Tag Archives: Helicopter flying
Answer the radio
“I’ll bet you have had some frightening experiences?” It is a question I often get from people who ask about my helicopter firefighting career. “Not too many really”, I say “and I work hard to keep it that way” A … Continue reading →
Posted in Contract helicopter pilot, Flying Stories, helicopter firefighting, Helicopter Pilot
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Tagged helicopter, helicopter firefighting, Helicopter flying, Helicopter Pilot
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Situation Normal
Another oh dark thirty wake up, for a first light departure. I could never see the urgency in getting people off a ship that would still be there, at say, 07:30, rather than by the dawns early light at 05:45.The … Continue reading →
Posted in Flying Stories, Helicopter Pilot
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Tagged Contract helicopter pilot, Helicopter flying, Helicopter Pilot
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Out on the Range
You can always tell when the shared bravado has left the confines of your helicopter cabin and everyone including you is now seriously concerned. Call it, the suddenly sterile cabin. Single pilot VFR helicopter flights in marginal weather are nothing … Continue reading →
Posted in Flying Stories, Helicopter Pilot
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Tagged helicopter, Helicopter flying, Helicopter Pilot
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Some things you never forget
Why more of us didn’t die in crashes I’ll never know. Some did. I had been looking through my old pilot logbooks. All six of them. Another pilot had asked me online about my experience with helicopters other than the … Continue reading →
Posted in Contract helicopter pilot, Flying Stories, Helicopter Pilot
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Tagged helicopter, Helicopter flying, Helicopter Pilot
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Initial Attack
The following is the partial definition of the wildland firefighting term that is the title for this blog and governs a lot of the firefighting I have done in the U.S.A. with helicopters of various types. Initial attack is the … Continue reading →
And,now,for my next trick
Those of us who choose to write about our flying misadventures run the risk that their audience no matter how few they are, may decide, that you are in fact ,a moron. By way of a very limited defense, I … Continue reading →
Posted in Contract helicopter pilot, Flying Stories, Helicopter Pilot
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Tagged helicopter, Helicopter flying, Helicopter Pilot
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Urban Interface
Its the term used to describe wildfires that run into densely populated areas.I have fought a lot of these types of fires over the years and the number one rule, just as it is with physicians, is first, do no … Continue reading →
Posted in Flying Stories, helicopter firefighting, Helicopter Pilot
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Tagged helicopter firefighting, Helicopter flying
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Close Call
Part of our management team visited our Heli-base in Albenga Italy awhile back. One of the many positive changes the company has begun includes a near miss report. To pilots, near misses are generally followed by a sharp intake of … Continue reading →
Posted in Flying Stories, helicopter firefighting, Helicopter Pilot, Random rantings, World Travel
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Tagged helic, helicopter firefighting, Helicopter flying
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Preflight
Pilots perform preflights. At least they should. Whether you like to refer to the procedure as an exterior inspection or something else is fine with me. I have heard the semantic argument that pilots can’t do a preflight inspection because … Continue reading →
Watch This
The Hiller 12E had been delivered to the job. Literally. It was sitting on a trailer in the customers business yard all by its lonesome. The truck driver had, after driving all night in the rain, gone to the Motel … Continue reading →
Posted in Flying Stories, Helicopter Pilot
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Tagged Helicopter flying, Helicopter Pilot, will travel
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Helicopter Pilot, will travel 