As you may know already, I’ve been doing a fair amount of flight training in my spare time. I recently got my CFI, CFII, and my Commercial Multi-Engine Add-on. Now I’m getting my helicopter certificates as well! I haven’t decided if I’ll get my private helo certificate or go straight to the commercial add-on. The commercial add-on will require 35 hours of PIC, which means a lot of solo cross country flights. If I get my private cert first, I can make those XC flights a little more fun by bringing along some passengers, but then I’d have to take an additional check ride. Anyways, right now I at least plan to get my commercial and instrument tickets in the helo, and I may even get my CFI.

My first flight was scheduled for earlier in the week, but high winds meant we only did some ground instruction. We covered some helicopter systems and did a point by point pre-flight of the helicopter. Everyone says helicopters have a thousand moving parts. Sure – but when you peek behind the curtain, they really are not complicated machines.

Here is one of the R-22s I will be flying.

Middle River has one of about 20 new Guimbal Cabri G2 helicopters. From everything I have read and watched about this helicopter it is an exciting addition to training and rental fleets. Its safer and cooler than an R-22! If you want to see some cool helicopter flying in a collection of well made YouTube videos, check out Mischa Gelb’s channel Pilot Yellow. He runs BC Helicopters and they operate not one, but two G2 helos. After I get some time in the R22 (because its cheaper on an hourly basis) I’m definitely going to get some time in the G2!