Unemployment Sucks

It's unfortunate that self worth goes hand in hand with employment, and that we place such emphasis on what we do to define who we are.  Perhaps pilots more so than most.  Unemployed for an extended period, one's compass begins to drift, and the precarious threads binding one's self to one's career stretch and stretch.   A palatable sense of irreconcilable vagueness drifts over us.  There's a lot going on in our heads, and too much time to dwell on it.  We become addicted to the challenges that our chosen profession provides.  There is a sense of self-worth from contributing our specific set of skills and experience to the varied world of aviation.  We are a confident lot, but when those challenges are removed, doubts arise, and it's frustrating to say the least.  Of course, we also lament the loss of a salary to provide for our needs, and this is no small matter, depending on your situation.  Perhaps it's the loss of control that irks?  However absurd the concept of control, we do exercise some semblance of dominion over our fate, and it's discouraging when that tenuous grasp starts to slip through your fingers.  It's not easy.  For myself, I was unemployed for only six months, but it was the longest six months that I can recall.  Even now, the future is uncertain, but I'll take it for now, and I find myself far more relaxed.  People are still losing their jobs.  I still have friends emailing and calling claiming they just got the notice, one more only yesterday.  I have friends who have been unemployed for far, far longer than I have, looking for any lead or straw of hope.  The market recovery has not been quick.  It's dragging along painfully slow.   I keep my ear to the ground.  I pass along any lead that I find.  I look forward to the day when we can all get back to what we do best.

I'm back home, all recurrent and checked out on the AW139 once again, waiting on paperwork for a post overseas, and on salary.  VISAs and FLVs take time depending on where you are headed, but at least I am headed somewhere.  I made some bone head mistakes in the sim, but it cleared the cobwebs and it all came back quicker than I had hoped.  I'm headed down to the New Jersey AW139 simulator to help out next week, and I wish they had more for me to do while I wait for the paperwork to clear.  But I'm back....

Please check out my New photography collection......

(yet another product of all my free time)

Back to Work!

It's been five months and two weeks since I last worked, flaring that big old outdated Super Puma L2 onto the ramp of Rzeszow Poland, having thoroughly enjoyed my last flight from Prague, over the snow covered mountains of Northern Europe.  I closed the throttles, killed the batteries, and that was that.  No more work for me.  Following a pretty awesome nine month job in Gabon, we had ferried the two helicopters all up along the West Coast of Africa and through Europe just to put the ole gals in storage, as the oil market crumbled around us.  Since then I've been applying for jobs the world over, with little hope in actually finding anything as all the companies were still cutting back on operations and costs.  Actually they still are, but I just got lucky.






I'm now in Northern Italy undergoing my recurrent training on the AW139, with the Chief Pilot himself, and a small contingent from the Burkino Faso Air Force.  I'm a check pilot, instructor and Search and Rescue captain/instructor on the type, as well as a certified simulator instructor, so I don't expect too much difficulty, but it has been over a year and a half since I've last flown one of the sexy Italian beasts, on a SAR contract in Paramaribo, Suriname, so I'm studying hard.  I'll actually take to the controls again this afternoon in the simulator and I'm thoroughly looking forward to it!  By far it's been thee longest period where I haven't flown a helicopter in over thirty years.

The market hasn't really recovered at all, I just got lucky, and perhaps my qualifications gave me an edge, but I'll take it!  There is a possibility that the job may even be short lived, and I'll keep an eye out for longer term solutions, but in the meantime, it's nice to be busy again.  Travelling and living out of my suitcase once again, I did get out hiking in the mountains near the Swiss border on Monday.  Loving life!

The Classic A-2

Ray-Bans, big watches, bigger egos and leather jackets; a romantic ideal of aviators belonging to a more gentlemanly age.  The quintessential pilot uniform?  The venerable horsehide A-2, the more worn-in the better.   First introduced by the U.S. Army Air Core in 1931 as the "Jacket, Flying, Type A-2", it was designed to protect pilots from the wind with a functional cut for a cramped cockpit.  Having spent countless hours of my youth perusing old photographs and movies of World War II aviation (my favourite: Catch 22), I dreamed of a more adventurous world beyond the farms of Southern Ontario.  I had formed an idea in my young mind of just what a pilot is supposed to look like.  Of course when I landed my first job flying Bell 47s in Northern Ontario in 1985, I went out and purchased a horsehide A-2.

That jacket went with me everywhere, I wore it flying year round unless I needed a down parka, working out of tent camps up in the high North of Ontario and Quebec.  I slept in it I don't know how many times, used it as a groundsheet when I worked on my car, and still had it with me when I progressed from piston engine Bell 47s to Jetrangers, Longrangers, 205s and was still wearing it on my first EMS job flying 222s.  I had it relined twice.  It had gotten soft and very well worn, but still held up.  I then moved out to Canada's East Coast and their damp weather, flying S61s offshore, and that old beat-up jacket was relegated to a closet in the basement.  Digging it out a few years later, I found it had been totally destroyed by mold, and sadly, into the trash it went.

Then began a long journey to find a replacement.  I tried some standard leather pilot jackets, but none had the same charm as an A-2.  I tried a goat hide military issue version but returned it after a few days.  I tried a horsehide version from Flightsuits.com (now Gibson & Barnes) and the leather was gorgeous, but I found the jacket far too blousey.  Figuring that I had ordered the wrong size I called and found out that their jackets are sized for the average American body (apologies to my many American friends but that's what they told me).  I returned it as well.  Finally I found the guys with the ad on the right side of my page for a more authentic cut, and ordered one of their classic russet horsehide A-2s.  Perfect classic fit.  Soft and supple but tough as nails.  That old jacket has flown S61s, Super Pumas and AW139s the world over.   I eventually got myself a second one from them in Seal Brown just for some variety (and custom ordered cuffs), seen here in Romania.

Jackets, watches and photography, I do apologize for writing about "stuff" so much recently, but I haven't been flying nor travelling since early March of this year.  I'm happy to say I've found work once again, filling a Search & Rescue Captain and Training/Check pilot role overseas.   I'm off to Italy for the AW139 sim for a recurrent this weekend.   Spending most of my free time with my nose back in the books, I am very anxious to get back to work!