steve 76,
i answered your email before i read your repy in the forum so i will reply again, and yes is was not good what happened to gn , i was as disappointed as you seem to be. he played fror my local footy team while he was doing his flight training, we were all sad to lose a good player. what happened to graeme is very typical of what happens to many who try to break in to the australian helicopter industry. but i promise you he was very well warned before he started training, as all should be.
as i said in the private mail to you mustering is not a dead end go nowhere job in fact it is the largest part of the australian helicopter industry with nearly a third of the fleet engaged in it.
not that we have big fleet here, only about 800 machines in total.
friends that started in helicopters at helimuster and gained their experience there include four pilots that now work for, qantas, 707 captain, emirates, 777 check and training, chc, check and training on super pumas to name but a few. there are many success stories
i apologise to you here as i did in my private mail if you take offence at someone defending the system.
it is regrettable that so many pilots shell out so much money and don't achieve the goal of a working pilot but there are only so many jobs to go around. i have stated the statistics of aussie industry in the past and as long as we keep punching out as many hopefulls as we do it is not going to improve in the near future and tales of woe will continue to be heard.
those that succeed are the lucky ones that were there at the right time and place, like i was, and then it seems to all fall into place but for all the rest, and there are many many more of them, it's back to the old job.
as far as my backgound goes yes i do work for bluetongue helicopter services, (it is in my profile), as an instructor and i have trained about 250 commercial helicopter pilots (90% working) and i did tell the boss about what i wrote???. did he get up me??
you'll have to ask him youself,
graeme gillies
