Robbed!

There are worse things than being delayed in Miami, enroute to Suriname, chillin' in the business lounge, Arturo O'farrill jazzing up my mood, and free munchies.  I spent a frigid couple of days in Toronto visiting family and checking out the ever impressive Niagara Falls in one of the coldest winters on record.  It's been an eventful trip so far.  Enroute to the airport in Halifax I stopped to get my mail, and after checking in, I read through my VISA bill at the airport lounge to find over $6000 in charges I did not recognize.  One large purchase was to Air Canada with the ticket number!  Being in an Air Canada lounge I asked them to check the ticket number, and some lady that I don't know bought herself a return ticket to Barbados with my VISA, plus a month at a resort with some travel service I had never heard of.  Of course I immediately cancelled the card, Air Canada notified their security department, and I wondered what kind of person would purchase a ticket that required their name and passport with a stolen VISA?  Not hard to track her down, but I'm carrying the credit until there's a full investigation.  And I needed a new card for my trip to Suriname.  That kept me busy.

I managed to score business class upgrades all the way to Miami with my travel points, so that was a serious treat, as the company doesn't fork out for them.   With the amount of miles I cover in any given year, business class is EXTREMELY appreciated.  The plane was delayed in YYZ for over an hour due to a faulty toilet, but you get used to that sort of thing, and with a four hour connection in Miami I wasn't concerned.  Now in Miami my next flight is delayed a few hours as well, so I wandered into a Tommy Bahama store and scored more shirts than I need....but I'll be stylin' in Suriname!

To be honest, I love winter in Canada.  But here I am, escaping the frigid temperatures, and I must admit the warmth and humidity is welcome.  My Patagonia down jacket is stuffed into my bag and won't see the light of day for a good long while.  Warmed up and enroute, I'm itching to get airborne in Suriname!

De Wilde Kust

My next posting is looking to be a fairly sure thing, even though I'm well aware how quickly things can change.   My fingers are crossed.  I've recently received my ticket to Suriname, formerly Dutch Guiana, the "Land of Many Waters", or better yet, de Wilde Kust (The Wild Coast), after numerous discussions with the company travel department over routing.   It's not all that simple depending on when you travel, but I save more than a day of planes and airports each way compared to my three years of travelling to East Africa.  By all accounts, Suriname is a quaint little backwater nestled in the West Indies, with a dark and interesting history.  I've read "Wild Coast" and "The Riverbanks: Stumbling After Eden in the Jungles of Suriname" and one of my favourite authors; V.S. Naipaul's "The Middle Passage", all set in Suriname, and I think I have an understanding of where I'm going.  It seems like the drug running Suriname was known for has given way to eco-tourism, and I believe it's reasonably stable, especially considering some of the places I have worked.  I'm packed and ready to head out now but I have another week before I'm needed on the roster.

It looks like I'll be a SAR Captain and instructor on the AW139 again, despite the recurrent training I just did on the Super Puma L2.  There's a fair bit of training to tackle on this job, so I'll be busy, and that's always a good thing.  I'm raring to get back to work.  I haven't been flying since North Africa last fall, despite lots of simulator time, which is good value for training but it does not satisfy the craving.  Flying gets into the blood and it's been too long since I've had my hands on the controls lifting off into the wild blue.....

But I'm still home for now, in one of the rougher winters Nova Scotia has seen in a long while, reading about Suriname, playing with my guitar and shovelling snow until month's end........

If you want it bad enough....

The view of Manhattan from the Empire State Building, kicking around downtown after my AW139 check ride, caught some museums, centre orchestra front row seats for Phantom of the Opera with scalped tickets (at less than 1/4 full price), some cool jazz (Arturo O'Farrill & The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra)....

I recently received an email from a blog reader (thank you by the way); should I invest the massive amount of cash required for a helicopter pilot's licence for a career of flying helicopters?  Is it worth the risk?  In my case, most definitely, but for anyone else?   It's obviously not overly difficult as you need only to kick over a rock to find a leather jacket and Ray-Ban wearing helicopter pilot, but it's not an easy ride.  My best advice is if you really, really, really want it, go for it.  I think attitude, work ethic and dedication is the key.

You might get lucky once you've figured out how to pay for the licence, slip right into the perfect job and start racking up the hours, but be prepared to put up with a great deal of crap, possibly for quite a few years, before becoming "established".  Generally getting those first one thousand hours of helicopter flying under your belt is the trick, as that's when most company's insurance brokers will let you fly their helicopters.  But that first job is the struggle.  Sure you could take the military route, as over half the guys I fly with are ex-military pilots from all over the place; Canadian, American, British, French, Irish, German, Italian, Spanish, etc. and I doubt you'll get better training or experience anywhere, but I took the commercial bush pilot route, so the only advice I could give would be how to break into the civi market.

I was only eighteen and was quite content to sleep in my folk's old Ford Escort and wash up in gas station washrooms as I travelled around the North looking for that first job.  Nobody wanted a one hundred hour pilot, but one guy did need some drywall done, and of course I said I was a pro.  I wasn't.  I had to go to the local library and read up on what was involved.  I washed and waxed the owner's ATVs when he got back from long trips in the bush with his family, I pumped and hauled fuel and parts all over the Canadian North chasing crews that needed whatever they needed.  I gave everything and didn't complain, and when they needed an old Bell 47 ferried back to base, there I was.  Those ferry trips became more common, and short charters were sometimes passed along to me if the customer wasn't overly important.  One thing led to another and I think my lack of complaining and putting up with most anything with a smile on my face saw me score job after job and actually getting some customers to request me.  I replaced one arrogant fellow who took some leave on a very large contract.  He was known to wear his flight suit, scarf (no kidding) and sunglasses to the bars in town on the weekends, and his strut just pissed off everyone.   His erratic cowboy flying didn't win many fans amongst guys just trying to get to work, some who really hated flying.  This was Northern Quebec and I barely spoke the language (French) at the time but damn if I wasn't trying.  I was just being me but they liked me, despite my lack of experience.  They didn't want the other guy back and I ended up getting his spot on a very high flying contract.  I went for every flight I could get my hands on.  Lucky?  Perhaps.  I soon had one thousand hours of flying helicopters, and I wasn't even twenty yet......

My buddy Joe, one of my best friends, just broke five thousand hours.  He was in his late thirties, established in another industry with a wife, two kids and a mortgage, taking a HUGE financial risk, when he elected to start training to be a helicopter pilot, but he stuck to it.  He's touring in the Philippines now on AW139s.  He made it happen.
If you want it bad enough, go for it.