rainman

I was a lucky pilot who started my career with VIH right here on the West Coast back when VIH was still a smallish company. After a few years flying and figuring it out in Haida Gwaii and Prince Rupert, they put a mountain course into me. It was conducted in Rupert and omitted all the helipad and longline stuff as I'd already done a lot of it considering my total time then. After a couple days of classroom and about 5 hours or less, I was signed off. This was an approved course and I was legally off to the races. From then on, nothing much changed, I just continued flying in the mountains, long lining a huge variety of jobs ranging from 200' choker jobs to mountain top repeater/tower work. All this was done with no formal training and me just figuring it out and/or asking lot's of questions of my peers. I believe I got lucky a few times, learned some valuable lessons that can only be learned by doing it...repeatedly. From there came heliskiing in Astars and seismic in the high mountains of China (Extremely humbling?) Fast forward 10 years from there and the real mountain learning came with skiing in a 212...Thats is where the real learning and humbling experiences continued almost daily... Sorry, i rambled on, not meant to be a resume...Lol, just that my 2 bits are, I don't believe they should put an hour level on a course. It should be and I think is in some circumstances, a competency based course. If you learned from the beginning in the mountains, that's a good situation because it's just what you know and are comfy with. If you want to fly in the mountains but currently don't, try and get hired by a company that operates in the designated mountainous regions. They might even just give you a course after they get to know you.

Very Sad news indeed, I worked there a few years back and everything was top notch...Great people, support and machines. Sad to see Grant's baby go down like this...Hope everyone lands on their feet!

Sounds like they did a good job! Good to have that second stove...

That is hilarious!

On your phone, turn off the auto timezone correction thing (don't know the proper term)...If it's on manual it won't screw the app up. Temp fix till it's addressed. I've used it all summer and love it.

I've been using this app for the last week straight on fires in BC...Have to say I quite Love it! Haven't written anything in the trip log, done any "time" math and just hit start/stop and edited the details for Buckets, starts and landings. Very neat, accurate and concise... Furthermore, no calls from forestry saying I was off on my times. Love it!

You can, I changed the 3 available parameters to starts, buckets (slings, lifts or whatever you want) and landings. After that leg, you press stop and edit, then just put in the numbers as required. Pretty easy, just have to change the mindset from paper to the superior phone unit,the iPhone LOL!

I've recently downloaded it. I've played around and set up the notes to work for my aircraft type. Works pretty slick...Just need some fire action to put it to good use!

Make sure you reserve rooms first for Bell 2...Busy time of year and don't want to get there at the end of a day only to only have room 407 available with a full belly of Jet A. I do agree though, great place to take a break and a great meal!

Fulltime and Yep

2/2 skiing the last 9 years and anything from 3/2 to a 3/3 for summer firefighting ops. This year we are moving to a 2/2 for firefighting/ hydro work. Equal time seems the way to go. My wife is much happier with it. Life is short, you'll be dead a very long time. Money is less important than good family or play time. It's a balance.

We still have 2 months of Heliskiing to get through! Fires seem a long way off. Come May though it usually happens much faster than lots of folks are ready for.

That truly is very sad for all involved. My deepest sympathy goes to the family, friends and coworkers of the victim. Also to the aircrew of this terrible accident.