Helo-Pilot,
Do they have FAA accredited courses for the shooters?
Over here we call them a platform course. far more complex than the initial and five yearly renewal of a firearms license which usually only allows from the ground shooting and either pistols, bolt action or pump action centre fires plus all the rimfires of course.
The flying test on the platform course involves a timed circuit of twenty or so cut out targets the size of a cow with a balloon wedged in one or two holes in each target, cut out in the head / heart position. When I was doing them they required a pass rate of 95%. Not so easy when them wooden critters don't move and consequently they are converging or diverging from each target. I always put the target nice and close.
They have to be accredted with CASA and the local Police department (firearms section) Each state has different rules as to how long a shooter can be licensed to drive a semi auto so it's very confusing and obstructive in some states, especially Queensland.
Also unlike the video, if they didn't immediately clear that gun completely with the mag out before it was brought back inside it was an automatic fail. A lot of our shooters were ex vietnam dudes, they could clear a gun quicker than a wink and be lighting a fag and always knew exactly how many rounds left in the mag.
The reason for that was simple apart from common sense, it wasn't unusual to have a gun stutter a bit when it got hot and a gun making loud noises inside the cab was not on.
Are the pilots required to be mustering endorsed or just low level endorsed?
Most of our feral animal control contracts stipulate at least 1500 hours PIC mustering /shooting or similar such as Ag work. It is usual though that most pilots on this sort of work would be minimum 5,000 hours mustering / shooting.
And oh yeah, we have a saying, the bigger the hat the smaller the sheep station, some hats of which have to be seen to be believed. Not that I know anything much about sheep, they stink too much.
Cattle blokes just wear hats they can get about in the scrub with on a bolter easy, keep the sun of, flog that horse or quickly take a bulls mind off his maybe bad attituide from time to time as one steps sideways.
They are always flash enough though to sell to a tourist for a few hundred bucks when you're strapped for a quid, especially when they have a bit of blood an gore on them.
cheers tet
I nearly forgot, you got a boss that wants to fly in front of the line of fire, get a new boss, no questions.