Don't make contacts, make friends

How do you do pre-flight briefings with your passengers?

When I was flying the 430, I usually just hit on the "Big 6" items: Seat Belts, Emergency Exits, Fire Extinguisher, First Aid kit, Life Vests and Emergency Landing positions. My passengers weren't looking to fly with a comedian, so I always kept it short, sweet, professional and to the point.

When I was flying tours (EC-130B4 and AS350B2s) in my off time tho, I was normally able to have a little fun with the pax. Usually, there were several passengers who were going for a helo ride for the first time. Being the smart alec I am, I quickly found a way to play with these folks in order to make them a bit more relaxed (They were normally pretty apprehensive).

Once they were on board and strapped in, I'd turn around and introduce myself, then ask "Is this anyone's first time on a helicopter?" Normally there were 5 or 6 hands that shot up in the air. I'd get a big smile and say "Me too! I'm so excited! Thanks for coming with me!". This (of course) would catch them completely off guard, and they'd laugh and usually relax. I'd then reassure them that I'd been flying for XX years, and let them know they had nothing to fear. If they were a really fun group, I'd say something to the effect of "You have nothing to worry about, I haven't crashed once this week." After something like that tho, I would always reassure them that I was in fact only kidding around. I never had one complaint. I'd then make sure they were familiar with all the safety items and proceedures. The last thing I did before we took off, was ask if anyone had any questions about the helicopter or the flight. The adults rarely ever asked questions. The kids on the other hand, were full of them. I once even had a 7 year old from Australia ask me how long it had been since the engine and rotor system had been overhauled, and when the aircraft was due for it's next inspection. He wanted an exact answer, and would not give up until I gave him one.

When joking around with your passengers though, I would advise a good amount of caution mixed with a hearty dose of common sense. If your passengers are obviously scared/nervous, joking about it being your first time in a helicopter, or not having crashed in the previous week is probably not a good idea. I don't know what kind of flying you do, but I've seen pilots try to joke around with charter customers who were all business, and it backfired on them.

The best advice I can give you is to just be yourself and use your best judgement. Don't have a scripted preflight briefing, but be sure to cover the important items in a way that best suits the passengers you have on board at the time. If unsure, it is always best and safest to keep it professional. Nobody ever got fired for being too professional. I have seen bad things happen to pilots who tried to become too familiar and casual with passengers however. There is a time and place for everything, and it's all about figuring out what works for you and your pax.

Helicopter Verses Fixed Wing

as with everything in life, Aviation is a series of compromises. It's all about what is most important to you. As a dual rated pilot, I think I may be able to give you some insight from both sides of the coin. I'm sure ther are others who can add far more.

For me, the biggest advantage/attraction to helicopters is the fact that I am able to come home every night and spend time with my family. I also enjoy the challenges that come with operating a helo in the various different environments that my job demands. The fact that I am able to use my skills to help save lives (in my current job) and help people in need is also very gratifying. The down side of the helo world, at least for me, is the pay scale and the fact that the flights are normally very short and constantly go to the same places.

The fixed wing side provides the opportunity to travel (All over the world in many jobs) and see new places. The starting pay scale for FW pilots is generally much lower than initial RW pay, but at the end of a 20 year career, the FW Captain will usually make much more than a 20 year RW Captain. The down side of the FW world is the fact that the very nature of the job requires extended time away from home and family. There are FW jobs that allow you to be home almost every night, but they're either few and far between, or don't pay enough to support a family.

Its all about what works best for you and your family. There is nothing wrong with being dual rated, either. You certainly do not have to choose one or the other when you can do both. I've been lucky enough to have that opportunity, and it has worked very well for me.

Take a look around, talk to other dual rated pilots and get their opinions. See why they like one vs the other. Ask questions. There are many dual rated guys who have far more experience than I do. I'm sure they'll be happy to share their experiences and opinions.

Turbine Transition

My personal feelings on the subject are that if you have enough time to be competetive for a turbine job, the company will pay for your training. If you're not competetive, 3-10 hours of turbine time will not make you so.

But....

If you're one of the people I've seen with money to burn, asking about buying turbine time, I would strongly advise you to take that large sum of money and spend it on a factory school or one of the well known sim training schools (Flight Safety Int'l, Simuflite, etc). Stay away from a "cheap turbine time builder", at least until you've been to the factory course. The reasons are simple:

A. The factory course (Be it Bell or AEC) is a known entity among insurance underwriters. They teach a predetermined curriculum, and are the recognized experts for that particular airframe. As Rocky found out, sometimes the Factory course is mandatory for insurance purposes, no matter how many hours you have in the airframe. Completing a factory course just tells an insurance company (And prospective employers) that you, at least at some point, knew enough about all the required subjects to finish the course satisfactorily, and you safely demonstrated your ability to fly the aircraft.

B. You will actually learn about the aircraft at a Factory course. You'll learn systems, emergency proceedures, and aircraft limitations. THEN you'll go out and learn to fly it. With one of the "Cheap Turbine Time" guys, you MAY get to wiggle the stick for a few minutes. They will teach you nothing (or at best very little) about modulated starts, aircraft systems, EPs, etc etc. If you have 206 or AStar time in your logbook, you'd better be prepared to answer detailed questions about the aircraft during an interview. Not knowing all about the aircraft you've flown (Or at least flown in the last year or two) will kill your chances in an interview.

Once you've attended a factory course, if you find you still have money to burn... then look for a cheap turbine time offer, as long as it's in the airframe you've been trained in. But, keep in mind, Chief Pilots who hire low timers don't expect you to have turbine time. Unless you can afford to go buy 100 - 500 hours in an AStar or 206, you're not going to impress many people with 5 - 10 hours in one or the other, so why waste the money?

Like I said above, you've either got what it takes to get a turbine job or you don't. If you do, put your money away and let the company pay for the turbine transition (You'll probably need the money to live on for the first year... ha ha). If you don't, then I'd take that money, go rent an R22 or an R44, and polish up my IFR skills and build the hours that way. A solid IFR pilot with no turbine time is far more valuable than a mediocre IFR guy with 7 hours in a 206.

Not trying to discourage anyone, just pointing out some facts that get overlooked when one is overcome with the idea of burning Kerosene.

A lesson for new, low time and even some high time pilots

Watch this video:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4325295678850755443&q=helicopter+training&hl=en

The first part is a bunch of photos and looks kinda neat. It is the last half that scares the hell out of me.

This is exactly how to kill yourself flying a helicopter. Mr. Primmer looks like he is having all sorts of fun, and he probably is. However...
He is also flying a light piston helicopter that is not equipped with any sort of floatation equipment, Nap of the Earth over a semi-frozen lake, and along a rocky shoreline with little or no suitable forced landing areas. He is immeasurably foolish, and is even carrying a passenger! In short, he is unsafe and should be grounded until such time as he can be taught to fly safely and responsibly.

This pilot is incredibly irresponsible and immature, and the very fact that he posted this video on the internet, complete with his name and the name of the company that owns the helicopter only goes to further show his arrogance and ignorance. What he left out was the disclaimer "Please do not try this at home (Or in your aircraft)".

New pilots and future pilots: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE learn from this. "Hotdogging", Showing Off, etc is not "Cool". It has cost many lives and this video is a prime example of how people get killed. If that engine had so much as burped, or there had been a bird pop up in front of him, or a set of wires around one of those blind curves, those two men would now be dead. You can recon a route for wires, but you cannot predict birds or engine performance.

This is coming from a former gunship pilot who's spent hundreds of hours below 50' agl. I loved flying NOE, it is definitely an adrenaline rush, but I always had forced landing areas, and I had received extensive and recurrent low-level Emergency training. I also realize that there is a time and place for everything, and safety always needs to be the primary focus when you're not being shot at. A professional pilot is always asking him/herself "Can this be done any safer? Do I have a forced landing area? Where would I go if my engine quit right now?" an amateur pilot makes videos of himself doing incredibly stupid things and then posts them on the internet. Which kind of pilot do you want to be?

CFIs, please use this video to illustrate the need to fly safely and intelligently to your students. You might just save a life.

Thanks for reading, and sorry for the soap box rambling. This is just something that bothered me quite a bit.

Blue Skies,

EMS human factors

As a fairly new EMS pilot, those are all questions and challenges I've faced in the last year, and no it has not been easy getting past many of them.

I've heard from some of the guys who've been flying EMS for years that you must think of the patient as nothing more than cargo. While I can certainly understand their reasoning for this train of thought, I cannot yet bring myself to think of a patient as "cargo". A contributing factor may be the fact that I am flying an AStar and the patient is lying immediately to my left and in full view, as opposed to some of the bigger ships that have a separate cockpit and cabin. I don't care how long I do this job, seeing a mangled body laying next to me will always affect me in some way or another. At least I hope it will. I don't ever want to "get used" to seeing that.

The hardest patients for me (and for most) are the kids. Thankfully I haven't had too many, but I have had some bad ones. One in particular really got to me, so I asked my medical crews and fellow pilots how they dealt with "bad" flights. Someone said something that just made sense to me, and it is what I keep in the back of my head at all times while flying. She said that we can only do the best we can to help people. It is not up to us whether or not the patient lives. I do my best to get my crew to the patient as quickly as possible, then I do my best to get them all to the hospital as quickly and safely as I can. They in turn do their very best to care for the patient en route.

Something else that can sometimes be difficult to admit is that we as EMS pilots, do not save lives. We're not heroes, and those that think they are are dangerous. The Nurses and Medics get paid to save lives. I get paid to keep everyone safe while they do their jobs. I get paid to know when to say no.

There are protections built in to help us keep focused on performing the flight safely, but those protections are not foolproof. For example, we have 3 different weather "codes", and at the beginning of each shift we pass along our current weather status to dispatch. Green means the weather is good and is expected to remain so for the length of the shift. Yellow means that the weather is questionable and we may not be able to fly. Red means that the ship is grounded for weather until further notice.

SOP states that no matter the weather condition, the dispatcher is only allowed to relay the type of request (Scene, Transfer, etc), the name of the requesting agency (Phoenix Fire, St Joes, etc) and the destination(s). They can also give us a distance and a heading if it is someplace we're unfamiliar with. They can not give us ANY patient information until such time as we've decided it is safe and accept the flight. Even then, patient information is only supposed to go to the medical crew, but 98% of the time, I wind up hearing it. There are times that I wish I had not heard about the patient, because occasionally we do have to cancel the flight while enroute to the pick up point.

As I said, these precautions are not foolproof. Example: About 3 months ago I was on a night shift. There were isolated to scattered thunderstorms all over southern AZ. I had the weather status listed as yellow. About 3am, I got a call from dispatch requesting a patient transfer flight from Safford AZ to Phoenix Children's Hospital. Well, at that point, I already had more information than I wanted. There were thunderstorms between me and the pick up point, and then again between the pick up point and PCH. There was no possible way for me to take that flight, and I had to decline it. I felt terribly guilty and "what-iffed" it to death in my head for about an hour and a half after that. I must have checked weather 25 times to see if it had cleared any (even tho I knew it hadn't). I felt like a more seasoned pilot could have made it happen. I hate feeling helpless, and knowing that a child needed to get to the hospital and I could not do anything to help tore me up. The dispatcher did nothing wrong. They did not tell me it was a child, they did not tell me what was wrong with the patient. They just gave me the information they were supposed to, but common sense dictates that they do not fly non-critical adult patients to Phoenix Childrens' Hospital at 3am. It was a tough night. In hind sight the descision was easy (Thank God). There was no possible way I could have safely made the flight. That sure did not keep me from second guessing myself tho.

What it really all comes down to, and there are times that I have to consciously remind myself of this, is the safety of the crew, the aircraft and me. My number one goal with this job is not to save lives. It is to go home at the end of my shift and arrive in the same condition I left. I say my prayers daily, and hope that I can use my talents and abilities to help someone in need, but my #1 goal is ensuring that my daughter can play with her daddy in the morning. Keeping that goal in mind has saved my hide more than once. Risking 3 to attempt to save 1 is always a fool's bet.

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