Training Season

MD 500 on the West Coast of Vancouver Island

December to February is training season for me. At this time of year, every pilot in the company needs to complete their annual recurrent training and Pilot Competency Check on both aircraft we fly.  I have the honour of being a company training and check pilot for MD 500 helicopter that we use to transport people and gear during our regular operations. The 500 is a very agile and fast little helicopter that is often described as being an aircraft that you strap on and fly like it's part of you. So you can imagine training with it can be a lot of fun. That combined with the high level of experience among our group of pilots makes my job very enjoyable.

We are about half way through our training this year and it is my third season in this position. The first year was exhausting for me. I think I was having to study harder for every check ride and training session than the guys I was training and evaluating! I would honestly say that by the end of that first year, I was finally starting to understand all the material well enough that I could actually teach the material if I needed too. It was a good thing I was being tutored by such a knowledgeable person myself. Last year was starting to become more fun than work because I could really start to focus on breaking down some of the material and remove some of the 'clutter' to better clarify my explanations of material we cover. This year has been very enjoyable so far.

The training with each pilot consists of about an hour of ground briefing covering weather, Transport Canada documentation, company operations, aircraft limitations, emergencies  and air law and procedures. The training flight lasts for about an hour and 15 minutes and we cover emergency procedures, airmanship, and flight operations. The check ride flight is about half an hour and covers the same material with an evaluation. I don't think anyone enjoys the check ride portion including me. The training portion of the flight is usually a lot of fun. When else do you get to practice engine failures, stuck controls and pretend you're on fire?!?

Though the learning curve isn't as steep as it was for me in the first year, I still enjoy how much I am learning every day I do this job. Like coaching and teaching everyone sees techniques and learns in a different way than the next person. This year I'm finding I'm better prepared to notice the trends and differences with how each pilot views the same technique or procedure. By analyzing how each person approaches the same situation and applies a slightly different technique I get to learn different 'little tricks' that I can possibly pass on to help someone else. I particularly enjoy the challenges of figuring out why a particular technique works or doesn't work and what aerodynamic principles are involved. Helicopter aerodynamics are nothing short of magic in my books.

We have about two weeks left to go before training will be complete for another year. I hope my peers that I am training with leave their annual training feeling confident and that they've learned something useful. Even if they take away half of what I do from each one of them, I feel confident that I'm doing my job. And the best part of training season? I get to enjoy a rewarding day at work and then come home to my family every night. Too bad it doesn't last all year!