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Dec
07
2020
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Posted by Admin
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The regulation is officially titled “Military pilots or former military pilots: Special rules,” but it’s best known by the acronym “MilComp,” short for military competency. It outlines the eligibility and requirements for a military pilot to obtain FAA pilot certifications based on their flight and ground training with the armed forces. Simply put, if you have graduated from a military flight school and haven’t been removed from flying status because of lack of proficiency or disciplinary action, you are eligible for an FAA commercial pilot certificate, instrument rating, flight instructor certificate (for those who were instructor pilots or examiners) and maybe even a type rating.
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Tags:
14 CFR 61.73
Military Competence Instructor (MCI
Military Competence Non-Category (MCN)
Categories:
Career Development
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Nov
30
2020
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Posted by Admin
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In an era when so much aviation industry news and training focuses on new technology and keeping up with so-called proficiency as proverbial boxes are checked, one often overlooked important aspect of being a pilot is being neglected—professionalism.
Recently, a colleague reached out for assistance on a new project; his company wanted to create an advisory board to offer advice on their aviation services. I was humbled he sought my advice. He garnered my full attention when he said the company was writing a quick bio on me, and then he asked me, “How long have you been flying as a professional pilot?” I had an easy and ready answer: “Since. Day. One.”
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Tags:
commercial pilot certificate
professional pilot
Categories:
Career Development
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Nov
23
2020
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Posted by Admin
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What is your current position?
I’m the owner and operator of Helicopter Air Specialty Service, owner and operator of AMP/HASS LLC a Robinson Service Center, owner and operator of the Maple Grove Heliport (E66), and manager of the Maple Grove Airport (65G) at Fowlerville, Michigan.
Tell me about your first flight?
I had a chain of 126 retail stores and needed to get to one of them fast. I hired a pilot that turned out to be a CFI to get me there. He let me fly! Most expensive flight I ever took. It was a thrill. Five lessons later, I was buying my first helicopter: a Robinson R22. I had no license, but I owned a helicopter, which forced me to get my license. Failure was not an option.
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Tags:
Dennis Bowdoin
Helicopter Air Specialty Service
Meet A Rotorcraft Pro
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Career Development
Opinion-Editorial
Human Interest
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Nov
16
2020
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Posted by Admin
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I clearly remember that life-changing day in April 1990. It was my first day working as a helicopter mechanic at Carraway Methodist Medical Center in Birmingham, Alabama. The radio call dispatched the helicopter, the pilot brought the machine to life and the medical crew strapped in as the Bell LongRanger took to the air. It seemed like only minutes later the aircraft returned, and the patient was rolled past me to the Level I trauma center. From that moment on, life was different as the purpose for my work became clearer in that instant.
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Tags:
Helicopter Maintenance Tools
Maintenance Minute
Mark Tyler
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Opinion-Editorial
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Nov
09
2020
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Posted by Admin
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1943 was the first year that helicopters were used to perform emergency medical services (Helicopter EMS; aka HEMS). According to The Smithsonian Institution’s magazine Air & Space, it was a Sikorsky YR-4B flown by the U.S. Army in Asia that conducted the first HEMS mission in April 1944. The two-seater YR-4B flown by Carter Harman rescued three wounded U.K. Commandos and a downed pilot from the Burmese jungle, lofting one at a time to safety using four separate flights.
Since then, helicopters have become essential civilian/military ‘air ambulances.’ The road from that relatively fragile YR-4B to today’s formidable HEMS machines made by Airbus, Bell, Leonardo, MD Helicopters, and Sikorsky (now part of Lockheed Martin) has not been a smooth one. It took persuasion and performance to convince skeptics that helicopters belonged in the EMS realm.
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Tags:
Air Evac Lifeteam
Flight For Life in 1972
History of EMS Helicopters
Med-Trans
REACH
Sikorsky YR-4B
Categories:
Opinion-Editorial
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Nov
02
2020
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Posted by Admin
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President Tyson Phillips of startup AT Systems LLC is at the very beginning of his business career. He’s never been an executive officer of a leading aviation company and his name is not known throughout the industry. He has yet to even turn a profit. This begs the question: Why profile this newcomer in “Executive Watch,” a feature that historically profiles executives with a history? Well, the answer is simple: Pilot Tyson Phillips is likely on the verge of making history. If the company he co-founded fulfills its promise, AT Systems will transform aviation training.
It is often said that need is the mother of invention. Oklahoma National Guard Pilot Phillips co-founded his company with fellow military pilot Andre Lavallee out of the mother of a need—the need to prevent the leading cause of often fatal helicopter accidents: spatial disorientation caused by degraded visual environments such as inadvertent instrument meteorological conditions (IIMC) brown/white out.
[Read More...]
Categories:
Company Profiles
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Oct
26
2020
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Posted by Admin
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Frasca International occupies a unique and storied position in the flight training device world, thanks to founder Rudy Frasca and his involvement in the early stages of building FTDs back in the 1950s. Now five of his eight children continue to carry the torch and keep the company ranked as one of the top simulator OEMs in the world.
Frasca president/CEO John Frasca and his siblings were raised in the world of aircraft. Their late father Rudy was as passionate about piloting aircraft as he was about building flight simulators to help make aircraft safer.
Now with 62 years of experience, Frasca International is the only major family-owned flight simulator company. It employs more than 130 people, and about 3,000 of its sims are being used across more than 70 countries.
[Read More...]
Tags:
Aviation Training Devices (Basic or Advanced).
FAA levels of Full Flight Simulators (FFSs)
flight simulation
flight simulators
flight training devices
FRASCA
FTDs Level 1-3
Categories:
Company Profiles
Training
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Oct
19
2020
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Posted by Admin
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This true ordeal occurred on 14 April 2000, and was written by Chris Kruse, a retired U.S. Army and civilian medevac pilot:
St. Paul, MN
14 April 2000, 16:12 hrs.
Bell 222UT, N225LL
NTSB: CHI-000FA111
Sometimes life comes at you in small drips. At other times, like a fire hose stream. And still at other times, it resembles a water tower collapse.
[Read More...]
Tags:
Helicopter Crashes
Helicopter Emergency Procedures
Helicopter Safety
Categories:
Career Development
Safety
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Oct
13
2020
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Posted by Admin
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“My only point is to remind those of us who receive the benefits of altruistic servants to be thankful for their desire to do some of the dirtiest work on the planet. Every day (not once or twice in a lifetime, but every day) these amazing people intentionally put themselves into the most dangerous situations and environments. They inject themselves into people’s lives at the lowest points, when people are most scared, most sick, and generally at their worst. They do this repeatedly to help someone in need, to make that person’s life better.”
[Read More...]
Tags:
EMS
Front line workers
HAA
HAA Medics
HAA Pilots
HEMS Pilots
Categories:
Helicopter Sectors
Opinion-Editorial
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Oct
05
2020
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Posted by Admin
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Looking back, I recall the time just after separating from active duty with the U.S. Air Force. I was attending Alabama Aviation Technical College to obtain my Airframe and Powerplant certificate. It was during this time that I was hired at Fort Rucker by the helicopter maintenance contractor that supported U.S. military helicopter pilot training. One of the first requirements of this contractor was to have a minimum tools list. As a young man just out of the military, I did not own many tools nor could I afford to buy a lot. Taking my tools list, I drove to Sears to comply with the minimum, never dreaming that in the ensuing 39 years I would collect so many thousands of dollars in hand tools, special tools, precision tools and high-end toolboxes.
[Read More...]
Tags:
Airframe and Powerplant certificate
Alabama Aviation Technical College
Helicopter Maintenance
Maintenance Minute
U.S. military helicopter pilot training
Categories:
Career Development
Opinion-Editorial