More Solo's !

A while ago we mentioned Scott Gannon completing his first solo in the Schweizer or Sikorsky 300 as it is now known. We did not have pictures at the time but finally they are here !.

Scott is the perfect student, he always studies and arrives on time. Scott has been a super fast learner and I am sure will make the perfect instructor when he is finished.

Scott got his solo done in very low time, unlike the Robinson Helicopters there is no restriction on when a student can complete their first solo flight, so if your a fast learner like Scott you can save some time.

Scott is completing his solo cross countries right now and will soon be on to the all important checkride !

Congratulations Scott and have a great day !


The BHH Team

An example to us all.......

Adrian Mansfield started with Blue hill helicopters almost three years ago, We were looking for an instructor and I called Adrian. He was down in Florida at the time after just completing his training at Bristow Academy, the biggest civilian school in the world with over 50 Schweizer helicopters.

Adrian and I arranged a date and he came up for a two day interview, I collected him from the airport and we headed to the school, chatting about England on the way and how I did not miss it and he did !

We went over some ground school in the classroom and Adrian did great , we flew and I knew at that point he would be teaching at Blue Hill. Adrian and I arranged a date for him to start and he made the drive from Florida a week later and to my house until he found a place to live. Adrian fitted in well and soon built some great relationships with the students and myself, although we butted heads at times ! Many people have moved through the school under Adrians careful guidance and received licenses from Private through CFII.

Here we are three years and 1800 hours later in Adrians logbook and he is more than ready to move on to his next adventure. We would love to keep all of our instructors forever but they must all move on to the next stage, thats why we teach. Adrian will be making the trip to Las Vegas to fly tours in the Grand Canyon and the las vegas strip. He will be flying the EC130 initially then the AS350, I am sure he will impress and help more of our CFII's to move on to the next level.

I can honestly say that I am proud that one of our instructors has again been hired into the industry, It says a lot for the school and the standards and reputation we keep, we will keep you updated on Adrians progress in Las Vegas !!!!

Steve 

Solo pilots and fresh 141 simulator courses approved !

Firstly, we must apologize for lack of blogs, recent weeks have been taken up writing new simulator inclusive courses for our fresh part 141 school approval, these will be approved for use at the end of the month !  January has seen several new student pilots and some are solo already !, Firstly Scott Gannon soloed in the schweizer and closely followed by Carlos Almirani this weekend. Scott has moved right along and already completed some of his required cross country work. Unlike the Robinson helicopter , the schweizer has no restriction on hours when a student can solo, so you wont be held back if you are talented ! Carlos was already a fixed wing commercial pilot with tail wheel and aerobatic experience under his belt, he showed his skill with three perfect patterns under Kilian's supervision on the runway.

Congrats Carlos and Scott, We promise to update you all with the latest on the fresh 141 approval and the inclusion of the sim in the programs to save you money !

The BHH Team

Santa is real for the non-believers !

Yes its true, Santa Claus is real ! we know this because he was in our offices at the Norwood airport!

Santa was here on a mission .... He needed a helicopter to drop gifts off in the local area , sometimes he needs to make early deliveries to people who wont be around on Christmas day!

Santa is also very very good with making things with baloons and he even made the instructors at BHH a baloon helicopter!

Santa had a safe flight and delivered many gifts from the air. We were lucky that the Schweizer helicopter is able to carry a lot of weight so we could carry santa and his gifts!

Merry Christmas from everyone at BHH and thanks to all of our friends who are also our customers, good luck in 2012.

The British school of Boston

Thirty one children greeted us on Thursday morning, yes 31 ! They arrived in two minibuses from The British school of Boston.

Martyn Langley called us several weeks back about a project that the children were doing on airports, they had been working on how airports operate and how aircraft fly. We decided that a visit to the airport would be great for the children and they would be able to get up close to the helicopters and a private citation jet .

They arrived at 9.30am and we split them into three groups , the first group went over to the jet and were amazed at just how big it was ! They took turns at sitting inside and pretending to be rock stars ,well the teachers did anyway !

We showed everybody the Helicopters and they had fun pressing buttons and talking to each other on the intercom in the helicopters. Thanks to Kilian, Adrian and Johann for the help in keeping things from getting broken !

It was an amazing sight seeing thirty one children sat on the floor in the offices eating lunch ! We gave them all pens and keyrings and they went back to the British school to talk about what they had seen !

More blogs to come , plenty going on here at Blue Hill Helicopters including a first solo from Scott Gannon , Great job Scott , as soon as we have the pictures we will Blog about your journey to going solo !

We would also like to welcome our new edition to the team Kilian Szulmirski, he joins us from Germany and will be one of the new CFII's here at BHH. Welcome Kilian.

Happy holidays everyone and dont forget it is not to late to get a gift certificate for christmas. We can send gift certificates for helicopter flights or for the simulator .

All at BHH

Johann sweitzer Instrument pilot !

Once again Blue hill helicopters reports a check ride pass! Johann started with BHH and completed his private then moved on to instrument . He passed his Instrument check ride on Friday and is keen to start on the commercial program ASAP !

Johann completed 15 hours of his requirements in our FLY-IT simulator . Saving him time and money and allowing him to fly in any weather ! and we have had some bad weather the last couple of months !

On this occasion Johann used the Schweizer C model for his flight test but the simulator is approved to complete the instrument check ride in. Johann has been ready for the check ride now for several weeks but with scheduling conflicts and weather he could not complete it until Friday. He was however able to maintain his ability with regular sessions in the simulator and aced the check ride.

BHH is now offering contract positions for the use of our simulator and the first regular user will be announced in the next few weeks, a very large helicopter operator indeed !

Keep checking our blog for the latest news and events from BHH , several students are getting ready to solo in the next couple of weeks !

A Day in the life......10/22/11

A Typical day at Blue Hill Helicopters starts with opening up the office and looking at the schedule for the day, today the schedule went off the computer screen for all four of us that were instructing/flying that day !

Jen’s day started with one of our regular aerial photographers needing aerial shots of downtown Boston. She completed the preflight washed the canopy and removed the dual controls ready to load the photographer and all of his gear, the Schweizer C model works well for this with space in the middle for a camera bag when the collective is removed not to mention the ability to carry 4 hours of fuel !

Adrian’s day started with the same preflight but a different passenger. John is a regular Saturday student who is just about ready to solo, he already has a fixed wing license and just needs to refine a couple of things before he heads out for his first solo mission. Both helicopters are in the air by 8.30 and whilst Jen heads of to the northeast to join the Fenway route into Boston Adrian and John head over to the numbers of runway 28 for some pattern work.

Back in the office Dave lines up his first student for ground school before he takes one of the helicopters at 10AM for a flight with Hugh, a new student to BHH Hugh is loving every minute of his training with Dave and looks forward to the weekends when he can get back in the air and work towards his private  license !

At 9.45 Adrian Returns and has a different task ahead….Teaching in the new Fly-It simulator, the new addition to the BHH fleet, he is working with two more regular students that recently started and drive from Martha’s vineyard !  Jen tells him to “leave it running and the heat on !”  The simulator is both air conditioned and heated for those winter mornings. Saturday was not warm !

Adrian , Jen and Dave continue to 6pm with a myriad of different missions !

Now for my day … It started at 6.30am when I headed from my home in Plainville MA to our private helipad in Worcester to pick up the Robinson R44, I had four different missions to complete in it by 4pm and the first was out of Norwood (KOWD).

A Korean TV station that I had been in communication with for several weeks had chosen BHH because of our close proximity to Boston to complete a video shoot of Harvard for a Korean TV documentary, we loaded up the photographer the director and the translator , that’s right a translator ! We headed into Boston and over to the site in Harvard for the shoot , as soon as we headed in on the fenway route and talked to skyways I knew it would be hard work , 2 banner tow aircraft , the state police and another helicopter making a movie in the city just for starters ! We were soon joined by another tour helicopter with a very scratchy radio and another tour helicopter who had no idea of their position ! 45 minutes over the site and we headed back to Norwood. Back on the ground we re attached the doors and back to the office……

Next up was a couple from Randolph taking a tour of the city, we headed in and quickly found that a flight restriction had been placed within a four mile radius of Harvard giving us limited access to the city , we managed to get the financial district in and then flew out over the harbor islands and back to Norwood via some pictures of their house in Randolph !

Next Starbucks coffee and Lemon Loaf………

A quick check on Adrian, Jen and Dave and off again to the helicopter.  I Almost forgot, I dropped our new office assistant Austin in the hangar to work on his endless sweeping job….

The next flight took me to our other tour location, Marlboro airport . On arrival at Marlboro a tumbleweed greeted me rolling down the runway, not to much goes on out there except helicopter noise complaints (not from us) I picked up my next couple and took them  and their 2 year old daughter for a beautiful foliage tour of the watchusett reservoir , very relaxing and a $25 tip ! that pays for at least my dinner tonight !

The last flight of the day was Tait who wanted to propose to his now Fiance over his house in Boston where he had laid out signs on the roof  “will you marry me “. Reaching the edge of Boston’s airspace we were greeted with the radio reply of “Unable, Harvard TFR still in affect “ Oh no …. I had to get into Boston , I tried asking Boston approach for higher …. No reply we just weren’t high enough … I could not let Tait down…..I climed to 3500 feet and asked if we could get over the TFR and over Fenway . “ Report over the station “ was the reply and relief  ! unfortunately we couldn’t see the signs from that altitude but it still worked out and she said  YES !

I dropped the happy couple back at Marlboro still complete with its tumbleweeds and headed back to the helipad to put the helicopter away, some background music courtesy of My Iphone and Maria Callas (opera singer) made for a fantastic flight back to the pad near Worcester.

We completed a total of 16 flights/ on Saturday between us all , well done everybody , another great day at the office, we topped it all off with the usual crowd out to dinner in the evening …..

Now its Sunday night and I am writing this on a plane to Arizona where Helen and I are heading for our next adventure !!!