RPMN: What is your greatest career accomplishment to date?
You might think that making it to my current position at Papillon would be my greatest accomplishment, but no. The part I’ve played in the success of others is what I cherish most. I have helped 300-plus pilots establish and navigate their careers. I continue to be inspired by their successes. I have trained and mentored pilots who have now become chief pilots, training captains, directors of operations, NASA pilots, or owners of their own companies, among other amazing roles.
RPMN: Have you ever had an “Oh, crap!” moment in helicopters? If so, please summarize what happened.
I’ve been quite fortunate in my career to not have a major “crap” moment, though that’s not to say that every flight has gone according to plan. I can give an example of a flight that could have been disastrous, but because of proper planning became a success. During the time I worked as a flight instructor I was tasked with ferrying an R22 from Utah to Kansas, which required crossing the Rocky Mountain range at high altitude. I had a student working on his commercial certificate with me. We planned that we would make the crossing at first light, since that would be the only time with temperatures cool enough to keep us below the 14,000 foot decision-altitude limitation of the aircraft. The terrain in Monarch Pass reaches 13,500 feet MSL. We understood that our engine and rotor tachs, coupled with maintaining airspeed above the drag curve, would be our limiting
factors. I briefed my student regarding our limitations before the flight, and actions to take if we recognized a decrease in either airspeed or rotor RPMs. We also planned to take just enough fuel so that at the highest point in the pass, we could either turn around and return to our point of departure or make it to the next airport with adequate reserve. We did successfully make it over that mountain pass, but understood before the flight that it would be “successful” so long as we reached an airport, either the one across the pass or the one from which we initially departed.
RPMN: If you could give only one piece of advice to a new helicopter pilot or mechanic, what would it be?
The effort you put into your training and career from the first day forward will add up to equal your success. This is the same message my instructor gave me. My first day of class he said, “Today is the first day of your job interview, and every day after is the same.”
RPMN: In your view, what is the greatest challenge for the helicopter industry at this moment in time?
Coming from someone who has been involved in the industry – from inspiring the next generation of rotorcraft professionals during their primary training, all the way to assisting pilots in transitioning to their final stop in their careers – I say there is a lack of qualified pilots. On top of that, it can be harder now for new pilots to secure funding to get started.
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