February 8, 2021 • 42 mins
This week's guest hails all the way from the fjords of Norway! He is a very talented utility pilot, safety manager, and photographer. On this episode, Tom shares his unique journey to becoming a utility pilot in Norway, and the benefits of working as a load master for a few years prior to getting into the right seat on complex utility missions. We all know flying helicopters is not a typical job, and we operate them in risky environments. As the safety manager for his company, Tom has the opportunity to create a work environment that orbits around safety. We really dive into the importance of risk assessments and aeronautical decision making by providing a couple of real life scenarios on how to mitigate risks. Hope you enjoy the episode!
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Unknown (00:02):
You're listening to the forever on the fly podcast
Hello, aviation nerds. You knowthere comes a time in every
aviation podcasting host slashpilots life when you have to go
fly for the day and leave yourpodcasting partner to do an
(00:22):
interview all by her lonesome.
And unfortunately, that day wastoday for Mr. Hernandez. He will
be missed on this one. But nofear. I am here to carry the
torch that is getting all of youhooked on aviation and I do not
take that responsibilitylightly. So let's get the mood
back up and talk aviation. Ournext guest hails all the way
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from Norway, very talentedutility pilot and photographer
you guys might know as at thathelicopter guy. I know I've been
a big fan for about a year now.
And he's here to chat abouthelicopters. He's here to chat
about how he found his passionfor aviation and his career path
that he took and why he chosethe route that he did benefits
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of working as loadmaster priorto getting into that right seat
safety and his favorite riskassessment model. So here is Tom
Athrun.
It's about mitigating the risksof that you can then kind of
accepting that there are somethings you won't be able to do
much about. Hi, I'm Thomas Blum,and I'm forever on the fly.
(01:32):
Hey, you're that helicopter guy,right? That's correct. I've seen
you around. Well, dude, I loveyour photography. I've been
following you on Instagram for awhile now.
Thank you. And likewise, thankyou for having me.
I really love it when I can seepilots and people in aviation
and a great creativity intoaviation and into their AV
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careers. What came first, didyour passion for photography
come first? Or did you get intoaviation and then kind of figure
out later on that you wanted tocombine the two, it was
definitely aviation person. Sothat's been a childhood dream of
mine to fly. So I'm basicallyliving my dream. And then
eventually I realized that, youknow, taking pictures, that's
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kind of cool. I had while I wasa loadmaster, I flew with a
pilot who brought his cameraalong. And I started borrowing
his camera for a little bit, andthen decided to buy my own. And
that's how I got started. Andobviously, I didn't anticipate
it going this far. Yeah, it'sbeen a it's been a fun ride. And
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it's, it's nice being able toshare some of the news or be you
know, the more prettier sides ofthe job. I mean, definitely see
a lot of other stuff that's notright there on Instagram all the
time. But it's it's fun to beable to share a bit, please.
You know, those of us who likesharing our jobs on social
media, we do what we can toshare what we can about the work
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that we do, and things that weget to see we can't show it all,
unfortunately. But now you didmention to me before that flying
has always been a childhooddream of yours. Can you just run
us through your story? So whatinitially sparked that passion
for aviation? And how did youget to where you are today?
Well, it's just ever since I waslittle, I've had like this
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romanticized view about flying,you know, it's pure magic, you
know, and that kind of stuckwith me, but for a long while,
in my childhood, I didn't kindof think that I could be a
pilot, it kind of seemed likesomething you had to be like an
extraordinary human being to,you know, be able to, to get to
that point. So I didn't reallythink I was gonna be able to go
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that path until I actuallystarted. Well, maybe just before
high school, I started seeingthat. Okay, so these are
actually people, you know, I canI can definitely give this a
shot. So that's when I startedkind of doubling down on, you
know, thinking about how can I,you know, make a career in
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aviation. And I very quicklyrealized that this considering
my romanticized view of flyingand I want to be a pilot pilot,
and, and this is not, you know,talking down anyone that flying
highly automated helicopters oranything like that, but to me,
it was very much about beingable to kind of master the
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machinery by your own byherself. And, and I've, after
having done a lot of research, Irealized that helicopters was a
very good, good entry into thatkind of an area or a segment of
aviation that is veryspecialized. And that requires a
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lot of training, you know, it.
It doesn't take that long tolearn how to fly but it takes a
long time to master a helicopterand obviously, you know, we're
never fully taught but it's akind of like that, you know,
it's kind of a craft. And ittakes time to get there. So, so
I started tinkering a bit withflight simulators in high
school. And that kind of justcemented my view that this is
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something I want to do, it wasreally interesting. And I
started taking LIDAR lessons inhigh school that didn't really
pan out because of the logisticsthat were very, very tricky to
get a hold on, I did someparagliding, because that was
easier. And then I gotsidetracked for a little bit. In
the army, I tried out for theAir Force did not make that cut,
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which was a major setback for meat the time. And it was kind of
hard to, to kind of be motivatedafter that. So I instead of
joining the Air Force here,because we have to do a year of
mandatory service here in noway, I decided to join the army,
I wanted to get as far away fromAir Force bases and anything
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like that. So I joined anarmored battalion, and kinda
didn't think about aviation thatmuch. Until maybe six months
prior to getting out of thatservice, I decided that you
know, what, I know other pilotswho did the same thing they
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tried out for the Air ForceAcademy and failed. And, you
know, it's, it's not easy to getin the year I applied, I think
they had 1000 Plus applicantsfor like, 12 positions. So I did
realize that it's possible to,to become a pilot and not, you
know, go the Air Force way toget go about it. So that's kind
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of, I started finding mymotivation gradually. But then
again, I was sidetracked by ajob offer in the army and I
stayed on in the army foranother three years, I had a
great time there. But at thatpoint, when those three years
are up, I realized that now it'stime to get down to flying. And
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so I started in flight school,here in Norway, and had a lot of
fun, I realized very early onthat, you know, it's very easy
to kind of, always think aboutwhat's next, you know, but I
wanted to take a minute to kindaenjoy what I had at the time.
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And you probably won't have asmuch freedom when it comes to
flying in your career or anyother place later on. So I
decided to do my best in termsof appreciating the freedom I
had in flight school, orwhenever I had solo flights, or
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navigation fights, cross countryflights. I tried to think
outside the box a little bit,and just try to keep it fun, you
know, and actually enjoy thefact that you're out here
flying. So that was, that wasfun.
I definitely think the most funI ever had was when I was in
flight school, but you don'trealize it because the grass is
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always greener, right on. Okay,I just have to get through
flight school, so that I can getto my dream job, I can get to
the dream platform that I wantto be flying. But yeah, what
people really don't realize islike, Yo, you have your own
aircraft, and you get to go onthese cross countries. And hey,
let's just go get lunch over andCatalina, at least over here,
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you know, which is somethingthat I think a lot of students
because to get motivated to getthrough flight school because
it's so much work, and you'reworking so hard to attain a goal
like you forget to enjoy thejourney along the way. So I
think that's a really importantmessage, but totally like we
romanticize aviation. Before weactually get into it, we see
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these pilots as like gods,right? Like, oh my god, like, I
can't I want to be used someday.
And I hear that from people towhere it sounds like they're
romanticizing the job as if it'snot an attainable goal, but it
totally is like we're all human.
I mean, definitely some pilotsthat I've met were like okay,
you are definitely not a goddude. Sure, yeah. name any names
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but some people along the wayyou're like, Okay, bro. Like
it's kind of funny, but I hope Idon't come off as like sounding
superior like I'm deaf. Oh,no, no, that's I think everyone
can relate to that one.
Not God's gift to flying youknow any mean? I have my own
faults obviously, like we alldo, but we learn from them
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right? We learn from themistakes we make along the way
and that's ultimately how wegrow as pilots is like
it's so annoying when you seepeople that are flying. Flying
Yes, 90 two's for example,offshore and being very superior
towards people that are flyingand are 44 on sightseeing, for
example. I mean, it's not acompetition you know? It's an,
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you're just as much a pilot, ifyou find the 44, as 92, you just
have a different, you havedifferent things you have to
focus on, you know, it's adifferent job. But I mean,
there, you both pilots andflying a Robinson doesn't mean
you're any less of a pilot. AndI just hate it when people kind
of draw those conclusions. And,and that's, you know, with every
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comic career, you know, it's theyour job title doesn't reflect
the person you are at all. Andit should not come off in any
other way that you know, you'reyour own individual. And what
you do is, you know, doesn'treally matter that much. It's
how you do your job. If you'reflying that 44. If you're being
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irresponsible, and disregardingrules and regulations and
limitations. Obviously, you'renot fit to fly that but you
could be fine s 90 to beviolating the procedures just as
much. So it's more about how youdo your job, then you know what
kind of aircraft you're doingthat job. And so it's all about
the airmanship and making sureyou you you do your best in
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terms of decision making andgetting everyone back home
safely.
Yeah, I mean, if you can buy anAR 22 You can basically fly
anything.
I know, right? Yeah, I know. Imean, I would like to see, you
know, and that was reallyhumbling. I, when I came to heli
Expo in January, I I got to goflying with York from I fly
heli, Instagram. And I wasreally grateful for being able
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to go with him. And we took theCatalina round, which was
amazing at sunset, it was just,yeah, that was pure gold. It was
very humbling. Because I mean, Itook the controls in the crews,
they're on our way, way outthere. And then I was tasked
with landing as we came back.
And let me tell you, that washumbling for sure. I mean, I
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that was not pretty that was Iwas in the final five. Yeah, I
mean, I thought for sure that,you know, I yeah, I've flown 22.
You know, that was 12 years ago.
And yeah, for a whole lot. Andthat was that really kind of
that was very humbling. I mean,the flying the 350. And, and
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getting that experience. And Imean, I was able to land
eventually, but it was notpretty. I looked like a student
pilot. Yeah, that was definitelyhumbling.
So you went through flightschool? And did you already have
a job in mind of a career paththat you wanted? Did you know
what you wanted to do?
Yeah, I I'm kind of geeky in theway that when I set my eyes on
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something, I kind of double downon doing the research and all
that. And I. So I, I did a lotof research into the market that
I wanted to fly, I picturedmyself, okay, so what is the
job, I want to what's my dreamjob. And I started kind of
talking to people that was doingthat at the time, and figuring
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out how I could kind ofduplicate their paths, career
wise. And I actually linked upwith a couple of guys who were
flying in a company that I'm nowflying for an extreme sports
event where they were flyingparachute jumpers, and I
actually tagged along with themfor a couple of days, I was
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about maybe 17, or something atthe time. So I tagged along a
bit and realized that yeah, thisis definitely the kind of flying
I want to get into. I knew thatutility flying was, you know, in
terms of what I was sayingbefore this being a craft, and
it takes a long time to come getgood at it. Figuring utility is
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kind of sort of the pinnacle ofthat, in many ways. To me,
utility firing is what I see asthe pinnacle that obviously
doesn't mean that there are notother parts of the industry that
are at least as challenging andrequires as much skills to
operate different kind ofhelicopters and operations. So
but to me, that's a very, youknow, that pure hand flying
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thing is very important. Whileobviously you have very many
other areas within rotaryaviation that are just as
challenging and say, justinstructing, for example, I
mean, that must take so muchpatience and so much scale to
get that and I mean, I would notmake a good instructor for sure.
(14:35):
So, so I don't want to Yeah,it's I just I kind of found my
area of interest. Very happythat I was able to to try that
out.
Yeah, I mean, flightinstruction. I know a lot of
pilots who wish they could havejust completely skipped over
that step and building theirflight time. But I know when I
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was an instructor it wasdefinitely it's just a whole
different set of classes.
Colleges, right? I know about98% of my students, English was
not their first language. Sothat right there was already its
own set of challenges. And letalone teaching multiple students
at the same time, and everyonehas a different style of
learning, that's something thatyou have to adapt to, as an
instructor, just totallydifferent styles of flying, not
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one is superior than the other.
And, you know, I probably wouldhave stayed in instructor
instruction a little bit longerif the paycheck matched the
amount of work that you actuallyput down, I would say, I
probably made about $23,000 ayear working sometimes six days
a week teaching, you know, 10students at a time, it just
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wasn't worth it for me, youknow, it's time to move on and
get to the next level. Allright, so where are we in your
story? Now, so far, you'velinked up with a utility company
that you had your heart set on.
And I've done a couple of ridealongs, and you're trying to
figure out how you can mimic theroute that they took to get to
where they are. So what was theroute that you ended up taking.
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So I spoke with them andrealized that since I'm going to
be flying in Norway, and mostoperators doing that will not
have a specific requirement interms of flight hours, because
in Norway, the general route isthrough through the load master
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route or ground crew before youbecome a pilot and utility
operations. So it wouldn'tmatter if I had 140 hours from
from Norway or 1000 hours flyingpatterns in Florida as an
instructor. So I decided thatsince I wasn't going the
offshore route, which would havedefinitely benefited from having
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taken the training in the US andhopefully gotten an instructor
job there, I decided to stickcloser to where the job was so
that I can do some somenetworking as well. You knew
you had a goal, you wanted tofind utility. And even working
just as ground crew, you'regetting on the job training,
you're still getting to fly withthe pilots and getting to learn
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the mission first, rather thannecessarily learning the
equipment and the actual skillof the flying, which I think is
really beneficial. So how do youthink that that helped you in
the long run? How long were youground crew for and before you
actually got to get behind thestick?
Yeah, so I spent three years asa loadmaster, before I became a
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trainee. And in those threeyears, you're basically handling
all the groundwork in terms of,you know, getting all the loads
ready, making sure that they'resecure, hooking the loads,
refueling, you'd be doing fuellogistics, like driving fuel
from A to B, driving equipment,you'd be watching the
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helicopters and doing all that,you know, typical ground crew
work. So and but as you said, Imean, you're in there in the
cockpit, you know, when you'reflying from A to B, or when
you're flying people to varioussites, or you're doing photo
missions or anything like that.
So you pick up a lot, and you'reflying with, especially in my
company, we have approximately14 as 350 at the time, and you
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pick up a lot of stuff fromdifferent people. So kind of
pick the good, the goodqualities of the various pilots,
kind of visualize. Okay, so thisis definitely a good habit, I
want to take this with me when Istarted flying. So that was
very, very beneficial, beingable to see. I mean, there are
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so many ways of doing a job.
Some are definitely better thanothers, though. So I tried to
pick up some stuff there. Andthen once you start the trainee
route, or like the final, finalroute there, which is kind of
kind of doing a little bit ofboth. It's a very gradual
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transition into the right handseat and doing things on your
own. So you start out flying,flying simple taxi missions or
sightseeing flights and stufflike that. And then eventually,
you'll start flying a load hereand there. Simple loads, just
big bags to very kind locationsthat doesn't really require the
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precision that you later have torely on. So I think it was a
very, very gradual transition.
It was very nice to be able toget it as I mean, I would
definitely not complain if I hadgotten there faster. I mean,
three years is a long time. Andand we have guys now
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unfortunately, who spent twicethat and the reason for that
obviously is that Even though weonly hire pilots from our pool
of loadmasters, we still need, Imean, there needs to be opening
openings for pilots. And thathasn't been the case for a while
in this current market, which isvery sad, unfortunately. But
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that's kind of the thing thatlimits that. So you don't know
getting the in there, how longyou're gonna be on the ground.
And that could be frustrating attimes, not knowing what's gonna
come up ahead, right, it'snot exactly guaranteed that
you're going to be getting intothe pilot seat anytime soon,
until somebody leaves thecompany. And it's a good
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company, I guess people wouldprobably be sticking in there
for a while. I guess you'repretty lucky that three years as
a ground crew member and then ayear as a trainee, that's,
that's pretty good, even thoughit took you longer the mission
first, and then being able tofocus on the precision flying
because, you know, obviously,like you said, that's kind of
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the pinnacle. A lot of peoplebelieve that too. It's just that
utility is so it's so such aprecision type of flying. You
see these guys slingingChristmas trees. Like crazy
people, yeah, that takes atremendous amount of skill. Even
with what I'm doing, and I'mjust flying chartered, you know,
super simple, from point A topoint B, bring this crew bring
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this organ from point A to pointB, not doing any off airport
stuff, literally just flying andlearning the new machine, which
is a more complex machine thanI've ever flown before the HW
109. And after we pass our checkrides, they still have a sit in
the other seat, riding alongwith other pilots even after
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we've passed our checkride for aperiod of time until you get
comfortable learning themission, and kind of like
learning the aircraft along theway as well. So I really like
that about the way that ourcompany operates as well.
It's it's as he said, I mean,it's in utility finder, so many,
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so many logistics, you know,there are so many on a on one
project, you could have threedifferent subtract
subcontractors that need to havedifferent needs, you know, and
from your vantage point, kind ofserving all three of them, you
have a unique perspective on.
Okay, so how can we get thisdone the best way possible for
all parties involved. So beingable to, to get an understanding
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of that logistical side of itdefinitely made it easier. And
also, so the fact that when youare released into the wild, as a
pilot, once you're done, it'ssingle pilot. So I mean, you
have a loadmaster when you who'sa pilot, or Yeah, he's a
helicopter pilot, obviously. Butat the same time, you're very
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much kind of on your own. Youdon't have any senior members,
except on check rides that arekind of looking over your
shoulders and come. Yeah, youkind of have to make sure that
you don't have bring any badhabits into that. So. So I was
very, very happy to get thatchance to learn from the other
guys. And hopefully I haven'tpicked up many bad habits along
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the way. I mean, we all havethem, but it's all about
minimizing them as much aspossible.
Right? And what equipment areyou flying now,
I'm flying you the days 350 Mostof the time, I also did the type
rating on the Super Puma earlierthis year. So that's so much
fun. I mean, I I mentionedbefore, I'm a geek and that the
(23:32):
it's always the first productionsuper Puma, it was the first one
to roll off the assembly line.
So it's vintage, proper vintage,but it's so much fun. And I love
that like I love the fact thatit's old and that it's you have
the old analog cockpit andeverything. It's just the
photographer in me at least Ithink that has a much more
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aesthetically pleasing look thanall glass cockpits we have we
have pre Augusta Westland one,six nines, or Leonardo one six
nines flying for a Marine pilottransfer operation. And it's all
computer screens. I mean, I getthat at home on my flight
simulator, you know, it's, yeah,it's, I mean, don't get me
wrong, I definitely get theincreased situational awareness,
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you know, in bad weather and allthat I would definitely be in
the 169 If I had a choice, butit is something to me as an
enthusiast, it's very rewardingto be able to operate a machine
like that and kind of gettingthat How should I put it, you
know, things are definitelyevolving in the way where the
(24:37):
pilot is being reduced more andmore to a systems operator and
to still kind of having Yeah, sostill being able to kind of feel
that you're actually operatingthe machinery and it's not, you
know, just monitoring themachinery doing its job. So I
definitely like that.
Yeah, I like to feel like I'mhere. sounds so cheesy one with
(25:01):
the machine. But but really likegetting into the 109 has been
really cool because of theautomation and I'm like, Okay,
if I was in IFR or or got hitwith any bad weather, that's the
machine that I would want to bein with the automation. I could
just press a button literally byit start getting disoriented,
you just hit the go aroundbutton, it puts you in a stable
(25:21):
700 per minute climb. Yeah,that's really, for safety.
Safety wise, that's really,really nice. But I love like the
350 Yeah, Airbus products arelike, I got my higher, I'm
always wearing this hat. I loveAirbus products. So like, it'd
(25:42):
be really cool to check out thesuper Puma.
And it's, and it's so easy tofly. I mean, that was I mean, if
you for any other helicopter, Imean, it's so so easy. I mean,
just flying it, I mean,operating it is a different
story. But flying it is veryrewarding. And especially when
you come from and the you know,the nervous 350 You know,
(26:04):
landings can throw the moreseasoned, seasoned pilot off
sometimes. So, being able toland a smooth and stable
helicopter like the super Puma,on, you know, landing gear like
proper wheels and stuff with asmooth suspension. It's so
rewarding when you do that thefirst time. It's just pure.
Yeah, it's it's really nice.
It's very fun machine to fly,and so forth. Do you get to
(26:26):
still fly it on missions? Areyou got your type rating? But
you said you're mostly flyingthat 350?
Yeah, yeah, we don't find out asmuch. And there are a few of us.
So yeah, it varies a lot, Iprobably want to find out a
whole lot. But hopefully a bitfrom time to time a couple of
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times. You know, every othermonth, hopefully. So I mentioned
we'll definitely that'll bethat'll be utility missions
mostly. So and in the beginningnow that will obviously be as
pilot monitoring for for the thesling log work. So but hopefully
(27:07):
come next year, I will be ableto get a chance to try the long
run on that as well. That wouldbe really interesting to try.
Yeah, that's cool. Oh,does it have like, a lot of
stabilization? I mean, you saideverything's pretty analog. But
yeah,it has, you know, the it is
stabilized. But you know, it's,it's old. You know, in terms of
(27:27):
automation, you have heading,hold airspeed hold and also to
home. So that's, you know, thewhole sweep of automation, but
it's quite stable. So it?
Definitely, yeah, it should beinteresting to try. But you
know, when you've never tried itbefore, I mean, I haven't even
(27:49):
tried, you know, with an emptylong line. I never know what
you're how it's gonna be untilyou actually try it. So I don't
really I don't want to speculatehow much into what that's gonna
be like, but I definitely lookforward to that.
I bet man, let me know how thatgoes. And circling back to our
original conversation about riskmitigation and safety, which is
(28:10):
something I really wanted todrive into this episode. Seeing
as it is your forte holdingthese safety manager, the very
important role of safety managerat your company. Was there
anything in particular thatinspired you to take on that
role? Was that something you'vealways wanted to do?
Being in the army, you I, we hada couple of incidents and
(28:32):
experiences that led me torealize that, you know, we
sometimes you operate in, in arecent build environment. But
that doesn't mean you shouldaccept any risk. So it became
apparent to me that in manycases, it's about mitigating the
(28:54):
risks that you can, and thenkind of accepting that there are
some things you won't be able todo much about, you know, and I
can't realize that moving intoaviation as well. And having
seen what can happen and, youknow, having lost friends in
aviation as well, you, yourealize that this is definitely
(29:17):
not a regular job in manyaspects. And it is a risk build
environment, but it's, yeah, Ijust realized that I kind of
have an eye for seeing the risksthat need there will always be
inherent, but what can we do tomitigate those risks as much as
possible? And more than anythingelse? I mean, what are
(29:39):
unnecessary risks and why do wetake unnecessary risks? So the
whole risk reward concept isvery important to me. And so for
me, it was I just showed aninterest in that and I think the
company kind of picked up on it,and they kind of nurtured that.
That interest in to that field,so I kind of went through ranks
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from I started out as anavigation officer actually,
because I took a specialinterest in, in an obstacle, an
obstacle awareness. So wedeveloped some systems there to
kind of increase the situationalawareness in the cockpit. And,
and then I became a safetyadvisor aided in the safety
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promotion work, investigationsand stuff like that, then became
a senior safety adviser before Ibecame the safety manager. So
the company was veryaccommodating. And yeah,
nurtured my interest for flightsafety in a very good way. I
think. So it's been interestingto do. I mean, I love flying.
But it's definitely interestingto be able to affect the safety
(30:49):
aspect of it as well.
Yeah, it's super interesting andsuper important to have somebody
like you within a company, as asafety manager to create the
right environment and to set thestage for a safe working
environment that couldpotentially save people's lives
in the long run. And there's somany different models out there
that we can use to assess andmitigate risk. And throughout my
(31:13):
career, mostly, you know, evenin the Coast Guard, we've got on
a search and rescue mission,we'd have to do a standard green
Amber red risk assessment modelto determine whether or not it's
going to be a go or no go. Andit's very simple environment,
pilot crew, everything getsassigned a numerical value. And
eventually, it all adds up towhether or not we're in the
(31:37):
green, which means go Amber,which means use some caution,
maybe we can find a couple ofthings within our assessment
that we can change and improveon to bring our score down. And
then obviously, red would be ano go. And that's just like a
really basic model across theboard. But there are a little
bit more complex ones that wecan use. But in your opinion, as
(31:59):
a safety manager, what is yourfavorite risk assessment model?
And how does it work?
Well, it's based around thegreen Amber red model, as you
mentioned, but but with a bowtie, kind of approach to it kind
of seeing where the barrierskind of fit into place. Is this
something? Is this a measurewhere we reduce the likelihood
(32:23):
of something happening? Or isthis something that will reduce
the consequences of thathappening, you know, so say, for
example, birds, you know, theirhazard, they can lead to a bird
strike on the windshield, whichcan lead to pilot
incapacitation. And obviously,that will be very bad day,
(32:46):
indeed. So in terms of, if youif you look at that example, you
can mitigate the risk. Byreducing the speed in on areas
of birds, that'll reduce thelikelihood of the event, right.
So that will reduce the risk ofyou even having a bird strike.
But then if you want to gofurther, and you want to see
(33:07):
okay, so are there other thingswe can do? You can Okay, so how
about we wear a visor, we wear ahelmet on a visor, that could
maybe if you're lucky, mitigatethe effects of births right
through the windshields, to thefact that you're not gonna face
a pilot incapacitation anymore.
So I think that's a good way ofseeing it and kind of being
(33:27):
aware of what mitigating actionsyou're putting in place and how
that kind of affects the wholescenario. And I think the most
important thing for all pilotsis, I mean, we don't have any
formalized procedure for doingrisk assessments for every
(33:48):
operation we do we have standardrisk assessment for standard
operations. And especially inutility, I think there are so
many variables, depending on youknow, just the just the weather,
you know, the on that time andplace in those conditions in
that valley with wicked windchecks and all that so it's
(34:08):
impossible to do a riskassessment for every scenario
you you encounter. So in myopinion, it's as much about
making people accustomed to kindof doing these things in their
head as they're flying flyingand, and especially what you
were saying about you know, youhave you have several risk
factors, but when thoseaccumulate, you know, he, that's
(34:32):
when you go into the red, youknow, overall, and you can deal
with maybe one or two or threeof those things and that's fine,
but all of a sudden, you havelike six various fields of the
operations that is kind ofborderline you know, you have
you didn't sleep well, you haveloadmaster with you who's, yeah,
his first job, first week on thejob, as as a solo loadmaster or
(34:56):
the weather is really bad. Andyou're mounting a cell phone
tower, for example. And it'sjust, you know, one of those
factors could be okay. But thenyou start to, to add those and,
and seeing as it's impossible tokind of do all these things like
formalized and advanced, I thinkit's up to the pilots to kind of
(35:20):
be aware of these things. And,and you can do that easily. And
you can also, the best way Ifind is to breed that in the
crew, kind of see what, okay, sothere are a lot of things that
are kind of not going our waynow. So we got to take a step
back and maybe sit tight and seeif we should postpone this
thing. Or if there are otherthings we can do to kind of
(35:43):
mitigate the risks,right. And like you said, we do
these risk assessments beforethe flight. But it's also
something that we're constantlydoing while we're flying. Right,
that's something that we do needto get accustomed to, we're
making a million decisionsthroughout a flight. And it's
nice to have sort of anorganized way to assess your
(36:05):
risk always going on in the backof your head while you're
flying, right, the pave modelpilot aircraft environment,
external pressures, these areall things that we should be
assessing and reevaluating,constantly, while we're flying.
And if any of those things getsbeyond an acceptable amount of
risk, trying to figure out waysto mitigate those items. So
(36:27):
you're flying along, you'rerunning into some weather,
you're still within yourpersonal and company minimums
and legal minimums. But what canyou do to mitigate the risks of
accidentally flying into IMC andnot get disoriented, Alright,
I'm gonna slow down my airspeed,I'm gonna throw on my autopilot,
doing those two things, thoseare already helping to bring the
(36:50):
risk factor downon a single fight, perhaps, you
know, there are so many littlevariables that you have to
consider. And I think it'simportant to to be aware of
those decisions at all times,because you never know. I mean,
you could you may have done. Imean, there are pilots that are
(37:10):
there for 9000 hours, they'vedone this thing their way their
entire career, and it's beenfine. But then one day, the
Swiss Jesus, you know, align,and they have an accident, I
mean, just because it's beenfine. The other times doesn't
mean it will be fine. Everytime. So making sure that the
decisions you make are sound,even though they might maybe
(37:34):
just a minor minor distinction,like for instance, we add our
main base, we we taxi out ontomore or less by the threshold
end of one of the runway, so youcould either choose to depart to
the east, which gives youprobably 100 meters of runway
and 300 feet. And then oppositeyou could you have maybe 1400
(37:59):
feet of runway, you know, so whynot? Why if there are no wind
conditions or anything likethat, why wouldn't you then
choose to go? Do the even thoughit takes you longer to fly the
long way and us through therunway? Why won't you do that?
Instead of taking the risk offlying, you know, it's, you
(38:24):
know, a dirty takeoff, if youwant to call it that, instead of
doing a textbook takeoff, it'sgonna take you maybe a minute or
two longer, but this could bethe first part of the day, maybe
you know, after a maintenancehas been done or something. So I
think it's prudent whenever youcan to see okay, it might take
me a minute longer to do it thisway. But if something happens,
(38:46):
I'll be in a much betterposition to get myself out of
it. If it does. So, just kind ofmaking sure that you plan to
mess up a little bit. You know,it's not that, you know, I'm I
mean, I I'm so forgetful I leavethings. I mean, I would Yeah, I
would definitely forget where Iput the keys if it wasn't for
(39:08):
the fact that I know that I'mforgetful. So I never leave my
keys anywhere but in my pocketor on my counter here. So I kind
of try to mitigate the fact thatI'm, I'm forgetful when it comes
to stuff like that. So I have tomake sure that I have routines
to mitigate that.
(39:33):
Yeah. And it's kind of a slidingrule too. Because, you know,
depending on what equipmentyou're in, like, you know, I fly
multiple different types ofaircraft and sometimes you just
have to like take a minute andbe like, Okay, what am I doing
right now? Okay, yeah, I'm inthe 109. I have two engines
versus I'm getting into an AES350 And I have one engine. So
(39:56):
coming down to, you know, 100foot hover and coming straight
down. Hello PADD might be alittle bit less of a risk and a
multi engine than, you know anas 350. So definitely kind of
taking a minute to just rememberwhere you are what you're
flying. Because once you get toa certain point, you're
switching around to alldifferent types of aircraft that
(40:17):
different different types oftakeoff says it changes over
platforms and missions. Soyeah, cool.
Well, thank you so much forcoming on the show. I really
appreciate your time. I knowyou're you're quick, you're
super tired right now. Youmentioned you didn't get much
sleep, sleep lately. So I reallyappreciate you taking the time
(40:38):
to sit down and talk to me andspark these conversations about
safety and risk mitigation thathopefully will echo throughout
the podcast fear and maybe reachthe ears of somebody who needed
to hear it today. Love yourphotography. I'm so excited to
see you know, more stuff thatyou keep bringing out on
(40:58):
Instagram. Definitely followthis guy at the helm. That
helicopter guy on Instagram.
Okay, thank you for having me.
I know guys, I know. I missedJose to super bummed he couldn't
be here for this one. But it wassuch a pleasure to talk to Tom
(41:19):
and hear his perspective and gethis insight. And, man what a
cool place to fly there in theNorwegian fjords. super jealous.
And I know I had a couple ofreally nice takeaways from our
conversation today. He reallyhit the nail on the head with it
doesn't matter what job youhave. It's how you do that job
(41:39):
that counts. Of course theimportance of doing a proper
risk assessment before yourflight and how it should be an
ongoing constant thought processwhile you're flying. And of
course taking that into yourdecision making process. It's
been my absolute pleasure to dothis interview for you guys
today. Hopefully you got someawesome takeaways like I did
(42:01):
from Tom. And go ahead hit thatsubscribe button leave a rating
leave us a comment. Of course welove to hear from you guys. Fly
safe out there and have abeautiful rest of your day. Bye
You're listening to the forever on the fly podcast
Hello, aviation nerds. You knowthere comes a time in every
aviation podcasting host slashpilots life when you have to go
fly for the day and leave yourpodcasting partner to do an
(00:22):
interview all by her lonesome.
And unfortunately, that day wastoday for Mr. Hernandez. He will
be missed on this one. But nofear. I am here to carry the
torch that is getting all of youhooked on aviation and I do not
take that responsibilitylightly. So let's get the mood
back up and talk aviation. Ournext guest hails all the way
(00:45):
from Norway, very talentedutility pilot and photographer
you guys might know as at thathelicopter guy. I know I've been
a big fan for about a year now.
And he's here to chat abouthelicopters. He's here to chat
about how he found his passionfor aviation and his career path
that he took and why he chosethe route that he did benefits
(01:06):
of working as loadmaster priorto getting into that right seat
safety and his favorite riskassessment model. So here is Tom
Athrun.
It's about mitigating the risksof that you can then kind of
accepting that there are somethings you won't be able to do
much about. Hi, I'm Thomas Blum,and I'm forever on the fly.
(01:32):
Hey, you're that helicopter guy,right? That's correct. I've seen
you around. Well, dude, I loveyour photography. I've been
following you on Instagram for awhile now.
Thank you. And likewise, thankyou for having me.
I really love it when I can seepilots and people in aviation
and a great creativity intoaviation and into their AV
(01:56):
careers. What came first, didyour passion for photography
come first? Or did you get intoaviation and then kind of figure
out later on that you wanted tocombine the two, it was
definitely aviation person. Sothat's been a childhood dream of
mine to fly. So I'm basicallyliving my dream. And then
eventually I realized that, youknow, taking pictures, that's
(02:16):
kind of cool. I had while I wasa loadmaster, I flew with a
pilot who brought his cameraalong. And I started borrowing
his camera for a little bit, andthen decided to buy my own. And
that's how I got started. Andobviously, I didn't anticipate
it going this far. Yeah, it'sbeen a it's been a fun ride. And
(02:37):
it's, it's nice being able toshare some of the news or be you
know, the more prettier sides ofthe job. I mean, definitely see
a lot of other stuff that's notright there on Instagram all the
time. But it's it's fun to beable to share a bit, please.
You know, those of us who likesharing our jobs on social
media, we do what we can toshare what we can about the work
(02:59):
that we do, and things that weget to see we can't show it all,
unfortunately. But now you didmention to me before that flying
has always been a childhooddream of yours. Can you just run
us through your story? So whatinitially sparked that passion
for aviation? And how did youget to where you are today?
Well, it's just ever since I waslittle, I've had like this
(03:21):
romanticized view about flying,you know, it's pure magic, you
know, and that kind of stuckwith me, but for a long while,
in my childhood, I didn't kindof think that I could be a
pilot, it kind of seemed likesomething you had to be like an
extraordinary human being to,you know, be able to, to get to
that point. So I didn't reallythink I was gonna be able to go
(03:44):
that path until I actuallystarted. Well, maybe just before
high school, I started seeingthat. Okay, so these are
actually people, you know, I canI can definitely give this a
shot. So that's when I startedkind of doubling down on, you
know, thinking about how can I,you know, make a career in
(04:06):
aviation. And I very quicklyrealized that this considering
my romanticized view of flyingand I want to be a pilot pilot,
and, and this is not, you know,talking down anyone that flying
highly automated helicopters oranything like that, but to me,
it was very much about beingable to kind of master the
(04:26):
machinery by your own byherself. And, and I've, after
having done a lot of research, Irealized that helicopters was a
very good, good entry into thatkind of an area or a segment of
aviation that is veryspecialized. And that requires a
(04:51):
lot of training, you know, it.
It doesn't take that long tolearn how to fly but it takes a
long time to master a helicopterand obviously, you know, we're
never fully taught but it's akind of like that, you know,
it's kind of a craft. And ittakes time to get there. So, so
I started tinkering a bit withflight simulators in high
school. And that kind of justcemented my view that this is
(05:15):
something I want to do, it wasreally interesting. And I
started taking LIDAR lessons inhigh school that didn't really
pan out because of the logisticsthat were very, very tricky to
get a hold on, I did someparagliding, because that was
easier. And then I gotsidetracked for a little bit. In
the army, I tried out for theAir Force did not make that cut,
(05:37):
which was a major setback for meat the time. And it was kind of
hard to, to kind of be motivatedafter that. So I instead of
joining the Air Force here,because we have to do a year of
mandatory service here in noway, I decided to join the army,
I wanted to get as far away fromAir Force bases and anything
(05:58):
like that. So I joined anarmored battalion, and kinda
didn't think about aviation thatmuch. Until maybe six months
prior to getting out of thatservice, I decided that you
know, what, I know other pilotswho did the same thing they
(06:18):
tried out for the Air ForceAcademy and failed. And, you
know, it's, it's not easy to getin the year I applied, I think
they had 1000 Plus applicantsfor like, 12 positions. So I did
realize that it's possible to,to become a pilot and not, you
know, go the Air Force way toget go about it. So that's kind
(06:41):
of, I started finding mymotivation gradually. But then
again, I was sidetracked by ajob offer in the army and I
stayed on in the army foranother three years, I had a
great time there. But at thatpoint, when those three years
are up, I realized that now it'stime to get down to flying. And
(07:03):
so I started in flight school,here in Norway, and had a lot of
fun, I realized very early onthat, you know, it's very easy
to kind of, always think aboutwhat's next, you know, but I
wanted to take a minute to kindaenjoy what I had at the time.
(07:23):
And you probably won't have asmuch freedom when it comes to
flying in your career or anyother place later on. So I
decided to do my best in termsof appreciating the freedom I
had in flight school, orwhenever I had solo flights, or
(07:46):
navigation fights, cross countryflights. I tried to think
outside the box a little bit,and just try to keep it fun, you
know, and actually enjoy thefact that you're out here
flying. So that was, that wasfun.
I definitely think the most funI ever had was when I was in
flight school, but you don'trealize it because the grass is
(08:07):
always greener, right on. Okay,I just have to get through
flight school, so that I can getto my dream job, I can get to
the dream platform that I wantto be flying. But yeah, what
people really don't realize islike, Yo, you have your own
aircraft, and you get to go onthese cross countries. And hey,
let's just go get lunch over andCatalina, at least over here,
(08:28):
you know, which is somethingthat I think a lot of students
because to get motivated to getthrough flight school because
it's so much work, and you'reworking so hard to attain a goal
like you forget to enjoy thejourney along the way. So I
think that's a really importantmessage, but totally like we
romanticize aviation. Before weactually get into it, we see
(08:49):
these pilots as like gods,right? Like, oh my god, like, I
can't I want to be used someday.
And I hear that from people towhere it sounds like they're
romanticizing the job as if it'snot an attainable goal, but it
totally is like we're all human.
I mean, definitely some pilotsthat I've met were like okay,
you are definitely not a goddude. Sure, yeah. name any names
(09:18):
but some people along the wayyou're like, Okay, bro. Like
it's kind of funny, but I hope Idon't come off as like sounding
superior like I'm deaf. Oh,no, no, that's I think everyone
can relate to that one.
Not God's gift to flying youknow any mean? I have my own
faults obviously, like we alldo, but we learn from them
(09:39):
right? We learn from themistakes we make along the way
and that's ultimately how wegrow as pilots is like
it's so annoying when you seepeople that are flying. Flying
Yes, 90 two's for example,offshore and being very superior
towards people that are flyingand are 44 on sightseeing, for
example. I mean, it's not acompetition you know? It's an,
(10:01):
you're just as much a pilot, ifyou find the 44, as 92, you just
have a different, you havedifferent things you have to
focus on, you know, it's adifferent job. But I mean,
there, you both pilots andflying a Robinson doesn't mean
you're any less of a pilot. AndI just hate it when people kind
of draw those conclusions. And,and that's, you know, with every
(10:24):
comic career, you know, it's theyour job title doesn't reflect
the person you are at all. Andit should not come off in any
other way that you know, you'reyour own individual. And what
you do is, you know, doesn'treally matter that much. It's
how you do your job. If you'reflying that 44. If you're being
(10:47):
irresponsible, and disregardingrules and regulations and
limitations. Obviously, you'renot fit to fly that but you
could be fine s 90 to beviolating the procedures just as
much. So it's more about how youdo your job, then you know what
kind of aircraft you're doingthat job. And so it's all about
the airmanship and making sureyou you you do your best in
(11:09):
terms of decision making andgetting everyone back home
safely.
Yeah, I mean, if you can buy anAR 22 You can basically fly
anything.
I know, right? Yeah, I know. Imean, I would like to see, you
know, and that was reallyhumbling. I, when I came to heli
Expo in January, I I got to goflying with York from I fly
heli, Instagram. And I wasreally grateful for being able
(11:34):
to go with him. And we took theCatalina round, which was
amazing at sunset, it was just,yeah, that was pure gold. It was
very humbling. Because I mean, Itook the controls in the crews,
they're on our way, way outthere. And then I was tasked
with landing as we came back.
And let me tell you, that washumbling for sure. I mean, I
(11:55):
that was not pretty that was Iwas in the final five. Yeah, I
mean, I thought for sure that,you know, I yeah, I've flown 22.
You know, that was 12 years ago.
And yeah, for a whole lot. Andthat was that really kind of
that was very humbling. I mean,the flying the 350. And, and
(12:19):
getting that experience. And Imean, I was able to land
eventually, but it was notpretty. I looked like a student
pilot. Yeah, that was definitelyhumbling.
So you went through flightschool? And did you already have
a job in mind of a career paththat you wanted? Did you know
what you wanted to do?
Yeah, I I'm kind of geeky in theway that when I set my eyes on
(12:44):
something, I kind of double downon doing the research and all
that. And I. So I, I did a lotof research into the market that
I wanted to fly, I picturedmyself, okay, so what is the
job, I want to what's my dreamjob. And I started kind of
talking to people that was doingthat at the time, and figuring
(13:06):
out how I could kind ofduplicate their paths, career
wise. And I actually linked upwith a couple of guys who were
flying in a company that I'm nowflying for an extreme sports
event where they were flyingparachute jumpers, and I
actually tagged along with themfor a couple of days, I was
(13:28):
about maybe 17, or something atthe time. So I tagged along a
bit and realized that yeah, thisis definitely the kind of flying
I want to get into. I knew thatutility flying was, you know, in
terms of what I was sayingbefore this being a craft, and
it takes a long time to come getgood at it. Figuring utility is
(13:52):
kind of sort of the pinnacle ofthat, in many ways. To me,
utility firing is what I see asthe pinnacle that obviously
doesn't mean that there are notother parts of the industry that
are at least as challenging andrequires as much skills to
operate different kind ofhelicopters and operations. So
but to me, that's a very, youknow, that pure hand flying
(14:13):
thing is very important. Whileobviously you have very many
other areas within rotaryaviation that are just as
challenging and say, justinstructing, for example, I
mean, that must take so muchpatience and so much scale to
get that and I mean, I would notmake a good instructor for sure.
(14:35):
So, so I don't want to Yeah,it's I just I kind of found my
area of interest. Very happythat I was able to to try that
out.
Yeah, I mean, flightinstruction. I know a lot of
pilots who wish they could havejust completely skipped over
that step and building theirflight time. But I know when I
(14:57):
was an instructor it wasdefinitely it's just a whole
different set of classes.
Colleges, right? I know about98% of my students, English was
not their first language. Sothat right there was already its
own set of challenges. And letalone teaching multiple students
at the same time, and everyonehas a different style of
learning, that's something thatyou have to adapt to, as an
instructor, just totallydifferent styles of flying, not
(15:20):
one is superior than the other.
And, you know, I probably wouldhave stayed in instructor
instruction a little bit longerif the paycheck matched the
amount of work that you actuallyput down, I would say, I
probably made about $23,000 ayear working sometimes six days
a week teaching, you know, 10students at a time, it just
(15:44):
wasn't worth it for me, youknow, it's time to move on and
get to the next level. Allright, so where are we in your
story? Now, so far, you'velinked up with a utility company
that you had your heart set on.
And I've done a couple of ridealongs, and you're trying to
figure out how you can mimic theroute that they took to get to
where they are. So what was theroute that you ended up taking.
(16:06):
So I spoke with them andrealized that since I'm going to
be flying in Norway, and mostoperators doing that will not
have a specific requirement interms of flight hours, because
in Norway, the general route isthrough through the load master
(16:27):
route or ground crew before youbecome a pilot and utility
operations. So it wouldn'tmatter if I had 140 hours from
from Norway or 1000 hours flyingpatterns in Florida as an
instructor. So I decided thatsince I wasn't going the
offshore route, which would havedefinitely benefited from having
(16:48):
taken the training in the US andhopefully gotten an instructor
job there, I decided to stickcloser to where the job was so
that I can do some somenetworking as well. You knew
you had a goal, you wanted tofind utility. And even working
just as ground crew, you'regetting on the job training,
you're still getting to fly withthe pilots and getting to learn
(17:11):
the mission first, rather thannecessarily learning the
equipment and the actual skillof the flying, which I think is
really beneficial. So how do youthink that that helped you in
the long run? How long were youground crew for and before you
actually got to get behind thestick?
Yeah, so I spent three years asa loadmaster, before I became a
(17:36):
trainee. And in those threeyears, you're basically handling
all the groundwork in terms of,you know, getting all the loads
ready, making sure that they'resecure, hooking the loads,
refueling, you'd be doing fuellogistics, like driving fuel
from A to B, driving equipment,you'd be watching the
(17:59):
helicopters and doing all that,you know, typical ground crew
work. So and but as you said, Imean, you're in there in the
cockpit, you know, when you'reflying from A to B, or when
you're flying people to varioussites, or you're doing photo
missions or anything like that.
So you pick up a lot, and you'reflying with, especially in my
company, we have approximately14 as 350 at the time, and you
(18:24):
pick up a lot of stuff fromdifferent people. So kind of
pick the good, the goodqualities of the various pilots,
kind of visualize. Okay, so thisis definitely a good habit, I
want to take this with me when Istarted flying. So that was
very, very beneficial, beingable to see. I mean, there are
(18:46):
so many ways of doing a job.
Some are definitely better thanothers, though. So I tried to
pick up some stuff there. Andthen once you start the trainee
route, or like the final, finalroute there, which is kind of
kind of doing a little bit ofboth. It's a very gradual
(19:09):
transition into the right handseat and doing things on your
own. So you start out flying,flying simple taxi missions or
sightseeing flights and stufflike that. And then eventually,
you'll start flying a load hereand there. Simple loads, just
big bags to very kind locationsthat doesn't really require the
(19:31):
precision that you later have torely on. So I think it was a
very, very gradual transition.
It was very nice to be able toget it as I mean, I would
definitely not complain if I hadgotten there faster. I mean,
three years is a long time. Andand we have guys now
(19:51):
unfortunately, who spent twicethat and the reason for that
obviously is that Even though weonly hire pilots from our pool
of loadmasters, we still need, Imean, there needs to be opening
openings for pilots. And thathasn't been the case for a while
in this current market, which isvery sad, unfortunately. But
(20:14):
that's kind of the thing thatlimits that. So you don't know
getting the in there, how longyou're gonna be on the ground.
And that could be frustrating attimes, not knowing what's gonna
come up ahead, right, it'snot exactly guaranteed that
you're going to be getting intothe pilot seat anytime soon,
until somebody leaves thecompany. And it's a good
(20:35):
company, I guess people wouldprobably be sticking in there
for a while. I guess you'repretty lucky that three years as
a ground crew member and then ayear as a trainee, that's,
that's pretty good, even thoughit took you longer the mission
first, and then being able tofocus on the precision flying
because, you know, obviously,like you said, that's kind of
(20:55):
the pinnacle. A lot of peoplebelieve that too. It's just that
utility is so it's so such aprecision type of flying. You
see these guys slingingChristmas trees. Like crazy
people, yeah, that takes atremendous amount of skill. Even
with what I'm doing, and I'mjust flying chartered, you know,
super simple, from point A topoint B, bring this crew bring
(21:19):
this organ from point A to pointB, not doing any off airport
stuff, literally just flying andlearning the new machine, which
is a more complex machine thanI've ever flown before the HW
109. And after we pass our checkrides, they still have a sit in
the other seat, riding alongwith other pilots even after
(21:41):
we've passed our checkride for aperiod of time until you get
comfortable learning themission, and kind of like
learning the aircraft along theway as well. So I really like
that about the way that ourcompany operates as well.
It's it's as he said, I mean,it's in utility finder, so many,
(22:02):
so many logistics, you know,there are so many on a on one
project, you could have threedifferent subtract
subcontractors that need to havedifferent needs, you know, and
from your vantage point, kind ofserving all three of them, you
have a unique perspective on.
Okay, so how can we get thisdone the best way possible for
all parties involved. So beingable to, to get an understanding
(22:24):
of that logistical side of itdefinitely made it easier. And
also, so the fact that when youare released into the wild, as a
pilot, once you're done, it'ssingle pilot. So I mean, you
have a loadmaster when you who'sa pilot, or Yeah, he's a
helicopter pilot, obviously. Butat the same time, you're very
(22:45):
much kind of on your own. Youdon't have any senior members,
except on check rides that arekind of looking over your
shoulders and come. Yeah, youkind of have to make sure that
you don't have bring any badhabits into that. So. So I was
very, very happy to get thatchance to learn from the other
guys. And hopefully I haven'tpicked up many bad habits along
(23:08):
the way. I mean, we all havethem, but it's all about
minimizing them as much aspossible.
Right? And what equipment areyou flying now,
I'm flying you the days 350 Mostof the time, I also did the type
rating on the Super Puma earlierthis year. So that's so much
fun. I mean, I I mentionedbefore, I'm a geek and that the
(23:32):
it's always the first productionsuper Puma, it was the first one
to roll off the assembly line.
So it's vintage, proper vintage,but it's so much fun. And I love
that like I love the fact thatit's old and that it's you have
the old analog cockpit andeverything. It's just the
photographer in me at least Ithink that has a much more
(23:53):
aesthetically pleasing look thanall glass cockpits we have we
have pre Augusta Westland one,six nines, or Leonardo one six
nines flying for a Marine pilottransfer operation. And it's all
computer screens. I mean, I getthat at home on my flight
simulator, you know, it's, yeah,it's, I mean, don't get me
wrong, I definitely get theincreased situational awareness,
(24:16):
you know, in bad weather and allthat I would definitely be in
the 169 If I had a choice, butit is something to me as an
enthusiast, it's very rewardingto be able to operate a machine
like that and kind of gettingthat How should I put it, you
know, things are definitelyevolving in the way where the
(24:37):
pilot is being reduced more andmore to a systems operator and
to still kind of having Yeah, sostill being able to kind of feel
that you're actually operatingthe machinery and it's not, you
know, just monitoring themachinery doing its job. So I
definitely like that.
Yeah, I like to feel like I'mhere. sounds so cheesy one with
(25:01):
the machine. But but really likegetting into the 109 has been
really cool because of theautomation and I'm like, Okay,
if I was in IFR or or got hitwith any bad weather, that's the
machine that I would want to bein with the automation. I could
just press a button literally byit start getting disoriented,
you just hit the go aroundbutton, it puts you in a stable
(25:21):
700 per minute climb. Yeah,that's really, for safety.
Safety wise, that's really,really nice. But I love like the
350 Yeah, Airbus products arelike, I got my higher, I'm
always wearing this hat. I loveAirbus products. So like, it'd
(25:42):
be really cool to check out thesuper Puma.
And it's, and it's so easy tofly. I mean, that was I mean, if
you for any other helicopter, Imean, it's so so easy. I mean,
just flying it, I mean,operating it is a different
story. But flying it is veryrewarding. And especially when
you come from and the you know,the nervous 350 You know,
(26:04):
landings can throw the moreseasoned, seasoned pilot off
sometimes. So, being able toland a smooth and stable
helicopter like the super Puma,on, you know, landing gear like
proper wheels and stuff with asmooth suspension. It's so
rewarding when you do that thefirst time. It's just pure.
Yeah, it's it's really nice.
It's very fun machine to fly,and so forth. Do you get to
(26:26):
still fly it on missions? Areyou got your type rating? But
you said you're mostly flyingthat 350?
Yeah, yeah, we don't find out asmuch. And there are a few of us.
So yeah, it varies a lot, Iprobably want to find out a
whole lot. But hopefully a bitfrom time to time a couple of
(26:47):
times. You know, every othermonth, hopefully. So I mentioned
we'll definitely that'll bethat'll be utility missions
mostly. So and in the beginningnow that will obviously be as
pilot monitoring for for the thesling log work. So but hopefully
(27:07):
come next year, I will be ableto get a chance to try the long
run on that as well. That wouldbe really interesting to try.
Yeah, that's cool. Oh,does it have like, a lot of
stabilization? I mean, you saideverything's pretty analog. But
yeah,it has, you know, the it is
stabilized. But you know, it's,it's old. You know, in terms of
(27:27):
automation, you have heading,hold airspeed hold and also to
home. So that's, you know, thewhole sweep of automation, but
it's quite stable. So it?
Definitely, yeah, it should beinteresting to try. But you
know, when you've never tried itbefore, I mean, I haven't even
(27:49):
tried, you know, with an emptylong line. I never know what
you're how it's gonna be untilyou actually try it. So I don't
really I don't want to speculatehow much into what that's gonna
be like, but I definitely lookforward to that.
I bet man, let me know how thatgoes. And circling back to our
original conversation about riskmitigation and safety, which is
(28:10):
something I really wanted todrive into this episode. Seeing
as it is your forte holdingthese safety manager, the very
important role of safety managerat your company. Was there
anything in particular thatinspired you to take on that
role? Was that something you'vealways wanted to do?
Being in the army, you I, we hada couple of incidents and
(28:32):
experiences that led me torealize that, you know, we
sometimes you operate in, in arecent build environment. But
that doesn't mean you shouldaccept any risk. So it became
apparent to me that in manycases, it's about mitigating the
(28:54):
risks that you can, and thenkind of accepting that there are
some things you won't be able todo much about, you know, and I
can't realize that moving intoaviation as well. And having
seen what can happen and, youknow, having lost friends in
aviation as well, you, yourealize that this is definitely
(29:17):
not a regular job in manyaspects. And it is a risk build
environment, but it's, yeah, Ijust realized that I kind of
have an eye for seeing the risksthat need there will always be
inherent, but what can we do tomitigate those risks as much as
possible? And more than anythingelse? I mean, what are
(29:39):
unnecessary risks and why do wetake unnecessary risks? So the
whole risk reward concept isvery important to me. And so for
me, it was I just showed aninterest in that and I think the
company kind of picked up on it,and they kind of nurtured that.
That interest in to that field,so I kind of went through ranks
(30:03):
from I started out as anavigation officer actually,
because I took a specialinterest in, in an obstacle, an
obstacle awareness. So wedeveloped some systems there to
kind of increase the situationalawareness in the cockpit. And,
and then I became a safetyadvisor aided in the safety
(30:25):
promotion work, investigationsand stuff like that, then became
a senior safety adviser before Ibecame the safety manager. So
the company was veryaccommodating. And yeah,
nurtured my interest for flightsafety in a very good way. I
think. So it's been interestingto do. I mean, I love flying.
But it's definitely interestingto be able to affect the safety
(30:49):
aspect of it as well.
Yeah, it's super interesting andsuper important to have somebody
like you within a company, as asafety manager to create the
right environment and to set thestage for a safe working
environment that couldpotentially save people's lives
in the long run. And there's somany different models out there
that we can use to assess andmitigate risk. And throughout my
(31:13):
career, mostly, you know, evenin the Coast Guard, we've got on
a search and rescue mission,we'd have to do a standard green
Amber red risk assessment modelto determine whether or not it's
going to be a go or no go. Andit's very simple environment,
pilot crew, everything getsassigned a numerical value. And
eventually, it all adds up towhether or not we're in the
(31:37):
green, which means go Amber,which means use some caution,
maybe we can find a couple ofthings within our assessment
that we can change and improveon to bring our score down. And
then obviously, red would be ano go. And that's just like a
really basic model across theboard. But there are a little
bit more complex ones that wecan use. But in your opinion, as
(31:59):
a safety manager, what is yourfavorite risk assessment model?
And how does it work?
Well, it's based around thegreen Amber red model, as you
mentioned, but but with a bowtie, kind of approach to it kind
of seeing where the barrierskind of fit into place. Is this
something? Is this a measurewhere we reduce the likelihood
(32:23):
of something happening? Or isthis something that will reduce
the consequences of thathappening, you know, so say, for
example, birds, you know, theirhazard, they can lead to a bird
strike on the windshield, whichcan lead to pilot
incapacitation. And obviously,that will be very bad day,
(32:46):
indeed. So in terms of, if youif you look at that example, you
can mitigate the risk. Byreducing the speed in on areas
of birds, that'll reduce thelikelihood of the event, right.
So that will reduce the risk ofyou even having a bird strike.
But then if you want to gofurther, and you want to see
(33:07):
okay, so are there other thingswe can do? You can Okay, so how
about we wear a visor, we wear ahelmet on a visor, that could
maybe if you're lucky, mitigatethe effects of births right
through the windshields, to thefact that you're not gonna face
a pilot incapacitation anymore.
So I think that's a good way ofseeing it and kind of being
(33:27):
aware of what mitigating actionsyou're putting in place and how
that kind of affects the wholescenario. And I think the most
important thing for all pilotsis, I mean, we don't have any
formalized procedure for doingrisk assessments for every
(33:48):
operation we do we have standardrisk assessment for standard
operations. And especially inutility, I think there are so
many variables, depending on youknow, just the just the weather,
you know, the on that time andplace in those conditions in
that valley with wicked windchecks and all that so it's
(34:08):
impossible to do a riskassessment for every scenario
you you encounter. So in myopinion, it's as much about
making people accustomed to kindof doing these things in their
head as they're flying flyingand, and especially what you
were saying about you know, youhave you have several risk
factors, but when thoseaccumulate, you know, he, that's
(34:32):
when you go into the red, youknow, overall, and you can deal
with maybe one or two or threeof those things and that's fine,
but all of a sudden, you havelike six various fields of the
operations that is kind ofborderline you know, you have
you didn't sleep well, you haveloadmaster with you who's, yeah,
his first job, first week on thejob, as as a solo loadmaster or
(34:56):
the weather is really bad. Andyou're mounting a cell phone
tower, for example. And it'sjust, you know, one of those
factors could be okay. But thenyou start to, to add those and,
and seeing as it's impossible tokind of do all these things like
formalized and advanced, I thinkit's up to the pilots to kind of
(35:20):
be aware of these things. And,and you can do that easily. And
you can also, the best way Ifind is to breed that in the
crew, kind of see what, okay, sothere are a lot of things that
are kind of not going our waynow. So we got to take a step
back and maybe sit tight and seeif we should postpone this
thing. Or if there are otherthings we can do to kind of
(35:43):
mitigate the risks,right. And like you said, we do
these risk assessments beforethe flight. But it's also
something that we're constantlydoing while we're flying. Right,
that's something that we do needto get accustomed to, we're
making a million decisionsthroughout a flight. And it's
nice to have sort of anorganized way to assess your
(36:05):
risk always going on in the backof your head while you're
flying, right, the pave modelpilot aircraft environment,
external pressures, these areall things that we should be
assessing and reevaluating,constantly, while we're flying.
And if any of those things getsbeyond an acceptable amount of
risk, trying to figure out waysto mitigate those items. So
(36:27):
you're flying along, you'rerunning into some weather,
you're still within yourpersonal and company minimums
and legal minimums. But what canyou do to mitigate the risks of
accidentally flying into IMC andnot get disoriented, Alright,
I'm gonna slow down my airspeed,I'm gonna throw on my autopilot,
doing those two things, thoseare already helping to bring the
(36:50):
risk factor downon a single fight, perhaps, you
know, there are so many littlevariables that you have to
consider. And I think it'simportant to to be aware of
those decisions at all times,because you never know. I mean,
you could you may have done. Imean, there are pilots that are
(37:10):
there for 9000 hours, they'vedone this thing their way their
entire career, and it's beenfine. But then one day, the
Swiss Jesus, you know, align,and they have an accident, I
mean, just because it's beenfine. The other times doesn't
mean it will be fine. Everytime. So making sure that the
decisions you make are sound,even though they might maybe
(37:34):
just a minor minor distinction,like for instance, we add our
main base, we we taxi out ontomore or less by the threshold
end of one of the runway, so youcould either choose to depart to
the east, which gives youprobably 100 meters of runway
and 300 feet. And then oppositeyou could you have maybe 1400
(37:59):
feet of runway, you know, so whynot? Why if there are no wind
conditions or anything likethat, why wouldn't you then
choose to go? Do the even thoughit takes you longer to fly the
long way and us through therunway? Why won't you do that?
Instead of taking the risk offlying, you know, it's, you
(38:24):
know, a dirty takeoff, if youwant to call it that, instead of
doing a textbook takeoff, it'sgonna take you maybe a minute or
two longer, but this could bethe first part of the day, maybe
you know, after a maintenancehas been done or something. So I
think it's prudent whenever youcan to see okay, it might take
me a minute longer to do it thisway. But if something happens,
(38:46):
I'll be in a much betterposition to get myself out of
it. If it does. So, just kind ofmaking sure that you plan to
mess up a little bit. You know,it's not that, you know, I'm I
mean, I I'm so forgetful I leavethings. I mean, I would Yeah, I
would definitely forget where Iput the keys if it wasn't for
(39:08):
the fact that I know that I'mforgetful. So I never leave my
keys anywhere but in my pocketor on my counter here. So I kind
of try to mitigate the fact thatI'm, I'm forgetful when it comes
to stuff like that. So I have tomake sure that I have routines
to mitigate that.
(39:33):
Yeah. And it's kind of a slidingrule too. Because, you know,
depending on what equipmentyou're in, like, you know, I fly
multiple different types ofaircraft and sometimes you just
have to like take a minute andbe like, Okay, what am I doing
right now? Okay, yeah, I'm inthe 109. I have two engines
versus I'm getting into an AES350 And I have one engine. So
(39:56):
coming down to, you know, 100foot hover and coming straight
down. Hello PADD might be alittle bit less of a risk and a
multi engine than, you know anas 350. So definitely kind of
taking a minute to just rememberwhere you are what you're
flying. Because once you get toa certain point, you're
switching around to alldifferent types of aircraft that
(40:17):
different different types oftakeoff says it changes over
platforms and missions. Soyeah, cool.
Well, thank you so much forcoming on the show. I really
appreciate your time. I knowyou're you're quick, you're
super tired right now. Youmentioned you didn't get much
sleep, sleep lately. So I reallyappreciate you taking the time
(40:38):
to sit down and talk to me andspark these conversations about
safety and risk mitigation thathopefully will echo throughout
the podcast fear and maybe reachthe ears of somebody who needed
to hear it today. Love yourphotography. I'm so excited to
see you know, more stuff thatyou keep bringing out on
(40:58):
Instagram. Definitely followthis guy at the helm. That
helicopter guy on Instagram.
Okay, thank you for having me.
I know guys, I know. I missedJose to super bummed he couldn't
be here for this one. But it wassuch a pleasure to talk to Tom
(41:19):
and hear his perspective and gethis insight. And, man what a
cool place to fly there in theNorwegian fjords. super jealous.
And I know I had a couple ofreally nice takeaways from our
conversation today. He reallyhit the nail on the head with it
doesn't matter what job youhave. It's how you do that job
(41:39):
that counts. Of course theimportance of doing a proper
risk assessment before yourflight and how it should be an
ongoing constant thought processwhile you're flying. And of
course taking that into yourdecision making process. It's
been my absolute pleasure to dothis interview for you guys
today. Hopefully you got someawesome takeaways like I did
(42:01):
from Tom. And go ahead hit thatsubscribe button leave a rating
leave us a comment. Of course welove to hear from you guys. Fly
safe out there and have abeautiful rest of your day. Bye
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