bare minimum: • Experience - Diversity and then ad- ditionally vertical reference external load experience.
• Total Time - Minimum required flight time is 2,500 hours
• 1500 hours PIC • 1000 hours in turbine equipment
Add to this a very stringent interview and testing process. A background check of your resume is conducted including in- terfacing with all references. That is fol- lowed by a very thorough interview and review of the applicant’s knowledge of aviation including FARs, aerodynamics, systems, etc. The interview is conducted by a panel of at least three pilots as well as someone from Safety and HR. Lastly; this is followed by in most cases, a flight in a “Crane” for about 30 to 40 minutes. I was quite surprised by this revelation as I had a pretty good idea of the hourly cost to operate the aircraft. Randy explained that over the years it has proven to be more cost effective to go through this vet- ting process before hiring instead of after. Actually that makes a lot of sense (no pun intended) to me. By now, most of you know my association with the simulator industry so it is no surprise that I jumped on my simulator soap box and said “what you need is a high fidelity simulator.” Randy graciously agreed but I will save that report for another time.
The Company
All we have talked about so far is the services or operational side of the House. A quick review is in order: heavy lift in- cluding moving and placing equipment, towers, oil rigs, HVAC Units, containers, etc., logging industry, power industry, agriculture including hydromulch appli- cation and fire fighting. I am sure I missed something.
The other side of the house is as an OEM. Erickson holds the type certificate for the Aircrane and overhauls airframes to new. Erickson also has a full Produc- tion Certificate from the FAA to manu- facture the complete aircraft as new. The plant, located in Central Point, Oregon, is quite impressive with most of the ma- chinery and testing apparatus that you would find at a Lockheed, Boeing or Bell. Any part required can be made from scratch. For the record, the Erick-
www.ROTORCRAFTPRO.com • August 2009
25
Analog E & F Model
son Air-Crane’s larger model (F) is con- siderably different than the original air- craft. Erickson is currently in design of a new automatic flight control system uti- lizing solid state gyros and air data com- puters. Further new systems and instruments have been added including a multifunction display system or “glass cockpit” in the F model. These new tech- nology improvements result in an Air- crane that is more capable, more reliable and more supportable.
The Pilot - Randy Erwin
Multifunction Display “Glass Cockpit” F Model
Randy started flying in 1972 and has a fixed wing commercial single and multi- engine land rating with 1,000+ hours flown. His rotary wing career started in the US Army in 1976. He holds a Rotary Wing ATP/Instrument/CFI licenses and ratings with over 10,000 hours of which about 5,000 are in the Crane. He exem- plifies all that is good in the helicopter in- dustry and is a true professional that I am proud to know. ❚
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