TRI

TRI. Type Rating Instructor.  Certainly not my first kick at the can.  I've instructed on numerous types, and I considered instructing on the Aerospatiale Super Puma to be the height of my career. I wrote numerous groundschool and powerpoint training presentations on the type and it's various systems, and in addition to aircraft training, running guys through simulator sessions at our training facility in Stavanger, Norway.  A full motion simulator with phenomenal graphics, you could subject crews to scenarios and emergencies you could never replicate in the actual aircraft, with the added bonus of being far safer, as even mundane training manoeuvres pose risks to operational aircraft.  My first exposure to simulator training was my initial type endorsement on the venerable old Sikorsky S61.  I was forever convinced.

As opposed to training on the aircraft, where emergencies are typically announced with "Simulated.....", and you "pretend" to deal with the emergency, one heads into the simulator environment fully prepared to do an extremely realistic day's flying.  The weather is generally crap, it's pitch black night, you have a tasking, you've flight planned and calculated fuel loads, you ask for and copy clearances on the radio, the noises and shakes and vibrations are all accurate.  You forget you are in a sim.  On a night approach to a offshore oil platform, the crew was subjected to an engine failure on short final, and came up a little short.  They landed on the deck but so far back that as they settled, the aircraft started to tilt back, eventually tilting backward right off the deck.  As the aircraft went ass over tea kettle into the dark abyss, one of the pilots literally started to scream.  Realistic scenarios that you must deal with in real time, honing one's crew cooperation skills and workload management, even the oil companies appreciate the proficiency one gains in a sim environment, and most contracts nowadays demand yearly sim recurrent training, some even bi-annually.   And it's jolly good fun!

I was pretty excited about transferring from the Super Pumas to the new Italian AW139.  Fast, sleek, powerful, and most importantly, very popular.  All the oil companies are demanding AW139s and the manufacturers can't keep up, even the training facilities are having trouble supplying sufficient AW139 pilots.  As popular as the aircraft is with offshore operators, it's also a highly sought after Search and Rescue and Medevac platform.  A popular type means more opportunities, more work, more job security, more cool places to be posted to.  With the new endorsement firmly in hand, after a month long course and simulator sesson just outside of New York, and some time flying the type on the line, it was time to pursue the TRI position once again.  That box is now ticked.  Next step is the TRE, or Type Rating Examiner, which requires a Transport Canada Check Pilot to "monitor" yours truly subjecting another student to a yearly "Check Ride", or Pilot Proficiency Check, a stressful yearly affair for all commercial pilots.  Basically assuring a proficiency standard, to make sure a pilot can be trusted to safely pilot passengers around, that he knows the emergency checklist and aircraft systems and limitations and performance, and all the rules and regulations, and weather, and decision making, and crew management, etc. etc. etc.. 

I've spent the past tour on training flights with an experienced TRE, having me train him, as he makes every mistake he's seen made over his long instructing career.  It's the most fun I've had in a helicopter for a long while, and considering I'm having fun just strapping myself into my seat, you can bet I was thoroughly enjoying the TRI Conversion to Type Training.

And somehow I'm still managing some mountain biking around rural East Africa and snorkelling in the Indian Ocean and coffees at the Old Boma.  Life can be a splended thing!