Diary of North Sea Pilot
 

If any of you guys are really bored I would be interested to hear about your daily routine eg. Number of flights a day, shifts available(any flexibility), highs and lows of job, life in Aberdeen etc. etc. ..only if you are really bored. Cheers.

Hi Guys & Gals....

I'll second the above question... what is it like on the North Sea? It would be great to hear your comments.

Anyone in Scotia, Bristow or B.O.H help to put an ambitious pilot in the know about the the routine, some of the glitches and downsides. Would love to hear about the non flying side as well such as what Aberdeen is like to live in?

Thanks

Rotorvation

p.s anybody have any remedies for a depressed pilot? If I don't find a flying job soon I'm going to have to go back to being a data imput clerk..... A**e!!!:ok:

The fun wears off eventually (after 13 years), I took the option of reduced flying/money and no rubber suit and went to EMS instead.

The North Sea is great for hours building, but not much of a view out of the window. An appetite for bacon rolls, (UK side), or ham and cheese rolls (Dutch sector), would be an advantage!

But HOGE, you still make those Ham and Cheese rolls for breakfast, and lunch and dinner and.......

It's all coming back......

I'm hoping someone bites on this. Should be fun reading.

hey Rotorvation,

have you got an instructor rating? cos thats what you need to keep the hours increasing and the momentum going in order to become employable.

if all you have is a basic CPL(H) then no wonder you cant find work.

regards

CF

Ham and cheese rolls! Omigod!

Whatever happened to half kilo portions of North Sea Pig and half a gallon of icecream?

I have flown with pilots all over the world, and I must say that as a group there are none more professional than in the North Sea. The general atmosphere (let's admit, the culture is what counts - the way we regulate each other by what we establish as peer norms) is extremely professional.

The environment is absolutely unforgiving, the weather could not be worse, and the tasks are as difficult as anything in civil helicoptering, worldwide.

Those who master the North Sea routes are arguably ready for anything else civil helicopter flying can dish out.

The only mission/environment that is harder (IMHO) is US Army combat ops, where day flight is hardly practiced, and NVG operations in strange territory, at NOE altitudes, is the norm. And nobody does that in the civil world.

Nick,

Have you ever heard of a placed called The Grand Banks:ok:

Nick I would disagree with you there. N Sea oil rig flying might be difficult to grasp initially, but with all those a/c systems (twin pilot IFR/ILS/GPS) and regulated airspace to monitor your progress, I would suggest the flights can be done alomost by the numbers!
I bet the pilots are almost robotic in their profession.

Day and night HEMS is a lot more demanding I would argue. Each flight offers different demands and the weather/route/site/performance changes daily.
NVIS helps but the captaincy required is greater than oil rig routes???

Speaking as a frequent flyer with CHC Scotia out of ABZ (and former mil twin pilot), the routine must be soul-destroying. You must be doing it for the kudos.

If you guys are eating the same stuff that we get out of the galley, you have my deepest sympathy. - the only decent thing we get out here is muesli.:yuk:

I have to take Thomas Coupling to task here, I don't dispute that HEMS flying does not have its problems and that the captain has to make important decisions and at times gets it wrong. See other post regarding HEMS accidents, but the North Sea pilot also has to make big decisions. We all know about the weather, horizontal fog, high winds, turbulence, hot air over the deck (different to that coming out of the crew room), pressure from the client to take one extra passenger, underpowered helicopters, "Do you really need that fuel?", etc. etc. Once your out there you can't afford to get it wrong, get the weather wrong, pick the wrong alternate, rig fuel system fails, TAFS wrong (again). The list is almost endless.
Why do I do it? Without a challenge stagnation sets in and ambition becomes just a word. I've been there, done that, and got the tee-shirt and I still love it. I'm just pi$$ed off that I'm now an old fart.

Check
 

For heavens sake don't dramatise! North Sea has been going so long everything is already covered countless times in the OM Parts A-D, nothing new - you just have to have the balls to stand up and make the decision, if it really bothers you; the manuals will always back you up. If you just want an easy life, or just please the radio op then .....

Everyone is asked to take an extra passenger, fly an extra route; everyone has underpowered helicopters! everyone encounters differing weather. You should be extremely grateful that the North Sea actually gives progressive training for all this so it should be no surprise when murphy shows his face - candy-arsed I've heard some call it - but that is only to get you to bite!

Have a thought for all those who don't have oodles of juice for alternates which you can easily demand when consulting the TAF - it's more difficult for you to go wrong than someone less regulated.

Yours,

another potential old fart!

I thought I wrote my comments in English, but after reading Rot8ors reply I'm not so sure.
I seem to remember aiming my reply at the robotic state of North Sea flying. I agree there is nothing magic about it, but it does need the crews to be on top of it all the time because the support structure is not the best.
Ops Manuals vary in quality from poor to very good, (this is from my own experience), and if they were followed to the letter there would be more incidents. The manual is the minimum standard required, not the maximum and pilots discretion plays a part. The problem arises when the "customer is king" mentality overides logic.
Did we not read every second report in Winbasis sent from Sumburgh was regarding the unreliabilty of the TAFS. I always hope for a bad TAF, then I can have a decent fuel load, the problems occure with a good TAF but bad weather. Not an unusual occurance! Oodles of fuel! I wish,
My experience is no different I'm sure to many of my vintage, it has been gained operating in all corners of the world from below sea level to 19000 ft. The North Sea is just another theatre of operation, but it has a bigger bite than many other of the jobs I've been involved with and my own skill is sometimes not enough, I need help and often this help is lacking.

OK, now I admit my last was a bit of a troll!

I think when we do it right, at the true limits of practical safety, all missions are about equally difficult, each in its own way.

MY JOB IS HARDER THAN YOURS .....!!!
 

Lappos, you madman!

Look what you did...opened Pandora's Box!!!! Offshore guys say their world is more challenging then EMS and vice versa. I've heard this as long as I've flown both EMS and Offshore.

The battle is moot. I take that stuff with humour. You know....my dad is bigger than your dad!!!HAHAHA!!!

Challenges abound in ALL helicopter flying. Every helicopter landing is different....airplanes just move the runways from city to city.....from some fixed wing guy named LAPPOS!

Seriously, all you offshore and EMS dudes.....there are professionals in both realms AND there are weenies just the same, in both.

DK.

P.S. Now you fixed wing types( LAPPOS), that's another story!!!!!!!

This is a great peeing contest...

What about instructing in an R22? I bet those who are into that want to contribute to this bit...

Nick, someone with sense. I have to agree all flying requires skill, thought, support and in all aspects there are judgement calls to be made. We all like to think what we do is special, therefore that makes it all special. Long live helicopters.
Letting down to sea level, hover taxi to the rig and then climb up the leg to the helideck. Did we ever do that? No...oops another 2 inches on the nose.
Happily those days are long gone with a little help from the Regulators and once they sort out the weather I'll retire.
Sorry if I offended any HEMS drivers, it's one of the few jobs I have never done, but in mitigation my views were based on the fact that an old company in my past used the HEMS operation as command training operation before letting them loose offshore

Nick,

I think you forget that there are a number of countries where SAR is done by civillians, including in the North Sea. Anyway enough.

Back to the original thread.

I don't do it now, but this is what I thought of N Sea flying.

A regular roster averaging 4 days on 2 days off (this is about to change for an equal time roster at the expense of days annual leave.) A quick phone call/email the night before a duty to find out when to report. Turn up, plan the flight, pass the maximum payload, negoitate the payload with the client, replan the flight. Change into one of those elegant goon bags. Start up, pick up pax, depart from Aberdeen, usually on an IFR SID. Pick up your radial and plug your way out to the destination. On the way pick up the weather, plan the approach (possibly for a rig radar approach if viz is poor), get the return load, order food. Land on, oversee unloading, supervise fuelling, supervise loading, all on a helideck 200' above the sea (40' and moving if it is a small vessel or the Schieallion) little bigger than a tennis court. It always seems cold and windy (good for performance) or hot and turbulent (rig designers didn't always appreciate the effect of generator plumes on aircraft ops). Return home, completing the paper work and eating the food on the way. Repeat.

That is a good day. Often multiple stops, with multiple rig radar approaches, frequent bad weather, badly designed platforms leaving the final approach track very turbulent and frequent changes to plan. Oh and then there are the nights........night deck landings and those IF transitions into the black......happy memories!!! Also spells spent offshore 2 weeks on / off shuttling pax to and fro - lots of hands on flying but lots of time spent on a platform eating and sleeping.

I believe that if done for long enought it becomes routine although as one old bold pilot once told me, N Sea flying is 95% boredom, 5% sheer terror.

Generally for helicopter pilots it is very well paid with a reasonable life style (the only down side is weekends are a luxury and Christmas may or may not happen, but then again this is aviation). Aberdeen is a reasonable place to live, good night life, good restaurants in other words just like any other similarly sized city. Great scope for outdoor activities (skiing, walking, climbing, moutain biking etc). Make of it what you will - if you look hard enough, you will find something to endear you to the place. Be aware of the long winter nights and the summer haar.

I am sure that someone will have more to say, but that is my perspective of the short time I spent in the North Sea as a co pilot.

North Sea Ops
 

Routine and mundane. Never boring! The day it becomes boring is the day to leave.

Droopystop has it just about right.

As for the other part of this thread: I've flown both North Sea and HEMS. Both have their moments! It is wrong to compare HEMS with N.Sea ops as they have so little in common. The only really common aspect is that of captaincy: basically when to say NO.
Both jobs have outside pressure; from the client oil company or from the ambulance controller/paramedic. Ultimately it is up to you as the commander to make the right decision.

So all jobs are equally onerous.

bondu