Johann Sweitzer !

How many Schweizer helicopter schools have a student with the same name as the helicopter ? Of course we have the standard 'Robi' school with students named  Robinson ! but Sweitzer ? Nobody !

Johann came in for an Intro flight and he was hooked !, He flew in the schweizer and decided that was the helicopter he wanted to fly to gain his ratings. Johann has been with us only a few weeks and he is almost ready to solo , we will be sure to blog about that when it happens.

Every time I see Johann at the school he asks about the blog and tells me he reads it on a regular basis, I decided to snap a picture and told him that because he was an avid reader then I would include him in the next post, here we are !

Johann is also the only student that spends more money on his car (An Audi A6) than he does on flying ! We are very pleased  to have Johann training with us at Blue Hill Helicopters and you can be sure that he will get his ratings with the best possible training in the North East .

Some days we just have fun !

Saturday 10/23/2010 was a great day, too windy for some students but good for instrument training and some traffic pattern work for more experienced students. We decided to take the Jet Rangers to Martha's Vineyard for lunch !

We pulled out the 2 Bell 206 BIII on to the north ramp and got them fueled and ready to Launch, We decided to go as a flight of 2 and the first Jetranger with Larry and Chris would make the calls.

I fired up the turbine with no issues and we did our checks , hydraulics , fuel pumps Etc Etc .

We picked up from the dolly and made our departure directly from the north ramp out to the east turning into the strong wind. Our climb took us up to 1700 ft for the trip and over to Boston approach . We chose flight following as a flight of 2 because there was a lot of traffic heading in and out of the vineyard on such a nice day , we would also be crossing over several un-controlled airports.

Great Visibility soon allowed us to see the cape and beyond to the vineyard. Before we had time to enjoy the amazing views we were landing at the vineyard ! We parked the helicopters on the ramp and headed down to Edgartown for a great lunch at the navigator.

So as you can see , we have a lot of fun here at Blue Hill Helicopters ! Come and train with us and you could be in the Jet rangers on the next trip to the vineyard !

Have a great week

BHH

Mark and Rachel's Wedding 10/16/2010

Ok ,so you may think this blog is a little strange but read on !

Mark and I met about 5 years ago when we worked at another flight school together as Instructors , I moved on and started my own business 'Blue Hill Helicopters' and Mark quickly followed to come and work for me .
Back then Mark and I were very new instructors and we had a great time working together, we even one day convinced Mark that somebody had seen rockets shooting from the skids of his helicopter whilst he was out on a training flight !
Mark is a true success story of the helicopter Industry, after gaining 1200 hours he moved to New York city and flew the Eurocopter AS350. He was laid off when the economy went bad and found himself out of work and back in MA with his then girlfriend Rachel.

Remember to always keep in touch with old pilot friends and never upset anybody ! This paid off for Mark when an old work Buddy told him about a position coming with up with 'Air Methods'. Mark and Rachel moved to Ohio and Mark worked as an EMS pilot flying an Astar again. After a year Mark moved on to flying the EC135 twin engined machine and then a new EC145 in West Virginia, so from instructor to EC145 captain in less than 3 years , a true success story ! 

Mark married Rachel on 10/16/2010 and 2 weeks before the wedding a position became available with Umass Worcester , Mark got the job and will be starting at his new base in worcester soon flying an EC145 . So remember if you work hard you can make it in this industry , Mark still maintains  that his ability to fly the larger machines was helped by his time flying the Schweizer 300, he said that the conventional controls that the schweizer uses made the transition easy.
Thanks again to Mark and Rachel for letting me be the best man at the wedding .

I hope everyone will stop by and see him hanging out at the school on his days off, He will be happy to share his experiences of the helicopter industry and give you some great advice, Not many schools have success story's like this !

Rainy days and Mondays

Ok, Its Monday and its raining with winds of 17k Gusting 25k... Not a great flying day !

Well its better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air than in the air wishing you were on the ground ! Ground school is the only option but it can be fun , nobody likes ground school on a beautiful sunny day so it always seems better on a day when we cant fly.

We have a range of different students right now at all different levels, Joel is a commercial pilot working in law enforcement gaining his CFI and CFII and john is a private fixed wing pilot completing a helicopter Add-On. Today was the perfect day for Joel to try out some lesson plans on his fellow student John !

Its very obvious that Joel loves teaching and being in front of the whiteboard and will soon gain his CFI just as soon as he forgets about flying the Blackhawk ! John is a very competent fixed wing pilot and is adjusting to the helicopter well with the aid of his instructors Adrian and Salustiano.

Here at Blue Hill Helicopters we have a wide variety of students at different levels and you can always find a 'study buddy' many students come in and hang out just to study in the relaxed atmosphere here .

We are the only flight school in New England to have a 'smart board' to quickly show videos and internet links during power-point presentations. We are very pleased to have modern training facilities, stop by anytime and take a look !

Discovery Channel-'Shark Week'

We took a call from Discovery channel weeks ago needing a Helicopter and pilot with experience of doing aerial video work. We do lots of video work here but this job was a little different ! They needed a 4 seat helicopter with a video mount to complete filming for a show they are making to be aired on discovery channel next August during 'Shark week'.

Arrangements took weeks of planning and the crew completed other aspects of the filming including time in a shark cage off Chatham MA. We had been waiting for the perfect day and Chris at Regis Helicopters
was out of town so I took the flight . We had both been listed as pilots for the shoot as they had strict requirements on pilots including about 10 pages of release papers to sign !!

I arrived in Chatham at 11AM ready to catch the mid day sun and meet with the other pilot involved in the shoot, he was flying a piper cub and was the spotter plane for the day. The retired airline captain explained the frequency we would be talking on and it was agreed he would circle over any of the great whites he spotted. I strapped Nick the Oscar winning videographer into the Helicopter and briefed him on the safety of flight aspects ,He would be wearing a full harness whilst shooting with the wide screen HD camera.

We soon let the cub depart and got into the air. We were straight onto the sharks and found the cub circling over an 18 foot great white about 1/2 mile off-shore. We watched and filmed as the shark chased the small seals up and down the beach , it was like being in a movie ! you just don't get to see this everyday in Boston !

We continued to film until we lost sight of the shark and moved on to where the spotter plane circled over the next piece of action.

 The action soon slowed down as the tide came in allowing the seals to move off into deeper waters. Nick and the rest of the crew got some great footage and rewarded me with a great lunch at the Chatham airport , Our longest serving student JP Vario even joined us, He always has had a nose for free food !

Remember we now provide tours with our business partner out of Norwood and  Marlborough airports and flight training from Norwood airport. We will soon have our Beverly location open but are waiting for the helicopter to arrive before we can move in.

keep reading the Blog for news on our other partner www.bostonexecutivehelicopters.com gaining the 135 certificate they have been waiting for and providing helicopter charters in the newly refurbished Astar and Twinstar helicopters.

Thanks

BHH

House Hunters International HGTV

When the TV producers from HGTV wanted to do some filming for an upcoming show they chose Blue Hill Helicopters. We took a call here at BHH telling us that one of the 'House Hunters' was training to become a helicopter pilot overseas. Matylda had a bad experience with the Robinson R22 and wanted to step in to the schweizer to experience some of the great training characteristics that the aircraft has . The crew from house hunters arrived around 10AM and worked with Adrian to figure out the different scenes of the shoot and how best to put it together . We have several schweizers here at BHH and it was easy to use them all for different shots .

After filming almost 2 hours of video the whole segment will only be a couple of minutes !,We should see the footage on House Hunters International sometime this year on HGTV, we will let you all knlow when its going to air .

The schweizer is the best training platform for proffesional pilots. We will be seeing our 'House hunter' Matylda back here for more lessons as soon as she can get here ! Matylda was so impressed with the aircraft she signed up for our 141 private program, Well done Matylda and thanks from all of us at BHH for choosing us.

Blue Hill Helicopters will be opening a new location on the North shore in October , we will be providing tours with our partner Regis helicopters from all locations and Regis helicopters is now the exclusive tour provider at Marlborough airport .

Finally 398SH has arrived !!!!!

After a very long 3 days flying, Adrian and Thom arrived back safely with 398SH ! The 2008 Schweizer 300CBi has been waiting on paperwork down in Oklahoma before making the 21 hour flight back to KOWD.

We are very pleased to have the CBi on the schedule and I am sure everybody will be eager to get there hands on it !. Adrian and Thom both reported that it flew very well and is a very smooth helicopter to fly.

Adrian and Thom on final to the north ramp

 The Journey took them from Oklahoma up to Missouri for the first nights stay in St Louis with our good friends at Helisat . many thanks to Bill Hopper for taking care of Adrian and Thom !

The second day took them over to Ohio and a nights stay at Mansfield Ohio ,things cooled off a little at this point and they left behind the heat and humidity of Missouri, in fact Thom said when he stepped out of the helicopter in Missouri he had never felt heat like it !

Day three was the best day as far as Adrian was concerned and he was very glad to leave the corn fields behind ! "The rolling hills of PA were amazing" he said.

We were very glad to see them land safely at KOWD and it was the final step in what has been a challenging year .

Happy to be back and get rid of those doors !

Don't forget to join us for the open house this Saturday the 14th of August . We will have Food and drink and lots of advice for future pilots ! Best of all its free !

We wont bore you with seminars or lie to you about how you can get a license in minimum hours, but we will give you honest advice and real life stories of what we all went through to get where we are .

Thanks for reading the Blog ....

The BHH Team