Some things learned on a helicopter trip from California to Florida (ferrying a new Robinson R44 IFR trainer from the factory in Torrance to its new owner in Palm Beach)….
In Los Angeles, from talking to a guy on a ramp, I learned that (1) Robinson is testing out a Garmin glass cockpit for the R44, i.e., it might be possible to get an R44 instrument trainer one day without the dreaded steam gauges, and (2) that the R66 turbine-powered Robinson is being test-flown and the performance and handling are not that different from the R44 (not a surprise).
On the ramp in College Station, Texas (KCLL), we met a Blackhawk crew. They had completed two one-year tours in Iraq and were preparing for a third. They enjoyed the flying, despite the obvious risks (7000 helicopters were lost in Vietnam; 50 in Iraq so far). The Blackhawk can take a large group of soldiers and all of their gear, plus two door gunners and thousands of rounds of ammunition. Does the rotor speed droop if you just pull in collective? “Not with the new engines,” they said, “which have minimal lag”. During each tour, you get two weeks of vacation for which the Army will fly you anywhere in the world. Otherwise you are working more or less all day every day, possibly with a day off every 45 days. “When you do get that day off and relax in your 95-degree unairconditioned tent, it feels cool,” they noted. On their first tour, they were allowed off the base, but no longer. Are the streets of small-town Iraq as hostile and dangerous as the newspaper make them sound? “Worse.”
In Florida, we met a corporate pilot for a big company that has two main locations and runs an Agusta 109 as a shuttle between them. He had formerly flown the similar Sikorsky S-76. Which was better? “The Sikorsky was much smoother.” What are his working conditions? He works 18 days per month, all weekdays. The helicopter does a one-hour flight in the morning and a one-hour flight in the evening. In between, he can relax in a comfortable office. Although the operation is almost always VFR, the company uses two pilots in case of a bird strike that renders one pilot unconscious. The pay? $115,000 per year.
So far the corporate job is sounding better than the military one…