Light on the Skids

Fast Helicopters - the end of an era

It is with sadness that I return to this blog on such a subject as this.

On 24 January Fast Helicopters, based at Shoreham Airport, was placed in administration.

The administrators attempted to sell the business quickly as a going concern but this was apparently unsuccessful and now most of the staff have been made redundant.

The administrators, PricewaterhouseCoopers, will now be taking their time to sell the assets of the business and continue to operate the hangar which has a number of tenants.

Word is that Fast Helicopters was a viable operation and its demise was brought on by factors unrelated to the day-to-day performance of the business.

Whetever the truth is in that, Fast Helicopters was internationally renowned for the quality of it's rotary-wing training, provided an important centre for maintenance of many helicopter types and was a very capable charter operator. Ian Macgregor, Fast Helicopters' managing director for many years, is supremely respected in the industry. I know he worked tirelessly to build the company and ensure its many customers were looked after with great professionalism.

I don't know the full history of Fast Helicopters but ever since my first trial lesson in a Robinson R22 at Fast on 14 January 2005 my experience of the company has been nothing but positive. What kept me going back to Fast Helicopters was the frieldliness and professionalism of the team and the knowledge that there was always a good selection of exceptionally well-maintained helicopters in the hangar. And whenever I needed any kind of aviation advice there was always someone at Fast - and very often Ian himself - happy to give their time to help.

Shoreham Airport, being such an important general aviation centre, really deserves a strong helicopter operator and by rights that should be Fast Helicopters. Let's hope that something will rise from the ashes of the company with the same culture of friendliness, professionalism and support for rotary pilots.

Farnborough 2010 helicopter pictures

It was a quick visit to the Farnborough International Airshow 2010, I was there barely three hours, but here are my helicopter photos from the show.

I'll aim to provide more of a narrative later, and explain why my star of the show was the PZL SW-4.

More thoughts on social media and aviation

So I have been refused press accreditation for Farnborough International Airshow 2010. That's okay, I can understand that on the basis that this blog has been pretty quiet until now and in the whole scheme of things it's not that influential.

I just hope that the nice media people at Farnborough International Ltd (FIL) made the decision on these grounds and not simply because I am 'just a blogger'.

My blog may not be very important (hopefully that may change with time), but social media is very important, and giving influential bloggers press accreditation is just one way the aviation world can adapt to the wider digital media landscape.

I plan to go along to the show anyway, I have no problem buying a trade ticket, I just would have preferred a badge that properly reflected my reasons for attending the event. Oh, and the press parking is very convenient!

Uptake of social media in helicopter aviation - first impressions

Having thrown myself back into this blog, and as part of that set up a dedicated Light on the Skids Twitter feed, I've found that adoption of social media in the helicopter industry seems a bit patchy.
Just looking use of Twitter by the manufacturers, only Eurocopter and Sikorsky have good, active Twitter feeds with links to them on their home page.

Bell Helicopter is there but no link on the homepage, MD Helicopters is there but is not active (although CEO Lynn Tilton is) and I can't find Robinson, Enstrom or Agusta Westland.

There was a ray of hope though from the grass roots of the industry - within hours of setting up my Light on the Skids Twitter feed I was followed by Mick Cullen of Aeropower, an operator in Australia. He agreed with me on the patchy take-up of social media in the rotary-wing world, but added that he has incorporated social media into flight training. He said: "We are starting a program with our students and building their personal branding on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn from their first flight. If it can help them network and land that first helicopter job quickly out of training then we’ve done our job."

If I get to Farnborough Airshow next week I'll do a little more research.

Off to Farnborough?

I'm planning to get along to the Farnborough Airshow next week to check out what rotary stuff they have in the air and on the fixed displays.

It's partly dependent on whether or not I get a press pass, as this really helps in terms of access to relevant information. But I guess that's going to depend on the organisers understanding that blogs have an important part in the new digital media landscape. Fingers crossed.

Here's my report from Farnborough 2006 - crikey, I didn't realise it was four years ago when I last went.

Helicopter media - an update

I got a very nice email a while back from helicopter legend Dennis Kenyon. He politely pointed out to me that in a previous post where I listed helicopter magazines I had left out the rotary coverage in Loop. The helicopter news and features in Loop are often better than other GA magazines, not least becasue Dennis himself is a contributor.
It's a shame there is no dedicated section on the Loop website for helicopter news - perhaps that's something Loop should consider.

Must get the rotors turning

I must post more often on this blog - 18 months between posts is a bit useless! Anyway, I'be been prompted to inject some vigour into Light on the Skids by two very nice emails from people who have stumbled across this site recently.
Anyway, time to review my original plan for Light on the Skids (news for helicopter pilots) which is clearly too tall an order for me (am just too busy with two businesses and other committments). So I'm just going to treat it as a personal rotary aviation discussion. Maybe that way I'll be a bit more prolific.

A good excuse for a trip to California

I did the Robinson factory safety course last week, in California.

You can do this course in the UK, but I say go to Torrance and do it there. It's longer and more detailed, plus you've got a better chance of working on your captain's tan. And you get to meet Frank. Excellent.

Helicopter prejudice

I've not posted for ages, no excuse really other than struggling to get the time to fly let along write about it. But I was prompted to blow the dust off Light on the Skids today by an seriously frustrating experience.

I live in the centre of a small city. It's great, but I would really like more space one day - perhaps a garden big enough to land a helicopter.

I've been thinking about that a lot lately. So it was pleasantly surprising to come back from a cancelled Jetranger lesson to see details of a nice looking rural property had popped through my letterbox.

I rang the agent and asked how big the garden was. "Not really big enough for horses," came the reply, and I rather stupidly responded: 'But big enough to land a helicopter." The agent said she'd call back to let me know when I could view the property.

Half an hour later the call came back and said: "I'm afraid there isn't suitable to land a helicopter." Having taken a closer look at the details, which included six photos showing clear rural approaches and enough space for to do a five-aircraft fly-in at the property, I said: "It looks like there is plenty of room to me." At this point the agent confessed that the vendor did not want to sell the property to a helicopter pilot in case it 'upset the neighbours'.

I dug a little deeper and apparently there are already a few other nearby residents who land helicopters in their gardens and that this was a bit of a local issue. Explaining that I didn't even own an aircraft and that I would land in the garden only occasionally had no effect whatsoever - the strength of anti-helicopter feeling was too great for compromise.

So - there you have it, if you are looking for a place big enough to land in the garden just remember not to mention the fact you are a helicopter pilot until the purchase is complete!

Weather - my excuse

It's rubbish that I haven't posted for so long - I blame the weather. Isn't that what we VFR aviators do in the UK, blame the weather?

On that subject, I did the Met for Aviators course at the Met Office in Exeter a few weeks ago. Excellent stuff. Now I can tell excactly how bad our weather is going to be!

Seriously, I'd recommend the course to any pilot. At the very least you get to brush up on reading TAFs, METARs and those pesky 215s. And you appreciate the work that goes into forecasting.