http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwW8drg20Dc

Guy in a Robinson trying to make $ doing emergency evacs in Northern Colorado after bad flooding left people stranded in the mountains with homes washed away.

*he even dresses up in a flight suit.

Think he has a 135 cert ?

The video seemed pretty shocking but from the pilot:

http://originalforum.justhelicopters.co ... 83jsd=True

Its making the news here in Denver on the local channels.

Guys like that always have flightsuits. Where are the TFR Nazis?

Gump

BazzLow wrote:The video seemed pretty shocking but from the pilot:

http://originalforum.justhelicopters.co ... 83jsd=True

Its making the news here in Denver on the local channels.

This seems to set the record straight.

G'Day

GumpAir wrote:Guys like that always have flightsuits. Where are the TFR Nazis?

The TFR was there to protect those guys I guess. They were doing utility inspections, which means a lot of heads down flying with less ability to scan for other aircraft.

BazzLow wrote:The video seemed pretty shocking but from the pilot:

I’m the pilot in the white shirt in the video.

Unfortunately in situations where people feel at risk, they act like jerks, which is what the guy who filmed and posted this video did.

He rode up out of his dry house, on his ATV, after we were flagged down by one of his neighbors.

Before anyone could even understand what people were asking, he was hounding the observer about costs of this and that. I think the figure was shot out to quiet him down so that I could speak to people that had real needs.

I wound up dropping the observer off, and spent the next hour or two flying up to check on the woman’s mother, move medical oxygen, help flag a large helicopter landing zone for the National Guard (who do rescues), and get information to people that were cut off, all for free. Then flew back down, brought messages to the families, and got a big hug from the woman I spoke to initially, and dropped off a case of water. Then picked up my observer, and then continued with my job of looking for ruptured gas line. I worked from before dawn to after dusk, and did the same the next day.

I’ve worked disaster relief in Africa, Haiti, Afghanistan, Central America, and in the United States, on many different occasions for probably 3-4 years total. All for little or no money. My house is flooded, I have no heat, hot water, the roads in and out of my mountain community are gone, but I was still down trying to do everything I could to help, all while sleeping on a couch at the airport.

Most pilots will gladly fly for free, as I have done many times including when that video was shot, but the machines cost money, and there was no emergency for that particular group of people, they were just worried, and I did everything I could to alleviate that and more.

I’ve never posted on the internet before, but this out of context, cheap thrill for disaster tourists and sanctimonious computer bloggers was too much.

I’ll be working in that area a lot over the coming months, to the guy who posted this, I hope you don’t ever need my help. Again.