Just browsing through the 'who's who' thread and noticed that there were enormous variations in number of helo hours accrued. Now I understand and agree that it's not
necessarily an advert for experience, so don't fire up over that one, Ok,
but,
I do wonder about the 'quality' of flying that is going on out there.
For instance, you read about an offshore driver who has more or less spent their career offshore and built up a staggering number of hours (10,000 - 20,000), admittedly over 15+yrs.
There is the instructor who amasses thousands of hours flying the cct!!!
Then I read about the likes of Helimark who is an onshore emergency services driver, who has amassed 3000+ hrs since 1997!!! where every single day is different and the demands are different too. Cropduster does between 700 - 1000hrs between feb and nov!!!! Then goes off and flies other a/c and does other flying jobs elsewhere!!! He goes on to say, the engine never stops between sunrise and sunset some days:
Then there is your average (Uk) mil pilot who does, around about 300hrs /yr if he/she is lucky. By comparison very low hourly rate but extremely high demands.
Huge spectrum - and an interesting range of 'energy' within each job.
Anyway, where was I..................................