Since 2010 I wish I had been an unemployed Victorian manufacturing line worker with a Union card, not a hard working member of the resource industry workforce, putting whatever extra I had into my Super account so that when the boom was over I could pay for my own way through retirement.

Then again maybe I should have been an MP. Would have been like being back at Kindergarten, all day screaming at everyone else, with no responsibility for my actions, but with the extra benefit of free perks for life.

All this talk of hang gliding and wanting to be a pilot has got me all excited for flying again!

I had major aspirations to be an AG pilot where you get to "fly" instead of sit behind an auto pilot, but I moved in with my girlfriend instead :-(

I have 62 hours in my logbook and I'm 2 nav flights away from my PPL flying exam. So close! But coming up with $500-$700 a lesson ( for the later stage ones that is, incase anyone thinking of having some is reading and is now put off on account of cost ) is getting hard! But I will persevere and get it done!

Although, these days you can get your CPL on HECS like a uni student as well as do it part time makes it more than do able while still earning a small wage elsewhere and covering the all important life expenses.

sn said...
I used to email a chopper pilot from Hawaii a few years ago,
Real good bloke, a down to earth ex vietnam flyer, and then fire bombing and anything chopper related.
Russel had a lot of great yarns to spin, reckoned he had more than his share of unpowered gliding time in choppers.
[something like 16 unplanned "landings"]
I think his on-line monica of "Crash Residue" described him pretty well.
Havent heard from him for a couple of years, need to catch up one day and swap stories again.

stephen

There is an awesome book by a vietnam chopper pilot, "iron horse' or something. They used to fly way over the weight limit routinely, so they invented ways to get the hueys off the ground. Dragging landing gear for 50-100m became standard practice as with enough forward speed the thing would suddenly pop up. There's a great story of the pilot pulling up from a fast landing realising he's the wrong side of the fence, a foot above a minefield and not having the power to go up again, stuck in a hover. Ended up cutting the bush 1 side with the rotor to get space for a run up then hopping up and sideways at the last second centimetres above the barb wire fence into the base. All while at max power with guys bleeding out and a foot off a minefield on a hillside.

I fly and have flown in planes and choppers a lot and being a pilot of either would be an incredibly tedious and boring occupation in my opinion. Very regimented and routine. It is not like the Bristows Pilots can get loose in the Eurocopter and buzz Whales and stuff.

Beaglebuddy said...
There is some sort of cancer that flight crews get from being closer to the suns radiation.
Flying sounds great but not if this is the result.

Yeah but its only during daylight saving

woof

If you can find it "Life after Chicken hawk" By Robert Mason is a must read as well. I got it as an inter library exchange as they are pretty rare nowdays.


"Low Level Hell, A Scout Pilot In The Big Red One,"
by Hugh L. Mills Jr., Robert A. Anderson is one hell of a read as well.

I loved "Apache Dawn" by Damien Lewis, in Afghanistan all about the Apache heli missions.

Just a few good reads, if your into rotorcraft.

this is a bit of pilot fun (without the expense)

- flying a camera gives you a very different experience to just blatting around the park as you have to try and introduce some precision into your patterns.

A single rotor would be awesome but i dont have the time to spend perfecting the tricky art of flying these.

Here is some "single rotor" action




The quad lets you focus on the camera moves though... i dont need to spend the next year smashing helis and cameras before i can get accurate useable shots.

Chook2 said...
If you can find it "Life after Chicken hawk" By Robert Mason is a must read as well. I got it as an inter library exchange as they are pretty rare nowdays.

I downloaded Chickenhawk on the Kindle, so I might see if they have the second one too.

Reflex Films said...
this is a bit of pilot fun (without the expense)

- flying a camera gives you a very different experience to just blatting around the park as you have to try and introduce some precision into your patterns.

Handy way to deliver that bag of dope behind the camera.