Helicopter Flight Information
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Helicopter Flight Information |
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Articles in PDFAll articles on this site are available in PDF by request and with a required donation. Minimum donation for a single article is $5, for multiple articles, add $2 for each additional article. Donations can be made through PayPal via this link, or by sending cash, check or money order to: Rodney Barnett, 146 Reed Rd, Rockwood, TN 37854. Please follow up with email requesting the desired articles to info@helicopterflight.net if you did not include a note with your donation. Upon receipt of payment, articles will be emailed to you. About This Web SiteThis site is primarily aimed toward students and those pilots with low flight time therefore some content may not be applicable to those pilots who are significantly more experienced. This site is intended to be in layman's terms making the understanding of what occurs easy for all. There is much material available which goes into extreme scientific detail about how and why things occur the way they do. It is my belief that a simple explanation is often better and easier to understand when possible though sometimes we may seek scientific explanation. I am a 56-year-old commercial pilot in both helicopters and fixed wing. I currently fly helicopters full time for an HEMS (Helicopter Emergency Medical Service) carrier which in my opinion is the cream-of-the-crop helicopter job; it pays well and the schedule is easy (7-days on, and 7-days off). I have flown many commercial jobs which have included part 135 cargo and passenger operations in fixed wing; and also part 137 Ag, ENG, Mountain flying, Tours, and part 135 operations in helicopters. I have managed several aviation companies and assisted in the establishment of four flight schools. I have also flown nearly every island country in the Caribbean which has been some of the most enjoyable experiences I have had in aviation. Although I no longer instruct full-time, I do instruct part-time. I have also assisted in the development of part 135 and other commercial helicopter businesses. When I was taking flight training, material on helicopters and helicopter flight training was minimal to say the least. The rotorcraft flying handbook did not exist, instead it was a very thin and vague manual called the 'helicopter handbook' which was taken largely from military knowledge and expertise. There was only one web site with information on it, but it was really good. Today there are good web sites all over the internet although some can be hard to find. I encountered a lot of students who were having a hard time, and who did not understand what was occurring, or why it was occurring; I also encountered a number of students who had been ripped off and as a result, they had not been able to proceed with their career development; these incidents still occur frequently and/or are true today. There is a surprising number of poor instructors out there who don't really care about the product they are passing on to their students, and who do not take professionalism seriously. Those are some of the reasons I started and continue to maintain this web site. In my relatively short career, to date I have accumulated approximately 6,000 hours of flight time, most of which have been conducting commercial operations, and also of which more than 1,500 hours has been instruction given in helicopters. I have devoted the majority of my spare time to accident studies, and as a result I have seen my share of mistakes, most of which are caused by pilot error and are therefore preventable. I detest slop in aviation, and even more, I detest foolish actions which result in accidents, many of which cost lives. This site is intended to improve awareness, and to spread knowledge to ALL pilots, and even more to unsuspecting students who could end up with a bad instructor or at a pilot-mill-school that does not look out for the long-term well-being and safety of students which ultimately spreads the disease of bad technique and consequently results in accidents. |
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