- Our BK117B2
- Our BO-105
The reason I was MIA was good but for a bad reason. You see I spent half of Thursday and all day Friday flying a BK117 helicopter from my base in Pottstown Pa the Metro company headquarters in Shreveport, LA. It was a two ship flight with friend and fellow medevac pilot Mike Robertson following in our back up BO-105. The contract with Metro, my employer was terminated as of Nov 30th. This is not good. Mike and I were returning two of our three helicopters to Metro. Mike and I got to do this because we were not offered employment with the new contractor which makes us both unemployed. This is really not a good thing. But to be honest Mike and I might have gotten the best deal not being offered employment so we're just moving on.
Back to the flight. We left Thursday about 11:30, got about 3 minutes down the road but had to return because the BO-105 Mike was flying had a engine beep problem. Those familiar with twin engine helicopters know exactly what the issue might be but for others one must match both engines manually and it wasn't working. We thought the trip may be scrubbed or at least postponed which could have been a problem.
Mike and our mechanic removed and cleaned a few cannon plugs in the system and the mechanic gave the #2 engine actuator a rap with his screw driver and the system started working. We are concluding it was a dirty cannon plug that was cleaned and reseated and not the rap on the side of the annunciator that fixed it. Then off we went but late. Mike matched the engines at a hover at PTW and decided they were matched well enough and never touched it again till we reached Shreveport.
We had two drop dead gorgeous days of flying. Thursday not a cloud in the sky and practically no head wind even though we were heading west south west. We stayed low clearing the Application Mountain ridges by a few feet then over the rolling hills of W. Virginia. Ending up that might at Big Sandy Regional Airport (K22) in Kentucky for the night. Friday was another gorgeous day. We departed and remained 500 agl for the rest of the trip. No winds to speak of. Only ultra high cirrus clouds. We arrived in Shreveport about 4 pm. Oh BTW if you happen to see the BK or the BO in the accompanying pictures, buzzing over your house in the last two days (at 500 ft of course) and rattle your windows or scare you live stock, we're sorry.
It was 9.2 hours of low level helicopter flying across our great country. My BK had and auto pilot which was engaged the entire time except landing and takeoff. So I got to sit there and really look at the country close. I know a lot of you don't know any different but when you spend most of your life and flying career in the north east, you tend to think the world is a pretty crowded place.
I know from communicating with many of you over the years that some of you live on dirt roads. And you can't see your neighbors house. There aren't any dirt roads to speak of in the north east but I got to see a whole lot of them on this trip. I was trying to imagine what it was like to travel on dirt routinely with an occasional paved road. And of course you may not really have a neighbor. The vastness and openness of the land is just incredible and reassuring. I feel some times like this world is just getting to crowded. Around my area we worry about missing a house in an emergency, not trying to find one for help which would have been the case on most of this trip.
Anyway that's what I've been up two. Saying goodbye to my med crews I've worked with for the last eight years culminating in a most spectacular low level cross country trip. Now to find a job. Or more appropriately said, wait for one of the EMS pilot slots to open up in the other nine bases within an hour of my house. In the mean time next week I'll be flying Chopper 6 News in Philadelphia for a week of work and then I may be off to Muncie Indiana to fill in flying medevac there for Metro. Who knows I may be overworked doing this unemployment thing and have to find a full time job to get a rest. I can only hope so.
Your efforts in selfishless help is truly an unsung hero!
May there always be and Angel flying with you.
