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Bonneville Dam, Columbia River, Oregon and Washington Aug. 8, 2019 Wilson Construction MD 500E Pilot: Ron Stewart Photo by Mark Bennett

Former HAI Board Chairman and retired Air Methods Corp. (AMC) Assistant Chief Pilot James O. Wisecup, 71, died Jul. 30, 2020. Wisecup, a 16,000-hour dual-rated pilot, retired from his post with AMC, a helicopter air ambulance (HAA) operator, in July 2019. In June of this year, he was awarded the FAA’s Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award in recognition of his 50 years of professional, safe flight.

One of the worst parts about reading accident reports is seeing how the accident chain was forged, link by link, especially as you know what the final result will be. If it were a horror movie, you would yell at the screen, “Stop scud running!” or, “Find a landing site now!”

When there are only seconds in which to respond, thorough drilling in the appropriate procedures can be crucial to successfully confronting a life-threatening emergency. With no time to puzzle out a response or even read a checklist, survival depends not just on remembering the correct sequence of steps but on having practiced it recently and often enough to execute it precisely and without hesitation—in a situation certain to be more ­chaotic and frightening than the typical training environment.

Growing up in Frenchtown, Montana, Diana Stearns was intrigued by her mother’s career as an emergency room / air ambulance flight nurse. But it was a pivotal experience as a teenager that ultimately led her to pursue a job in aviation.

Meet Samantha Bean – Boeing AH-64 Apache Longbow
armament/electrical/avionics
system repairman

The Gulf of Mexico is home to nearly 2,000 offshore oil and gas platforms, from production rigs with a handful of personnel to sprawling drilling platforms. As oil fields are explored and exploited farther offshore, operators must respond to the challenges. PHI responded with the H145.

A picturesque rural town of 14,000 in northeastern Oregon, La Grande is nestled in a fertile farming and ranching valley surrounded by snow-tipped mountains. The community is fairly isolated, an hour’s drive from the next town of similar size, Pendleton, Oregon, and hours away from larger communities. La Grande is the county seat for Union County, which has a total population of about 25,700 occupying slightly more than 2,000 square miles.

What if an operator could tell—just by looking at a computer screen—that a particular bearing on an aircraft was showing signs of premature wear? How would that change how maintenance is planned and conducted?

The US National Transportation Safety Board recommends that all Part 135 operators install flight-data monitoring (FDM) technology. But every operation can reap FDM’s safety and operational performance benefits. Best of all, modern FDM equipment is lighter, less expensive, and easier to use than legacy models, placing the technology within reach of small and medium-sized operators. Below are five best practices to help you on your FDM journey.