What is up Av Nerdation!
Welcome to Season 2 Episode 8 of the Forever on the Fly Podcast! Jose is back and joins in for a special interview with helicopter pilot Mike Tomlinson. Mikey goes way back with Jose and Diane to their Papillon days. He was their lead pilot and colleague who has now flies the AW109 in support of transporting Columbia River Bar boat Captains (otherwise known as bar pilots) out to cargo ships in the Astoria, Oregon area.
Cape Disappointment is home to some of the most treacherous waters in the world, and sees about 2,552 hours of fog a year—the equivalent of 106 days—making it one of the foggiest places in the U.S. Only a few of these types of operations exist in the world, so join us exploring the unique life and niche helicopter job that is being a Bar Pilot .... PILOT!
Diane also recently returned from her first international helicopter ferry, so stick around until the end of the episode where she shares what to expect when crossing borders. Lessgo!
What is up Av Nerdation!
Welcome to Season 2 Episode 8 of the Forever on the Fly Podcast! Jose is back and joins in for a special interview with helicopter pilot Mike Tomlinson. Mikey goes way back with Jose and Diane to their Papillon days. He was their lead pilot and colleague who has now flies the AW109 in support of transporting Columbia River Bar boat Captains (otherwise known as bar pilots) out to cargo ships in the Astoria, Oregon area.
Cape Disappointment is home to some of the most treacherous waters in the world, and sees about 2,552 hours of fog a year—the equivalent of 106 days—making it one of the foggiest places in the U.S. Only a few of these types of operations exist in the world, so join us exploring the unique life and niche helicopter job that is being a Bar Pilot .... PILOT!
Diane also recently returned from her first international helicopter ferry, so stick around until the end of the episode where she shares what to expect when crossing borders. Lessgo!
You're listening to the forever on the fly podcast What's up aviation nerd nation and Welcome to season two episode eight of the forever on the five podcast, your bi weekly dose of aviation inspiration, education and entertainment. My name is Diane dollar. And Jose is back. He is here back with us. Thank you Sandy Rita. So happy to be back. Yeah, we face fires. We missed your face too. I mean, we couldn't figure out the stupid technical difficulties friggin internet. Oh man. So man. Tell you what, T Mobile not the way to go guys. Still use T Mobile. Bryson man brightens where it's at. Yeah, spectrum. Let me down. Oh. Wow. Yeah. Well, we really missed you. And we are so happy that you're back. And are you ready to help me get these guys? Aviation? Dang, that was good hooked on aviation. We did get a good job there. Yeah, that's pretty legit. too legit to quit? Well, guess what? What happened? I passed my multi engine check. Rad. Congratulations, and thank you for telling me about it. What? What was it all? Uh, what was it all? Like, tell us a little bit about it. Oh, man. Well, yeah, so I did it in a Piper Seneca. I don't know if you've ever flown one of those before. But no, I haven't. Dang, nothing was heavy. I'm happy. I haven't been skipping arm day. I've never had to flare with both hands before. Yeah, so yeah, that elevator man. But it was really good. The checkride went really well. I had to fly it to Greenville, South Carolina to do my checkride I love the DP. He was so great. It was Brent. And he was fair, firm, friendly. All the all the good things that you look for in a DPE. And yeah, it was a little windy that day. You know, of course. I swear to God, it is like a checkride thing where you go your entire training, being slick, calm winds store if they are winds or straight down the pipe, and then they have your check ride through gusting 19 outside with a straight up cross. Yeah, moderate or greater turbulence. It was kind of windy that day. But you know, compared to other checkride like all the ones that you've taken throughout your career. Well, we would stand the difficulty level of Oh, I see. Yeah, I mean, I feel like at this point, I've, I've done a lot of check rides. And I think just having experience under my belt and being an experienced pilots, a relatively experienced pilot, then someone knew going into a checkride I still got the nervous jitters like the checkride. jitters, they still happen. I was still really nervous. Even though I knew I was I was ready. I had just been struggling with the short field landings. For some reason, they were very difficult for me, it was hard for me to get the sight picture, right, and aiming aiming for those 1000 foot markers. But I managed Amanda was the only one that I was kind of having, like real trouble with that, you know, and I was expecting to be done because everyone's like, Oh, it only takes five to seven hours to finish your multiengine but I think that's somebody who flies airplanes on a regular basis. Maybe but someone like me, I don't really fly fixed wing all that much. I don't have very many hours in fixed wing. So, you know, I was being really hard on myself because I thought you know, I should be done by now. I was at like our eight our nine I'm like, Man, I still don't feel like I'm completely ready. So yeah, I was being really hard on myself for having to take longer than what people were saying or the average but I think going from being a helicopter pilot and transitioning to a multi engine heavier aircraft. I definitely had to be patient with myself. You know, I started noticing negative thought patterns like man, I just maybe I'm just not cut out for this kind of flying. I don't really like it. I'm not having fun and we had a conversation remember I called you I called you I was struggling with it. I was like man, I just like don't know if this is for me like I'm not really having fun because I feel like I'm not good at it. Yeah, but once once it clicked, right, you know, you have to be patient with fixed wing when these heavier aircraft you have to be a lot more impatient because with helicopters, we are so used to immediate satisfaction of the aircraft doing being responsive and doing what we want it to do immediately. But with a heavier airplane, you kind of have to like put in the input and wait for it to do what you're asking it to do. And for me, it was hard for me to like build that patience up to be like, No, I want you to come now. Yeah. I'm really happy you stuck with this thing? Yeah. I'm happy to and you're not the only one that did it in 10 hours. I did it in an hour. Yeah. Okay, so it seems like that's more of the average for someone who maybe doesn't. Who doesn't fly? Have as much? Yeah, it's very typical of helicopter pilots going into fixed wing that we flare high, because we're so used to slowing down, you know, coming into land to hover with airplanes or nose down, nose down, nose down. Yeah, at first, like the complete opposite. Yeah, it was very, it was fighting against all of my instincts, and the muscle memory that I've built over, you know, a career doing helicopter flying. That was the struggle. But anyways, enough about that. We also have a couple announcements. Well, one, Jose is going to be able to get a G 650 type rating paid for by the GI Bill. That's good news. Oh, no, not by the GI bill by a private owner. Oh, I thought it was a GI I thought you said that you're getting it paid for by the GI Bill. Different type rating for the GI Bill. But yeah, it's gonna be a private owner. So cross my fingers. That should be epic. And yeah, I can't wait for that. Also coming up. We have dare to dream Dallas coming up in the spring and we're seeking sponsors contributors. If you guys want to donate to our next big event, or attend or volunteer, go to our website www dot forever on the fly.com and check. Check that out under dare to dream Dallas. You can also email us if you have ideas for the event at Diane at forever on the fly.com That's Diane at for everyone with live.com Our next guest goes way back with Jose and I he's an original gangsta OG helicopter pilots. He was both Jose and I's lead pilot over at Pantheon and has since then worked as chief pilot of a Grand Canyon tour company and currently flies the A w 109. Out of Astoria, Oregon, famous for you know the Goonies, everyone's favorite movie if you're cool. He flies in support of transporting Columbia River bar boat captains otherwise known as Bar Pilots to incoming cargo ships. I'm so excited for him to share his experience. It's a very niche part of the industry. Not a lot of them in the world. So here he is to talk about what he does on the day to day, some of the challenges that are involved in what he does. If you stick around until the end of the episode, we'll have a short ground lesson on the requirements for crossing borders if you're ever planning on doing an international flight. So without further ado, I know this has been a really long introduction. Here is Mike Tomlinson. A live human on the line when the ship is moving violently next to you with nothing else to look at. But the moving ship is intense. Hey, I'm Mike Tomlinson. And I'm forever on the fly what's up guys doing? Thanksgiving you guys. Thanksgiving, you guys so much to be thankful for. We're so happy that you could join us. Thanks for coming on Thanksgiving Day. We appreciate it. You're You're a trooper, homie. No worries, man. I you know, my kids upstairs watching Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, and my wife's at work. She's working till 9pm tonight, so we're gonna go over to a friend's house later and chow down, but Oh, man. Awesome. Yeah, yeah. Your wife works in the hospital, doesn't she? She's a nurse. I really are. Yeah, you're a nurse. Hmm. Which is something show your mom or your job that seems to be a good combination. We know a lot of like helicopter nurse helicopter pilot nurse combos seems to work pretty well. pretty flexible job and they're in high demand. So if you have to move, so anyone out there in the dating pool, looking for a spouse? And you don't want to be ailed by the what is that AIDS aviation induced divorce syndrome? Exactly. Got to find someone who can move a victim vaccination for AIDS is you know, marrying a nurse Well, yeah, no, thanks. Thanks for coming on Amigo. Thanks for having me. I feel like you guys have had all these like celebrities. fighter jet pilots and famous people like, I, it's just, no. That's awesome. You get the big bonus and what you do, we're gonna talk about, we're gonna talk about that where I'm really excited to kind of get the scoop on, on what you guys do up there. Well, first, let's talk a little bit about who you are. Where you, you know, where you grew up? What inspired you to become a helicopter pilot? What were you doing before? What are you doing now? And go, oh, six questions. My name is Mike from Detroit. If you ever get a chance to go there, don't. Let's see, before this, I was a mountaineering guide. I worked as a climbing guy for 10 years. And before that, I was a bum and waiting tables and digging ditches and other fun things. Let's see. What else Where are you gonna get the helicopters? Well, wherever you are a mountain guide. All over, I started off in Alaska. And I went back and forth from Alaska to New Zealand and to Chile. And I ended up here close by climbing Mount Rainier for three seasons. And that's where I sort of got the itch again to go get a real job and took on a big ass scary loan. And here we are. Back. Did he I can't remember. Did he go with Hillsboro? Avian that yeah, that's he went with right. It was June fall. Yeah. Fall Guy. I mean, there's a bunch of people that we work with in canyon that yeah, he came on hills. No. Oh, sweet. I was really nervous about spending that money. You know, getting that that big loan. I was terrified of failing at it. I mean, it's pretty good motivation. You know, you're 80 grand in the hole. Man, I'm gonna get up on time today. When my, my flight instructor says show up, I'm going to be there. I'm going to study. Yeah, sure. I'll tell you what, though. That is a little extra motivation, then. I mean, don't get me wrong, the GI Bill is still our money paying for it. And we're utilizing that money that's available to us. But I still don't feel like I had the same kick in the pants as somebody who took out a big scary loan. I mean, I still like you know, I still did my stuff. I still showed up. But you know, cuz I was motivated to get it done. But I definitely had some GI Bill students who are not as motivated, but like, man, if you were paying out of pocket, I bet you would feel a little bit differently. I think so. I was, I was like a half breed. I had like half GI Bill Half. Half of my own money. 10 is like paying a little over 40 grand, but that was enough for me to be like Well don't be bag. I was psyched about that about flying. Helicopters are flying planes way earlier to when I was living in New Zealand and working on the Southern Alps down there. We fly around a lot. You know, we'd fly, you know, on and off of the glaciers into huts and whatever. And I'm like, damn, this is sweet, like heroin, like wet and cold and tired. And I got tourists and you know, jumping the helicopter and Jesus chillin, warm and dries like playing the video game all the way back. I'm like, oh, man, that's what I want to do. And it took me it took me a while I started making moves. I actually got in contact with Silver State. And I was like, Oh, this is the way to go. And then I was just about to, like actually do the thing. And they went under. I knew it. This is only for rich people. Or military guys like that. That's it. I'm done. And so the idea set simmering for like, eight more years. Wow, eight years. Eight. Yeah, that's crazy. Scared me off. I was like, a pyramid scheme, man. I'm not doing what sparked you saying okay, this is it's time again to get this going? Well, I mean, it's always been in the back of my head. It's the coolest job ever. Right. And I guess I type in a bunch of people, just random individuals that I had found email addresses for on on various websites. I think I ended up sending out like 25 emails and was basically like, Hey, I'm about ready to pull the trigger. I want to go to school, like, tell me, you know, where I should go. This is the right time or if it's the wrong time, you know, we've we've seen the industry sort of expanded contract and you know, there's definitely a good time and a real bad time to get started and get your first job and so I got three or four ounces And, you know, it was overwhelmingly like go to a bigger school, and it was either Florida or Oregon, going to Florida. So here I am in Oregon. So I solicited a bunch of advice and kind of went with it. direction. I mean, Hillsborough is a great place to train because you deal with weather. I mean, okay. There's like pros and cons, right? Because if you fly somewhere where you have to deal with weather, then you have to deal with weather. And you might not be able to get done as fast as you would somewhere like Florida or Southern California where you have, you know, good weather all year round. So, I mean, we have the Santa Ana winds for a week. Yeah. We do. Yeah, real man. Wins, wins. I mean, fires smoke, you know, bad visibility during that. No, no, we're nowhere near as close as you and me go. I can say that. Yeah, but it never gets, you know, I mean, it'll freeze higher up. But I mean, here on the coast, like, people freak out it snows like once or twice a year here. And it was like, Oh, my God, lock the doors inside. Hansel school. So after you became a pilot, so you went to school? Did you get your CFI? Did you go that direction? Yeah. That, you know, that seemed like the formula everybody was following. I remember a couple of guys that were, you know, I'm not gonna be an instructor. I'm like, I'm ready to go. Have you do that? I didn't even know that that was a thing other than like, both pics, you know? So yeah, I understood I had to be an instructor. And I was I was psyched about that. Oh, even still looking back at some of the most fun flying, right, you get to, you get to make it up every day, choose what you want to do. You know? Now we have to go where we're supposed to go and right. Yeah, you were a great instructor. I remember. I mean, you weren't my instructor. But when we were at Pantheon, and you take us out, you know, to do training, and I think you did all my a star training. And, uh, yeah, no, you were a fantastic instructor, you were really, really good. You were a very good student. We were lucky to have all that territory. I mean, it's all BLM land, like, do whatever you want. Go are very few places we couldn't go and, and it was fun. You know, you can really explore and find new places to go and scare your students. No, that wasn't you. That was that was all me. It wasn't us, me. No, I just remember you being very a very good instructor. And being really impressed. And it was really cool having you as a lead pilot, because I don't know, I always just felt like you were able to tow that line between being a good leader in the, at the company and also, being a good friend. That's what I always really liked about you. So you were very well liked and very well respected at pantheon. Thank you, it's a hard line, it's a hard line to walk. I've known a lot of people who are in positions of leadership, and they just don't know that you know, how to not have to demand respect from people. And, you know, that's a that's a very hard thing to do. So I applaud the demand that you already failed, you already thought well. Yeah, well, it's hard to be a lead pilot, and, like, hang out with the crew at the same time, also, because you have to, you know, be in that position of being a leader. And, you know, keeping that respect and not like completely mingling with the commoners. But I feel now, but I but I feel like you did a really good job at being in that position, and still being a really good friend, and you never lost that leadership ability. So, bravo. Well, thanks. I'm glad that I don't have a leadership responsibility anymore. After copy on, where did you go? I mean, I know but tell everyone else. So, you know, in hindsight, then the lead pilot jobs at Pantheon is great. It's so sweet. I was lured away down the ramp to be their chief pilot, which in hindsight, maybe not the best choice. It was a ton more work, not really much more fun. You know, flying the line, rather than doing a bunch instruction flights is also a lot less. And so it didn't last that long. I started scoping out other jobs. Falk, and Eric had just come up here. My friend Joe Dennis had come up here a few years earlier, and So I was, how did you guys get that job? Like that's supposed to be, you know, your retirement job? This this bar pilot thing I figured, and you got a ton of experience. I have four time there hoisting, like, No way. I'm applying just in case. Yeah, yeah, it worked out. It's, you know, they, they don't pay much. So they don't, they can't get people with tons and tons of experience, like I would have expected. The job doesn't pay. It's really no better than EMS. And so I think that's why not getting getting folks with tons of instrument time and hoisting time. And is it a private company? Or is it a government run agency that you work for? Yes, it is a private company, some brim remediation spaces in Ashland as a utility operator, I've got a bunch of mostly MDs, couple nanotubes and a whole bunch of five hundreds, and they were operating the powerline stuff, and, you know, all over the country. And then, you know, completely separate to all of that is just this Astoria operation, where we fly the Bar Pilots on an office. And, you know, it really seems like a separate company, you know, somebody from the head office will come by once every year or so we talked them on the phone sometimes, but we're really our own, our own little independent operation. That feels nice, right? Like your little entity. It's a really good group of people, you know, it's a, what do we have? Eight pilots, maybe nine pilots, and seven, seven or eight mechanics right now, I haven't done a very good job, introduce what the whole mission is, for us. It's also confusing, because they're called pilots the pilot of the ship's captain's right? Alright, so the these, these captains have to be put on and taken off ships. So every, every ship that comes in, into the river over the bar has to have a bar pilot, basically steering the ship, take control from the captain and ensuring safe passage across this most treacherous piece of and then once they get into town, a boat will will deliver the river pilot who then continues to take it to Portland, or wherever else, the ball pilot gets off. Likewise, on the way outbound, the ships will get their pilots, you know, in town, and then take it over the bar, and then we'll go pick them up. Now, there are two pilot boats that have been doing this job for 147 years, something it's the oldest business in Oregon, at the ballpark. I think it was about 20 years ago that this helicopter program began. And so you know, now you know, these guys tend to use the helicopter a little bit more just because it's, it's a 20 minute deal. Whereas the boat takes a couple hours. But the boat has to be that's the backup plan. Right? If we can't get out there, if we can't launch for weather, if it's too rough, we can't get them on. There are some ships that come in, when there's no spot to go, you know. Sometimes there'll be like, windmill blades, on deck, and just there's not a good spot to drop them off. And in that case, they've got to they got to take the boat. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of like that makes. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Because I was under the impression that like, yeah, I don't know why I thought your lug longlining I didn't I didn't think there was a hoist operator on there. Yeah, yeah. So our operators, also our mechanics. So these guys do double duty, fixing the ship and then and then also operating the hoist? Are they also like, rescue swim divers? No, no. No, we don't. We don't do any any rescue work we do. It's a pretty small bunch. How does it shift work then? Like a 12 and 12? Or, like 12 hours off? hours off? Hi, Bill. Yeah, yep. 12 on 12 off, and it's seven and seven weekly schedule. ain't bad, man. That's pretty good. Do you have to switch days and nights all the time? Or do you have to do like EMS, where you do like four days and three nights or something? Or do you work all days one week and all night, the next week? Well, when when you first start off, you're an si si at night. And that's all you can do for a while and takes six months or a year till you start, you know doing your day PMIC training. It takes it takes a while. I mean, another year or so and you're working days on your own as a PAC. And then, like, what I'm going through right now is my night PAC training. So I've been working nights for a few months, I'll probably be working nights for another. I don't know, a year or two. And then ideally, once, once we have a crew that's mostly trained up, then sure we'll be in the swap. But yeah, there's been, you know, historically, there's been quite a bit of turnover. And so we often don't have a full group of night PI's like pilots, sometimes we only have two or three no job, but it's pretty stable situation right now. Yeah. And I'm hopeful that that the the crew that we have is gonna stay this way for a while. So yeah, yeah, sequel. Right. So I remember and we I know we've talked about this before, but that's where I was stationed when I was in the Coast Guard was up there. Cape Disappointment, Columbia bar Astoria, Oregon, and I'll tell you what, that is some of the densest fog I've ever experienced. I mean, we'd be out on the boat and we couldn't see two feet in front of the bow of the boat. Sometimes we couldn't even see the bow of the boat because the thought the fog would be so thick. So how many days out of the year would you say are actually flyable for you guys? Do you go out in IFR or are you just VFR? All the time or? Yeah, yeah, we're we're IFR program. So our our minimums for the day is one mile and 300 feet pretty low. And that night, three miles and 700 feet and you know, at the airport, but once we're once we're out of our class echo airspace. We we fly IFR, but we don't talk to anybody. We have this special little aspect that lets us fly. It's it's stated IFR as golf, but it's technically just IMC, right, because we're not following any rules or talking to anybody. So we punch you in the clouds. And we'll get down to 300 feet ripping along and 140 knots and then we find the ship on on radar to slow down once we can see something ships lights, some water meters anything then we'll come down to 200 feet and then you know our radars only good for up until you know a mile or two. So you set your your heading and then wait and hopefully I'm from the mist appears here. Yeah. Wow ships. Crazy. Sounds so intense. It well. I hit a radar going pinging. I was really, I think when I got the job, I was really expecting that the IFR piece was going to be that was going to be like the the intense part, you know, and it certainly is, but you sort of get used to it. And again, we don't have a great deal of variety, like this challenge of going through to a different city to a new airspace to different you know, we're making these approaches to ships all day every day and so that that weather gets comfortable pretty quick. The only exciting part is the hoist itself. So real live human on the line when the ship is moving violently next to you with nothing else to look at but the moving ship is intense so and disorient but it's only for a few seconds. Then I go back and sit my lazy boy and tasty food and and it's ours again before my sheer terror for several seconds. Wow. Okay, so what is are these like point in space approaches that you're doing to these ships? Is that what they're called? Or not? It's just like, oh, it's not a published offshore letdown. It's not like the Gulf. We just, we just take care of our own navigation flying out there on our own crazy. So I mean, the waves get so big out there. I couldn't imagine hoisting and lowering hoisting a human alive, a real life human. With these boats rocking like that. I mean, do you guys have a limitation for how big the waves can be when you guys are actually going out there to do these missions? No, we don't have a we don't have a limitation. At a certain point. The Bar Pilots will close the bar. Sometimes 20 to 25 feet is a typical, you know, significant wave height to shut things down. But it depends on the ship. Sometimes we'll have very small ships, skinnier ships that especially tankers tend to move a ton and in 10 or 12 feet that can be almost impossible. It can be a nightmare. And then, you know, you get a big container ship. Panamax these big wide ships with no cranes, nothing to run into 20 feet 30 feet. You know, it's it. That's all doable. Yeah, they might win. When you're flying did and you like long lining the captains and stuff? Was there like ever a moment where you thought about jettison them by, like putting them in the water or anything like that or, or were you just like just pull up a tie you get above the cloud layer. Let's see, let's see. So we saw with the hoisting, it's not not long line, just just to make sure that nobody gets the wrong idea. They're posted down. So we went through. And we've definitely had to abort a number of voice, it's not at all uncommon to lose track of the roll, put a wrong input in, you know, you can imagine as soon as they start swinging, that, you know, we can call the board, the hoist operator, we'll call it work, we'll move away and try and get stable. You know, they can hoist them up, and then, you know, I can back down, cancel some of that, that movement. So we abort a lot of hoists. Gotcha. There, there have been a couple of events that I can think of where waste cables been cut. I was my first winter I was, uh, in the left seat, I was at SAIC, on a hoist where, you know, we ended up moving on a position and the hoist operator couldn't maintain visual with the, with the bar pile. And, you know, he was still on deck. But he couldn't see him. And so he ended up having to, to cut the cable. So he was fine. He was on deck, he just had to fall on the hoist cable when we call the boat. Nah, man, that's, that's pretty crazy. Dude, I can't imagine like what you said, how the ships go, like moving up and down, like with the current, you know, 20 foot waves and stuff and having having to be so precise and putting them on deck, you know, without getting anybody hurt. Yeah, that's, and it's a ton of training. I mean, we go through a years of training just to finally get, you know, cut loose all the way. Yeah. It's such a weird, specific little specialty, you know? Yeah. The drama is always just, you know, when when the ships moving a ton, it's an intimidating prospect. What's the hard part, the hard part is, particularly at night, your entire frame of reference is a moving ship, it becomes difficult to know if the helicopter is moving, or it's just everything around you. We fly with force shims. Right? So we'll make our approach put into hover mode, and then make small adjustments. And you know, there's a little button on the side to move to make the adjustment you guys. It's all though. And so, the big challenge is just the stay off the button. Right. So, you know, if you if you set a slow and steady course, on the way end of the ship, you should be able to make small adjustments. And then, but it's I know, it's such a head game. I mean, I haven't done a whole lot of longline flying. I think I got eight or 10 hours while I was at Hillsborough. And yeah, it has absolutely nothing to do with hoisting. I feel. There's, it's like a skill, you know, like a physical skill. Like, it's, it's something you could get good at, like a video game. Right. And hoisting, it's, it's just like, it's just a head game. You know, it's, it's how to choose the few references that aren't lying to you and ignore everything else that you see. And resist the urge to push. So, and, you know, when you screw it up right away, you know, it's like, oh, the nose pitches up. Oh, I must be moving forward. I fucked it up aboard. That is so disorienting. I don't know if I would like that. I don't know if I'd like that. It's like when you're sitting in your car, and the car next to you starts backing away. And you think your car's moving. And you're like, Whoa, does it ever happen to you? Yeah, no, but that's like, that's, that's really disorienting and a very impressive skill once you get it down. So that's awesome. That there's someone out there like you who wants to do it not? Well, I think anybody could do it. I'm sure it just takes a lot of time actually practice to get that I'm sure when I first started buying the 109 It was hard to stay off the button. And we talked about this we recorded a little bit of an intro before we got on here but getting that immediate, you know satisfaction of you know, I don't know going from playing an A star for example. You know, I keep the friction all the way off. You know, I like you know, I like me loose cyclic, but you know, and you have that you have that stabilization on there definitely took me a minute to like, not hold it down the whole time and try to fly it like an A star. You know, you have to kind of like be patient with it and trust like okay, I'll have to do is like, set it and let go. And it'll fly. It'll take care of itself. thing definitely took some getting used to. There was one time taxing and another tower was doing something weird they were like having us actually ground taxi across the runway. And so they cleared me across the runway but I was accidentally triggering the and I wasn't used to the SAS button yet and I was holding it down. But apparently I was also holding down the trigger for the microphone they cleared me across the road I'm like get across runway one six left or something and I was I just go not realizing that I was still holding down because when your ground taxing the 109 you have to hold down the SAS button or turn this asses off. And I was squeezing it together with the mic key and made a complete fool out of myself on the radio. They're like stuck mic stuck? My I'm like that wasn't a stuck mic that was just moving. Yeah, yeah, that was fine. The 109 for like, when I was doing my training for about like a month. And then how to go back into the star, one of the instructor pilots was with me. And I kept pushing the Porsche trim button on the it was on a star. And he's like, What are you doing? What do you mean, what am I doing? What am I doing? Like, what am I doing? Do anything do squad, shoots the missiles. I was like, I flew the F 76 The other day, and I got to fly it. And then I was like, Well, you know, it's automated. And it has like all the things like as like the flight director and stuff like that on there. And we got to go to Palm Springs. And I will say man, I do like having to do automated just like that a couple buttons, bop, bop, bop, good. Boom, my altitude and just talk to approach and be like, Hey, man coming into Palm Springs. That's it that's it. I'm gonna make way. Part wussies. How, Diane, when you are out there doing your swim training? Like what? What were the worst seas that you saw there? I mean, in the winter time, we could get up to 40 foot breaking surf just in certain areas. Do you know the names of the areas like Clatsop spit and peacocks bit like those areas, they could get pretty freakin high. But I never did any swimming. When I was out there. I just worked on the 47 foot motor lifeboats. I mean, we had to test out our dry suits once in a while where we have to jump in the water to check for leaks and the there were no ways but that was cold. But I cannot imagine being in a small boat. I mean, just looking down at at how fear so far. Well talking about it'd be in a helicopter, talking about where I got some of my inspiration become a helicopter pilot was the same as you were I was like I'm freezing my butt off down here miserable. And just GG here comes the mhsc fives will just like or a J Hawk will, you know pass by as overhead after we'd been out there freezing our butts off for three hours. They're like got it from here guys. Getting all the glory, you know, I was down there like oh my gosh, you know, and we finally get to the boat. And they've already been on scene for however long doing their thing and saving the day. And I'm like, man, you know, I don't want to be down here. I want to be up there. So no, that was that was a very intense place to work. It was we never rolled completely but we came pretty close a couple times. And I think the scariest part was at nighttime because sometimes you know, in the bar, the waves wouldn't come from just one direction they'd be coming from all different directions. So we'd have to station ourselves on different parts of the boat and yell out to the Coxon near 20 port 30 starboard and like let them know where the waves are coming from and approximate heights that we'd kind of have to guess so that they could maneuver the boat so we wouldn't flip. But you know, these boats had the ability to roll and rewrite themselves. So we have to be strapped in with harnesses that we've you know, every time you take a step you have to unclip and clip in unclip clip in, you know kind of a situation so that if we did roll, we're not going to fall out of the boat. We're you know, it's not going to be pretty it's not gonna be fun. You know, people break arms legs, the mast will snap in half if that happens, but you're not going to die because it'll rewrite itself. So it was never like, we never rolled completely but yeah, there was one time At night, we got picked up from a wait like what by a wave from the back. So like we kind of got sucked up, you know, and almost went but overhead to the point where we were holding on to the stanchions. Our legs are just dangling in the air, just like looking into a black abyss of water. And then the nose just sort of skipped it just like church. I don't know, it's kind of hard to explain on talking about it. But basically, the bow just sort of like skipped along the water as we were getting pushed by this wave. And eventually, we kind of just came back over it. But yeah, that was one of the scariest moments of my life holding on to that stanchion. Just looking down into the Blackwater, like, that's not going to be fun. I think I would have got in trouble on purpose and like, just cleaned latrines for the next two years. There are some times we be rocking back. And so we would have to stand on the outside, we wouldn't be able to be inside the boat, because we have to be able to see. And we'd have to stand on the on the top open bridge, which was about 30 feet. And we would have waves literally that would be over our heads in height from where we were standing. So sometimes we'd be rocking side to side so hard that our faces would be dragged in the water. As we're lean, let's like that's how far we would lean over. Like, I mean, I wasn't a pilot yet. So I couldn't appreciate what the weather was like there in regards to flying. But I mean, looking back on it, I can't even imagine the kind of conditions that you guys are flying in. Does a Coast Guard pilots like see you guys launch and go, like, Where the hell are they going? And then they just see you go into the abyss? No, we, you know, we talk on the radio quite a bit. There's a ton of Coast Guard operations, you know, they they are fun. I think that they have to operational here all the time. And then they have a couple more stash in the Hangout. I don't know exactly, but they are offline. There's lots of training that goes on here. They do auto rotation training in those Jayhawks like all day, every day, it's it's, it's wild. Yeah, that's cool. And we see him operating offshore, either training or there's a lot of active rescues that go on up and down the coast. I mean, these guys have a pretty big range, they go way inland, I mean, they'll they'll do rescues up in the mountains. And and, you know, all the way down and up, up all the way to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. I wonder what you what you call me that I've like read, but maybe I've never know, I think that sounds right. You know, when I, I had to I had to do a watch standard job, which basically was like being a dispatcher, where we had to decide whether or not a mayday call was a switch flipper, whether, if we needed to sound the alarm and wake everybody up to get out there. Or if it was, you know, calling someone Hey, guys, we have a boat their way offshore. They're not in any real danger, but they ran out of gas so we can take our time with it. But usually in Cape de if it was something in the immediate vicinity of the bar, it was always a switch flipper. Because if someone ran out of gas, and they could get thrown up against the rocks, the jetties. I mean, it was just a nightmare in there for anybody having any boat problems. But yeah, we got launched quite a bit. But I remember having to memorize the area of operation that we were responsible for. We had to know every little point along you know, we were 20 miles up river, and then I think 20 miles up and down the shoreline. And we had to be able to have a boat was coming through saying, you know, I don't know where we are exactly. Our GPS is down. But I see a rock and it looks like a big thumb. You know, we have we have to be like, Oh, that's, you know? Yeah. Oh, I know exactly where to send our guys. Well, we listen to the radio all night, you know, you gotta listen to 2169 and one three. And so, you know, we hear you know, and there may be many calls on a surprisingly frequent basis. And they're often kind of funny. I mean, they are funny. What's the funniest one you heard? There's one, there's one guy that sounded like the dude from basky Yeah, he was he was offshore. They're taken on water engine quit. Yeah. It's uh, you know, he made his mayday call. And, you know, the reply, you know, you got to listen to read. I don't know what comes for. What's your location? Does everybody have floatation device? Is there you know, and he's just like, answering questions here so, so she says like, How many people on board do they have? TFT she just like went right back into the field is so funny. That's hilarious. Dude. That's funny. You have to take every call seriously until they're proven otherwise. And sometimes we'd get calls that were definitely just you knew they were not anything but you still have to respond as such. And we I was standing watching heard over the radio over 60 And somebody get Chuck Norris. I'm like what? And then they said it again. Somebody helped Chuck Norris. And I'm like, no vessel Chuck Norris. They need Chuck Norris, Chuck Norris, Chuck Norris, Chuck Norris. And like over and over again. And it was so funny because I think that you know, Coast Guard was out there. We were doing training with the hilos somewhere and they went over all the boats that they could find a go Do you have any kids on board? Can you have them say Chuck Norris into the radio? So for the next hour? We're just have little Chuck Norris. Like over channel 16 Trying to find out like what this boat? Yeah, it was the most ridiculous thing. But enough of all that let's get back to your story. Is this where you imagine that your career would be or what you would be doing? Did you have any concept or is it something I was? Yeah, I was aware of this job. You know, since the beginning, you know from Hillsboro, we would fly on cross country, coaster and land. I remember being I was terrified the first time I got to a story because it was 30 knots. You know, wind limitations is probably the pilot, right? And this is above my wind limitations. But you know, we got to get gas. And it was 39 like perfectly laminar when I just laid it right into the windows. Oh. No big deal. But you know what, your private pilot man? Yeah. That's a lie. Especially in a Robbie? Man. Yeah. Is that what you trained in Robinson's? I mean, I guess Yeah, Hillsborough? Yeah, that would make sense. Yeah, that's crazy, the wind would would really get kicked out there. But at least it's you know, onshore, or offshore winds. So I guess they can be pretty predictable. You know, there's not much the only thing that can make turbulence is the ship, you know, once we're out there, so we can work with that to a certain extent. Yeah. I was gonna ask, like the 109. How does it operate out there? And that that environment, you know, do you get? Well, it's, like uniquely suited to this, which is surprising, because I don't know, I would think it's just for, you know, VIPs or maybe EMS. It is it's uniquely well suited. It's got a very capable autopilot. It's a with a fourth axis, you have hover mode. And it has a ton of Taylor authority. You know, it's, it's got this big long tail, and, you know, the tail rotor blades are like these huge paddles. They're like, they're just meaty, and, and, you know, we fly, we'll even hoist in very high winds. You know, technically, our limit is 50 knots. And, you know, we always stay in that, in that in that range. Yeah. But, you know, the one nines, it's, it's good for that. Everything you've heard about Leonardo is true, is very difficult to work with that company. The support is laughable. It's, you know, it's an attack. It's a Ferrari, you know, it's bright yellow, and it breaks when you look at it the wrong way. On mechanics, just like most Italians in the world, man, these guys do an extraordinary job of shooting, finding these mysterious electric gremlins. Just say 10,000 miles a wire on there. Yeah, question. Because, you know, when I was finding the 109, we would always if it rained even just a little bit. I mean, we'd get warning lights that would be thrown, you know, you would you would just expect that you'd get an engine fire light or a chip light or something weird on your flight the day after it rained, if we didn't put them in the hangar or have any have any cover on them, and it rains a lot out where you are. So do you just get like morning lights getting thrown all the time? Or, you know, our guys have found solutions to a lot of that stuff. And are there are, you know, ways to add some potting here or some insulation there or, you know, they've, they've managed to basically, you know, marinized the helicopter, you know, it's our ton of processes that that, you know, it goes just our unique aircraft to sort of prevent that kind of thing. Oh, man. Share it with the world. Yeah, we have the highest time 109 SP we're at almost 6000 hours and it's going to get replaced. We got a new one on order. It's coming in September. And you know, when you call the tech rep for help with any help they call us though, when another one or nine SPS having an autopilot problem, because we've had all the problems we've got this old aircraft it's it's kind of not that cool. When the factory has got a call. You can learn about their problems. Yeah. What do you guys think about this? Have you ever experienced it? And the support is, it's a problem and our customer the Bar Pilots are us being down just waiting for parts like that about changing it up, like picking a different platform. Definitely, everybody's been kind of eager to explore those options. And it's a hard sell, you know, the, the 145 is too expensive. And the 135 is just not big enough. And before 29th got a shitty autopilot doesn't have hover mode. And I guess the Canadian code is suing bell because they bought all these these for 20 nines with the expectation that they would be able to hoist with hover mode. And that was like five, six years ago. Okay. Voice with hover mode. So yeah, there's there's not a ton. Not a ton of options. options out there. Hmm. I was voting for the Augusta Westland. 609 doesn't sound like that's gonna be an option for us. Oh, yeah. Just just got a couple Hawks. Yeah, no, right. Well, we we hoist differently. So the Jayhawk Man, these guys are hoist experts, they do tons of that work. But they do it differently. They're way, way, way up above the ship, these tag lines. So it's a static hoist. And it takes a while, you know, we we don't we get in very close, we can be 10 or 20 feet up above a deck. And it's a dynamic hoist and we go in, put them on, it should be a five second. It's pretty quick. Okay. So a bigger helicopter, like a like old 212 or something like that. It still wouldn't work. It'd be you know, there's too much downwash and we'd have to be higher. The higher you are the more difficult the visual references, you know. So, yeah, so dynamics, a small, small pool of auctioneer friends as definitely Nice, dude. You know, like, it's a very specialty thing you guys working with? Yeah, that 145 Be nice, though. But you're right. Yeah. That is expensive. That's what I'm trying to sell my bosses, Mike. Dell it all and just. Sure. Well, let's start some crowdfunding for you guys. We started a GoFundMe, GoFundMe, Oregon. I don't know how the BarkBox feel about that. Right on man. Well, so cool. And I'm that was it's so cool and interesting to hear, to hear your story and what you do up there. So I mean, I had an idea. But it's cool to do a little bit of a deep dive into your operations and how you guys do those missions. So thank you for sharing. I know, we don't go upside down on no jet pilot. But, but it's something that's so niche and different that it's so it's cool to share something like that on the podcast, because not a lot of people do it. I mean, there's eight of you in the whole wide world that do this mission in that specific area. So there's a few other helicopter pilot like harbor pilot operations. There's one in Norway, one in South Africa. I think there's one in Australia. But yeah, it's it's not super common. And sometimes they always land on deck like in Australia, I think their primary plan is land on deck. We only do that when it's like a lake out there. It's got to be sweet conditions. So yeah, but that's a very unique area and very specific to what you guys do with the weather and the way that the ocean is out there. So I'd say the most of the picture and pilots that I know I would say 70 80% probably never get into helicopter and the ones that would would probably never go special VFR anywhere your helicopters lift up a time see now And they're like, yeah, let me get special be a part of the North. And they're like, like but yeah, it was just funny. I would say most of them like, are like, no, they honestly do think we're cowboys. Yeah. I mean, they're not wrong. No, I fly like a grandma. Me to me and I, you know, even if I'm not a cowboy at all ever, it's still risky. It's exciting enough. I don't need to add any excitement to notice like, yeah. Required. No cowboy certificate required. No, I hear that. Thank you so much for coming on the show and spending your Thanksgiving with us and have a beautiful Thanksgiving with your family and going over to your friend's place. It was really awesome. Oh, hi. Oh my gosh, what is your boy have a mullet? I like your haircut. Up here, one of these days you should book yourself a ticket come up here. Oh my gosh. That's happened. It's such a beautiful area. And Astoria is a really cool little town. Man, Mikey T. I love that guy. Yeah, super cool, dude. Like, yeah, I miss him. Whole pap crew. It's cool to hear his job. But a nice little part of the helicopter industry. It's really neat to be able to share his experience and right, yeah, really, a lot of people know what he does or how I didn't really know too much of what he did. Yeah. I didn't mean that he flew out and, you know, took captives out to boats and stuff. Mm hmm. It's a little bit more involved in that. Pretty cool, right? It is time for a little ground lesson. Let's go. All right. All right, you guys. First and foremost, I want to apologize for my voice. I'm a little hoarse right now. I just spent the last week fairing and our 66 from Puerto Rico, up here to Atlanta. And it was my first international helicopter adventure. So I just wanted to share the information that I learned about leaving the US and returning to the US and traveling internationally, just a couple of tips and things that I picked up on this trip. And it's all really fresh right now. So I just want to get it down for you guys. If you're planning on ever taking an international trip to and from the US, especially in the Caribbean, because that's the only experience that I have. Thus far in a helicopter, or an airplane. This all applies to either one. Take notes, had originally started this ground lesson before I left utilizing the AOP A's for cross border flying PDF that you can find online, you can just Google it a OPA cross border flying, they have a really good checklist on there. But there was a couple of things that I wanted to add from things that I learned along the way. So first and foremost, you want to make sure you verify all of your documents, you have everything in order for you as the pilot and for the aircraft that you are going to be flying. So if you're fairing, someone else's aircraft, or if you're flying your own, you need to make sure that it has all of the required documents on board. Now we've already done a lesson on the required documents that you need to have on board. But just as a reminder, you need arrow. And now we're going to add a customs decal, a CBP decal, so you need to go to their website and see how you can apply for and for the aircraft. For you as the pilot along with all of your other flight certificates, you're also going to need a radio license, which you can get from the FAA for pretty cheap, it's very quick, very easy. Do your research on the country that you're going to be going to in regards to their COVID policies. Some of them require documentation of your vaccination records, or have a COVID test within a certain time period before you're going to be arriving in the country. And a lot of them have electronic documents you need to fill out online and get approved prior to your arrival sort of like a health visa. Now, I only went to countries in the Caribbean. So this is the only thing that I can speak on. I haven't traveled any farther than that. But no matter what you need to enter into an airport of entry for the country that you're going to so do some research figure out which ones those are called the FBO is in advance. Let them know that you're going to be arriving and customs is going to know that you're going to be arriving as well through the FBO. So there were some airports where we were approached by customs on the ramp before we even had shut down And there were some that were a little bit more laid back where we just went into the FBO. And they assisted us with all of the customs forms that we needed to fill out. But at no time, was there any real struggle with customs, everybody was super friendly, and courteous, we had no issues whatsoever. And lastly, once you arrive, make sure you close your flight plan. It is required in the Caribbean to open a flight plan between countries, not necessarily if you're flying into country. But some places like the Bahamas, have cruising permits that you need to fill out and pay for in order to go into your country to different islands. So that is something to be aware of. But customs will let you guys know all of that stuff when you get there. They allpa flying guides are a really good tool, if you go to their website, you can purchase those there. And it has all of this information on there. But you can also just find all this stuff online. And it's really not that hard. When you're returning back to the United States, again, you need to pick an airport of entry. So look up which airports are a Oh ease and read about their times of operation, because maybe the office is going to be closed when you are planning to arrive. So that's also very important. And again, to return to the US you need to fill out the E A P is form online, just one per aircraft, all of the crew and passengers will all go on the same document, you will get your confirmation email that lets you know that you have permission to arrive and you have landing rights, you will need to file a D VFR or IFR flight plan to enter the Aidas if you think you're going to be later than 15 minutes earlier than fifth 15 minutes at your arrival time that you have on your paperwork. Or if you think that you're going to enter at a different point of entry to the ADAs more than five miles from what you filed. Make sure you let them know as soon as humanly possible of the changes. Custom customs also wants you to call them at least one hour but no earlier than 23 hours before your planned time of arrival are super nice. You'll talk to them on the phone, they just want to verify a couple things. And something to keep that kind of caught us off guard was that when they were verifying information over the phone, they were saying their initials after everything we said as sort of a verbal, initial saying that they are confirming so that was something that I didn't realize that they did and was kind of like weird, really, why are you keep saying J S? Oh JSA your initials didn't had no idea that that's something that customs did. But just something to know. When you get to your airport of entry. Go directly to the customs ramp, there are places that you can get fuel at the customs ramp as well. But do not land at an FBO before you go to customs, they can hit you with a 10 to $20,000 Fine and you really don't want that to happen. When you arrive at the customs ramp. It's very straightforward. Someone comes out to the aircraft, they do a quick aircraft, like walk around, they're actually checking for radiation, which was something else I didn't know that they did. So they have like a radiation detector that they're going around the aircraft with. And then you'll bring all of your baggage inside they'll put it through the scanner just like you're arriving at the at a normal airport and Bada bing bada boom, they send you on your way. Welcome back to America. I hope some of this information helped. I have no idea if any of you guys are planning on flying out of or to the US. But this was something that I learned some new experience that I can share with you guys. So I hope that this was interesting and helpful. And make sure you like subscribe. Leave us a comment on Apple podcasts. It really helps us out but beautiful, beautiful day you guys fly safe out there, fly smart, and we'll catch you next time on The forever on the fly podcast. Bye