Hoisting

Well, I actually have a pretty good idea of where I'm headed next, but nothing is written in stone.  There's now three spots on completely different corners of the globe where I've submitted paperwork on the company's behalf as they sort out where I'm most needed, all interesting and some better than others, but I best hold my tongue until the dust settles.  In the meantime, I've been mountain biking, lunches with Bob, and hunting white tails with my Bear bow, and quite honestly, having a blast with all the time off.  I thought I'd post a little GoPro footage of some Search and Rescue training in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Kenya last year.  I've had the footage for awhile but my new MacBook can actually handle processing the video....

Basically as a SAR pilot, you need to maintain currency, as well as the rear crew and first officers, so we do these little training sorties with some regularity.  This was a very, very calm day but higher sea states actually make it far more interesting.  Throw in some squalls and it gets quite entertaining.  Unfortunately the AW139s we had in Kenya were not fitted with the optional SAR kit, so we have no autopilot hover modes, restricting us to day time hoisting where we can actually see for hover reference, but hand flying these sorties is no big deal, it's just takes a little practice.  Generally once we've done our recee, we move to a stand off position with the nose of the helo into the wind, in this case, a standard deck just off the port stern.  We complete some checks then lower the SAR Tech to a safe height, then quickly move him over the deck, avoiding the anti-pirate razor wire all around the vessel, drop him off, then move back to the stand off position.  We'd then move back in to lower a highline, to facilitate quickly lowering and recovering gear, and then lower a medical bag and perhaps a stretcher, then eventually, recover the works.  Throughout we practice various emergencies, as this is a training sortie, so we'd have comm failures and equipment failures and simulated engine fires and whatever else I could think of as an instructor.  Then we'd request the boat to change heading and do it all over again.  I'm actually concentrating pretty damn hard as I have a good friend on the line below me, but the conditions on this day were pretty benign.  I'd like to get myself on a serious round the clock/all-weather dedicated SAR post but I'll take pretty much anything that keeps me airborne....