Heliduck

I’m sure the thread title will ignite some emotion for some, that’s not my intention. I’m an Australian pilot & the last time I flew in Canada was in 2018 so I’m a bit out of touch with pilot demand at the moment, are there many opportunities for an experienced (5600hrs) A-Star pilot to do the summer? I’m in my 50’s so age could work against me for a visa.

I’m a bit concerned about the new feature’s accuracy. Oz Runways has had this feature for years, & as you can see from the screenshots below the active airspace shown on Oz Runways is not shown on ForeFlight. Same time, same airspace.

I hope this doesn’t expand into general ex mil aircraft use for utility work. Australia has a UH1/Garlick fly to bits nearly every year, Canada has about 4 x the mediums as Australia so that would extrapolate to a significant increase in events. Operators with commercial variants would also struggle to compete against a cheaper ex mil machine when pax weren’t required. Significant industry disruptor if that was allowed. I hope it doesn’t happen, but if it does there’s a few cheap blackhawks on the market down south!

I’m a pilot so I have no experience with engineers pay scales, but I do have a lot of experience as a Heavy equipment fitter/manager in the mining industry in several countries - as a comparison of industries, I would consider a “flight pay” equivalent in the mining industry to be absolutely ludicrous! Using the “ flight pay” model - If the equipment doesn’t run due to weather/operators calling in sick or it’s down for maintenance then the maintenance staff get paid less - stuff that! Bonehead operator breaks it so I get paid less while I’m fixing it - stuff that! In effect, operators are only paying full price for your skills when they’re not using them (machine is flying). I can understand the logic of the system as it provides a financial incentive for engineers to keep the machine flying, but this is actually a negative in a risk assessment. Maintenance decisions based on best practice & legal standards free from bias &/or financial coercion would deliver better results -“No.1 Safety, No.2 Quality, No.3 Efficiency” - in that order. Wearing my maintenance hat, I agree with the previous posters that your time has a value regardless of the hours the machine does. A good engineer is worth their money, a well paid engineer is a happy engineer & a happy engineer is a pilots best friend! Good luck.

There’s a difference between the minimums required for instructing & what the industry will accept. Canada has some of the best training in the world because most of the flying schools have a culture of employing highly experienced pilots, regardless of the TC minimums.

Excellent point Bee3. Like it or not the Canadian & Australian industries are reliant on each other, largely due to having very similar cultures & being in opposite hemispheres. In times of rapid expansion Canada struggles to have enough task ready experienced pilots for the remote area utility work, & Australia doesn’t have the non-fire work available for pilots to be able to gain the minimum medium experience required for fires. The advice given to pilots in Australia by the major medium operators is “go to Canada” for training & experience, & as you mentioned, every year there are Canadians on nearly every fire in Australia where a medium or heavy is involved. My numbers might be a bit out of date as I’m going off memory here - Canada has a population of 40 million & has 270 mediums on the register, Australia has a population of 25 million & has about 75 mediums on the register - easy to see why Australia relies on Canada for the experienced crew. The medium fleet is expanding in Oz so there’ll be more opportunities for Canadians with twin medium experience. On both sides of the world operators need to jump through visa hoops to get the drivers, but in both examples I don’t believe it is the visa holders driving down rates. The rates are accepted by the locals in both countries long before the visa holders get there.

The original poster stated that “Companies are and will be parking aircraft because they just cannot find experienced vaccinated pilots.” A few pages down the conversation has shifted to no work, low income & companies closing doors. So are some parts of the country booming & other areas quiet, or does it depend which sector of the industry your work comes from?

You are right, let’s get it back on track - 412driver’s original post - “I remember when I started out..."shortage of pilots" they all said. That seems to be the meme of the industry as I've heard it for years. They never correct it by inserting the word "experienced". But that is not the point of this post. As I have gone through my contract negotiations for this year and speaking with other pilots I have come to realize that this will seriously show itself this year. Companies are and will be parking aircraft because they just cannot find experienced vaccinated pilots. My contract demands this year would have been scoffed at just a few years ago. Not this year. My advice, do not sell yourself short. The biggest influence of this problem of course is the vaccination requirements to fly. Me? I am triple vaxxed and I personally do not care if you are or are not. I really believe is your choice and I strongly support that choice. If anything, I say thanks to the anti-vaxxers. You have really helped my bottom line. It will get interesting this summer if it turns into a scorcher like last year...” My 2 cents worth - 412driver is bang on, & I urge the people who who are concerned that the vaccinations are against their best interests to not get them, & please use social media to influence others. The lemmings will all leap off the cliff, my rates will go up & I’ll have more choice of where I can work. Keep up the good work!😉(I wish I could find a Charles Darwin emoji).

The vaccination was never sold to me by my doctor as being a prevention for catching CV19, it was sold as means of boosting my immunity so that if/when I did catch it I wouldn’t get seriously ill or require hospitalisation. It makes sense to me that the higher the percentage of the population who are vaccinated, the higher the percentage of people who catch CV19 will have received 1 or more doses. Regarding the insinuation that you’re more likely to die if you have been vaccinated, have a look at the age brackets for the deaths - the older you are the more likely it is that the disease will kill you, vaccinated or not. Underlying conditions kill most people, CV19 tips them over the edge & because they test positive they go into that bucket of statistics. Referring to the age brackets from 30 to 60 in the report you attached, the numbers are relatively low when compared to the 80+ age bracket, & in my short career I’ve never heard of a commercial helicopter pilot over 80 years old still flying so I guess there’ll still be quite a few of us in the seat. Personally I appreciate any hysteria regarding anti-vaxing/gov’t conspiracies, reduces the pilot pool & it’s driving up rates.

I’m dredging through old posts researching rates in Canada & came across this post - as someone with a down under accent who works in Canada periodically I think it’s worth mentioning that there are probably some foreigners who will work for a low package, but I certainly wouldn’t fly for some of the rates I’ve seen quoted on these forums. As a contractor in Australia I currently get AUD800/day + $150/hour + reimbursed for ALL expenses flying an A-star on fires - maybe if Canadian operators charged a reasonable rate for their aircraft in Canada they wouldn’t need to send so many to Australia to make money on fires! P.S. - I’m looking forward to another season in Canada in 2020, I’ll do my best to be part of the solution for better rates rather than part of the problem.

The Stephan/h website lists these flight suits as mostly made from nylon & polyester, not very fire retardant. My advice would be to read about the British navy personnel who had nylon underwear when their ship caught fire during the falklands war, then buy a fire retardant or cotton flight suit.

Last year I upgraded my 22 year old SPH5 to an ASPIDA with lightspeed ANR fitted. I bought the carbon fibre model & took all of the visor assembly off so I could fit a peak(found a motorbike helmet peak which fits great). I love the ANR, I don’t know how I went so long without it & the helmet is so light I don’t even notice that I’m wearing it. Im not sure where you’d buy one in Canada, check them out here - paracletelifesupport.com

......And good news for operators already on the list & obviously doing a good job!

If you can get access to a Bose or light speed headset with ANR you could try before you buy. After 22 years in an SPH5 I recently upgraded to an “Aspida” ( made by Paraclete USA) carbon fibre with light speed Zulu installed, absolutely love it! Very light. I’ve heard stories of buffeting when longlining with the door off but I haven’t experienced that, works fine for me.

I would like to see that as well. The reason their are cycle limits on turbine engines is because the manufacturer has dertermined the the rapid & significant temperature change to the internal components during a start has the potential to reduce the reliability of those parts. The parts don’t know, nor do they care, if you are starting it for a maintenance flight, revenue flight, or just to hear the cool sound it makes so you can record a ring tone. I don’t want to wish my life away, but I do look forward to the day when all helicopters have VEMD/FADEC so all of this counting is done for us. Some dodgy operators will need to review their rates then!