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Stopping the Rumor Mill


wbrady755

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My friends and I have always been into snowboarding, and there is a great scene about Heli-Ski ops up in Canada in the Art of Flight series.

 

Heres a chunk of it...

 

 

At my flight school, they end up using this to familiarize students with icing and mountain flying, explaining how fast weather can come in. One guy said that the pilot got fired for all of the things that went wrong (and his blade-deice technique). Now, everyone carries on the story that "If you fly into bad weather, you're going to get fired".

 

I just want to know if anyone knows for sure if the guy Ken got in any real trouble. It just bothers me that some low-time pilots can "armchair quarterback" the decisions made by a pilot in some pretty extreme conditions.

 

Does anyone have concrete info on the fate of this guy?

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One thing I know, don't let anybody ride on the basket. The FAA went after some of the pilots in the AK segment, but from what I've heard the only thing they got them on was the GoPros on the outside. I don't know about the basket guy, other than he was fired almost immediately.

 

I thought the Canadian pilot acquitted himself fairly well, given the circumstances. These sorts of things happen in the mountains.

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Looks to me the guy knew what he was doing. Whats the problem? Fired? Why? If you work in that environment, you learn how to be productive… It’s what the boss would have done…… Like flying really close to wires during line work. Or, near flames during a fire…. It’s what’s expected… If you fear it, I’d suggest moving on to something else…

 

And, I didn’t see anyone “riding” on a basket… That is, what I saw; they were holding the machine down while they attempted to strap it down so he could shut down in the high winds….

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Video made no sense but the guy definitely got himself into a bind. It's hard to equate flying near power lines (which is done routinely with training) with icing up on a mountain with no place to land. It appears the pilot took some unnecessary risks but got lucky. I don't know how you could conclude it's "what the boss would have done." Git 'er done will git you killed. The video seemed more like some reality TV nonsense than anything that actually happened. Looked liked two flights made to seem like one. How did those other guys end up where they did when he did the toe in? Why were they carrying snowboards to the helicopter when they were supposed checking some towers or something?

Edited by helonorth
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Looks to me the guy knew what he was doing. Whats the problem? Fired? Why? If you work in that environment, you learn how to be productive… It’s what the boss would have done…… Like flying really close to wires during line work. Or, near flames during a fire…. It’s what’s expected… If you fear it, I’d suggest moving on to something else…

 

And, I didn’t see anyone “riding” on a basket… That is, what I saw; they were holding the machine down while they attempted to strap it down so he could shut down in the high winds….

 

Spike, I was referring to the AK segment where TRice rode the basket to the top of a mountain and jumped off. Not the Canadian segment. I like how that guy handled it. I thought it was interesting that he left them there, though.

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Spike, I was referring to the AK segment where TRice rode the basket to the top of a mountain and jumped off. Not the Canadian segment. I like how that guy handled it. I thought it was interesting that he left them there, though.

 

Roger that... Thank you for the clarification..

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