2023 HeliOps Calendar Giveaway
 

Well its that time of the year - 2023 HeliOps Calendar is on the printing presses while I am away here in the US. As soon as I get home I am sending them all out so hopefully they get to everyone before Christmas.

Only requirement for this year is to post on here how you are getting on in the industry - is everything going ok, so so or its been a ****e of a year.

And this year once you have posted onto this thread send me a PM with your name and postal address and also name and address for a colleague and we will send them a calendar also.

Be safe out there everyone.




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Pulled my R44 out of it's long standing lease agreement. There was and is plenty of work for it, but the business environment was getting too difficult to manage with low risk, both operationally and financially. It was a good time for a break. I'm currently enjoying an insurance bill that is 50% of what it was and having the machine at my beck and call :) And yet...I have talked to the insurance company and FSDO about doing my own LOA, which appears to be an easy-do, so I may yet still be a glutton for more punishment.

Well... this last year couldn't have been better for me. Working on touring in Western Africa, I've seen the company growing on new contracts, aircraft, technicians and pilots. Got a second type and increased the number of destinations to work. Not too bad. Anyway this increased volume of business seems the trend now in this area. Greetings to you all Rotorheads. APT

KiwiNedNZ I’ve pinned this post, unless you prefer otherwise?

At my place of work we have experienced considerable slow downs of orders and manufacturing. Lead times of materials have caused further delays.
We got through the worst of it by the use of "workshare", but we did lose some key workers who could not afford to stay under reduced income.
Things have now ramped back up and we are gettig backlogged with quotes from customers who are also ramping up their operations.
Hoping 2023 will be a good year.

So far in the industry I'm in it's been normal ops! Covid has of course slowed things down with restrictive opening hours or airports and shortages of crews, however flying for us has actually increased which is really good news. Brexit hasn't helped though with AOG customs issues :(

Ops normal
 

Last 12 months continuing on from the previous. Ups and downs work wise (no pun…)
but no let up in the work…
some fun jobs!
IR back on license….which is nice 😀
All the best to everyone for the next 12 months…and to a beer at Christmas 🍻

Just a reminder to everyone, the first batch of calendars will be shipped out about 10th Nov as soon as I get back from the US so if you want one sent in that batch then please make your post soonest.

Cheers and enjoy.

Very busy year so far with loads of training required for some new contracts with not enough trainers so in-between doing TR's also training new TRI's and TRE's. Looks like the first 6 months of 2023 will be very busy as well and then hopefully slow down a little bit.
All the best for 2023, hope everybody has a good & healthy one.

Anyone else interested, am home in 6 days and then sending them out.

So far it's been a fantastic year, up some 70% compared to last year. The Covid19 situation is by definition gone, although raw material shortages are still part of daily business. All in all, I'm happy :-)

Have had a few people just message me saying send me a calendar but without even making a post on this thread.

Its simple - you need to post a reply on this thread to the question in the initial post at the top. If you dont then will just delete the message.

Sorry but everyone else follows the instructions. Thanks

The Off-Shore industry is very healthy in Australia.
The energy companies are busy making record profits.

Now that the Covid induced travel restrictions are a fading memory - It’s full steam ahead for a while. With strong demand protecting pay and conditions from further attack.

Hi Ned.

I can't comment on the "State of the Business" as I'm purely a hobby flyer here in the UK with by Bell-47-G3-B1 registration G-CIGY but I work in the electronics and embedded software sector, I can confirm its been a most challenging year for us, we simply "can't get stuff" the normal common or garden components are now approaching 52 weeks delivery....! Not sure if and when it will end, what has the world come too?

I'm self employed and if we can't deliver circuit boards and electronics related "stuff" due to the component shortage then I'm afraid I will have to stop working - what happens then I have no idea...?

Cheers

Kev..

Im getting sacked, so thats a bit unfortunate, but there just might be another position for me at another company which would of couse change things quite drastically for the better. Also trying ti get into flying ir helicopters, which is a struggle when I only have experience from the aerial work sector and no ir(h), but we'll see, stranger things have happened.

Hi, can't really comment on the heli industry as I am only training at this time, But my training organisation are busy, The work I do fund it is challenging due to lack of supply and cost of what is available, but I can still fund the training so all's good.

The economic situation in Europe got worse, and, working for a Government agency as a helicopter maintenance engineer, I clearly see it in a form of lack of funding. This results in lack of spare parts and fuel - we even had to put some of our helos into long term storage, and use them as a source of spare parts to keep the rest of the fleet flying. The situation is not going to improve in the foreseeable future, and the only positive thing is that, up until now, we got our salary in time.

I started to work for a civil helicopter maintenance organization at my free time, hoping to get my practical experience for a Part-66 license by the end of next year. Working on the Bell 427 and EC135, I learned that our MD900s at the Police are not so bad after all. However, the second half of the year has been though for the company, with some of their customers cancelling maintenance events, or even selling their aircraft without replacement. What the future will bring is unclear, and they are a bit pessimistic.

I also hope to become approved by my CAA as an MD900 maintenance type instructor, and make some extra money from it. Looking at the situation at my employer, I really feel the need to look for new opportunities.

I will not complain. After all, I chose the uber cool career of wrenching on helicopters nearly forty years ago. Wow, time flies. 2022 has had me seek employment change, for the better. My US employer for early 2020 through mid 2022 lost some key overseas helicopter/airplane contracts, so went to another US company still going very strong in overseas contracts. Working even time 6 weeks and the pay is what I would normally be earning pre-2020 or even better! Good life.

Technically since covid began in 2020 things have been rather rocky in the VIP charter section. Especially here in Southern California with the N72EX Crash. Thankfully over the past year and a half or so there has been a slow uptick in that market.

In contrast the ENG market here in Los Angeles area has been going very steady basically without pause. As many might know, LA is the land of the police chases where we have up to 5 news ships following a one single car plus two police ships following the car as well. Its quite a spectacle in itself.

All in all I'm very excited for the future and what it brings, particularly in the coming years when It might become common to see a non military tilt rotor aircraft flying around such as the AW609