I can’t respond to all of the conditions stated in the post as to what makes a good pilot but I can nominate one individual as the best helicopter pilot I ever flew with. His name is David Gershowitz of the USCG. He was not only an excellent pilot but he understood the mechanical intricacies of the helicopters he flew. I was just out of mechanics school with minimal helicopter experience and when I was assigned to my new base they immediately sent me to factory school at Sikorsky on the HO3-S (S-51). When I returned they sent me back for overhaul training on all of the dynamics systems on the same helicopter. When I returned I was fully capable of doing anything on that helicopter. Shortly there after, I was assigned to an icebreaker to maintain a Bell HTL-1 (Model 47). Dave Gershowitz schooled me in all of the routine maintenance and not so routine maintenance. I gained a great deal of respect for him as a person, as a technician and as a pilot. I flew with him on many occasions where we transitioned from VFR to IMC conditions and he brought us through every time even though the helicopter was not equipped for instrument flight. In many of our conversations I discovered that he had been involved in the training of the first helicopter pilots from the UK, the US Army and the US Navy with this training taking place at Floyd Bennett Air station in Brooklyn, New York. With many pilots now claiming 15,000 to 20,000 hours at the controls Dave Gershowitz was the first pilot to gain 1,000 hours PIC in helicopters.
When I served with him he was a Lieutenant and he retired as a Captain. I often thought of why when there was an off base assignment they would team me up with Dave Gershowitz. When I got to know our bigoted Executive officer better I knew the reason. If the helicopter crashed he would get rid of the only Jews on the base.