Quote: WizardWhen I lived in Baltimore I flew to Vegas annually and once or twice the pilot announced enthusiastically that we were given permission to fly the Grand Canyon route. I'm sure it was better in the cockpit but the passengers in the window seats still got a great show.
I'm not sure if it was normal but once I landed into Costa Rica at night. The captain pointed out active volcanoes he was passing. You could see the lava inside. Very cool. It is on my bucket list to see a volcano erupting as close as I safely can.
That is also my bucket list. I want to be involved with every natural disaster, volcano eruption, and a plane crash where no one dies.
My wife says I am crazy. I am such a type A person thst something about not having control and no one else does either makes it exciting.
Quote: gamerfreakApparently these helicopter tour pilots only make around $13/hr
Where do you get this figure from? Having worked for one of the largest helicopter tour operators in Vegas for over 5 years, I can assure you they make at least $200 a day, plus gratuity. Most of the passengers are from Europe or other countries that are not accustomed to tipping, so the gratuity is often overlooked. The pilots take it in stride, hit and miss on the tokes. But it's not uncommon for these pilots to receive anywhere from $20-$100 from some of the passengers for each flight. During the winter, where the daylight is limited, they may get two-three tours a day. The summer is the peak season where they can do 4-5 tours a day.
Too early to speculate what happened, so it may not even have been the pilots fault. Last crash back in 2012 was maintenance. I have flown out to the canyon as well. It's a challenging area to fly but it's well coordinated, everything is one way, meaning they fly into and out of the canyon in one direction. I will admit that many of the pilots are there to accumulate hours and then move onto other areas such as flying medical or utilities that pays more. So yes, there are pilots with less experience, but you need at least 1000 hours to even be considered getting hired. On the other hand, there are a lot of pilots who have tons of hours and my money will be on them everytime, you would have a tough time finding pilots with their skill. I'm still in contact with several. The pilots hours will eventually become public, even the total time spent on the EC-130, the model that crashed.
Quote: VegasriderWhere do you get this figure from? Having worked for one of the largest helicopter tour operators in Vegas for over 5 years, I can assure you they make at least $200 a day, plus gratuity. Most of the passengers are from Europe or other countries that are not accustomed to tipping, so the gratuity is often overlooked. The pilots take it in stride, hit and miss on the tokes. But it's not uncommon for these pilots to receive anywhere from $20-$100 from some of the passengers for each flight. During the winter, where the daylight is limited, they may get two-three tours a day. The summer is the peak season where they can do 4-5 tours a day.
I’ve heard in more than once place that the pay for tour pilots is <$20/hr. My understanding is that there’s far more people who want to do it for a living than job openings.
Here is one pilot saying minimum wage is not unusual:
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2gafu9/comment/ckh5rbb?st=JDJNP6M7&sh=37e21368
I recall one Olympic Peninsula pilot taking time to get two young girls into one seatbelt for a sightseeing quickie. Illegal but he seemed to be dedicated to taking the time to make them safe. He was worried I was with the FAA or something but I was just curious.
I didn't report him or anything because he did seem very safety minded.
The legitimate tour helicopters, not the mom and pop or fair fly an impressive amount of passengers each year and log over 100k hours a year. Flown over a million hours since the last fatal tour helicopter crash so it's still very safe if you look at it as an industry . Still one crash and fatality is one too many.
Papillon video
Quote: WizardWhen I lived in Baltimore I flew to Vegas annually and once or twice the pilot announced enthusiastically that we were given permission to fly the Grand Canyon route. I'm sure it was better in the cockpit but the passengers in the window seats still got a great show.
I'm not sure if it was normal but once I landed into Costa Rica at night. The captain pointed out active volcanoes he was passing. You could see the lava inside. Very cool. It is on my bucket list to see a volcano erupting as close as I safely can.
I was in Costa Rica and saw volcano Arenal, it wasn't erupting,but lava was running down the mountain,it was quite a sight at night.
We stayed in cabins about 200 yards from the base of the mountain.