Leaderboard

Well there isn't much to see out over the ocean. We are cruising at 2000 ft...a few puffy clouds out in front of us and lots of water below. Half hour in and we see some land of to our 1000 oclock...this little spec of sand has a Hilton hotel on it and an airport....hard to believe...We pass by just to the south and the black water suddenly turns into a nice light blue....shallow water. We continue on and see a chunk of land to our 2 oclock...north end of Andros island.. Not to long and we will be in to Nassau. The water here was so clear you could see old ship wrecks on the bottom. We drop down to 1000 ft for a better look....oh yeah those are sharks! The water suddenly turns a very black colour again...deep water! We give Nassau tower a call and tell them we will be on their ramp in 20 minutes. Friendly voice says we will meet you and do customs .we see the airport just ahead and set up for the approach to the ramp. Skids on the ground...feels good! Its around 2 PM..and very hot...we can;t wait to get the life jackets off.

We had bben watching the sun getting lower and lower way out to are right side. When it slipped under the waves we knew a call would be coming. The guy in the tower wants to know our eta and I tell him we are 60 miles back and will be on the ramp in 30 minutes. He is happy to hear this and also says there are 3 cruise ships leaving the island right now and says do not fly over them on the way in. These boats were lite up like a christmas tree...better than an ils....we continue in and call final for the ramp. It is pretty much black as I flip on the landing light and settle onto the ramp. We do Customs and get picked up by our hotel owners Audi suv... very nice! Its about a 20 minute drive to the hotel....pitch black. We get to the hotel and I tell buddy I am starving so we walk downtown to have supper.....to be continued

True but you can get a hangar with a toilet for a couple 100 grand that can house multiple machines and you don’t have to take a crap outside on the ramp or, if you’re civilized, at the local Tim Hortons! an indefinite small number. "he hoped she'd be better in a couple of days" synonyms: a few, two or three, a small number of; a couple "a couple of drinks" antonyms: several Thought I should bold the word then define it for you. Sure a couple may be an understatement, but if you wish for more accuracy I can hire an actuary to assess your area and get a more accurate number. I could also look in to funding with the bank and compare interest rates and property taxes. I can even go as fars as projecting utilities for the sake of your need for accurate postes on vertical. You must be fun at parties...

I wouldn't liken it to pilot/operators at all. I've never met a pilot/ engineer who was flying a R 44 make 6 figures a year doing anything ever! On a 2 and 2 rotation with a 14 hour duty day.

Great app and great calculator from Saifan Pilot. Downloaded both but was wondering if you could put more than the BA in the app, please?

Read my post carefully dude. Hope you do better at work...

We pass right over the runway on the Island of St Kitts. This was our original fuel stop for today. We continue south and I can see some nasty showers ahead.Things get pretty rough and we get to see lightning happening out over the ocean...not cool! It is a 3 hr ride from Saint Marteen to St.Luscia...over some very black and nasty looking ocean. We are also fighting daylight .We left at 3 PM and sundown is at 6. You are not aloud night vfr in the Caribbean. As the gps goes from daytime to nighttime mode we get a call from the St Luscia tower...to be continued.

I let the engine whined down and twist the throttle off and on a couple of time and give it another try...nothing. Well I think I have been stuck in worse places! I tell buddy to keep strapped in and open the front doors. I go and open the engine doors and grab the bung wrench and go do some gentle tapping on some of the vital parts...close up the engine doors and giver it another try...away she goes....we blast off the ramp and head south for St.Luscia!

Around midnight I am ready for the rack...I spend another hour getting the weather for our next couple of legs. Buddy wants to refuel in St Kitts tomorrow. I said we are only going to try that leg if we have a wind pushing us. It is 390 miles without stopping. I meet up for breakfast and we head to the airport. Buddy gets my papers again and goes in the back room with the Customs people. About 30 minutes he has all the paperwork straight and we head out to the ship. A good Di and we throw on the life jackets again and hit the sky. Its about 80 miles over to Puerto Rico and then a long haul to St Kitts. With our slow ground speed I tell buddy that we should land in San Juan and gets some fuel. This is when he lets me know that he cannot land in a US country as he doesn't have a visa....great to know now. We have climbed up to 5500 ft to get over a big mountain on Puerto Rico. Wind up there is right on the nose....90 miles an hour over the ground..water... aint going to work! I tell him to find another destination...we are heading for Saint Marteen!

We load back into a cab and drive another 20 minutes down the road and finally get checked into the correct resort. we throw our bags in the room and I tell buddy I will meet him in the bar which we do in about 10 minutes. I had mentioned to buddy that I liked cuban cigars and when he rolls into the outdoor cabana he hands me a big fat Cuban...we get a drink from the ladies wondering around the place...they are playboy quality....I take a sip and tell buddy to don't drink that swill. I go up to the bar and tell the bartender to get out the real booze. He reaches under the bar and comes out with the good stuff....I tell him to pour a couple of stiff ones and offer him a tip which he accepts and I tell him I will be back soon. Buddy and I are enjoying the evening with the cigars,rum and the Micheal Jackson Review blasting tunes with an ocean breeze blowing a nice 70F wind off the ocean. Not to shabby!

We land at a very small airstrip which is used by US Coast Guard to do our customs work..this is the end of Caribbean airspace. Next stop will be Punta Cana Dominican Republic. Well buddy quickly jumped out when we landed to go do some washroom work and I got 2 minutes more to try not to wet my pants....engine off...i make a run for the bushes!!!

Only three hours? Sounds like he gave you the coles notes version...

So we see the customs folks coming over and in very short order we are finished. They never even opened a door on the ship.We go in side and give them our passport and grab a seat in the waiting room. There is a group of guys wearing military uniforms...turns out they are US Custom helicopter crews. I strike up a conversation and after telling them our destination we get some great info from these guys on flying in the Caribbean . Turns out the guy I am talking with has the same first name as me...he gives me his card and we have been in touch now for 7 years. His last posting was on Kodiak Island in Alaska. As I mention...that's a long way from Nassau! We finally get picked up by the buyers of the ship and head to the north east side of the island for drinks...rum...and later supper. We had a great view of the ocean on their patio...more rum...then we are heading to our hotel for the night.We drive back into town which by the way has no street lights. It is black as coal! WE show up at a hotel that is totally dark and meet a guy which I still down't know who he was...we go thru a darked out bar room into a long hallway which leads back to our rooms on the second floor...we are the only people staying here...very scary! In the morning I open the curtains on my room and see the pool which is in pretty bad shape...lots of stuff floating in the water...the roof across from the pool has most of the shingles missing. On the grounds are about 4-5 folks cutting the lawn with machettes! Nice! We are told our ride has arrived...also now I find out that Dennis will be flying back to TO from here and I will be riding the rest of the trip south with the new owner...I am pissed!

https://www.tc.gc.ca/en/services/aviation/reference-centre/advisory-circulars/ac-700-052.html

Okay...so lets get on to another short story...its 1979...March I believe. I am working for AeroTrades Heli...wrenching on a Jetbox when I get a tap on the shoulder. I turn around and am staring at a playboy centerfold. This young lady who is in front of me wants to know who to talk to about renting a helicopter to fly the band Cheap Trick into the Winnipeg Stadium for a concert on the weekend. Long story short we are sticking huge stickers on the side of the chopper that read Dream Police. Never heard of it...unfortunately I did not get the nod to do the trip...CP got that one...unreal! I had never heard of the band until that day!

That does it, for sure. Layman's take is if your primary attention has to be on the aircraft, it's flight time. If you're ground idling and able to update your instagram, it's not. At a certain point it becomes superfluous, and generally you'll find more respect reporting air time, as that's the only time you're improving as a pilot. I personally have three columns in my excel logbook; air time, bill time, engine time. Billing time coincides with the TC definition of "Flight", it requires more than my peripheral attention as a pilot to prevent something untoward occurring.

I've been a helicopter pilot for 14 yrs. I had a slow start and thought many times that I'll never make it in the industry. Finally caught a break, got my foot in the door and held on. Started a family with kids which made things tight at 135hrs, but held on. I'm finally sitting comfortable at around 4000hrs at a reputable company adding allot to my resume. I'm actually still paying off my loan for my license at this time. But not once did I ever regret my helicopter license or ever think I should have gone the fixed wing way. Just never appealed to me to make a career going from airport to airport. I've said it when I got my license and I still say it to this day, that I didn't get into this for the money. I just enjoy being out there doing this as a job(career). I had gone to Great Slaves school back in that day and would have recommended that to anyone, They had a great experienced pilots that worked in the north during the summer and instructed during the winter. Their program where they used to hire 4 of their students every season, so it was like a 6 month interview. Today I would recommend MountainView because I find they have allot to offer, great experienced Instructors and also connections to some companies out there who get low time pilots going. I've gotten endorsements, PPCs, Mountain training there and would go back for any other additional training.

It's very much work in progress, but if you can bear with it, I have a quesstion database that's free to use that may be useful to anyone studying for exams. You can find it at www.rtfq.org. Phil

Everyone here is talking only about the price. No one asked me how many seconds this thing opens. And nobody asks about the remote control, but it is. You can still make a PacMan design... :-(