Training Season

MD 500 on the West Coast of Vancouver Island

December to February is training season for me. At this time of year, every pilot in the company needs to complete their annual recurrent training and Pilot Competency Check on both aircraft we fly.  I have the honour of being a company training and check pilot for MD 500 helicopter that we use to transport people and gear during our regular operations. The 500 is a very agile and fast little helicopter that is often described as being an aircraft that you strap on and fly like it's part of you. So you can imagine training with it can be a lot of fun. That combined with the high level of experience among our group of pilots makes my job very enjoyable.

We are about half way through our training this year and it is my third season in this position. The first year was exhausting for me. I think I was having to study harder for every check ride and training session than the guys I was training and evaluating! I would honestly say that by the end of that first year, I was finally starting to understand all the material well enough that I could actually teach the material if I needed too. It was a good thing I was being tutored by such a knowledgeable person myself. Last year was starting to become more fun than work because I could really start to focus on breaking down some of the material and remove some of the 'clutter' to better clarify my explanations of material we cover. This year has been very enjoyable so far.

The training with each pilot consists of about an hour of ground briefing covering weather, Transport Canada documentation, company operations, aircraft limitations, emergencies  and air law and procedures. The training flight lasts for about an hour and 15 minutes and we cover emergency procedures, airmanship, and flight operations. The check ride flight is about half an hour and covers the same material with an evaluation. I don't think anyone enjoys the check ride portion including me. The training portion of the flight is usually a lot of fun. When else do you get to practice engine failures, stuck controls and pretend you're on fire?!?

Though the learning curve isn't as steep as it was for me in the first year, I still enjoy how much I am learning every day I do this job. Like coaching and teaching everyone sees techniques and learns in a different way than the next person. This year I'm finding I'm better prepared to notice the trends and differences with how each pilot views the same technique or procedure. By analyzing how each person approaches the same situation and applies a slightly different technique I get to learn different 'little tricks' that I can possibly pass on to help someone else. I particularly enjoy the challenges of figuring out why a particular technique works or doesn't work and what aerodynamic principles are involved. Helicopter aerodynamics are nothing short of magic in my books.

We have about two weeks left to go before training will be complete for another year. I hope my peers that I am training with leave their annual training feeling confident and that they've learned something useful. Even if they take away half of what I do from each one of them, I feel confident that I'm doing my job. And the best part of training season? I get to enjoy a rewarding day at work and then come home to my family every night. Too bad it doesn't last all year!

How do I explain this?

Here I am on my last night in camp and I've been agonizing over what to write about all week. I really don't want my blog to become a chore and on the other hand, I don't want it to go by the wayside either.  I get some real enjoyment from writing it.  So it just kind of hit me a little bit ago what to write about.  It would have been far more appropriate at the time that it happened which was Remembrance Day.

For several days leading up to Remembrance Day, my four year old son had been asking about 'the war.' He'd been learning a bit about what Remembrance Day was about in Kindergarten. It was a bit of a lesson for me to see what he retained from what I would figure they had been saying at school.  As far as he was concerned, there had only been one war and that's all.  He was wondering what the war was like. Where the war was held. One thing he seemed to have a grasp on was that people died.  Seemingly a lot of people.  It was bedtime the night before I was leaving for work and two days before Remembrance Day. Stories had been read, songs had been sung and it was time for good nights, I love yous and I'll see you in a week.  But that's when the real questions started.  Holy. How do I explain this?

As a child I was lucky enough to have parents that entertained my endless questions of why?  How come? How does this work? I have very fond memories of weekend drives with my dad heading to a sporting event or the hardware store and becoming fully engrossed in major learning moments of how things work. I think we were on the entrance ramp to the freeway just before going onto the Port Mann Bridge when we started the discussion of how an internal combustion engine works. Fishing in the little green row boat taking my first lesson in molecular physics.  I'm not trying to say my dad was some nuclear physicist but to a little kid, he was the all knowing. The answerer of questions. My mom was the teacher of things school.  I don't think I went to my mom with the same questions I did my dad. She was who I called when I needed something proof read. Or needed help with something embarrassing. Or bleeding profusely.  That's probably another blog entry though.

Now the pressure is coming on to me. I seem to be moving into the position of the answerer of questions.  If I was smart...I'd say, "ask your mother" or "call grandpa." But without wanting my sister to fill the comment box after this blog...I'm not that smart. I jump in with both feet and do my best to answer the questions that come from 4 to 6 year olds. I feel that I tend to do okay. They seem to walk away satisfied on most counts that their question has been answered.  The surface has only been scratched but I hope they'll continue to think and wonder and come back with another thoughtful question at a later date. So when I started to get grilled at bedtime about 'the war,' I realized that it had the potential to be a really big question.  And it was bedtime! But I was leaving for work for a week the very next morning. I couldn't even put it off until tomorrow. I tried to explain what a war is. I explained that there is still wars being fought all over the world. The concept of the world is so vague to a four year old. Their concept of the world is so small. It was enough of a challenge to explain that even though there is wars still going on, that's he's safe. There isn't a war happening anywhere near us. That was my opportunity to explain why we have Remembrance Day. That we remember all the brave men and women that fought so hard give us the safety of not having a war in our neighbourhood.  Now that he was understanding that people were trying to shoot and kill each other with guns, Remembrance Day seemed like such a small question...he was trying to digest how adults were allowed to shoot at each other...let alone kill each other!  It's bad to even hit someone else! This is where I'm still at a loss. Kids are no strangers to dealing with things with a fist or a foot if talks break down.  I've even seen trucks and sticks fly when it get's really heated. They all know by this age though that they're not supposed to hit each other.  And now I'm telling him about adults, governments, entire countries of people trying to kill each other. I couldn't explain why. I still can't. Honestly it's been a real eye opener for me. If the world was run by a four year old would it lead to war? I can't think so. When is civilization going to grow up?

I've already learned that children can drive a parent crazy with unending questions. They can be so inquisitive and so innocent. They can also be so cunning and devious at the same time. I hope my children will continue to ask me questions. I hope I can always offer an answer of some kind. I'm not naive enough to think that I will have all the answers to all the questions but I look forward to finding the answers with them and encouraging them to ask more questions. Most of all, I look forward to learning from their questions. Now can anyone answer the question? Why do people try to kill each other just because they don't agree and don't want to get along?

Stuck

This time of year can be particularly challenging trying to fly and work on the West Coast of B.C..  The rain, fog, wind and lack of daylight can really start to wear on you.  Tofino has created a whole new form of tourism based on 'Storm Watching.' I'm trying to hold back my sarcasm as I spend a second uninvited day in camp waiting for said storm to pass.  I'm tired of watching it.

If you're one of those people that can't stand to see the sight of tree being cut down, then the last two days have been good days for you.  Very few trees have died from un-natural causes on this project lately.  We have been forced to while away the hours with idle chain saws and a mostly idle helicopter sitting on the deck soaking in the rain, sleet and hail.  The float plane that was supposed to come and pick me up to take me home has also sat idle in Port Hardy waiting for the hurricane force winds to pass.  My new Macbook loaded with Skype has been my savior this week.  I have spent hours sitting with the digital video images of my family keeping in touch daily with school, homework and playdates. It helps to quell the pangs of loneliness but it's just not the same.

Tofino can keep the storms. Nothing beats a beautiful, clear winter day with fresh snow and calm winds. Come get me Mr. Floatplane Driver...I'm ready to go home!

Flight School

If I'm going to tell some helicopter stories I figure I'm best to start right at the beginning. I may not tell them all in chronological order but I think I'll start at flight school.  Delta Helicopters operated out of Ladner, B.C. near the Boundary Bay Airport. Keith and Maryanne McMillan ran the school and I can remember it all just felt right when I went to see them while I was trying to pick a school.  It didn't feel so much like a school as it just felt like a safe, friendly place to be for the next six months.  They had a neat and tidy hanger and office in a rural farming area by the Deese Slough where they kept two Bell 47G2's flying pretty steady.  I started in September 1995 and Finished in about March of 1996.

Thirteen and a half years later my memory is a bit muddy about a lot of flight school.  I know one thing for sure; when I look back now at how little I knew then...I can't believe I survived!  Most of my clear memories are that of shear wonder, shear terror and shear stupidity.  Amazing how memories work.  Most of flight school was a life changing journey of accomplishing what I had always dreamed of doing. During my first 5 hours of training I was utterly astounded that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't fly the damn thing! I had read several books on theory of flight and helicopter aerodynamics before I even started school.  I was so sure that had it come down to it... if it was an emergency... (and someone else started it) I would be able to fly one.  Boy was I wrong. I would have killed myself and everyone else unfortunate enough to be with me during that emergency!  So you can understand my bewilderment when after only 8 hours Keith started to climb out of the helicopter in a farmers field that we'd been doing circuit practice to.  He hadn't given me any advance warning that this flight would lead us into my first solo.  I can remember that his instructions warned me that the helicopter would take off tail and left side heavy without him in it anymore and that he didn't expect me to land right next to him.  Within walking distance was fine... Holy Shit!  Here's some of the shear terror and shear wonder  all wrapped up in one.  I survived the circuit back to field by myself but I remember his instructions were bang on.  I worried the tail rotor was going to dig a ditch before the skids finally came up and I remember being so suddenly aware of how high I was as I climbed away from the field.  The rest of that experience is pure filler.  I landed, Keith smiled, I didn't stop sweating for a while and there was plenty of congratulations all the way around.  I would say that that circuit is probably still my strongest memory of wonderment that, "Hey, I'm flying! Holy crap I'm really high!"

I continue to feel lucky that I have a job that is full of times that I can look around and say, "Hey, I'm flying!" There is still moments of "holy crap" but they're fewer and further between.  There seems to be just enough of them to keep me honest.  One thing that hasn't really changed since flight school is the feeling I get in my stomach before launching out on a flight somewhere I've never been before.  The solo nav trips in school would only take us as far as Hope, Mission, Fort Langley and back to Ladner but it sure seemed like a long way from home when you were doing it.  At school we only got sent out on a trip if the weather was good.  In the real world, we look at the weather and try to figure out if the weather is going to let us get to our destination but you can never know what the weather on the coast is going to do between point A and point B.  It's a pretty lonely feeling as the weather is closing in on all sides and you're only half way.  Let alone when the fuel gauge is creeping lower than you'd hoped for.

My favourite flight during school had to be when we went  into the mountains by Pitt Lake on a beautiful sunny day.  I was near the end of my training and we had been working on some confined areas near the Swan E Set Golf course when Keith suggested we do some mountain flying.  The sky was deep blue and the air was crisp.  We climbed high into the peaks where I had never been before.  I'd experienced snowy mountain peaks while skiing but never from this vantage point before. The clarity of every ice crystal in the wind swept snow was like coming out a fog at night to see the road reflectors reach out for miles in your headlights.  The Coast Mountains aren't high altitude peaks, but they sure seemed like it when you were suddenly above the haze of the Fraser Valley.  In retrospect I had so little feeling for the aircraft that I could hardly notice the loss of performance. Mostly a passenger in awe, I tried to absorb as much as I could from Keith as he explained a proper pinnacle approach and overshoot.  And some of the coarse principles of mountain flying. I have yet to develop the fine skills to be a true mountain pilot.  After that introduction it was clearly where I wanted to fly.  It still is.

Looking back at flight school, I can't believe how little I knew of what I really should have. That isn't a knock at Keith but just reality that a person can only adsorb so much.  One of my current positions at work has me conducting recurrent training and annual check rides with the other pilots in the company.  I have the pleasure of working with a very qualified group of professional pilots who take training and good airmanship seriously.  I also have to pass a Transport Canada PPC every year that makes me study and sweat. At times I remind myself that every 100 hour commercial pilot graduate had to pass a PPC and that helps bring perspective.  Knowing now what I didn't know then, and having a better grasp of how much more I still have to learn in an attempt to keep up with so many pilots I look up to; seems like a daunting task! Flight school at Delta Helicopters finished for me 13 plus years ago. Now I grasp the fact that the real school was just starting.

It's Been Awhile...

Okay, I've been getting hassled by the two people that actually read my blog that I haven't posted lately.  Of course I had grand plans to write in my blog most every day when I started...but that hasn't been happening.  Really I wasn't planning to write most days but I figured I'd do a fair bit while I'm in camp. So here I am two months since my last post wondering what I'm going to write about.  For starters, this is my first post on my new MacBook.  I'm certainly loving my new Mac.  I've spent hours and hours this week uploading our pictures and organizing them within i-photo.  It's a pretty great program and it would have done most of the organizing for me but I realized that the time and date on our digital camera has been wrong for the past year.  That made for some pretty frustrating evenings changing dates on pictures.  It's all done now and I'm very happy with it all.  I guess the next challenge is going to be organizing my music...

Since I posted last we've had a busy little household of milestones.  A first day of kindergarten, a first day of grade one, a second birthday, a first visit from the Tooth Fairy and a first time on ice skates.  School is going very well for the kids.  It's great to see them enjoying it. For me, school was just what happened before the sports started after the bell rang.  Joni has taken on the huge task of coaching the little kids soccer team...man she's brave! She spent a day in Nanaimo at a coaching clinic and shows up twice a week with a pre-planned practice in hand and a large supply of patience. I try to help when I'm at home but I lack the patience. I just have to remember that they're only little and it's most important that they have fun.

Work has been far busier as of late.  We're back logging full time with four helicopters going flat out at times.  This week I'm doing a shift of flying fallers in Smith Inlet.  It's not as intense as flying logs and it gives me ample time during the day to do things like organize pictures and write blogs.  Flying fallers is not without its challenges though.  This time of year presents many challenges.  The weather on the coast changes faster than you can make a decisions sometimes.  Today we have seen everything from warm sunshine to freezing snow squalls with next to zero visibility.  The shortening days also leave little room for being able to wait out the bad weather if someone is stuck in the fog.  I suspect I'll still have one more shift of logging or fallers before the Christmas shut down.  Training is starting to get under way as well.  It is looking to be a busy New Year with logging projects and completing everyone's annual training and check rides. I really enjoy the training. And I always look forward to some good time off over Christmas.

I am going to try hard to write more regularly. The ideas of what to write are what elude me sometimes. Once I start I enjoy it and seem to have more ideas.  Getting started can be the challenge sometimes.  If there is something you would like me to write about feel free to leave me a comment.  I have thought I should start to delve back into my helicopter career and tell some stories.  I know I have a few. I would also like to write about my children but I'm still trying to wrap my head around how I'm going to do that without opening our family up to some of the nasty people that lurk among the pages of cyberspace.  Somehow the thought of telling 'generic' family stories takes all the warmth and fun out of it for me. I'll put my thinking cap on and I promise to tell a good story before I go home on Tuesday!

Terry Fox Run

We ran the Terry Fox Run on Gabriola today.  It is by no means a 'big' event on this little island but it's a nice event.  We put all three kids in the strollers and pushed our way through the 10k course.  Terry Fox deserves much more mention than a simple blog post to say, "we did it" but that's what time allows for tonight.  He was certainly one of my earliest memories as being a hero for me.  I can vividly remember running around the playground with my friend Jeremy in elementary school playing Terry Fox. We were extremely proud to be wearing the same Adidas running shoes that Terry wore.  I even used to come home from school and use a little scrub brush and Mr. Clean to keep the whites white on those shoes.  He did a lot for a lot of people and his legacy continues.  We have been touched by cancer in our family I imagine it has touched your family too.  When we tucked the kids into bed tonight we told them they should be very proud because they ran for a good cause today and we raised a little bit of money to help cancer research.  They seemed to understand and feel proud. Which was in itself a journey from this morning when I had to explain not just that Terry wouldn't be at the run but that he had died and what he had died from.  Kids are so innocent and I hope the next time they see Grandma they remember to ask to see her scars.

Thanks to everyone who ran today and everyone who donates to cancer research.

Heli-Logging

I should probably spend a bit of time and show what we do. Over the past couple of years, the company I work for as been actively broadening their horizons to include other types of work than heli-logging. I thoroughly enjoy the other work but it is fair to say that our bread and butter work is logging. Basically, heli-logging is done two different ways. The typical method is what we refer to as 'hook logging.' These days 'grapple logging' is becoming equally as common. I will explain both methods in more detail with pictures. When we are using either method or combination of, we will use either a water drop zone or a land drop zone. Both have advantages and disadvantages.

Hook logging makes use of cable chokers and ground crew (riggers) to build loads for the helicopter to fly. The chokers are wrapped around the logs and the rigger puts the chokers into the hook on the end of the line below the helicopter in order for the logs to be flown to the landing. The riggers use their knowledge of log types, log grades and log weights to determine which logs fly and how many they can build into one 'turn' for the helicopter to take at one time. The Boeing Vertol that I fly has a maximum load capacity of about 10,000 pounds at the the end of the fuel cycle. At the beginning of the fuel cycle we take about 2,000 pounds less because we are carrying that much extra fuel in order to stay airborne for an hour and a half. We always use a 200 foot line below the helicopter unless we are in particularly steep ground with tall trees, then we add length to the line. The hook has evolved from being a true hook to becoming a nubins hook. The chokers no longer have 'eyes' spliced at the end of them, they use a steel 'nubin' to go into the jaw of the hook.  In this picture I am pointing to the nubin with the hook in the background.  The hook weighs 130 pounds.  The white marshmallows in the background are floats on the chokers for water drop. Hook logging has some very obvious advantages when it comes to production. A good rigging crew is able to keep the amount of wood flown per hour as high as possible by rigging maximum weight loads. Some of the disadvantages are having people working so close to the danger area of shifting logs during yarding and the danger area of the drop zone.

Grapple logging uses the same 200 foot line but instead of a hook there is a 1,000 pound hydraulic grapple attached to the line (see picture). The pilot controls the grapple from the cockpit and is responsible for building his own loads by putting multiple logs together. A small ground crew goes ahead of the helicopter and uses paint marks to designate what logs are to be flown and to give a general idea of log weights.

A water drop zone is bar far the fastest way to drop the logs and with very little breakage.  I understand there can be some environmental downsides to the water drop as it disturbs the marine life in the area.  We tend to log mainly in remote inlets with no road access and the wood ends up in the water in order to be be boomed and barged to the sort in the lower mainland.  The following picture shows a typical water drop zone.  There is usually two boom boats 'chasing' the chokers from the logs where they are coiled again on the choker float to be returned to the riggers.  When dropping the logs on land, there is either a wheel loader or log loader in the landing to pile the logs and load logging trucks.  Two chasers on foot run in to retrieve the chokers after the logs have been released in the landing by the helicopter.  In general terms the water drop is safer for the chasers because the logs are not landed nearly as close as during a land drop.  Much less room for error during land drop operations.

So I guess that's the basics of how heli-logging works.  I have simplified much of it and I can always go into much greater detail but risk boring you all to death.  It is a very challenging profession as a pilot.  We spend hours flying looking straight down.  And in a usual logging day the aircraft is in the air for 11 hours.  Each pilot usually logs 7-8 hours.  Constantly changing conditions on the coast can be very challenging to deal with.  This morning we saw fog, rain and wind and had to land several times to allow squalls to pass.  It never ceases to amaze me how hard it can be to get back into the groove of logging after even a short break from it.  Through it's challenges and sacrifices of being away from home it is a rewarding career. On nice days the view from our office can't be beat!