Quiet Observer”   
A Blip on the Radar (Part 28) “The Immarsat problem”    
A Blip on the Radar (Part 29A) “The Hookers are coming”   
A Blip on the Radar (Part 29B) “An Old Sailor’s Poem”   
A Blip on the Radar (Part 29C) “Hotel Excelsior”   
A Blip on the Radar (Part 30) “Grease Monkey”   
A Blip on the Radar (Part 31) “A Strange Premonition”   
A Blip on the Radar (Part 32) “An Unusual Passenger”   
A Blip on the Radar (Part 33) “Fly quietly, for our Friends lie there”    
A Blip on the Radar (Blip# 34) “Die with the Dolphins (1)”   
A Blip on the Radar (Blip# 35) “Die with the Dolphins (2)”   
A Blip on the Radar (Part 36) “All our Mother”   
A Blip on the Radar (Part 37) – “The Pilot who hated me”    
A Blip on the Radar (Part 38) “The Missing Fisherman”
A Blip on the Radar (Part 38B) “The Fisherman’s Legacy”
A Blip on the Radar (Part 39) “I could have been a Librarian”  
A Blip on the Radar (Part 40) “The Duel”  
A Blip on the Radar (Part 41) “Dropping a Missile”   
A Blip on the Radar (Part 42A) “The Peacemaker who tried – Part 1”  
A Blip on the Radar (Part 42B) “The Peacemaker who tried – Part 2”  
A Blip on the Radar (43) “Vertical Flight without a Helicopter”      NEW 8/8/2015

(to be continued – workeee BLOG! in progress)

C) Of Helicopters and Humans

= humor,silly  = human, feeling  =flying  =danger =stupid, me  = don’t do this       = my favorites
Click on any link
Diary (1) “Over the waves, alone”
Of Helicopters and Humans (1): “Living in a Cubicle”       YOO-HOO! keep scrolling down, there’s more…
Of Helicopters and Humans (2) “Nuthin’ like a Good Hammer”   
Of Helicopters and Humans (3) “A Certain Rich Aroma”   
Of Helicopters and Humans (4) “A very nice Lady”   
Of Helicopters and Humans (5) “Up to your Ass in Alligators”   
Of Helicopters and Humans (6) “Homo Helicopterus Macho Maximus”       
Of Helicopters and Humans (7) “The Road of Light”   
Of Helicopters and Humans (8) “The Sports Section”   
Of Helicopters and Humans (9) “Break Day”   
Of Helicopters and Humans (10A) “Shillelaghs, hair-trigger tempers, and three…Greens?”
Diary (7) “Chopper Down”
Of Helicopters and Humans (11) Near-Miss over the Gulf   
Of Helicopters and Humans (12) “African Near Miss”
Of Helicopters and Humans (13) “One Midnight in the Departure Hall”    
Of Helicopters and Humans (14) “Old Zeke”   

Of Helicopters and Humans (15) “Things that go ‘Klunk!’ in Flight”   
Of Helicopters and Humans (16) “The Pakistani Captain”
Of Helicopters and Humans (17) “Fire in the Hole!”
Of Helicopters and Humans (18) “I am flying”   
Of Helicopters and Humans (19) “Our little Nigger Joke”
Of Helicopters and Humans (20) “Ring-around-the Roses, One Time, Darling”
Of Helicopters and Humans (21) “People who fly in Glass Helicopters, shouldn’t fly low”
Of Helicopters and Humans (22) “Sounds like a stupid thing to do”
Of Helicopters and Humans (23) “Those Dang, Dangerous Helicopters”
Of Helicopters and Humans (24) “Of Vomit and Mischief”   
Of Helicopters and Humans (25) “Benjy the Groundsman”
Of Helicopters and Humans (26A) “Helo Underwater Escape Training – Part 1”  
Of Helicopters and Humans (26B) “Helo Underwater Escape Training – Part 2”
Of Helicopters and Humans (27) “Serious as a Heart Attack”
Of Helicopters and Humans (28) “Beauty and the Wind”   
Of Helicopters and Humans (29) “Riding High in an Icy Sky”   
Of Helicopters and Humans (30) “A Mental Midget – Moggy on Fire”  
Of Helicopters and Humans (31)”A Mental Midget – Moggy, the Comforter”  
Of Helicopters and Humans (32) – “A Mental Midget – Moggy on Parade”  
Of Helicopters and Humans (33) ‘A Mental Midget’ – “Moggy and the Goose”   
Of Helicopters and Humans (34) – “Are you a Bobblehead?”   
Of Helicopters and Humans (35) – “Do you see any wires?”  
Of Helicopters and Humans (36)  “Unpopular Decisions”            NEW 2/24/2015
Of Helicopters and Humans (37) “Zen, and the Art of Flight Instruction”        NEW 6/16/2015
Of Helicopters and Humans (38) “That Beam in my Eye”         NEW 7/11/2015
Of Helicopters and Humans (39) “Does High Intelligence equate to a Safe Pilot?”        NEW 7/11/2015
Of Helicopters and Humans (40) “The Fermi Paradox”        NEW 8/7/2015
Of Helicopters and Humans (41) “The Fame Gallopers”       NEW 8/8/2015
Of Helicopters and Humans (42) “Hey Moggy! All that stuff you used to TEACH…??”       NEW 9/14/2015

(to be continued – workeee BLOGGG in progress)

D) “On Cops, good guys, and bad guys” (and the rest of us in between…)

Cops & Robbers (1) “The Drive-by-Shooting”        Boy! You don’t quit easy, do ya…?
Cops & Robbers (2) “A Lonely Cockpit”   
Cops & Robbers (3) “The Murderer”   
Cops & Robbers (4) “The Guinea Pig”   
Cops & Robbers (5) “PCP Madness”   
Cops & Robbers (6) “About to Fall of a Mountain”   
Cops & Robbers (7A) “A Deadly Search”   
Cops & Robbers (7B) “A Deadly Search (Part 2)”
Cops & Robbers (8A) “Spotlights and Bullets”   
Cops & Robbers (8B) “Spotlights and Bullets (Part 2)”
Cops & Robbers (9) “High Noon at the Butler Corral”    
Cops & Robbers (10) “Bad Decisions”    
Cops and Robbers (11) “The Unexpected”         NEW 8/8/2015

E)    Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual     E-BOOK AVAILABLE     FOLLOW THIS LINK For E-Book

(Note: maybe a little technical in places for the lay reader; where there is an “icon”    it’s probably readable even for the armchair pilots)

Click on any link

Update 1/24/2016   Because of the ever growing clutter on this page, as more material gets added, I’ve decided to split out “Moggy’s Tuna Manual” onto a separate page.
Here is THE LINK.
For the benefit of Site Visitors, MTM was a safety initiative aimed primarily at Helicopter Pilots flying the Pacific Ocean, due a high accident and fatality rate.   In fact, a ton of e-mails show it has appealed to pilots in general, and -surprisingly for us- many informed non-pilot lay people, with a keen technical interest in how a helicopter works… They are kind of fascinating machines. In the E-book version, we therefore added a section in the back, explaining the basic helicopter controls.     
I’ve left a few links below, with stories likely to appeal to non-technical readers.

Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual – Introduction
Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual -Alternative Introduction – “An Ancient Chinese Poet”
Reading MTM?…Shhhhh! Keep it Quiet!
Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual – Feedback
An Interesting Letter ref MTM – #001 – Jon Wagner
An interesting letter ref MTM – #002 – Richard Grills
An Interesting Letter ref MTM- # 003 -Jon Wagner
An Interesting Letter ref MTM – #004 Richard Grills
Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual Ch.1-A “What’s it all about? – Finding Fish!”
Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual Ch.1-B “Skipjack, Yellowfin, Bigeye, Albacore, Bluefin”
Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual Ch.1-C “Foamers and Breezers”
Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual Ch.1-D “Radio buoys, Bird Radar, Dirty tricks and Sculduggery”  
Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual Ch.1-E “Herding, and the tow-line”
Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual Ch.2-E “Food, food, glorious food!”  
Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual Ch.3-A “Different techniques for landing”  
Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual Ch.3-A Landing Video discussions
Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual Ch.3-B “Wind, waves, and wild decks”
Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual Ch.3-C “Take-Off”

A good take-off adds style – (sometimes)

Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual Ch.3-D “Tie-downs and Blade Socks”
Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual Ch.3-E “Runaway Blades”  
Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual Ch. 3-F “Herding (2)”  
Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual Ch.3-G “Descending to a Log”
Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual Ch.3-H “Attaching a Radio Buoy”
Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual Ch.3-H-1 “Drawings”
Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual Ch.3-I “Reducing speed quickly-Scrubbing”
Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual Ch.4-2 “Almost outta gas!”
Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual Ch.4-5 “Hey! It sure is getting dark!”
Heads Up! “The 15 Most likely Scenarios for a Tuna Chopper Crash”  keep scrolling down, there’s more…


Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual Ch.5-1 “Observer Happiness Basics”
Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual Ch.5-2 “A bit of Theater”
Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual Ch.5-3 “Keeping your Captain Happy”  
Reading MTM?…Shhhhh! Keep it Quiet!
(to be continued – blog in progress)

Errr… nope, I haven’t called John yet…

G)  Novels

1)  I wrote a long World War 1 novel, back in 1992. I named it “Jeremy’s War”.  I actually did quite a lot of research for it. The entire novel, never published (I’m not very diligent when it comes to seeking publishers) is available here on this site. Excerpts appeared on various Internet writers’ websites, including “Writers’ Cafe”. I was seeking feedback. I was a bit surprised subsequently to discover that somebody had published a book called, “Jeremy’s War 1812”, (October, 2000) which, by some truly ‘amazing’ coincidence, also features… a young man going off to War. No comment. Here then is a link to the original “Jeremy’s War”, and there are hyperlinks to all the chapters for your convenience & hopefully, your enjoyment. My reward is people’s reading pleasure. I have always been told by friends that I am far too liberal with my content on the Internet. Frankly, Art should be… Art. Above pettiness. Never mind plagiarizing.
I have an idea for a sequel.
here is the link to the page: ‘JEREMY’S WAR‘   

2)  The Tuna Hunter

click on any link
The Tuna Hunter Ch.1 “The Empty Quarter”        I told you, keep scrolling down, there’s more…

UPDATE 1/24/16: I finished this, my second novel, yesterday 1/23/16. 107,591 words. Amazing feeling, penning the closing line.  Lots of tuna helo flying scenes, hairy stuff, stupid, and quite some auto-bio thrown in. Even women, and some no-holds-barred gun play. Flash backs and memories. Maybe not entirely fictional. Now comes the fine tuning, tweaking, proof reading. Next couple of months, hopefully, it will be out as an E-book. I have a ghost of an idea for a sequel. This is a bad idea. I need to forget this idea.
3/4/2016  Here is the link for the E-book.    (but it won’t work… hmmm…. bloody thing. What’s going on? Weird.)  

H) Fixed Wing Flying stories, to include Biplanes, Aerobatics, and the true story of G-TARA. (a separate fixed wing section, as per repeated requests…)
(under development)
click on any link

Hitting the Vertical – Biplane Aerobatics
Storm and Fire –  Passion & Judgment
On the Back of the Drag Curve

I) Untold Stories of Vietnam
(an experiment, where I wrote up the story told to me by a Vietnam Vet) (I would like to do that again… are you a Vietnam Vet with an untold story?)
The Vietnam War Ch.1 “ATC Etiquette”
The Vietnam War Ch.2 “Chance Encounters”
(to be continued – work in progress)

J) Skydiving in the old days (before Ram Air)

Bird of Prey   
The Expert   
Sensual Overload – The Snowstorm  
Entente Cordiale  

K) Poetry, Symbolism, Searching, Taoism

click on any link
The Blade of Damocles
I miss the Darkness of her Light
Exile
If you’re good…
The Little Bird off Slea Head (Part 1)
The Little Bird off Slea Head (Part 2)
Red Dust (1): if you need a Teacher
Red Dust (2) In the Shadow of the Turtle, Meditation
A Quiet Song – Now we are free
The Old Eagle
Caution – small man rhyming
Standing Alone
  My Dance in the Clouds
My Hut in the Sky     NEW 6/17/14