Falko Baguhl: Normal Everyday Helicopter Pilot (NOT!)

Self proclaimed "normal every day helicopter pilot" Falko Baguhl,  takes us through his absolutely not normal pilot journey. From flying the Alouette, the S55T, the Bell 204, to now flying the AW169 in support of offshore windmill farms off the coast of Emden, Germany. 

In this episode we cover a variety of topics from discussing his path, day in the life of a windmill pilot and its unique challenges, his transition from the FAA license to the EASA license, his experience with the Deep Water Horizon tragedy, and finally the dangers of icing and why it should be avoided. 

Stick around for the end of the episode, Jose and I will give a brief lesson on the different types of icing, their dangers, and what to do if you ever encounter it. 

Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:02):
You're listening to the forever on the fly podcast
What's up aviation nerds.
Welcome to Episode lucky number11 of the forever on the fire
podcast, your bi weekly dose ofaviation inspiration, education
and entertainment. Number SDN.
And my name is Jose,and we're here to get you guys

(00:23):
hooked on aviation. fire seasonis already upon us here in LA
Whoa, Iknow I started crying the other
day. Yeah, I was like, Sois that how you are trying to
put the fires out with yourtears?
So I do two days of flying newsand two days of flying for

(00:47):
medical transport. So those aremy like additional duties. But
it turns out when you fly newshere in LA, and there's a fire
relatively big fires, you know,you're up at 7000 10,000 feet
AGL in a helicopter. Right?
Right. And you're over the fire.
And, you know, you just go downenough you cover the fire for as

(01:08):
long as your shift is typicallyabout six, seven hours of flying
over a fire. You know.
That's a long flight day. Yeah.
Especially you're sitting outthere hovering at 7000 feet for
six, seven hours.
That's cool. Yeah. You know, youstarted thinking about the fire
and I'm like, do we have anybigger tankers? Really? Are they

(01:29):
putting it out? There? We'reputting it out yesterday, it was
in our garage hills. And don'tget me wrong. It was like the
fire was fast moving LA County,Ventura County, all the fire
ships were on it. Thehelicopters were out there ASAP.
And believe it or not, they putit out in like, three hours. I
think that's about it. Now theybrought in some ba e 146.

(01:52):
Aircraft, which are British,essentially air tankers. Cool
that are stationed out here inSouthern California. And yeah,
they put it out pretty quick.
Once those tankers came in. Theylike it was a game changer.
Yeah, game changer.
Awesome. Yeah. I mean, SouthernCalifornia. Fire squads are on
point. You know, they kind ofhave to be Jesus April. Usually

(02:15):
fire season doesn't really getgoing until what? July? June,
July. And like last year, it waspretty much didn't end until
that.
Yeah. Right. Yeah, February.
Yeah. It just started again hereat the end of April. I'm like,
board game. Wow.

(02:36):
Does it really like flying abovethe fires even at 7000 feet? Is
it really irritating with thesmoke? And how are your eyes and
throat get irritatedat all like and he tend to we
tend to stay away from like thedownwind of the like smoke and
stuff like that. And smart, youknow, but the biggest thing is
just trying to get the correctshots and when the tankers are

(02:58):
coming in, and it gets prettycomplex. Yeah, up there.
Aircraft. sure that everystations out there covering it.
You also have the fire shipscoming
in. Yeah, it's it's prettydynamic, dynamic situation.
Yeah. And then only that you'reup with SoCal. And you got
Southwest and everybody comingin on their approaches.

(03:21):
Right. A lot of things to thinkabout. Yeah, it's a very complex
environment.
Yeah, it's quite draining at theend of the day, you're like,
exhausted.
Yeah. And you're just hopingthat it's out by the time you
come into work. The next day, Iget in my car, and I go help the
firefighters.
literally was like, wait, wait,your volunteer firefighter? How

(03:42):
did I not know? I'm like, Do youhave any property? But I feel
like sometimes you tell methings. I'm like, How did I not
know that about you? You likeyou're full of surprises, which
is, which is cool. I like that.
Yeah. A little bit of a mystery.
That's awesome. So yeah, I know,especially at nighttime, when if
you guys depending on where thefires are, if they're up in the

(04:03):
mountains up here, you guys haveto go pretty high. And you have
to start thinking about bringingoxygen with you. And especially
during COVID I remember lastyear fire season it was like a
weird thing because nobodywanted to put the same oxygen
tubes in Yeah,it was yeah, they we use them
but I think the highest everflown in a helicopter was 14
Five and that was for fire andfor covering the fire here in

(04:27):
California for about 13,000 AGLat night.
Wow. I've been up to 13 for askydive like to drop skydivers
off and a star and the doorswere off. It was February I
forgot my gloves for decision.
I'll like get out. I can't feelmy
fingers. No, it feels so weirdin a helicopter. It feels like

(04:52):
you could feel every littlething.
Yeah, it's a little unnervingespecially with the doors Yeah,
I'm pretty crazy, but why don'tyou go ahead and introduce our
next guest? This episode'spretty cool.
Yeah, so this week we arehighlighting a helicopter pilot
from Germany. He calls himselfan everyday normal pilot. But

(05:13):
his career has been far fromordinary, to say the least. He
has flown a range of helicopterplatforms from the Alouette the
bell to 204 the s 55 t.
And now he's flying the A W 169in support of offshore windmill
farms out of Emden, Germany. Soas part of that sure been a
unique one, and we're excitedfor him to be here with us to

(05:35):
share his story.
I think that's pretty bad. Yeah,that's pretty cool. In this
episode, Falco takes us throughhis experiences the challenge of
flying the sport of the windmillfarm, crew resource environment,
and the hazards of flying inicing conditions.
And speaking of icing conditionsstick around until the end of
the episode, we're going to havea short lesson on the hazards of

(05:55):
flying and icing conditions, thedifferent types of aircraft
icing, and what to do if youunexpectedly encounter it.
So chill out and enjoy theepisode. Falco buckle
when you fluff them up, andeverything was completely an
eyes. Anything outside at all?
Hi, my name is Faisal bug. AndI'm forever on the fly.

(06:26):
Be nice to meet you, amigo. Myname is Jose.
Awesome. You guys. Nice to meetyou, too. Thanks for being a
listener and reaching out. Oh mygosh,
anytime anytime I got time to soawesome. Awesome.
I was reading over your resume.
Man. I was like holy cow.

(06:47):
I mean, you can argue I mean,normally in this case, of
course, he was sector companyfor a long, long time. But as we
all know, you kind of move fromjob to job. Also, you know, life
is full of surprises. And ofcourse, throughout the career
paths, you kind of decide, Iwonder rather do this and that.
And, of course, things change.

(07:08):
When you sent me the email, andthe subject line said normal
everyday pilot, I'm like,alright, and I opened it up and
I read through your story, theshort version, apparently, wow,
this guy isn't a normal everydaypilot. But you know, it's kind
of cool. It's a really neatthing about the industry that
we're in is that if you're apilot, you're really never

(07:29):
living an ordinary life.
Everything you do is prettyextraordinary encase and boy,
look at what you do on a day today basis. What's your primary
job?
Okay, so right now, I work for acompany that's based on engine
that if you look at Germany onthe map, a second the top left
corner, and what we do is we flyoffshore technicians to the wind

(07:50):
turbine, so they're aboutAfrica, so maybe like 12 Wind
parts or something right now.
And they have between between 30and close to 100 turbines each.
And what we do we bring thosetechnicians to these wind
turbines need some technicalattention, so to speak, they
have some some arrows. Butthere's also like regular

(08:11):
maintenance that needs to beperformed.
Well, that's super unique. I'venever met an offshore windmill
farm pilot before lots of oiland gas pilots, but never a
windmill farm. Are there anyunique challenges that go along
with what you do? Can you walkus through a day in the life of
kind of a thing.
So the night before we get anemail, or we look online, our

(08:34):
schedule to see who's flyingwith whom the next day. And then
basically days, I could take afit aid. So you arrive about an
hour early. And then you doflight planning for about 15 to
20 minutes. And basicallydispatch has all the flight
route planned for you. And youjust have to calculate the
performance of the aircraft. Sowith the host operation, we have

(08:56):
to operate the machine, which inmy case is no Agusta 169. So we
have to calculate our sestinaperformance. And there is a 32nd
limit and then two and a halfminute or ei limit. And due to
customer requirements is eitherone of them, but it's mainly two
and a half minutes. And thenalso we have the wind. But we

(09:18):
can only use depending on theclient up to 75% wind or 100% of
the wind. Of course the wind is100% offshore. It doesn't want
that one is safety margin a caseyou arrive and the wind is not
as strong as planned, basically.
But if you imagine a wind parkfull of turbines, of course the
turbines create like turbulencebut also slow down the wind. So

(09:40):
let's say the Winnipeg assessingmassive from the sea is from
East West spread out and they'dsay the winters from the West,
but you're hoisting on the eastside. So although the wind had
to go through all the turbinesbefore that, and of course it
gets slow down a little bit. Andof course not as strong as
advertised. But yeah, this iswhy we have to do the

(10:01):
calculation. Yeah. And then webasically it's a team of
depending on what size isbetween two and four technicians
that will fly offshore. Sosuppiler co pilot hosts operator
who controls the winch in theback, and plus some base three
or two to four technicians thatwill fly offshore. And as you
can imagine, they bring a lot ofcargo with them, like cooling
fluids to specialized tools. Sobest case scenario if the wind

(10:25):
is strong, and everything fitsin the aircraft and we go
straight to the turbine andhoist the entire team down. And
that lasts about six, sevenminutes maybe depending on how
many high specs we have. If itstruck hardly anyone at summer
time hypertext system then wemay have to go to the substation
so every wind park has its ownconverter station in the middle

(10:45):
where all the turbine speedenergy true, then it gets
converted I think from DC to ACbut my boss had way around on
the show right now. But then itgets fed basically onshore where
that gets fed into the entireelectric grid system. So if we
have that heavier it's theperformance of course with our
minimum fuel. So but there mightbe times we have to fly to a

(11:06):
substation, leave some guysbehind if some power behind tie
them to the turbine hoist theguys down we have on board in
the car will then return back tothe substation collect the other
guys, bring them to the turbine,and then go back. Belinda also,
this is like the first time andbut then they're also certified.
We have like two through 12months. plan today. Then you
come back from your entrepreneuror let's see in my case, I did

(11:30):
pardon me a couple hours later.
Get all the guys again worstcase back in the substation,
back to the next tournament.
Doctor first load off back tothe substation get the other
guests remaining cargo back tothe next destination. And then
back to Mr. Volcom or whateverdestination can be dynamic at
times.

(11:52):
Are you operating at max grossweight most of the time? Because
yeah, sothis depends on which aircraft
types have flown some. So theone I'm flying right now it's
the booster 169 is certified upto 4800 kilos to hoist that wait
you know when you first startedout flying? Did you have any
idea that someday you would beflying technicians out to

(12:16):
offshore wind turbine farms?
No, not I mean, in my case to myfather used to be a full time
firefighter and to me as afirefighter and ammo or in
Germany in general, you alsoparamedic and there used to be
this air for Search RescueHelicopter, rebel 205 For Huey
that used to be based indowntown Hamburg is a big city

(12:38):
was about 2 million people. Andit served its main job was to
collect like downed militarypilots or any anybody pressuring
us. But in this case, it wasused for the military guys to
learn more about my like Level Aor level one trauma patients so
they flew within hammock city,like a heart attack case car

(13:01):
accident, any any trauma you canthink of so they did this and
they took firefighters like myfather along as a paramedic. And
this is how I was introducedinto like helicopters. And I was
totally blown away by the Hueysound and the downwash and the
smell of jet fuel in across thiscorner flies around. Totally me,

(13:24):
you know, it's not like theAmerican Hewitt country, but the
military use it also actually itjust retired now. So it was
flying until just recentlyactive active force, German
military. But yeah, but in mycase, actually, I grew up next
to the airport in Hamburg. So Iwas flipping a short cycle. So
the aliens came over all thetime. So I was highly impressed
by that also, then I thoughtmaybe become an airline pilot.

(13:47):
But then ended up beinghelicopter, so I'm happy with
that.
Not too bad. I know it was likea 205 landed at our company. The
other day we don't have one outour company. And we were all in
the pilot lounge you knowwatching a little TV and you had
as a very distinct sound, youknow the flap, like wah wah. And

(14:07):
all those kind of got up I'mlike, Who's this who's flying
that you know, there was a bunchof kids in a candy shop we're
looking at bit landed I'm like,Oh my God, I want to see his
cooloh, look a dolphin and then you
guys like what were you just runinto the pilot?

(14:33):
Yeah, no, I totally get it that.
I will say though the 169 Man,that's a pretty impressive
aircraft. You know, actuallyit is I mean, so my progression.
So I started finding God 22 Andmost guys make fun of me because
I'm quite tall. I'm like, almostlike six feet or some. And of
course it's hard to sit like atall guy in the sacrum. And but

(14:54):
when I became it struck down theleft seat, you got a little
bubble window. over your head.
And that took the form of myheadset, I got a bit more space,
I can fit quite nicely into anAR 22. But yes, I progressed
through the 22 different typesof toys into the glass probably
like an EC 1451 through fiveinto the, the H 145 into the

(15:16):
169. And the other ones, six,nine, I mean, we have some brand
new co pilots will come straightfrom our 22 into the 169. And
it's a gigantic jump I mean, Iwould be in their shoes, I would
be struggling it's just it'svery, it's not an easy aircraft
easy s and of course offer thesame, but I think it's easy,
it's difficult as far as thesystems and on the screens. I

(15:40):
mean, they and you also play theone night thing for See also. So
I have I mean a flu in the oldone on either a true model
something old, but also Yes,perfect. But that was on the one
side there's so much datapresented to you. So it can be
overwhelming you have to kind oftrain your eyes where to look to
find the data because everythingis thrown at you. And you can

(16:00):
argue it's good or bad. I meanon the flip side you have
everything you need right thereare no buttons to push, it's all
there what you want to see onthe Eurocopter ABA side is
smaller, like they show yousomething that's wrong,
everything works. The this thescreen is pretty much empty
that's only shows you what youneed to know. Of course you can
set it also chose more but mepersonally, of course, heavily

(16:22):
Europe the damage are in France169 I mean, it's I like it, it's
very powerful. Just anotherupdate coming up shortly can
even lift in more and oilconditions and also more
payload. But I mean, I reallylike it. It's complex, it's not
as easy to understand yet thisis called EDC use again, imagine

(16:42):
two iPads in the center consoleand you control like lights, few
whales fly plan, it's such agarment ish. But hence sound
it's not as intuitive as Airbus,but again, no offense to anyone
I mean, I like it. Okay,sorry, Leonardo. Best wins
again, like we say, well, youknow, I mean, I've just found

(17:07):
with any new aircraft that I hopinto, there's just a learning
curve. And you know, you know,you, you get into an aircraft
that presents you with moreinformation than you're used to,
at first, it's going to be sooverwhelming, and you're not
going to know where your eyesare supposed to go. But you
know, I mean, as you know, onceyou get some time in it, it just
becomes not like a secondnature, to abstract for your

(17:29):
eyes to go where they'resupposed to go. It's just like
you experience when you first doinstrument trading, everything
looks like, you know, even justa panel of an AR 22. And you
first hop in there is like, oh,you know, that's a lot of
information that I'm having tocollect to my brain. But our
brains are so adaptable. Youknow, we we learn fast, faster
than we give ourselves creditfor saying like, Oh, go ahead,

(17:55):
sorry,I'm gonna say you want to switch
back and forth between the onethrough five from the h1 for
five. It took me a minute tokind of excel in again, of
course apply the same but like Isaid, the end, you can use the
one machine unless even offertwo months or like it's five
weeks off or something. And thenyou come back my case, I have to
sit down again. Okay, this, Ineed a couple hours to get

(18:16):
totally back into it. Like,what's the 169 have about 400
hours now? And I've just meanabout like, was like 300 hours?
I started to feel okay in itjust because I mean, yeah. It's
yeah, it's not as easy for myopinion. But yeah, yeah, no, if
you don't care,I was thinking like, going back
to your co pilot site, you weresaying about the 22. Going to
the 169. I was putting myselfin, like their shoes. I remember

(18:41):
going from the 22 to the EC 130.
And I thought that was complex.
You know, I was like, oh, man,well, it is complex, but I can
imagine just having like, amulti engine aircraft, you know,
having all those redundanciesand understanding all the
different systems, they couldget a little overwhelming, you

(19:01):
know, and then only without youhaving to fly it as well, you
know, you I bet you feel alittle bit behind the curve.
When you're exactlyI mean, yeah. Finally, machine
is one thing. But of course,once you're immersed in the
operation, you bring it to modelsomething. Of course, this radio
communication is planning whatto do now. And of course, it's a
checklist to do. So in our case,it's all a multi pilot

(19:23):
operation, like I mentionedearlier, so yeah, one pilot
flying if one crew member andnon pilot flying, and we switch
around, so let's go and takeoff. So I will do the takeoff.
And then as we finish hoisting,I'll show me come back, then I
would give the control to the copilot and he gets to do all the
flying back and then whenever wetake off again, we're always

(19:43):
switch back and forth.
That's nice. That's like a it'salmost like flying in the
airlines or something. Theeffect Yeah, so in Europe, I
mean, of course, I spent sometime in the states and it's a
little bit different here as faras like In part 135 operation,
you can correct me but I thinkwe did a checkride every year
right? Part 135. Yeah, so in ourcase here, so what we do in this

(20:08):
commercial operation, it's likeone part 135. But we do it every
six months. So in our case, wedo every six months checkride in
a simulator. In our case, we flyto Italy to assess to Kelowna
and do it at the factory withassimilators or level D, but we
kept up by her own instructors.

(20:28):
And then the next six months, weeither go there again, or we are
still in the aircraft. So but inour case is twice twice the
amount of training.
So speaking of a big leap, Imean, you had a pretty big jump,
too. So you came over to theStates. You got all of your
certificates here atHillsborough, in Oregon, which

(20:49):
we knew another German guy namedFalk also.
Yeah, yeah. And EJFalcone, J, who went to went to
Hillsborough, as well, Germanguy that we flew with at one
point, but you went, you wentfrom flying an R 22, to getting
a job in West Virginia flyingthe bell to a four, and the s
55. Right off the bat, less than200 hours.

(21:16):
Good point. So I finished mytraining and his pro. And as you
can imagine that a lot of pilotsor CFI, stabalize being put out
every month, and back in 2006was done in 2007. But there were
a lot of guys, of course,applying for CFA job sort of guy
slept in all the flight schoolsall over the state. And I think
Silva state was still around abelief. But anyway, so it was

(21:39):
hard to compete against otherpeople. So and his probation,
they just started hiring when Iwas finished, so I was not able
to find a job. And then I waslooking around, but of course,
like everybody else in the setof resumes everywhere. And at
that time, you know, we alsotalked about net networking,
which is very important. At thetime, I was just, you know,
networking within a flightschool because I didn't know

(22:01):
anyone else. I didn't know any,like helicopter conventions or
anything. I was just focusing ongetting the license. So I was
looking online, a font, thiscompany was Virginia and they
advertised the job for a copilot initializer so I sent an
email say, hey, I'm interestedon this. Okay, come by. So I
drove by. I'm so sure that wasthe most vital part of site. It
was the s 55 t, the LOL tos andthen the Huey and the first one

(22:25):
company and and also writingOkay, so then let us chitchat.
It was the chief pilot. And atthe same time I was
interviewing, there was anotherguy coming from PGI with 4000
hours. And I was like Jesus, howam I going to get this job?
Anyway? I have no idea whatanything that's about a flight
school and I got my travel I butcustomer for now. You know, we
got limited time here in theStates. But long story short, I

(22:47):
was somehow I don't know why.
But I think even the job and thecompany itself, like I said they
did we use the ello wet for lowlevel gas piping control this
instead of containing the riskfor the sniffer box, and you get
from the gas companies like yourrelative to fly on this gas
pipeline, and you fly low levelover the trees up and down the
West Virginia and hillsidesbasically and sniff the air and

(23:09):
shoot the system detect any gas?
It would it would it would lookthat that location. And then we
just continued on and when we'redone flying, then we'll give
this file to the gas companiesand they can send the grantee
now and find the gastic and shutit basically. Yeah, so to
prosecute 55 T was used to dolike, you know, like sightseeing

(23:33):
rides like local festivals,orders fly by owners rich
friends around with that alsosee and hear us use is a
restricted category. It says youh1 B and of course it comes a
little dumb photo from Germanyjust company has no idea what
anything. And this machine wasin in the Rockman the movie and
like several big Hollywoodmovies, of course. Oh, yeah. So

(23:58):
this machine was used forfirefighting, and so some
training and that and also forthe web. But then as you may
remember, in 2007, August,September, the FAA announced
that they made a mistake back in1970s, maybe more 60s and said
Well, the other word is it's amilitary production aircraft,

(24:21):
therefore it's restrictedcategory, but somehow we signed
it off as a standardcertificate. So long story
short, the Bronner thataircraft, which kind of took
away the job that I had, that'swhat I was trained for. So the
company in the end kind of shutdown and it's been around for a
little bit because a huge partof it, but the rest is all shut

(24:44):
down to there and that was fine.
You know, living the dream inAmerica fake turbines, you know,
the cost the other word theoryand then of course, lose the job
and then then I went to normalway I should say do it the right
way. And then I started movingto Minnesota. We're then
structuring on the 20 to 44. Andthen later on the generator,

(25:07):
when people would ask you whatyou do and you tell them that
you were a helicopter pilot, didyou tell them you were a gas
neverhonest, I didn't have I mean, I
was just we had this trailer. Sothere wasn't any, like social
attraction was nobody asked uspretty sophisticated equipment.

(25:33):
So many American dream,you got to fly some really
interesting vintage raremachines. That's cool. I saw
recently the SFD five,incompetent, I didn't even
realize here at the airport,they have an aviation museum,
they had one sitting out on theramp. And I wanted to climb

(25:55):
inside of it so bad that theywould, they wouldn't let me but
it's really, really interesting,interesting aircraft. Did you
have the upgraded gas turbineengines in that one? Or was it
the old radial kinda,we had the turbine version. And
then we actually had two ofthem. But I think one of them we
sold too thin was Alaska. Andfunny story in the size of the s

(26:18):
55. Team. Obviously, that wasmuch used, but anymore, and then
I've put it correctly. And adultproduction like adult movie
production companies stop by andpurchase that extra for in
flight scenes.
Got it? And yeah, I could seehow that could be useful, man.

(26:39):
So they they produce producethose I did a little bit of
research after I saw it. Andafter I saw that you had flown
it as well, that they you know,they're built in the 1950s. And
then kind of got slowly takenover by the 204. And two fives
during the Vietnam era. Right?
Yeah, really, really interestinghistory behind the s 55. So
people want to go in and checkout all of that. But totally,

(27:01):
totally super rare, super rareopportunity that you had,
especially being a pilot withless than 200 hours jumping into
turbine aircraft. So you'reright. You're not a normal
everyday pilot, because notevery normal day pilot. Yeah,
get that kind of an opportunity.
Unless you're flying in themilitary. In that case, you

(27:22):
could be jumping into aBlackhawk doing voice missions
slip less than 200 hours.
I got really lucky. Reallylucky.
Definitely. on the civilianside. That's a very, very lucky
transition.
I would say.
So when when you how was itbeing German and a foreigner
living in West Virginia?

(27:44):
trailerdid say that. countryside
is beautiful. I mean, I mean, ofcourse I didn't. I mean, I knew
about West Virginia as adrummer, but I didn't know where
it was. It was like a beachanywhere like mountains or you
know, but yeah, it's verymountainous. I mean, it's, it's
really nice and above.
I love it. And I was actuallythere last fall. And yeah, it's

(28:08):
it's absolutely beautiful. Wegot a cabin up there. When I was
a kid, we used to vacationthere. Yeah, we used to get a
cabin up there. And yeah, it wasabsolutely beautiful in the fall
time now, like all the treeschanging and beautiful thing in
California, we don't really getthat, you know, the seasonal
changes. And I was reallymissing that about being in the

(28:29):
CGL here for us.
You know, someday we're allgonna have windows that just
sort of like change with theseasons to make it look like it.
Yeah, exactly. I'm sure theystill have this or they have
that already. But let's say youtransitioned for your license

(28:53):
from your FAA license to the EA,SA license. And I. And I looked
into that a couple of times.
Just out of curiosity, was itreally expensive? I mean, I saw
it was kind of like you had topretty much go through all of
your training again, and gothrough all the check rides a

(29:16):
lot of written tests. What wasthat process? Like?
Exactly. So where do I start? Sobasically, to make a long story
short, um, you? Yes. Ah, yeah,so they don't, of course, it's
an ICAO member country, or thecountries on your ICAO. But for

(29:38):
some reason, they decided atsome point not to accept any
American license anymore. Wewant you to do take all the
tests and start from zerobasically, they will accredit
you your flight time that youknow, the electric here in the
States, yeah, acquired. But asfar as the theory goes, you have
to start from zero. And so mycase By the time I started the

(30:01):
process, I was flying EMS inMinnesota. And I use the time as
a seven, seven roster, we did anEMS, so I used to time it off
and also on time, obviously, tostudy for the exam. So you have
to take, I think it was 14written exams. And it's about
it's whether you have to knowwhere the hair Toko house or
whether in July around Mexico,how about in fall in India, so

(30:26):
you have to know all the globalwind directions. And also
navigation, you have to learnhow to navigate around the north
or south pole. But almosteverywhere is north of 1000s. Of
for me what's quite difficultto, to comprehend on that. But
yeah, so it's an all the test totake the question that basically

(30:47):
it's a non open book test. Andalso what's tricky is, at least
when I took my exams in Germany,you have one question, three
answers. And one of them is theright one, but it's also a
little bit incorrect. So as theymake it even more difficult to
find the right answer. But yeah,you have to basically do like
200 hours on site with the localflight school. Besides all your

(31:12):
learning, what's called thePardis, near Long Term distance
learning course. You have totake all the 14 exams at the
flight school first, and thenagain, all of them at the
authorities again, and then Ihad to enter to Oxford and also
Europe, there is a type ratingfor everything I accept. And of

(31:32):
course in a state that type ofthing. I believe it was a
12,000. Exactly. So I had totake and soft cross pick the
cheapest aircraft or in thiscase was not 44 So I had to fly
10 hours to that one to get mycommercial license. And then of
course there's an IFR in eurofor single engine and then

(31:53):
there's an IFR for multi engine.
So since I flew the EC 145 I hada lot of IFR hours in the
States. But now I had to takekind of strange a to take a
simulator skill test and a 145in Germany, but then I finished
the IFR training because it wascheaper in an Agusta one or nine
and that a flight three hours ina one or nine and then five

(32:16):
hours in a very simple simulatorlike a stationary nonmoving
flight training device. Butspeaking of money, I think I
spent about 15 20,000 euros it'sabout $25,000 Just for the
conversion. Yeah, so it's so ittook me about now I would say
close to a year just to do allthis theory parts and as

(32:40):
studying it's like if youmentioned like kissing moms
anymore, but it's like you knowspread out that's how many books
you study. Yeah,you it's possible, but it takes
up did you have to pay all thatextra sim stuff out of pocket as
well or did it already hire you?

(33:01):
Know, so, I know there is nocompany that I know of service
sponsoring from zero so the guysare companies that may pay you
for your instrument. But yes,this is something everybody pays
on their own. So when you startfrom zero right now from zero to
commercial license withinstrument, multi engine IFR and

(33:23):
more to true training. You'relooking at about close to
100,000 110,000 euros so$120,000 Rhonda Bob Yeah,
was that still cheaper than juststarting your initial training
in Germany?
Right so So back in the days inGermany before I started flying
activity, I wanted to become apilot so I tried to join the

(33:44):
German air force and I pass allthe tests but I'm quite tall so
there was no demand for pilotsby the time we finished the last
test which I could have told mebeforehand Yeah, so did all the
tests for nothing basicallycome on like they were trying to
trap you is what they're tryingto do. They're like yeah, you
could like why don't you be apilot and they know it's cooler

(34:07):
as a tank driver.
But anyway, what was thequestion again?
Sorry? Yeah, why why? Why cometo the US did it your training
if you were just going back toyour point just saw this is why
I picked the states because I'mheaded on all the training in
Europe or Germany at least thatwould have been a bit more

(34:28):
expensive thing is states andalso the helicopter market in
Germany it's very very smallthere handful of operators and
this leads to my knowledge issuper super hard to find a job
was $200 so this is why I lookedaround and that's when I found
the American option. And theother thought looked at there
was ha I thought was really crapadventure. They can Florida

(34:51):
which is no Bristol and but thenalso looked at his for aviation
and it wasn't Oregon I thoughtwell, of course it's nice to
play It's a beach in Florida andno question about it. I'd like
to go there. But I thought forthe training, I think it's it
makes more sense to go toOregon, high density all it
should mountainous terrain,crappy weather. So I thought
maybe I should go there and takeas much as I can. And of course

(35:13):
the plan was to best case gethired by the flight school I
trained and then flightinstructor get my phone I was on
war, and then go back to Germanyand they get higher. But
obviously, I spent about eightyears in the states and where my
American wife who is also here,upstairs.
Yeah, that's awesome. I thinkyou made a good choice, you

(35:34):
know, going to Oregon, don't getme wrong, Florida would be nice,
but it's uh, we call thoseFlatlanders.
It's much better training and orin Oregon, if that if that's
what you're trying to get out ofit. I mean, like the only I
guess the only downside is maybesome days your your training

(35:55):
will take longer, because maybeit'll be IFR more days out of
the year, then, you know,somewhere like Florida, where
you might be able to knock outyour training really quickly.
But ultimately, I think it makesyou a better pilot having to
deal with the weather systemsthat are coming through and but
now apparently, you're wellequipped to fly in the north and
south pole. Because you know,all of the weather systems that

(36:15):
are gonna be coming throughthere.
I will say, I will say theantennas out there in Florida
are really high. There. So ifyou're not paying attention,
man, they hit you right in theface. Gotcha.
Yeah. Have you flown in Florida?
When you didn't tell me thatnow? What do you find?

(36:36):
very varied aircraft. Oh, godthat way. Cool. But um, oh,
going back to, um, your writtentest for like navigation for
your ATP? What is it similar tothe FAA one wouldn't even cover
like ADF vo Rs. Ils is you know,and all those different types of
things as far as the differenttypes of navigation and GPS, of

(36:59):
course, or what some of thatexcluded.
Alright, so in this case, thatwas the general navigation
subject. You're testing. Andthen there was the radio
navigation part of the exam. Soit was two sub two different
subjects. But like I said, allthe IFS stuff was mainly covered
in the radio navigation subject.
And, to my surprise, of course,I was used to the American

(37:21):
tests, although now not too bad.
You know, of course, you have toknow your stuff. But it's it's,
it's doable, since it's an openbook test, kind of with the FAA
system. But now here with thisone, of course, we have a
database that you can study. Butit's not really the same
questions that you get theclothes, but it's not really the

(37:42):
questions that you will get. Andyou really have to just a lot of
calculations, for example, onequestion is you fly from thing
or something like Paris to NewYork, at which point in your
flight, or actionable giftya latlong on the globe, somewhere in
the North Pole, for example. Andthey want you to know, I want

(38:03):
you to tell them, what is yourheading at this point, because
it's great circle, navigationdoes everything, it's curved.
And this is nice, long formulawe can use to calculate what
heading you have at each andevery point of your route. So
you have to have mass massbolts. I mean, I didn't I'm not
the greatest guy math anyway. SoI struggled. But yeah, I mean,

(38:25):
you can manage,man, they make it really
difficult for you. I mean, forhelicopters, the your chances
that you're going to be flyingfrom France
to France is not going tohappen, or
do you really need to know youryou know, I mean, what's the
practical application for that?
I think it's a littleunnecessary.

(38:45):
Actually, in my case, actuallygot lucky that turned up more
towards the tutor test towardshelicopter pilots. The year
before me, you had to calculatea Boeing 737 braking distance on
a wet runway. I mean, of course,it's nice to know, I guess, but
it doesn't help me much in WestVirginia, you know, going what a
Boeing 737 braking distance willbe on such a such runway.

(39:06):
That's how I felt with the FAAtests with their weight and
balance, or yeah, there we seenow, it's like you going in and
you're doing your part 22 Andthen you realize you get a
question on a 747 What's theweight and balance? Or what's
the CG on a 747? Like, I don'tcare
I mean, I get it, but I mean,like just
loaded up. I will figure it out.

(39:30):
I could see the argument forjust for just the general
understanding of how weight andbalance works in different
applications and differentaircraft like I could see what
that but like, you probably hadto learn Lorenz see you know,
nobody friggin uses thatanymore. What's the practical

(39:51):
application for that? They needto they need to upgrade their
stuff over there. It sounds likebut no offense to Europe. Let me
guysYeah, I mean, Europe, you know,
the I don't know. So you havethe European Union, because you
get your individual countriesand every country. So own little
aviation rules underneath thewhole gas regulation, Tory and
you have always some littlechanges are not all the same.

(40:12):
And so if I do my checkridehere, or if I do my conversion
into Germany, or France, therewill be differences for sure.
Oh, that's probably reallyuseful information to maybe a
European you came over here todo their training, and they're
thinking about going back home.
So yeah, no.

(40:33):
Yeah. I mean, it's again, it's alot of work, but it pays off.
Interesting. I think in the endthat his probation or actually
no and presto Academy, they dohave, I believe, he asked,
flight training department onhis own, I think everything took
all the tests, I believe inFlorida already. I think
now they do have a couplefriends. Do that product. Okay.

(40:54):
Yeah. Yeah.
Let's talk about your offshoreoil experience. I know I saw on
your resume that you had someexperience during Deepwater
Horizon working the oil spill.
Tell us about that. What wasthat experience like?
Yeah, so I just came to the endof my fire firefighting contract

(41:14):
in Minnesota, and then one guy,somehow put my name forward to
someone else in the companyneeded a pilot's note during the
Deepwater Horizon incident. Solong story short, I then hopped
in a car drove from Minnesotadown to Louisiana to Asheville.
And that's a lot of company wehad gentlemen are some long
retros and then we took theactress from their flow to leg

(41:36):
from volumes and had ourheadquarter or base at the
future of aviation check in areabasically. So we had biologists
on board from the US Fish andWildlife. And we flew this
technicians or traditionalstudents biologist, basically,
we flew them all the way fromLake Front to the shorelines of

(42:00):
Louisiana. So basically, we tookoff at seven in the morning and
flew to the all the way to Taoswest corner of Louisiana coast.
And for low level monic 1500feet and estimate remember that
what is like an oil absorbingbooms or fabric whatever laid
around the Louisiana coastline.
And our job was to fly alongthis coastline to take photos

(42:21):
office absorbing boom, so Susanin your audit oil at all, and
also to see if there any birdscovered in oil. And if you look
at Louisiana at the map, and youcan see where the Mississippi
River comes down into the Gulfof Mexico, that's this is kind
of where the worst oilpollution. That's where the most
oil was washed against the shoreand polluted the birds. There

(42:44):
were also lots of oil patchesfloating offshore around but you
had this thing was 3130Airplanes it spread chemicals on
top of these oil patchesoffshore. And that chemical
broke up the oil consistency,although the chemical
constellation so it's it's sandbasically so out of sight out of

(43:05):
mind, basically, but it wasstill there was just not coming
towards the shore anymore. Sowhen we were flying along the
coastline, we were flushing aburst and the one that didn't
fly anymore, we took a closerlook and it was usually the ones
covered in oil. So then I wouldland near with a boat was
running around. And then mycolleagues hopped out with the
big fish net and then tried tocatch the pelicans in this case,

(43:27):
but sometimes the Pelican hopinto the water and tried to swim
away. And then I move thehelicopter towards the Pelican
use a downwash to blow it backto my guys back to the
shortlands we could catch thePelican and then we put it in a
kennel legal dog kennel. Andthen we flew to clean facility
that was around abou still.
That's where the massive phibasis. One of them so we kicked

(43:51):
out the birds. And then we justwent back to our last location
and continued on flying all daylow level. What's the long range
on my case? We spent about six,seven hours every day for like
three, four months every day.
All over lose the end of thecoastline. Wow. Oh, poor birds.
I know. I felt like that. Yeah,I was I was there too. I was in

(44:12):
the Coast Guard during thatDeepwater Horizon. So I was
patrolling the outside of theoil spill and my 110 foot patrol
cutter out of Miami. I know Iwas like, That's so funny. We
probably cross paths like what'syours? Yeah, we were we were
isn't that funny how life works?

(44:33):
Sometimes. I mean, you know, beso interesting. You know, I wish
that there was some sort of anapp that shows like your path
through your entire life. Andyou see, and you can like
connect it to a friend orsomething and see where maybe
you guys have ever crossed pathsin the world and your entire
life. Yeah, you're really reallyinteresting for someone to come

(44:55):
up with that. And I'm sure withlike everyone having iPhones or
phones now something like Got itright now could get implemented.
Good figure that out.
I guess you could also ask theCIA I guess they would know.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, you know, I got my, myvaccine chips so well I'm very
trackable right now. Yeah. Yeah,that's so interesting. I was out

(45:20):
of Pascagoula, Mississippi. Idon't know if you're spending
time in Mississippi, Idon't know how to map within a
mobile and golf Porter thing,but I don't remember that.
Yeah, it's not that far fromokay. Yeah. So yeah, we, we were
out of there. But we were, youknow, patrolling around the oil
spill for about three months.
That we were down there. Soyeah, quite nice. Good job.

(45:43):
Awesome.
Crazy. That's really goodbarbecue down there. So cool.
Has there been a moment flyingIFR, out in Europe, that you
kind of got turned around or hadany spatial disorientation at
all?
No, not at all. I mean, so whenI was flying offshore, out of

(46:04):
Aberdeen and Scotland, so if youlook at England to UK top right
corner, that's where the mainbasis there's basically every
flight isn't an IFR flight thenall of them are and the two to
five that I feel it has iscalled limited icing clearance
and then there's also unlimitedicing clearance so limited you
can be in that aircraft type youcan collect up to 45 millimeters

(46:30):
of ice and then you have toeither climb or descend. Luckily
the North Sea never freezes overso you can always descend into
warmer air masses and then allthe ice shuts off the aircraft
and then you could climb upagain for example then the s 92
It comes with fully iceprotection system delivered
right off the door to koskie soit has heated plate heater

(46:53):
Although everything is heated sowe can stay with that one in
icing but our policy was weencounter icing evaded evade
ice, but I see why it's I mean,I picked up some ice when I was
flying EMS to us. It was a funnystory maybe so it was requested
like one in the morning andthere was a patient a little
child who might have might havein chested chick McNugget in his

(47:15):
lap, but nobody really knew butthis was the the situation we
had. So we flew this child to aspecial hospital like for
childcare and so we dropped themoff and turns out much cheaper
and again it's all fine it'seasy but yeah, so on the flight

(47:35):
back went back is fine of courseI've checked the icing levels
and everything and it wassupposed to be any icing at all
and upon entering the finalapproach fix of my approach to
my base I picked up all thesudden is so stuck the
windshield was unlike goggles,also images and I was surprised

(47:56):
about ice building up and twobottles already on a descent and
I didn't feel anything as far asan increase in talk or ratio but
I thought it was ice on theaircraft and of course was dark
so once the machine was in thehangar then I could have a
better look at them but thebloodshot eyes on of course the
nose. Basically everythingexternally had some ice on like

(48:16):
the horizontal stabilizer. So ofcourse there wasn't a great
moment. I mean, pilot site. Imean, I did my pre flight and
everything as far as planningand looked at all the
temperatures and ice levels. Butalso obviously well I can change
I experienced I think on on ajet that I was in and it happens
quite rapidly actually. It'ssurprising now fast. The eyes

(48:37):
can accumulate like on yourwindshield on the nose. It was
really fast. You know, ithappens and I can only I'd never
happened to me in a helicopter.
But I can imagine it's the sameyou know, like you could have
if you have ice on yourwindshield you definitely have
ice on your blades because ofaerodynamic cooling down in

(48:59):
there what kind of ice was it?
Was it clear ice rime ice? Yes alittle bit of everything.
I wanted to mix up bowls in thiscase, it was the only time I had
ice I had another colleague fromthe same base who was flying our
backup ship there was a BK 117 btwo and I was playing the C two

(49:21):
to the EC 145 is a C two isassessable Eurocopter you know
brand name I call it the H 145By definition, DK 117 D two
anyway according to the backupthe BK 117, b two and a severe
fascia and all the sudden he wassurprised to come he couldn't
see much outside in mostscholars zone. Then he flipped

(49:41):
them up and everything wascompletely an ice anything
outside at all. So he ended upleft and right everything was
good was just from was totallyeyes. So he ended up flying
sideways to the hospital whenyou arrive to see because he
couldn't see anything up. So yougot lucky. There was all of
nowhere Yeah No way and so is itimpossible to see ice when

(50:02):
you're under nbg goggles, nightvision goggles halos on the
lights or?
I mean, I haven't. I mean, in mycase, I mean, when I had my ice
experience so when you havegoggles on of course you're
you're also look underneath thegoggles, and look at instruments
and such because when you whenyou focus them as the

(50:23):
oscilloscope, if you look insidewith the garbage, you can read
the gauges or like very. So mycase, I think I spotted it was
more of an offside vision let usyou know, on my peripheral. But
actually so Minnesota with ATMs,we had a really popular crash
due to ice it was 2013 or 14,there was a mercy or helicopter

(50:47):
bill for seven that weredispatched for flight. And while
I worked the Mayo Clinic, wewere an IFR program. And but if
think about it IFRS nice to havewhen it comes to icing, you have
no alternative viewed as a basicVFR aircraft. So we turned flies
down other programs trying tofly down. But that program that
Mercia they accepted the flight,and they ended up flying through

(51:10):
freezing rain. And it was amatter of I don't want to say a
sec, but it was very rapidly.
The machine I stoppedcompletely, and then they had
retreating blade so and there'snothing you can do because the
aerodynamic forces didn't workthe way they should honor. The
blade has a totally differentf4. Now that's why you had very

(51:30):
their case. And if you imagine asister, when you have if I've
built up here becomes like awall. Sometimes it doesn't go
round, it kind of builds up thisway. So you
start angles probably way lowerthan what would be
expected. So ended up ended upbeing holed up in US crushing
over nose hitting a big wall offlames basically.

(51:54):
Wow. So sad. Yeah. So it's soimportant to do a proper pre
flight and make sure you're notflying into icing conditions. I
mean, obviously, like in yourcase, it kind of came out of
nowhere. And then but beingtrained on what to do in the
event that because you know welearned about that stuff on in

(52:15):
ground school. Right? Freezingrain. What do you what do you
do? How do you get out of thearea? But yeah, practical
application, I've never flownanywhere that was cold enough
where I really had to worryabout that. I mean, at the Grand
Canyon during the winter time,you know, there was, I don't
know some days where it waslightly snowing and the
temperatures were kind ofcloser. And if you don't have

(52:35):
experience flying in thosecolder weather areas, it's just
a lack of knowledge like a lackof knowledge. All I know is what
I've read in books but practicalapplication. I mean, Jose is
flown in Alaska, so he's got alittle bit more Oh, wow.
Window intense or temperatureintense. But what I mean, I
mean, so the books they and theysay when when I mean you know

(52:57):
your eyes sing, they see yourflight you're cruising. And when
you have an increase in torqueand a decrease in aspect and of
course vibration sets what TheBook says what the indications
are and again, I haven't had itthis bad that it had such
indications. It I think rightaway anyway when I have
something like it. But this isjust for the listeners who fly

(53:18):
in warmer temperatures and don'thave much experience flying in
colder temperature areas. Whenyou have increase in top
vibration speed decreases whiletrying to maintain your current
settings then you know you haveicing for sure. But I think when
it when you have suchindications, you spend too much
time with that weather already.
Yeah, with your operation thatyou do out in Germany. And I

(53:40):
know you said that when you flyIFR, you have certain like
limitations when you go fly dueto icing conditions, do they? I
think he said on the 169 itdoesn't have built in de icing
equipment like the ESP 32 does,but does it have a temperature
probe to let you know that youare icing? And my second

(54:02):
question is, do you get distamped like an FBO? Or at your
company for the time you do flyan ice?
Right so the 169 asked,certificate certification is not
allowed to fly known icingconditions at all. Leonardo
actually is working on gettingcertified so that there's

(54:22):
something in the bush likeplanning wise, but right now
it's nothing certified. So butif you encounter icing, I'm sure
it's the same as a part 135manual would stay the FTD and
put glycol or some alcoholicmaterial, take your good old
brush, you know room and spreadthe wings to get to get the auto
but in our case, it's vfio Fivebut we have to stay with to stay

(54:46):
out of the ice and conditionswas the one time
gotcha. Oh, no, perfect. The Ididn't know if there was a
standard of Operation measuresthat you would use in Germany.
You know, like, you know, likein the airlines how they could
spray down the wings and thewhole future too large. I didn't
know. I didn't know if that wassomething that they could do for
your aircraft.

(55:06):
I'm sure I mean, the 139 is alsomachine will operate and other
companies too. And the 139, youcan get a belief with heated
blades and such. But obviously,it comes with a cost. As far as
payload is also paid, of course,it's very, it's problematic and
like hot summer days. And ofcourse, the operator doesn't

(55:28):
want to spend too much time totake this kit off and put it
back on on and they havedowntime with the aircraft. So
all the machines that I knowthat flying in our area or
limited to non icy conditions,but but it doesn't mean of
course, it's important on thatI'm sure, Jose, Jose, right.
Yeah, I'm sure I'm sure theyhave, they have procedures in

(55:50):
place, such as like they callput in put in a warm hanger is
always a good idea.
It just makes me think that likeif there are standard procedures
in place for preventativemeasures, the more risk people
would accept. Does that. Doesthat make sense? I don't know.

(56:11):
It does come popped in my head,you know, when when people have
a little bit of a warm and fuzzylike, Yeah, well, I have anti
ice all over my aircraft. Somaybe I'll fly in that little
bit of a colder temperature thanwhat I would maybe normally be
used to, or I don't know, like,increase their level of
acceptable risk of what they'rewilling to do, you know,

(56:33):
exactly curious. And there'salso a thing as you can also
compare that was a syntheticversion, let's say the was the
169, or the h1 for five, youhave the synthetic vision screen
and the corporate. So let's see,if you find that whether in the
145 or 169, or anything that hassynthetic vision, you would feel

(56:55):
much better about lying in MAMCyou know, supposed to but you
see like houses, roads, rivers,valleys, so you can fly the
machine without hittinganything. Just looking at the
screen. Of course, it's notallowed legally to use it for a
while. But like you said, if youhave such towards me extra move,
some guys may elect to take aflight they would normally not

(57:15):
take under let's say if therewas flyers simply I covered us
steam gauges, no, no fancyforeflight iPad or something
Univision. So I think you'reright. And that that's, that's
also a chance that you're moreinclined to take higher risks
with more advanced technology inyour aircraft, that's for sure.
Yeah. Well, it still doesn'thurt to have that kind of stuff
on board. You just have to knowyourself. Pilots have to self

(57:39):
monitor and self check and makesure that we're making good
decisions out there and notpushing the limits. Doing
everything legally, that we'resupposed to. So do do what
you're supposed to do go whereyou're supposed to go and you're
gonna have a long, fruitful.
I do like how you? Yeah, I dolike how you guys find a crew
atmosphere, though? I do. Like,I do like to check the balances

(58:00):
of it.
Absolutely. So when I wasplaying in the states that EMS
of course sustained a pilot. Idon't think they have any say
any multi crew operation and thestate's EMS. Maybe, maybe ePHI.
Maybe they do for EMS. Yeah, notthat I have Boss,
boss Medflight maybe I'm notsure. I think it was somewhat

(58:23):
motocross thing is reallyhelpful. Especially, there's
also another story so when I wasflying the 145 in the states
part 135. You know, we have thiscategory A is this push button
in the in the easy one for five?
I'm like, What is this buttonfor our favorite avoid us?
That's fly way one. It's allfine. So when it came to Euro,
no, no, no, you gotta flycategory April file fee. This

(58:44):
vertical, you know, technicalprofile landing was decision
point landing decision on yourTDP, LDP and V toss and Vy and
all this for file stuff. So thisis where we're most improved,
comes in quite handy withsomething if an engine fail on
takeoff, then as a crew, youkind of talk each other, what's
happening, and that just makesit especially emotions of any

(59:04):
kind was a fire hydrant engineof fire. That's a big procedure
to follow. And doing the thing apilot, it's, it's so much better
than what you grew. Yeah,I think so.
Checks and balances, man. Yeah.
God,I wish we didn't take care of
here. I think I know, it's notas feasible at times, you know,

(59:24):
due to the company. Yeah, butit's more money. No, no, a lot
of, I don't know, an EMS inEurope. Is it a profitable
business? Or is it likegovernment run paid by taxes or?
Yeah, I'm just I'm just curiousat the differences because in
the US when it's, you know, acompetitive market between EMS

(59:45):
companies, exactly, you know,and they're, you know, they go
off of how much money they'regonna make by only putting one
pilot on versus having to paytwo pilots to be there. But if
it's You know, paid for by thegovernment in the in Europe, it
might be a little bit of adifferent situation. In Germany,

(01:00:08):
we have two major EMS players,one of them was called ad AC.
It's all these yellowhelicopters here on YouTube
doing a crazy, you know, narrowlanding like tied to sections
like someone's backyard or frontyard or something. And then you
have the DRF. So the ADC islike, also called a triple A in
the States as car insurance is atriple A. So ATSC is like, like

(01:00:31):
a, like a car club. So you paymoney. And so they have lots of
fundings that they used fromlike normal automobile drivers
to finance the EMS basis. Buthow it works here. The local
authorities at some point theydecide, okay, we have that many
people living here, we need theEMS helicopter. And it should be
based here who wants to put atent or like a built in for this

(01:00:53):
base. And of course, then EricNDRF has put the button. But as
far as money goes, whereverTexas patients say it's a fixed
governmental patient rate. So nomatter who's flying, that is my
knowledge should I give myfriends flying EMS is the fixed
value that's being paid, andevery base that they get this,

(01:01:14):
it's not forever, but seems likefive, something five plus years
or something and then it getsthis another 10 we can best case
maintain the space or you haveto vacate it or go somewhere
else. And so as far as EMS inGermany, they just start to do
IFR and but it's nothing likewhat I experienced in the

(01:01:35):
States, America is usually aheadof the game when it comes to
aviation in Europe or Germany.
So we had lots of hospital basedGPS approaches when I was flying
in EMS in Minnesota here. Thisis you cannot imagine it's such
a procedure is horrible.
Mentally, it takes ages and youhave some guys that are really
stubborn and certain agencies tohave the arkoma back in the day,

(01:01:59):
we didn't need GPS coordinates,just lay on the clouds, you know
all the MC. So now slowly startto introduce GPS approaches.
Daytime is all sing a pilot as apilot. It's paramedical nurse,
but then it's an emergencydoctor. At night you have
another pilot. So nighttime isalways more to crew as far as
two pilots up front. But daytimeis usually a pilot and an

(01:02:21):
paramedic and a nurse, paramedicand a doctor or nurse and
doctor.
Nice.
That is awesome. We don'treally do dual dual pilot. But
when we going back totransitioning into a more
complex aircraft, the way ourcompany does it here is when you
transition into the 109. Evenafter you've passed your

(01:02:41):
checkride, they still have youfly with another qualified pilot
for like X amount of time, theydon't really have anything
specified, it's more so just tomake sure that you're still you
know, comfortable and gettingfamiliar with the mission
getting familiar more familiarwith the aircraft and seeing the
procedures being done over andover and over again. So it's

(01:03:01):
kind of a nice, it is nice, it'sa nice thing that they do to
help transition into a multiengine aircraft. If you've never
flown. It helps out a lot.
Right now my case I had alsolike I said, when I started EMS,
I had a month of day shifts onlyobviously because you don't want
to start at night agreeing onlike I was going to study the

(01:03:24):
MS. But you have to have thenormalization of pilot who was
flying with you all the flights,like you said for like four
weeks or so and then they letyou go and it's the same in
Germany also you start here.
They also have like, whateverspecialized instructor pilot
online trainer here, but it'sthe same basically.
Peanut butter jelly. So I willsay I want to fly in Europe. I

(01:03:46):
want to live in Europe so bad.
He speaks a little italiano. Hewants to
cool. I was like I just want tomove to Italy, northern Italy.
And that's really nice. At somepoint come over here find my
senior Rita.
Yeah. And I thought about ittoo. So just a long story short,

(01:04:12):
I'm I come from a family ofSephardic Jews from the Iberian
Peninsula and we have a dealwith Portugal where if we get
confirmation from a rabbi andbasically just hire a lawyer to
help do the paperwork, I couldget my European passport. I

(01:04:33):
could get a passport for Yeah, Icould get a passport for
Portugalwho should give me your shirt?
Yeah. I you know, it's it's oneof those things it costs like
not not even that much. I thinkmy friend did it and I think
hers was like three grand, butyou know, she would have the
opportunity to be able to workin Europe and I was just kind of

(01:04:53):
curious if I did that and I howmuch the transition would
actually cost me to get mylicenses over to isa Yeah, yeah,
no, that's I was also reallycurious about that. And like,
I've never actually talked toanyone who's done it before. So,
yeah, I mean, like I said, Yeah,I mean, it's totally possible.
It does take some time. And ifyou were still flying job we've
had some time off during theday. Yeah, that's useful for

(01:05:15):
studying, you know, all thismaterial that I mentioned
earlier. But see, if you have,for example, this company that
you know, Ericsson, you know,that are firefighting in
America, in Australia, inGreece, and Wales and Portugal
also. So if you would have ifyou're citizen, European
citizen, so you can fly anywherefor errors. Yeah.

(01:05:39):
Before you get to your Mexicancitizenship, and you could get
me my year, soeven even with triple pass, even
with someone like Ericsson, thathas contracts all over the world
like that, even with contracts,they require you to have the
European license. They don'thave any sort of exceptions. If
you're only going to be therefor like, a couple months with a
company.

(01:05:59):
I think, I think they're kids, Ibelieve to have a, like a
specialty. I'm sure that youbecause you're flying American
clients. Exactly. So I'm sureyou wouldn't have to but I
thought maybe it's another bonusfeature. Yeah, sure. I got
European citizen, no big deal.
Yeah. Yeah, I guess it goes offyour tail number, right. So if

(01:06:22):
you're because I looked intoflying conservation in Africa,
and a lot of the Oh, wow. And alot of that aircraft over there
are not a numbers. And so yeah,depended, you know, you'd have
to get a South African license,or some of them require the
European licenses. But if youcan get a rare opportunity where

(01:06:42):
you find an aircraft over therethat they're flying that has an
n number, then I think they saidyou can have an FSS. Oh,
interesting. Thank you so muchfor sharing your story. I love
having helicopter pilots onhere. That's the majority of the
world the majority of ourlistener base is helicopter
pilots. And when we look at thenumbers and downloads and
streams, all of our helicopterepisodes are like twice as much

(01:07:05):
than the airplane guys eventhough like we love our we love
all of our guests. And our fixedwing guys are still awesome. But
definitely our listener base, Ithink really enjoy hearing about
helicopters and helicopterexperiences, because there's not
a lot of podcasts out there thatfocus on helicopter. So exactly,
know exactly between you and Idon't know if you listen to our

(01:07:26):
episode with Tom Ostrom, fromYeah, from Norway. And he also
had the same thing where hetried to go the military route,
and it didn't work out. And hegot a little discouraged and
kind of got out of it for acouple of years and then
revisited aviation after he hada couple of different jobs in
the military, doing otherthings. But it kind of just

(01:07:49):
shows that, you know, don't getdiscouraged if like your first
plan doesn't work out. Becausethere's so many other
opportunities out there. Andlife is kind of just pointing
you in a different direction.
Like man, like this is adifferent path that you're
supposed to go. And so yeah,people out there who maybe first
attempt something and even notan aviation but like, you know,
the first attempt or first dreamthat you're going after, if it

(01:08:12):
doesn't work out, there's areason for it. And there's
another path for you. And it'salways going to be other
opportunities and window closes,another door opens or whatever,
I don't know.
I mean, in my case, I mean, Iwasn't the smartest kid in
school than back in the days, Icouldn't even give you couldn't
even say simple English sense. Iwas privy to all the

(01:08:35):
vocabularies. I couldn't evensay normal sense of anger. So,
but what I'm saying is, but if Icould achieve what I did, and
everybody else can, of course, Ihad to work hard for it. Mastery
came really for nothing for me.
But I think I just hope what Isaid today, the shows everybody,
you know if a foreigner can doit from Germany was in America,
and if you work hard, if youwork hard and be nice to

(01:08:59):
everybody, something willeventually work out for you.
Absolutely.
Thank you, Miguel. Thank you.
You're selling yourself short,though. You know, if you could
calculate the distance fromParis to New York, I think
you're doingyou're heading is on 32 00 0.1,
North 40.

(01:09:23):
Right now, I would fail the testguaranteed.
And that's the thing with thesewritten tests, they make them so
complicated, and you study theirbutt off for them. But there's
no real practical applicationfor some of the stuff you learn
in there other than justInternet being like, yeah, you
could learn that for a shortperiod of time. But because you
don't use it, you lose it. Youknow, I'm not going to go out

(01:09:45):
there and navigate with Loran.
But you know, you have to learnit. You have to learn it for a
stupid written test. And then assoon as you're done with that
test, your brain is like, well,I don't need that anymore. Just
dumps it, you know?
Yep, yep, short term memory.
they justlearn it for the written and
then you just get rid of it andmake room for all the stuff that

(01:10:05):
you actually do need to know.
And store in there for theactual practical application of
flying and the mission thatyou're doing. But yeah, so
question How about you guys? Youguys have any dreams? Anything
you guys want to pursue in youraviation career? Anything? Yeah,
definitely. I want to live inEurope. Yeah. That's this whole

(01:10:29):
thing I figured out I'll figureit out.
I want to go to the moon. I wantto go and Falco
basics, though. Yeah, numberone.
You know, I had a potentialopportunity to fly a jet PAC
right off the bat. And it justfelt through last week. And

(01:10:50):
yeah, unfortunately, the companyabruptly dissolved over some,
you know, drama between owners.
But yeah, it's a reallyunfortunate because I was like,
oh, yeah, I'm gonna be able tobuild my 1000 hours a PAC jet
time, I'll go to test pilotschool and Bing, bang, boom,
NASA. Here I come. But yeah,that didn't quite work out for

(01:11:11):
me. But who knows. I mean,there's, again, when it doesn't
work out, there's a reason forit. And yeah, something better
might come along. You know, whenI was growing up, I just, I
wanted to be an astronaut. Sobad. My entire room was just
filled with space stuff. And Ihad this mural mural on the
wall, you standing on the moonlooking down at the Earth. And I

(01:11:33):
just had a vision recently oflike, how crazy would that be if
that actually, you know, cameinto fruition? And I was staying
on the moon looking down theearth like, Huh, that's funny.
manifested that from childhoodcrazy. Yeah, I don't know. Well,
we'll see some other dreams, Iguess other than flying dreams

(01:11:53):
is also just creating programsthat are inspiring kids and
getting youth involved inaviation. And right now we're in
the midst of planning thisreally big Aviation Day for
middle and high school kids. Imean, people can bring their
kids of all ages, but we're kindof catering more towards middle
high school students, we'regoing to have a career seminar,

(01:12:13):
helicopter flights, airplaneflights, vendors, it's going to
be like this whole 500 personevent show Minier Yeah,
basically a mini air show. It'sa lot of planning a lot of work.
But I think in the end, it'sgoing to be worth it. And I'm
really passionate about sharingmy passion for aviation and
getting more people involved. SoI guess, you know, creating

(01:12:35):
something out of an idea, Iguess, is getting to use my
creative powers and gotta startsomewhere. Yeah, exactly. So
yeah, that I guess that'sanother a dream. I want to start
a nonprofit foundation and startoffering flight scholarships.
And, you know, I'm in the, inthe midst of, I guess, building
Yeah, building somethingbeginning So beginning at that

(01:12:59):
stage. So that's pretty much it,man. It was such a pleasure to
meet you. And thank you againfor coming on so much, guys.
Let me go that was awesome.
Thank you guys. Bye.
Alright, guys, school is insession. Let's talk about icing.
Icing. It's gonna make you wantto snow cone after this. What is

(01:13:23):
aircraft icing? It's when ice isaccumulating on the aircraft
structure, or the inductionsystem, which is where you know,
the engine get this air from, wekind of need that. So what are
the different types of icing,we've got clear ice, and for
airplanes, this can turn intowhat they call swept back icing.
This is the worst it's heavy,it's clear, it's dangerous,

(01:13:47):
mostly accumulates intemperatures approximately
negative 10 to two degreesCelsius, or large water droplets
don't freeze immediately. But asthey move over the airfoil
surface, it freezes in a sheetof ice. So for airplanes, this
is increasing the weight, nevergood for performance. And it's
also changing the aerodynamicproperty of the airfoil itself.

(01:14:09):
Also, not great for performance.
And if we're talking abouthelicopters, or then all of
those things that we justmentioned, that sheet clear ice
can break off your blades and gointo your tail rotor. And I
wouldn't want to be that pilotthat day. No, thank you.
Rhyme ice is a lighter OPECbrittle and forms in temps

(01:14:30):
approximately negative 20 tonegative 15 degrees Celsius. So
a little cooler, where the smallto medium size water droplets
freeze on impact, whichsometimes can form a horn on the
leading edge of the air foilchanging its aerodynamic
properties.
And this one this one looks likea snow cone kind of makes me

(01:14:50):
want to like there was somegrape on there. Next I Can I get
an upgrade to a combo? We gotclear eyes we got rhyme And
together, we make a no goodsituation, it forms in
temperatures between negative 15and negative 10 degrees Celsius.
So get a little bit of both, butsame, same, same, same, same,

(01:15:14):
but same dangerous propertiescan can occur on this as well.
So maybe one day you gotoutside, you're doing your pre
flight and you see a little bitof frost on the blades. And
you're just like, oh, that'sjust a little bit of frost.
That's not going to hurt anybodywrong. You guys might be
wondering, what's the danger? Alittle bit of frost on the
blades? Well, have you guys everseen a Christmas story? I'm just

(01:15:39):
saying, when he got his tonguestuck on the pole. Same thing
happens when there's visiblemoisture in the air and you got
a little bit of frost on thehelicopter. So all it does is
make the ice stick easier. Sowhy would you want that, get it
in a nice warm hanger and removeit from the aircraft,
induction icing. For the engineto run smoothly and produce a

(01:16:00):
power as opposed to we need aclear path for the air to be
sucked into them be compressedand burned. If we have icing
forming on our induction system,we're going to lose some power
if not all the powerPeto static icing can also form
on both your pido tube and yourstatic ports. And if your
Peugeot two gets blocked, youcould find yourself without an

(01:16:20):
operating airspeed indicator. Sothis is definitely not something
to take lightly. I know we jokearound a lot, but I think is a
very serious situation. And wehave to do our best if you're in
an aircraft that's not rated togo into icing conditions.
Don't do it.
Don't do it. Just stay out do aproper pre flight. Make sure

(01:16:43):
that if you're in cold weatherenvironments, that you're doing
a thorough pre flight to makesure that you're not in close to
freezing temperatures with highhigh water and moist visible
moisture.
If you're flying you catchyourself in an icing condition
as a rule of thumb is to climbor descend 3000 feet. Now that's

(01:17:04):
not always possible due to thecircumstances of ceilings or the
train below you. But if you docatch yourself in icing, get out
of those icing conditions andclimb or descend 3000 feet,
that's usually a good altitudeto be able to get out of some of
that visible moisture and changein temperature.
Yeah, so temperature will changeto degrees per 1000 feet. So

(01:17:25):
3000 feet is a good six degreedifference, which could you know
mean the difference betweenicing icing and not icing, we
say close to freezingtemperatures because of
aerodynamic cooling. So whenwe're producing lift, we're
decreasing the pressure on thetop of the airfoil, which also
decreases our temperature on topof the air foils dramatically.

(01:17:47):
So if you're flying in acondition where you look at your
outside air temperature, and yousee that it's you know, five
degrees and below and you'reinvisible moisture, those are
prime conditions for aircrafticing, especially if your air
foils. And the ways that you canrecognize that you're getting
into icing if you see itstarting to build up on your

(01:18:07):
windscreen or on the Skids. Oron any part of the aircraft
structure you can you can bestbelieve that you have icing on
your blades as well. And you'regoing to notice that you're
going to have an increased powerdemand higher torque than what
you had been flying with. And inthat instance, you want to get
out of the area as soon aspossible away from the visible

(01:18:30):
moisture and either climb ordescend like Jose mentioned so.
So just like warming up the air,getting the air even cooler, is
also going to help that's why hementioned climbing 3000 feet. So
if you decrease the temperature,you're getting into a situation
where the moisture is alreadyfrozen enough where it's just

(01:18:52):
going to bounce off the surfaceand it's not going to stick. So
that's what we're trying toavoid here guys. I hope you
enjoyed this episode. We reallyappreciate everyone's support.
Thank you guys for listening in.
I hope this episode waseducational at the end here. And
we love you guys. Don't forgetto leave a review and a rating
on Apple podcasts again, itreally helps us out. Thank you

(01:19:13):
guys so much for listening, andwe'll catch you next time adios
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