HELICOPTER OPS: GEORGE TONKING
TRAINING THAT
HELPS
SAVE LIVES At times during my career as a helicopter pilot, progression has seemed slow – as if my learning had stagnated. In aviation, this is when we can easily fall into what we term pilot complacency. And it can be a killer. Thankfully, a month or two back, I received a call from Ryan Horsman, a friend and the man at the helm of Halo Aviation (one of our local air ambulance operators) that hinted at some imminent out-of-the-ordinary flying (and therefore skill development). “George, are you sling rated?” Ryan asked. “Yes, I am!” I announced with glee, as I tried to guess where his question was leading. Having been sling rated was something special to me in my evolution as a pilot.
an absolute treat to be flying an iconic piece of history. After I’d become more au fait with the Alo, my instructor, the late Shaun Barendsen, hooked up a medium-length strop to a 220-litre barrel and away I went. Most of the learning work was done flying circuits around an airfield with said barrel dangling below, and Captain Barendsen prattling in my headphones from his position on the taxiway below. Once I’d mastered that diminutive drum, the next level up was a 500-litre “Bambi Bucket” – one of those orange bladders with high-flow release valves used in firefighting, (and also pretty puny compared to the largest ones made, at a massive 9,800-litres.) This took some mastering, but once I had learned to find the target consistently, I had enough time to mess around and release a few buckets upwind of my “patter crew.” That was probably the closest I came to a real run-in-and-bomb-release on a target with the joystick button.
the i n a d v e r t e nt release of cargo
After finishing up my licence in 2009 I remember waiting in over-excited anticipation for ten months to complete my first hour of commercial flying. After that milestone, every different rating that slowly followed, rounding off my skill set, seemed like a victory. Especially the sling rating, which was very different to anything I’d done before. Firstly, I got to fly the epitome of French oh-lala style – le vénérable hélicoptère Alouette III. Not only was it a learning curve on its own, but
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November 2021
With a specific skill rating like vertical lift work or sling operations, how ‘current’ you are is
