Anderson did it and got the T shirt !

Anderson finally soloed ! Anderson lives on the vineyard and makes the trip weekly to BHH. His business has been very busy and he has not been able to come every week to train with us. Anderson worked very hard and made time to sit down and get in the books, he soon found found himself on the runway with his instructor stepping out and sending him off on his first solo ! well done Anderson , you got the T shirt !

The fastest solo ever !

Brandon Williams came to BHH to get his ratings FAST !  He worked hard with Johann and was ready to solo the aircraft at 8 hours ..... when we say ready we mean ready ! With the Schweizer for primary training there are no restrictions like the R22, you must have 20 plus hours to solo in the Robinson, holding students back. Brandon eventually soloed the Schweizer at 11 hours , yes 11 ! He is currently cruising through 25 with all his cross country time completed, now find another school that can do that !
Brandon is on our 141 program so he can obtain a private rating at 35 hours , we are the only Part 141 helicopter school in the area.

No Excuse for not blogging !

Its been several months since we have shared the activities at Blue Hill Helicopters ! Its not for the lack of training but more the lack of time to blog . We are going to make several entries and try to bring everyone up to speed on what is happening and try to mention everybody who has achieved a goal at Blue Hill Helicopters over the last few months .

Carlos, one of our Brazilian connection has been working very hard on his CFI after completing all his other ratings, he should be finished soon and will be flying as an instructor with Blue Hill Helicopters and working with all our Portuguese speaking  students. If you are Brazilian and would like to work with a Portuguese speaking instructor then come down and meet Carlos, He is both a commercial airplane and helicopter pilot and soon to be a CFII in both . Keep up the good work Carlos !

The truth about tubine transitions revealed...........

If you started training to be a helicopter pilot to someday make it a job, please read on !
Very early in your training you start to hear talk about turbine engine helicopters like they are some some of mystical machine that are only operated by pilots with 100,000 hours ... not true, they still have a collective and a cyclic and even pedals ! Some have other gadgets that actually make it easier for you to fly. I can speak as a pilot who flies several different types of turbine helicopters commercially in the gulf of mexico and will explain a little more about making the transition to turbine helicopters .

There is no doubt that you will teach in small piston helicopters like the schweizer or (if you have to) then the R22. You will teach private commercial and instrument students the same things that you learned about for probably 1500 hours . This number changes on the industry standards and the demand for pilots increases or decreases year by year . Right now there is no doubt that the industry requires 1500-2000 to be considered for maybe a tour job or power line patrol, these jobs are generally with a company like liberty helicopters in NY City or one of the Las vegas tour operators like Sundance or Papillon. The Vegas operators normally hire in December and start looking for pilots at the heli-success  job fair in Vegas, Liberty seems to be a closed door and unless you know somebody it can be hard to get in but not impossible. One of my best friends and an old instructor at Blue Hill,  'Mark Musgrove' landed a job with liberty several years ago with only 1200 hours....to prove a point he had no turbine experience and had been teaching with Blue Hill for almost a year in a piston engined schweizer. He built 800 hours of turbine experience in the Astar (AS350) and moved over to an EMS job when the NY tour season ended and gaining a transistion to the EC135 multi engine  helicopter with Air methods.

Many of our current students will know 'Adrian Mansfield' a long term instructor at Blue Hill who got himself a job flying tours for Papillon in Las Vegas at the start of the tour season this year. To prove another point Adrian had 0 turbine hours but almost 2000 of piston time again teaching in the schweizer. I guess my point here is 'DO NOT pay for turbine time ..... if you can get in it for free then go ahead of course but never pay for it !

Factory courses
A factory course can be of use, but real factory courses like the "Eurocopter" factory course or the "Bell" factory course are expensive and run upwards of $8k plus travel etc. Insurance companies will only except the actual factory course , don't be fooled by a flight school offering you a 'turbine transition' in an old Bell 206 , there is no such thing as a turbine transition .................. Do car dealers offer a transition into there vehicle when you buy it ? NO ! this is the best way to look at it .

When you get hired
When you get hired on by a tour operator they will train you... and for free ! in whatever type of helicopter they want you to fly, they will also train you the way they want you to fly it. Not to beat a dead horse but both Adrian and Mark were instructors that were hired with 0 turbine time.

The GOM
A little about the gulf of mexico.... The gulf has always been a place for pilots to build some good time and get transitioned to some pretty complex helicopters, there are stories of pilots getting hired with no turbine experience and only 1500 hours , its changed a little these days and it seems the operators are now looking for 2000 plus some turbine experience, its a love or hate environment with long hours and being away from the comfort of home for 2 weeks at a time called a 'Hitch'. If you put the time in here it can pay off with transitions with the non-union operators coming quickly .

Housing is generally at a remote heliport in a trailer just a couple of hundred feet away from the helicopter but comfortable, maintenance is good  and the flying is varied with most days being different, unlike tours where the same route is flown everyday just with different people.

So the purpose of the blog ... Don't pay for transitions into turbines !


BHH







 

Rick did it !

Rick Venditti came to Blue Hill Helicopters this summer in the hopes of learning to fly a helicopter , we told Rick  he had certainly come to the right place !

On August 19th Rick completed his first solo in the schweizer, with no limitations he took the solid little training helicopter around the pattern for a few laps . Ricks next trip out will be solo from the ramp with no help from his instructor Kilian.

 Good luck and well done Rick !

Solo !

Hugh joined Blue Hill Helicopters after one of our open houses, he has worked hard to get to a solo standard and on August 15th he did it !

Well done Hugh, now you can continue on to the next level of  solo cross country !

Some questions to ask your flight school !

So..... you decide that you want to go to flight school, you did your research and chose your school . The school seemed friendly and they had good equipment . The instructors explained the courses and you found yourself working your way through the private license.

BUT WAIT ! Do they have an instructor with the experience to do the touchdown autos required for the CFI ? yet again does that instructor have the requirements to be able to sign you off for a CFI check ride ? This requires 24 months as a flight instructor and 200 hours of flight instruction given as a minimum, many instructors do not have the experience to do this and many schools bring in outside instructors just to do this , this can really disrupt the flow for the student.

Blue Hill Helicopters has several instructors on staff to take you through the CFI. We can safely complete your CFI rating without bringing in outside contractors.

Our newest instructor "Johann Sweitzer" has been in several blogs already, this month he completed the CFI and moved on to a job with Blue Hill Helicopters ! Johann trained exclusively from start to finish with Blue Hill and finally he gets to sit in the left seat and teach , Well done Johann .