Northern Helicopters of Hibbing Minnesota has partnered with Lake Superior College in Duluth Minnesota and offers students the ability to acquire a two year Professional Pilot, A.A.S. Degree or complete a 35 credit fast track Aviation Program along with earning the FAA ratings required to become a professional helicopter pilot.

Brian Johnson-CEO, states "Having this Partnership with Lake Superior College allows people in that geographical region to enter the exciting world of professional aviation without the travel."

Northern Helicopters was founded by Brian Johnson, a retired airline captain with United Airlines, in 2003 in Northern Minnesota.  Brian recognized a niche in the market for the lack of helicopter training in the North Central region of the United States.  With the continued success of the flight school the company has now been able to diversify into wild land fire fighting, power/pipeline patrols, aerial seeding, photo flights, air taxi and search and rescue.

A long, long time ago, back in the days of iron men and wooden rotor blades, a ritual began. It takes place when a helicopter pilot approaches a mechanic to report some difficulty with his aircraft. All mechanics seem to be aware of it, which leads to the conclusion that it's included somewhere in their training, and most are diligent in practicing it.

New pilots are largely ignorant of the ritual because it's neither included in their training, nor handed down to them by older drivers. Older drivers feel that the pain of learning everything the hard way was so exquisite, that they shouldn't deny anyone the pleasure.

There are pilots who refuse to recognize it as a serious professional amenity, no matter how many times they perform it, and are driven to distraction by it. Some take it personally. They get red in the face, fume and boil, and do foolish dances. Some try to take it as a joke, but it's always dead serious. Most pilots find they can't change it, and so accept it and try to practice it with some grace.

The ritual is accomplished before any work is actually done on the aircraft. It has four parts, and goes something like this:

1. The pilot reports the problem. The mechanic says, There's nothing wrong with it."
2. The pilot repeats the complaint. The mechanic replies, "It's the gauge."
3. The pilot persists, plaintively. The mechanic Maintains, "They're all like that."
4.The pilot, heatedly now, explains the problem carefully, enunciating carefully. The mechanic states, "I can't fix it."

After the ritual has been played through in it's entirety, serious discussion begins, and the problem is usually solved forthwith.

Like most rituals, this one has it's roots in antiquity and a basis in experience and common sense. It started back when mechanics first learned to operate pilots, and still serves a number of purposes. It's most important function is that it is a good basic diagnostic technique. Causing the pilot to explain the symptoms of the problem several times in increasing detail not only saves troubleshooting time, but gives the mechanic insight into the pilot's knowledge of how the machine works, and his state of mind.

Every mechanic knows that if the if the last flight was performed at night or in bad weather, some of the problems reported are imagined, some exaggerated, and some are real. Likewise, a personal problem, especially romantic or financial, but including simple fatigue, affects a pilot's perception of every little rattle and thump. There are also chronic whiners complainers to be weeded out and dealt with. While performing the ritual, an unscrupulous mechanic can find out if the pilot can be easily intimidated. If the driver has an obvious personality disorder like prejudices, pet peeves, tender spots, or other manias, they will stick out like handles, with which he can be steered around.

There is a proper way to operate a mechanic as well. Don't confuse "operating" a mechanic with "putting one in his place." The worst and most often repeated mistake is to try to establish an "I'm the pilot and you're just the mechanic" hierarchy. Although a lot of mechanics can and do fly recreationally, they give a damn about doing it for a living. Their satisfaction comes from working on complex and expensive machinery. As a pilot, you are neither feared nor envied, but merely tolerated, for until they actually train monkeys to fly those things, he needs a pilot to put the parts in motion so he can tell if everything is working properly. The driver who tries to put a mech in his "place" is headed for a fall. Sooner or later, he'll try to crank with the blade tied down. After he has snatched the tailboom around to the cabin door and completely burnt out the engine, he'll see the mech there sporting a funny little smirk. Helicopter mechanics are indifferent to attempts at discipline or regimentation other than the discipline of their craft. It's accepted that a good mechanic's personality should contain unpredictable mixtures of irascibility and nonchalance, and should exhibit at least some bizarre behavior.

The basic operation of a mechanic involves four steps:
1. Clean an aircraft. Get out a hose or bucket, a broom, and some rags, and at some strange time of day, like early morning, or when you would normally take your afternoon nap) start cleaning that bird from top to bottom, inside and out. This is guaranteed to knock even the sourest old wrench off balance. He'll be suspicious, but he'll be attracted to this strange behavior like a passing motorist to a roadside accident. He may even join in to make sure you don't break anything. Before you know it , you'll be talking to each other about the aircraft while you're getting a more intimate knowledge of it. Maybe while you're mucking out the pilot's station, you'll see how rude it is to leave coffee cups, candy wrappers, cigarette butts, and other trash behind to be cleaned up.
2. Do a thorough pre-flight. Most mechanics are willing to admit to themselves that they might make a mistake, and since a lot of his work must be done at night or in a hurry, a good one likes to have his work checked. Of course he'd rather have another mech do the checking, but a driver is better than nothing. Although they cultivate a deadpan, don't-give-a-damn attitude, mechanics have nightmares about forgetting to torque a nut or leaving tools in inlets and drive shaft tunnels. A mech will let little gigs slide on a machine that is never pre-flighted, not because they won't be noticed, but because he figures the driver will overlook something big someday, and the whole thing will end up in a smoking pile of rubble anyway.
3. Don't abuse the machinery. Mechanics see drivers come and go, so you won't impress one in a thousand with what you can make the aircraft do. They all know she'll lift more than max gross, and will do a hammerhead with half roll. While the driver is confident that the blades and engine and massive frame members will take it, the mech knows that it's the seals and bearings and rivets deep in the guts of the machine that fail from abuse. In a driver mechanics aren't looking for fancy expensive clothes, flashy girlfriends, tricky maneuvers, and lots of juicy stories about Viet Nam. They're looking for one who'll fly the thing so that all the components make their full service life. They also know that high maintenance costs are a good excuse to keep salaries low.
4. Do a post-flight inspection. Nothing feels more deliciously dashing than to end the day by stepping down from the bird and walking off into the sunset while the blade slowly turns down. It's the stuff that beer commercials are made of. The trouble is, it leaves the pilot ignorant of how the aircraft has fared after a hard days work, and leaves the wrench doing a slow burn. The mechanic is an engineer, not a groom, and needs some fresh, first hand information on the aircraft's performance if he is to have it ready to go the next day. A little end-of-the-day conference also gives you one more chance to get him in the short ribs. Tell him the thing flew good. It's been known to make them faint dead away.

As you can see, operating a helicopter mechanic is simple, but it is not easy. What it boils down to is that if a pilot performs his pilot rituals religiously in no time at all he will find the mechanic operating smoothly. ( I have not attempted to explain how to make friends with a mechanic, for that is not known.) Helicopter pilots and mechanics have a strange relationship. It's a symbiotic partnership because one's job depends on the other, but it's an adversary situation too, since one's job is to provide the helicopter with loving care, and the other's is to provide wear and tear. Pilots will probably always regard mechanics as lazy, lecherous, intemperate swine who couldn't make it through flight school, and mechanics will always be convinced that pilots are petulant children with pathological ego problems, a big watch, and a little whatchamacallit. Both points of view are viciously slanderous, of course, and only partly true.

· Helicopters don’t object to a pre-flight inspection.
· Helicopters can be turned on at any time, just by the flick of a switch.
· Helicopters come with manuals, which fully explain their operation.
· Helicopters have strict weight and balance limits.
· Helicopters can be flown at any time to suit you, both day and night.
· Helicopters don’t care how many helicopters you’ve flown before.
· Helicopters and their pilots always arrive at the same time.
· Helicopters operate better when flown as much as possible.
· Helicopters don’t mind if you test fly another helicopter.
· Helicopters expect to be properly tied down every night.
· Helicopters don’t mind if you buy magazines about other helicopters.
· Helicopters need to be regularly serviced.
· Helicopters don’t comment about your piloting skills to other helicopters.
· Helicopters kill you quickly; women take a long, long time.
· Helicopters don’t whine unless something is really wrong. However, When helicopters do go quiet, just like women, it’s a very, very bad thing !!
· Helicopters maintenance costs is substantially lower.

Shoot-out at the Corner Bar!
("Fearless" and Me Get the Short End of the Stick!)

'Long about nine o'clock in the mornin' me and "Fearless" Dougie Farfel pulled up to the dusty entrance at the front of the Corner Bar. The dust cloud we sucked along under our outfit's Ford pickup followed us on into the open door and billowed like thousands of tiny stars as we stood framed in the shaft of early morning light.

It was so dark inside it took awhile for our pupils to dilate and find our way around. Somebody hollered, "Howdy boys!" We hollered back and shuffled slowly toward the voice, feeling our way blindly along the barstools.

We were two tired chopper pilots, having just put our French helicopters to bed after a long night of flying "frost protection" missions over the L & D Ranch. (That'd be where your Almond Joy & Mars bars get their almond crunch!)

'Round about February through April, Mother Nature needed our help to keep the tender young almond flowers from freezing their little buds off. And our choppers usually did the job, blasting the warm air just above the trees down through the cold air, obliterating any chance of frost for up to an hour at a time. Once the sun rose, we became free men again until around dinnertime. Not bad for a couple of young, handsome bachelors on a spring job in central California!

Dougie & me was veterans from the 'Nam, so it was traditional to stop by the local watering hole on our way back to the hooch. We'd shoot the breeze and have a cold one while we unwound from hovering over the frosty almond orchards in the dark.

As I paid for the long necks, I heard Doug mumble something about a friendly little game of "8-Ball." He came up with a quarter, and about that fast, we was on our way to the back of the bar, where an old pool table stood quietly waiting for us.

We'd played at this table before, and she was a beauty. Regulation size, leather catch-pockets, level as the state of Texas, and nary a rip on its virginal green expanse. A big shaded lamp hanging low over the table sported Clydesdales haulin' the "King of Beers" through a picturesque Christmas scene. Merle Haggard was on the jukebox. Pool playin' just didn't get any better than this!

"Rack 'em, Easy Money!" I called out as Doug fingered his quarter.

The first game went down pretty slick, 'cept I lost and had to rack 'em as Dougie pulled out his fixin's and rolled a cigarette.

"Why don't you break down and buy a pack of smokes, Fearless?" I asked as he was putting the last of his spit down on the little ribbon of glue to finish the twirlin.' I already knew the answer:

"Cause I'd smoke 'em too fast if I did," he wheezed, firing up a big Ohio Blue Tip kitchen match off his bony backside, lighting up his cancer stick.

He blew smoke all over the table (?) then meticulously placed the cue ball down near the center of the break circle and waitedpatiently, as I carefully pulled the wooden triangular rack off the colorful balls.

'Long about then I heard a commotion off to my left as the rear door of the bar swung open, brightening up the field of play for a second as an old man made his way over the threshold, limping. He hobbled along with the aid of a black wooden cane. A little over five foot tall and eighty years old if he was a day, we made eye contact briefly and his eyes gleamed like the sun off 'a chrome pistol!

I couldn't help but notice that he was holdin' a dollar bill in his left hand as he made his way between the pool table and my barstool. As I stood there with the rack in my hand, the old fellow slapped the dollar down on the rail next to me and announced profoundly to the three occupants of the building,

"Dollar sez I sink the 8-ball on the break. Left side pocket!"

I looked at Doug. Doug looked at me. I smiled, straightened up, and started to offer the old fellow his dollar back, but then I noticed - in the big mirror on the wall - that the barkeep back yonder was grinning from ear to ear, noddin' his head like one'a them fuzzy bobble-head dogs in somebody's rear window.

"Done deal!" Doug and I said in the same breath, and I offered up my pool cue to the old gent. He ignored me and ambled around to the breaking end of the table, where he flamboyantly gestured for Fearless Dougie Farfel to stand aside. He then looked me straight in the eye and replied,

"Don't need no stick, Sonny! I got my stick right here!"

And as comical as it looked, he raised that old crooked wooden cane up level with the table, showing Doug and me the standard old rubber-crutch tip at its dusty terminus.

Doug reminded me later that I snorted under my breath as the old geezer stepped up to the table, rared back and smacked that danged cue ball with a stroke as straight and true as Ralph Rudolf Wanderoni, Junior hisself. The sound was not unlike a fifty-caliber Hawkin rifle on a cold mornin’!

When the smoke cleared, as they say, the eight ball was rolling slowly along the last two inches of its journey - straight into the left side pocket, where it fell with a thud that I can still sometimes hear in my nightmares to this day.

Doug stood transfixed like some pitiful wax museum figure as I hesitantly peeled a new dollar out of my b***st pocket and slid it under his. The old hustler collected his winnings and sauntered off toward the bar.

Looking up into the mirror, the bartender already had the man's cold beverage of choice waiting, and I knew that we'd been had. The look on the bartender's face was worth the dollar! The look on Dougie's face was priceless!

That was near thirty years ago, but if I ever do stop by Atwater again, the Corner Bar will be where I pull up. I gotta find out how he did it! And how many notches the Corner Bar Hustler has on his cane!



The End!

Hot Start – A humorous (fictitious) account of a hot start from the perspective of a male EMS Pilot. Men are pigs.

A modulated start can be a very simple procedure or royal pain in the ass; on one fine day it was the latter. Having gotten a different aircraft at the base due to maintenance issues was not an uncommon accordance and all our aircraft are pretty much the same. I complete my preflight and am satisfied with the machine I have been assigned.

Back inside I make small talk with the two little med babes I call my crew today. “We have a PR in about an hour,” Med Babe 1 informs me as I complete my first scan of the viewing options available to me on the tube.

Having absorbed the information I calculate that a dog and pony show will fulfill a few basic needs and therefore be a good thing. Food is the first of basics that will work to my advantage, potential for eye candy is another basic element required to sustain life on this planet, and I will get a chance to fly this new ship, yes a PR is just the ticket.

Well it’s “Go Time” as we ease out to the ship with no sense of urgency. Situational awareness is paramount in a professional pilots life I think as I scan the area looking for any hazards that might “Sweet Mother of, look at the body on that one” my focus shifted to the other side of the street. The locals have observed that when all three of us come out at the same time it normally means we are going to fly, and tend to gather, as we are a curiosity or momentary distraction that they have come to except.

Climbing in Med Babe 2 asks if I want the APU, I glance up and see that if I use it, her standing there could block the view of the Goddess that has stopped to observe my perfect liftoff. “Naaahh, that’s ok, I want to see how good the battery is” I pull right out my ass as I observe another scantily dressed hard body join the pack. Taking one last good look as the crew gets in I see the body language and make out more details, “Jail Bait, Damn”…..STOP, must focus…….. twenty years (in the slammer) is a long time but maybe it would be worth….focus…… ok lets get this show on the road.

Battery on, fuel on, throttle closed, few more quick checks, CLEAR, lets light this pig. Push the button, all the normal sounds, gauges responding, crack the throttle, we’re lit, temp coming up, I glance up to see the blades as they start to rotate and Oh My God! She is jumping up and down and clapping her hands…..now distracted…..must focus…… Hot, Hot, back off the throttle “Damn…. Damn”, I say as I see the little red light on the TOT gauge mocking me. With the start aborted, med babe 1 having heard me cursing, calmly asks, “What’s up?” “Hot start, we’re down” I reply in a humble meek voice. Knowing I screwed up they get out of the ship and walk back into the quarters leaving me to wallow in anguish as I pull out my phone and make the appropriate phone calls.

Sitting at the desk staring at the logbook, I’m trying to make the entry in let’s say a better light than “As the pilot is a dumb ass and” I briefly write “During start TOT overtemp light illuminated” and wait for he mechanic to show up.

Time passes slowly when you’re down for maintenance and it’s your fault, after about an endless hour and a half, I see the truck pull up on the pad next to our sick bird and two mechanics get out. I walk out to the pad and hand one of them the book. Briefly looking at the write up he say’s that they are going to check the gauge as I see the other mechanic opening the engine cowling and hooking up some wires from a little box they brought with them. The gauge, yea it’s the gauge that would be an easy out, I can’t be held responsible for the gauge I’m thinking. The mechanic says “Go on inside and we will be in shortly” Standing upright a little bit more than just a minute before I proceed into the crew house thinking I might have just dodged the bullet, I sit at the table and inform the crew of the developments.

Ten minutes later the door opens and in walks both mechanics, they don’t look happy I observe as I feel my shoulders slouching as I sit in the chair. They take up position to my left and right, one holding the logbook and the other holding the maintenance manual. “The gauge checked out fine” the one to my right says as the one to my left states abruptly “Not a damn thing wrong with it” As I sit there in a hard wooden chair with my hands on the table looking at these two it seems the only thing missing is the bright light shining in my face. “Your write up is a little vague” my now interrogator to the right states, “Damn vague if you ask me” the one on the left blurts out.

It’s starting to take shape here, they got the good mechanic, bad mechanic theme going here and I’m the perp in the middle. I’m half expecting one of them to offer me a cigarette.

The interrogation continues:

“Did you use the APU?” Not allowing me to finish talking “What percent N1 did you light off at?” “How hot did it get?” “How long?” “When did the blades start turning?” “Are you really a pilot?” and on and on. Bad mechanic on the left gets up and announces that he needs to use the can and leaves the room, good mechanic moves in “We really need to know how hot this thing got and for how long, it’s ok either we do a hot end inspection or we change the turbine depending on how hot it got” I almost thought that I heard something about going easy on me if I just confess.

As I explain the entire sequence over again, I say something about 900 degrees or so just as bad mechanic returns to the room. “Is that “or so” like 890 0r more like say 926” he chimes into the conversation. Good mechanic leans back in his chair and looks at his partner “I need to go, is it safe?” “It’s fine,” he says in a different tone of voice as he takes his position at the interrogation table. He sits there looking at me as good mechanic leaves the room, it’s almost like he’s waiting for the only witness to leave the future crime scene. “You Rotten Bastard” we here from down the hall as I see a smirk on the face of bad mechanic. Now he leans forward on the table and continues with the drill.

As he talks my mind wanders slightly as I hear things like “We have ways of making you talk” and I feel like the sleep deprivation is starting to kick in. Good mechanic returns after some time and the two get together to compare stories. They would look at the book, look at me, talk some more and then look back at me.

They approach, good mechanic looks at me and says “ We have all we need for now, we are going to perform an inspection that should take about two hours” they walk outside and I felt like the only thing they left out was not to leave the state any time soon.

The inspection went well and we were returned to service, the mechanics had left and I was close to the time my relief would show up. What a lousy day I think as I lean back on the bed in the pilot room, not much else can go wrong now as the vision of those two massive bouncing hooters creep back in to my mind. “Phone call,” Med Babe 2 yells down the hall “It’s the Chief Pilot” Maybe twenty years isn’t that long after all.