10 members · 6 posts · Helicopters
Helicopter pilots, HEMS crews, tour and utility operators. Landing zone decisions, night vision goggles, weather turndowns, and the pressure that comes from flying for people having the worst day of their lives.
No patient details, ever. No second guessing somebody else's turndown. If you are asking about a landing zone, say the aircraft and the light conditions.
Hank Delacroix (pinned)
House rules. Nobody here questions a turndown. Not once. If you want to talk about how you made a hard call, this is the place. If you want to tell somebody they were soft, there are other places on the internet for that.
Hank Delacroix
Landing zone request that costs the ground crews nothing. Give me the wires before you give me the patient. I will get the medical picture from the nurse in the air. What I cannot get in the air is what is strung across the far end of the field you are standing in.
Brianna Castellanos
Nurse side of the crew, joining because Hank keeps quoting this group at me. One thing I would ask of every HEMS pilot: tell us the turndown in plain words. "Weather is below my minimums" lands. "It is marginal" makes a nurse think there is a version where we go, and then somebody starts negotiating.
Hank Delacroix
Night unimproved LZ on a highway shoulder last week. Deputies had it lit, wires were marked on the chart and one was not. Saw it on the second orbit. I fly two orbits every single time and people have asked me why. That wire is why.
Bruno Vargas
maintenance side question. how many of you actually read the vibration trend data your ops sends over, or does it just sit in an inbox until something is out of limits
Pete Halloran
Fixed wing guy lurking here for the decision making, not the machinery. The turndown conversation in this group is better than anything I have read in a fixed wing forum in ten years. Carry on, I will keep my mouth shut about rotors.