10,000 Hours!
Thread Starter
10,000 Hours!
Woo hoo! Just tootin my own horn....broke 10,000 accident-free helo hours 175 nm offshore Nova Scotia in a 332L today, wind blowin 50 knots, 30 feet seas, just perfect! Started flying Bell 47s in Northern Ontario in '85 so it's been a long time coming. I know there's alot of guys kicking around with far more hours but I'm still excited.....
Hope the next 10,000 are as much fun!
Hope the next 10,000 are as much fun!
)
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Gold Coast, Queensland
Posts: 943
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Well done!! The first 10,000 hours seem to come quite quickly but the next 5000 hours seem to take for ever!! Don't let the occasion make you think you now fly twice as well as when you had 5000 hours. Can be a big trap, so fly safe!!
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Sydney
Age: 74
Posts: 292
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Experience is a harsh teacher.....
....first the test then the lesson. I clocked up a thousand hours in a ten year fling with a little R22 Bladestrike. It was a stormy torrid involvement, the first few hundred hours were the scariest. I still remember the words I wrote at the milestone, "My thousand hours in choppers taught me patience & respect for the machine, fear & loathing of wires & weather, gratitude & appreciation for the experience. Most of all I’m relieved that I’m still here, the first few hundred hours were a steep learning curve & the definition of an optimist is a low hours chopper pilot who gives up smoking."
I can only begin to imagine what secrets you've learned in the next nine thousand?
I can only begin to imagine what secrets you've learned in the next nine thousand?
Thread Starter
Thanks for the kind words guys. It's all I ever wanted to do since I was a youngin...
Got the first thousand under my belt before I turned 20, best year was 980 hours, but years of EMS with breaking 200 considered a good year, kind of messed up the average.
Got the first thousand under my belt before I turned 20, best year was 980 hours, but years of EMS with breaking 200 considered a good year, kind of messed up the average.
Just a miss spent youth it sounds like.....you should have taken up the Piano instead....at least the girls in the bawdy house are better looking than most of the passengers you have carried. 
Ten Thousand Accident Free Hours is a worthy accomplishment....how many total hours you got?
Ten Thousand Accident Free Hours is a worthy accomplishment....how many total hours you got?
, continued safe flyingJoin Date: Feb 2005
Location: Australia
Posts: 1,957
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
congratulations Bladestrike, you've done a good mile,
had my first flight about the same age, but it was a DH82. another long 15 or so years before I sat in one what them wings on top turned round on.
cheers tet
had my first flight about the same age, but it was a DH82. another long 15 or so years before I sat in one what them wings on top turned round on.
cheers tet
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: UK and MALTA
Age: 61
Posts: 1,297
Likes: 0
Received 18 Likes
on
4 Posts
10K.....hmmmmm thats 1 year and 51.5 days. I see you have been flying for 25 years. What the hell have you been doing for the other 23.7 years...you lazy sod!!!!
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: In the desert southwest
Posts: 181
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
avoidance
After the first 1500 or so the goal is to avoid flying as much as possible. 
It seems at times that the harder I try to not fly, the more time I get. I recall one in particular when the commander offered a 2 hour mission on a cold winters morn. I reccommended (from my comfy office chair) that he give it to the young warrant officer across from me. The boss took me up on my offer and my co-pilot thought he had just witnessed a grand act of senior wisdom. 2 hours later the 5 hour grinder came down the pipe and I was left to perform! Co-pilot lost his respect for my scheming abilities. Argh
Congrats and Cheers
It seems at times that the harder I try to not fly, the more time I get. I recall one in particular when the commander offered a 2 hour mission on a cold winters morn. I reccommended (from my comfy office chair) that he give it to the young warrant officer across from me. The boss took me up on my offer and my co-pilot thought he had just witnessed a grand act of senior wisdom. 2 hours later the 5 hour grinder came down the pipe and I was left to perform! Co-pilot lost his respect for my scheming abilities. Argh Congrats and Cheers
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Kings Caple, Ross-on-Wye.orPiccots End. Hertfordshire
Posts: 458
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Hours
Ahh ..... Just passed the 'one year, seven months and 22 days airborne with a quaint bit of rotating metal strapped to my bum. But as a 78 yr old have I been even lazier?
Regards to all out there. Dennis K
Regards to all out there. Dennis K