Heliwise - and the point is??

[Pan Pan Splash]

I have noticed of late that several schools in the south have been participating in a scheme called "Heliwise" where the school receive a visit and display from a Squirrel. So whats the objective here, are we trying to persuade children that a career in helicopter flying is a wonderful choice, given that these boards are full of threads about wannabe's struggling to make it, and high timers struggling to find work, or are we trying to persuade them that helicopter engineering is the way ahead, assuming the child harbours aspirations of working long hours, for little money??

Can someone tell me exactly what the point of heliwise is??

Don't get too caught up in my scepticism, the year R children at my local school thought it was fantastic:D

PPS

[ShyTorque]

It's a warning to the little blighters.

"Behave and work hard, or you might end up doing this."

(Bit like an ASBO but worse).

[KevinLonghurst]

A little bird told me it's all about selling the associated photos to the parents...

Kev

[thecontroller]

like this?

http://www.heliphotos.co.uk/

i think its a money making venture for schools

[KevinLonghurst]

yep, it would appear they offer exactly the same 'service'...

Kev

[Stringfellow Dork]

Yeah, so it probably (ok - of course it is) about making money but I bet a lot of the kids get a real kick out of the helicopter landing at their school; seeing it up close and what-not. You know - fun, excitement, intrigue!

Nowt wrong with that is there?

[Francis Frogbound]

I flew on the first one of these schemes which was run through Cabair as Heliphotos. The kids actually get a lesson from the teacher/photographer and the pilot. The lesson covers two parts of the national curriculum, one about mapping (part of the job was to provide aerial photos of the school) and the other part was about flight and how flying machines work.

We went away on tour for 5 days at a time. Earliest take off was 09:00 and last landing 16:00. If you could stand a thousand screaming brats a day the job was great fun.

This thread has just got me digging through old flying photos and I've just found a pic from one school where they had a class of blind kids. The teacher and myself did a lunchtime lesson for them where they could touch the A/C and understand by feel what the aircraft was like. The pic is of me and a 9 year old who had just gone blind due to cancer, he is laughing hugely in the sunshine and enjoying the day. His mum sent me the pic with a note of thanks the following week. I met him on the Monday and he died on the Wednesday night, the cancer won as they had known it would.

Some of the schools were incredible. Dire areas with obvious poverty. Often they were the best disciplined kids and the best teachers. Other schools with everything going for them were utter c:mad: .

Nobody gets ripped off with this scheme. The annual class photos paid for the helicopter (just) and the kids got up close to an aircraft and learned something they had to learn an a different way. Much as I complained about it at the time (anyone who knows me knows I complain a lot anyway) I enjoyed it and always felt lifted at the end of the week.

[Pan Pan Splash]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not having a poke at these guys, I genuinely wondered what the end objective was.. of course it appears money making.. there I was thinking there may be a heartfelt long term plan, aimed at preserving our fine business!!!:rolleyes:

FlungDung - Sorry mate, I didn't make it very clear, it was just a general throw away remark since over the last few years this place seems to have been inundated with complaints of lack of work in one area or another, and at one time or another. I left engineering myself due to the crap pay in the UK. Of course there is money to be made, I guess it depends on where you are willing to go to get it. The number of UK vacancies reflect the pay on offer I think.

Stringfellow - Nowt wrong with that is there?

Nope:ok:

PPS

[airmail]

Francis

I did some work for them about 10 years ago and agree wholeheartedly with everything that you say about the experience (and some of the schools too). Having had a quick look at the Heliwise website, it appears that this is run by Malcolm as well.

Whilst it is, at the end of the day, a commercial venture and therefore needs to make money, it never cost the schools anything and IIRC the photos were not much more expensive than the standard school photos that you could get with the obvious benefits of giving the kids a great time.

airmail

[Pan Pan Splash]

Francis,

I apologise as I replied, your post hadn't shown up. Nice to hear that you have had good responses. I used to do the same thing with the Navy, we used to take a Sea King to schools up and down the land. Generally it was good fun, the kids always seemed to ask questions that we'd never thought of, which kept the entertainment value up.:ok: Our aim was Navy recruitment though, and we targeted older kids, usually 14+.

[Agaricus bisporus]

Francis, I too flew on the early ones with Heliphotos. It was one of the most rewarding jobs I have ever done. It was good for everyone, the kids loved a change to the usual routine and were immensely excited by it all, it was fun for the teachers too, a couple of National Curriculum modules were provided ready made to the school (the carrot), the crew got a huge amount of satisfaction, the parents got a school photo to treasure and Heliphotos made a profit.

And not least, helicopters got a positive press wherever they went (the press were often there) and thousands of kids got to see one close-up with a sensible explanation of the whys and wherefores.

Remember the demo of principles of helo flight using a frisbee?

Win win win!

Still a brilliant idea, well done Malcolm!

[Francis Frogbound]

Agaricus;

We always got a laugh with the frisbee as I'm one of the world's worst frisbee catchers.

As you gained experience and started to "wing it" a bit you had that sudden realisation that up to a thousand people were spell bound wondering what stupidity you were going to do next. My favourite was dressing a teacher up as a pilot and showing how the controls worked using 2 broomsticks and a pair of photocopy paper boxes.

FF

PanPanSplash;

No apology needed, it looks strange until you know what its' all about. Funnily enough the pilots on it tended to be the most experienced. Its' bloody high profile should anything go wrong and many of the landing sites are inner city and tight (few playing fields anymore)

[ericferret]

PAN PAN SPLASH

Is really out of date with the wages in the aircraft engineering field.
Mind you the long hours issue hasn't totally gone away. The working conditions can be pretty crappy as well.

I had a quick look at the national statistics office figures for UK wages in 2006.

They are interesting.

The average wage for a senior health professional is £53,976.
Given that these people do work long hours the comparison with a licensed engineer working a lot of night shifts, but little overtime is probably a reasonable comparison. This is in the UK not overseas.

I have equalled or exceeded this figure for the last 5 years.

The top 10% of all earners in the UK made £46,072 on average.
The national average for men is £25,324

If you then move into licensed engineers who are contracting then the figures can double and of course being self employed has major tax advantages which means you get to keep more of the dosh. Stories of contract licensed guys earning £100,000 are not myths, I've seen the pay slips!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I've also seen the time sheets and it is a tough way to make a living.

Once qualified the pay in aircraft maintenance can be substantial if you are working for the right operator. In theory this pay is available after the age of 21. So anyone starting as an apprentice at 16 who gets his exams out of the way stands to make a good living in an interesting job.

[woccer woccer]

experienced pilots and lames cant find work are u sure I found work after only 15 yrs of trying.and luv it:)

[Pan Pan Splash]

I can see this is suffering a little thread creep...

I'm sure everyone can throw in examples of huge earners from various places.. however out of date I may be, I will take some convincing that LAME's are pulling in 100 grand from places such as kidlington, staverton or aberdeen. when I quit I was on £32K basic. Now I wouldn't consider getting out of bed for that. Sure with overtime I could make it up a bit, but there are easier ways to make better money for less time. Anyway, it was merely a very broad generalisation.

However, lets stick with the main point of the thread, which I think has been well covered by the men in the know. Thanks chaps:ok: