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If the images and text on the page of your aerodynamic textbook are starting to blur together then it might be time to take a break and try to ingest the information using another format. Jacob from the YouTube channel Helicopter Lessons in 10 Minutes or Less is an Apache instructor and standards officer who has a great ability to simplify and layout out aerodynamic topics in his videos.  

I conducted a number of job interviews for pilots positions when I was heading up the flying school at my past job. To try and keep everything fair and repeatable I had the same list of questions to take all the applicants through.

There was the normal behavioural style interview questions you would expect for any job. And then there were the aviation professional knowledge questions depending on the role we were hiring for. 

It surprised me but those professional knowledge questions really split the field and made applicants stand out either for good or bad. People are getting through flight school or have been out on the job flying for a little and are just paying off and ignoring the study that got them the licence in the first place. 

The first question that would trip up people would be on VFR alternate weather requirements. Some people would mix up the numbers from VMC criteria with those of alternate minimums. And then there was some confusion at times between minimas when you are able to use Helicopter VMC at the destination and times when you couldn’t for – example in controlled airspace. 

And I get it – I know interviews are pretty stressful and artificial. Normally if you weren’t sure of the answer or the number during pre-flight planning you could look it up if you had to. 

But that is a pretty fair question for a job interview and you want to be able to nail it and similar air law questions because its going to elevate you above the pack if others aren’t putting in the time to study and keep on top of the regs. 

The other one that surprised me was the ability or lack of it for pilot job applicants to be able to draw and label a basic rotor vector diagram on a blank sheet of paper or a whiteboard. For some pilots that looked like something that they just hadn’t done or looked at in a while and they couldn’t do it or could only get parts of it out. 

Again I think being able to draw a vector diagram is a pretty low bar for commercial pilots to be able to spit out without too much thought in a job interview scenario. But again asking people to do that really helped to split the pack.

And its tough as an interviewer – you’ve got make a decision in less than 60mins sometime with someone whether they can do the job and where they sit against other applicants. It can come down to few questions like those. 

Let’s do a little bit of introspection here – if you are listening to this and the thought of walking up to a blank white board and drawing a basic vector diagram then using that to explain dissymmetry of lift, ground effect and autorotation – if that makes you sweat and feel a bit uncomfortable –  Then thats great! We found an easy spot where you can put a bit of effort in and get yourself back up to a professional standard.

It shouldn’t matter if you are a commercial pilot or a private pilot – that professional standard and pride is something that we should hold ourselves to and each other too. We owe it to our families and to the people that trust us to fly them around.  

And if you have to do it in your next job interview and you pull it off flawlessly and confidently – send me the cheque in the mail! 

To turn you into an aerodynamics guru in the shortest amount of time, probably the best resource I can point you to is the youtube channel Helicopter Lessons in 10 Minutes or less. 

To chat about the history of the channel and what goes into making the videos we’ve got the creator Jacob joining us today. Jacob is an Apache instructor and standards officer.  

After a bit of a hiatus out doing what apache pilots do – Jacob is back online and has started releasing some new videos and has several more topics in the queue.

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Jacob’s YouTube Channel – Helicopter Lessons in 10 Minutes or Less

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Helicopters make fantastic photo subjects! There is still something special about flying that captures the human spirit and the intrinsic movement and energy in a helicopter especially so. Mark Watterson has been photographing helicopters professionally since 2014. He shares some tips for how best to work with aerial photographers for a great product. 

Mark has kindly provided the photos you see in this blog post. They provide some great inspiration if you are looking to stage and capture photos for your own marketing.  

Mark is based in Brisbane on the Australian east coast but can frequently be found on the road travelling for gigs. He is a familiar face for many of the operators here in South East Queensland.  

Shooting air to air can be likened to wedding photography in some ways, Mark says. It can be high pressure as you may only have the one chance to nail that perfect picture. With at least the running costs of two helicopters ticking over, needing to reset and reposition for another opportunity can be expensive even if calculated at internal company costs.

Mark will be one of the exhibitors at the Rotortech conference in June being held in Brisbane. A crop of the floor plan is included below with Mark’s booth – if you are attending drop in and say hi to him.

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Sky High Photos – Mark’s company website

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Two US National Guard pilots are developing a new training tool to reduce the risk of and improve the fidelity of reduced visual environment training. IIMC, dust landings and white outs have all been the causes of both training mishaps and real world accidents and deaths. We talk about what it missing in the current training and how a new device and training method can replicate the sensations and challenges of degraded visual environments.

Tyson Phillips and Andre Lavallee make up the team at AT Systems a US company bringing a new training device to the market. Tyson and Andre are both instructor pilots with the US Army National Guard – Tyson in Oklahoma and Andre in Texas. 

Between the two of them they have flown almost every rotary wing type in the US Army stable including stints in civil flying gigs. 

The Challenge!

ICAO publishes a list of 35 aviation occurrence categories – so when there is an accident or an incident the investigators will tag it against one or more of those categories.

Categories are things like icing, aerodrome, turbulence, wind shear, security related, low altitude operations, bike strike, fuel and includes unintended flight into IMC.

That last one we more generally call inadvertent IMC – or inadvertent instrument met conditions. This is when visual conditions looking outside have degraded to the point that we have to use flight instruments to control the aircraft.

So crashing aircraft due to Inadvertent IMC is nothing new and happens frequently that it has its own ICAO occurrence category.

The easy association here is entering into cloud – and that’s fairly obvious. But by definition any time we are below VMC or visual met conditions we are technically in IMC. You have to be in one or the other. 

If you are flying in rain or smog and the visibility drops below 5000m and you haven’t planned for it and you can’t use special VFR or helicopter VMC then you are now IMC, even if not actually in cloud.

The bigger machines out there can have some amazing instrument capability fitted to them. But in many cases if you find yourself going IIMC in a helicopter

• You are already likely to be Low level near hills and obstacles as you’ve probably been scud running to get to that point
• You are going to have a very basic instrument fitout
• The helicopter is most likely not going to have stability assist or any autopilot functions
• And in terms of pilot skill – how likely are you to be instrument qual’ed and if you are, how current are you?

So it is not going to be a nice spot to be.

Flying at night has its own challenges with the lack of visual cues.

But the other scenario that can put us in that really uncomfortable situation where we can’t see as much as we’d like to – is landings in dust or snow. As that rotor wash kicks up the loose surface and the cloud catches up as we drop through ETL – you can find yourself scrambling for any visual reference you can – just feet off the ground.

Today’s guests have come up with a training solution to help us get better at reacting to that transition into IIMC and that takes a lot of the risk out of practicing for degraded visual landings. 

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AT Systems website – company website for Tyson and Andre training equipment system

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It is not unusual for helicopter pilots to take a winding route to before they end up with a career in the cockpit. Tryggvi worked as a baggage handler, in flight operations and as a quality auditor before taking on a flying job. Now he is flying for the Icelandic Coast Guard on missions as varied as long distance maritime rescue, inflight refueling, film flying, HEMS and VIP transport. 

In the middle of march this year a volcano in Iceland erupted and has been oozing out lava ever since. As you can imagine – any time ancient molten rock from the earth’s mantle starts to flow on to the surface it makes for quite an attention grabbing sight. 

Not surprisingly the best place to catch a view is from the air. One of the photos I saw being passed around on social media was taken by Tryggvi.

That seemed like as good an excuse as any to find out more about flying in a corner of the world that not many of us get to. I reached out to Tryggvi to see if he would be keen to tell us more about it. 

Now Iceland is a long, long way north.  Picture if you would, for comparison, the very bottom of south america, as close as you can get to antarctica without swimming, that puts you at 56 degrees latitude south.  

Well Iceland is 65 degrees latitude north – another 9 degs or 540nm again closer to the North Pole.

In this chat with Tryggvi we talk about helicopter aviation in Iceland, the coast guard service and about the current volcano action they have going on.

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Icelandic Coast Guard Website

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Before a helicopter approaches to an oil rig there are checks and safety procedures to be followed on the rig in preparation – the deck is cleared, cranes are moved out of the way and gas venting is stopped. When the landing rig is misidentified and an approach flown to the wrong landing deck the above protections are not in place. 

Jon Davis is CEO and Managing Director of Skynet Satellite Communications and their division Skynet Aviation. This is a technology / software company that has been supporting aviation ops for over 20 years. Including experience where they were heavily involved in helicopter operations in the Gulf of Mexico. These days Jon is based in Brisbane, here in Australia and the company website indicates they are supporting aviation operators in over 47 countries.

In this episode we discuss wrong deck landings, what some of the dangers are and contributing factors as to why they occur. Oil rigs can sometimes look very similar to each other and are not always signed in a way that assists pilots in adverse conditions. If you were flying an approach to the rig in the photo below think about how difficult it would be to confirm the rig identification when your mental model has you “in the right spot”.  Also note the stowed cranes for the approach. If they weren’t expecting an arrival then the cranes could be impinging on the deck or the go-around area.

Skynet offers a number of ADS-B solutions with a mix of hardware and software. We refresh the operation of ADS-B for aircraft tracking and then look at the Landing Approach Surveillance and Warning (LASAW) system developed by Skynet. One of the applications of this technology is for use on oil platforms to monitor the surrounding airspace and detect helicopters commencing an approach. If this turns out to be an impending wrong deck landing then rig personnel are alerted or the system can automatically activate a number of warning lights and audio alarms on deck.

The video below gives an overview of how the LASAW system operates.

A number of links are provided below to investigation reports into wrong deck landings. The report commissioned by CHC on the topic has some wonderful human factors and CRM elements teased out. Actual wrong deck landings are a low occurrence event in actual reporting but it would seem that a number go unreported and near misses have been experienced by a sizeable percentage of those in the study group.

Below is a section from a company Operations Manual covering actions after the occurrence of a wrong deck landing. An immediate takeoff is not recommended as there is no assurance that the oil rig is in the proper configurations for aircraft operations. Cranes could be operating or gas being vented. Several aircraft crashes have been attributed to “the loss of engine power due to an engine compressor stall as a result of ingesting methane gas during takeoff” see NTSB Factual Aviation Report CEN11LA252 and NTSB Factual Aviation Report CEN13FA491.

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Review of wrong helideck landings, status lights and signalling lamps – 2001 UK Health and Safety Executive review
Wrong Deck Landings Report 2015/16 – a detailed report (99 pages) commissioned by CHC into the factors leading to a wrong deck landing
AAIB Bulletin: 6/2016 Sikorsky S-92A Wrong Deck Landing – investigation into a wrong landing in the North Sea in 2016
Skynet Aviation Website – find more detail on the Landing Approach Surveillance and Warning (LASAW) system described by Jon in this episode.

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Jerry Grayson returns to the Rotary Wing Show with an update on his next adventure following a packed career in the cockpit as a SAR and film pilot. Now-a-days he keeps his feet on the ground but leverages his experience in the operation of drones – and he thinks it might be a good time for other helicopter aircrew to take another look at this space. 

Flying a helicopter is an expensive and hard earned skillset. It is also pretty specialised and not something that you can do from anywhere. It is hard to ‘work-from-home’ during COVID, the work hours aren’t always family friendly, the job market can be very cyclic and a lot rests on your continued aviation medical passes. 

So what do you do if you find yourself as a skilled aircrew member and find yourself out of work? In this episode we look at a possible Plan B where you can transfer a large amount of your existing knowledge and experience. 

Jerry Grayson had a distinguished career in the UK Royal Navy – he graduated pilot training at age 17, operated from carriers and was a SAR pilot. Jerry was recognised with the Air Force Cross (AFC) for his role in a number of dramatic rescues during the 1979 Fastnet yacht race in horrendous conditions. Post Navy career he then found himself travelling the world as a film pilot including gigs at NASA, Formula 1 and the Olympics.

You can find out a lot more about Jerry’s other stories in Episode 29 including a pretty challenging emergency situation in a A109 at night.

This time around we focusing on flying drones and leveraging their capabilities for different product outputs. Jerry lays out some compelling considerations for growth in this part of aviation and how it stacks up against the traditional helicopter design.

Above is an example of the type of product that can be generated for clients. Specialised software is used to use stitch imagery from a drone to generate these 3D models. Jerry runs periodic courses which walk people how to do this. Links to courses are below.

Jerry’s first book ‘Rescue Pilot’ was covered in detail in Episode 29. Since then he has released another book ‘Film Pilot’ which we touch on in this interview.

In our conversation we touch on one filming project that Jerry flew in Kuwait covering the deliberate lighting of oil wells by withdrawing Iraqi forces. Lessons of Darkness was the documentary made and the full film can be found on YouTube. The clip below shows some of the flying scenes that Jerry and his team captured.

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Jerry’s 2nd Book – Film Pilot: From James Bond to Hurricane Katrina
Jerry’s personal website
Introduction to Drone Mapping – online delivered class covering the basics of data processing to creating mapping products for clients

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Richard (Rick) Howell started spinning spanners on aircraft in 1960 as a QANTAS apprentice. Since then he has flown all through Australia and PNG including a 29 year run as a pilot for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 

Rick and his twin brother John both started in aviation at the same time which presented a number of interesting scenarios as their careers intersected and they were mistaken for each other.

As an aircraft maintainer Rick worked on 6 week field tours throughout Australia before working in Bouganville where he spent 7 months initially. At this time the Bell 47 and its variants was the light utility workhorse of the Australian helicopter fleet. Rick gained his fixed wing licence and built up experience flying in PNG before cross training onto helicopters.

That fixed wing experience in PNG later proved useful flying Bell 47s at 12-13’000 feet resupplying radio sites and dealing with the challenge of operations in the PNG highlands.

Other roles came Rick’s way over time and he spent 1976 through to 1988 with NSW National Parks. Here Rick was constantly touring around New South Wales supporting scientists and rangers. Bush fire response also became a key role before Government started to use more and more civil machines.

The ABC news helicopter pilot position may well have been the most prized gig in the country and once there (or at many of the other station news pilot positions) turn over was very low. Rick landed the job and spent 29 years seeing all parts of Australia covering news, supporting documentaries and generally having a great time! Quite often he and the media team would cross-hire helicopters from the destination when the station helicopter couldn’t be spared for the length of time.

One of the big yearly events that the ABC covered and that Rick got to know well was the Sydney to Hobart yacht race. Launching out of Sydney harbour on Boxing Day the sailing fleet would be shadowed by the news helicopters down the coast to Tasmania. In the early days yachts would radio in their position to race coordinators and may have doctored their actual positions as a tactical advantage over competitors. That added an element of challenge for Rick and others locating them 50NM offshore in a single engine news helicopter 🙂   

Unfortunately in recent years Australian TV stations have been winding back their helicopter investments and the ABC sold off their aircraft and closed the aerial support section down. Rick is still active flying in the Sydney area supporting aerial fire spotting and he filmed the 2020/21 night fireworks over Sydney Harbour.

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Working in the helicopter media part of the industry Elan Head gets to talk to a wide range of people and over time has had the opportunity to take the controls of a wide range of helicopters. This gives her a unique vantage point to talk about the many roles that helicopters perform and some of the upcoming impacts to the industry.    

While working on a story as a travel writer in British Columbia Elan got to cover a heli-fishing tour. It was that encounter that really sparked her interest in seeing herself in the pilot seat as a do-able thing. With the challenge set it was in the sunny skies of Arizona that Elan knocked over her commercial, instrument and then instructor qualifications. In 2009 Elan joined the writing team that published Vertical Magazine and moved to Canada before later returning to the USA.

The writing assignments for Vertical have seen Elan travel right around the world and to delve into a wide range of industry aspects. “I can usually find a helicopter angle for anything that I’m interested in writing about.”

She has flown over 30 different helicopter types but one that stands out for her was the time that she was able to conduct the Kaman factory course for the K-MAX.

We talk about the experience of working up to a flight in the K-MAX (single seat so the first flight is solo) along with what its like to prepare to fly new and different helicopter types, some of the countries that Elan’s work has taken her to, tips for helicopter companies on PR (or Public relations) and how to possibly follow in her footsteps if you are a budding aviation writer.

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Elan on Twitter
Vertical Magazine – Elan Head is editorial director at Vertical Magazine.

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Electronic news gathering or ENG is the term that those in the helicopter news corner of the industry use to capture their operations. As a platform to provide real time on-scene video at short notice over a city nothing so far beats a helicopter.    

As consumers of news media we have become pretty accustomed to streamed live aerial video these days. And if it’s not video itself then part of living in any sizeable city in the modern era is the experience of a radio station traffic report from an overhead helicopter.

For news stations it probably doesn’t hurt them to have a flying billboard decked out in their station colours and logo flying overhead too.

When it comes to big cities and news helicopters – Los Angeles in the USA probably has some of the most recognisable operations – in part from the co-location of Hollywood and the onscreen productions that come out of there.

There are upward of 12 million people in the greater LA area and it is the 2nd largest city in the US after New York.

I couldn’t find a recent quoted figure but there is something crazy like 8 million vehicles registered in the city. You can imagine the popularity of the morning and afternoon traffic helicopter updates.

For the last 24 years Larry Welk has been involved in news coverage above LA. Larry is President of Welk Aviation based in California and which has a number of subsidiary helicopter operations.

I was introduced to Larry by show listener Tom Magill who reached out and suggested Larry as a guest. Tom is a Cinematographer who got his own helicopter licence in the early 2000’s and worked with Larry at times as an aerial camera operator. Thanks Tom!

Some snippets from Larry’s bio – he has over 17,000 flight hours, served 2 years as president of the Professional Helicopters Pilot Association which has just renamed to the Southern Californian Rotorcraft Association and has even been shot at on the job.

Larry has received two Emmy nominations, one Emmy award, a national Sports Emmy award, two commendations from the City of Los Angeles, recognition from the National Broadcast Pilots Association and the Greater Los Angeles Press Club.

Larry takes us through range of topics related to electronic news gathering. We chat about:

• The Early days of news flying before video downlinks
• Building flight time
• The normal daily routine for traffic patrols and news aircrew
• The transition from the pilot being the on air talent to a team and crew effort
• Introduction to LA airspace
• Training process to become a news pilot
• Safety considerations for flying over the urban environment, and
• The importance of learning everything to do with the mission or the role that the helicopter is being used for and to not just focus on the helicopter control or piloting.

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Welk Aviation – Larry’s company that includes Angel City Air, Western Helicopters and Summit Helicopter(Powerline Operations). You can find out more about the different operations they conduct on their site.
Welk Aviation on Facebook.
Tim Tucker’s Blog – Tim is the Chief Instructor at Robinson Helicopter Company. His blog has a number of very informative essays on helicopter topics.

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