Discovery Channel spot
May 4, 2011
Check out my latest work on the Discovery Channel, an ongoing study of the Boreal Caribou in Northern BC.
http://watch.discoverychannel.ca/daily-planet/april-2011/daily-planet---april-18-2011/#clip453003
And here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7XSnrrw_80&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Tags:
bc, boreal caribou, capture, caribou, chopper, flying, fort nelson, helicopter, mike koloff, mike the pilot, mikethepilot, qwest, qwest helicopters
Posted at: 01:32 PM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink
Industry is rebounding.
April 9, 2011
We're starting to get busier here at Qwest Helicopters. Crew changes to the Horn River Basin are escalating and are rather chaotic for at least three days a week. We have two Dauphins and the Huey flying hundreds of people a week and possibly more on the way.
Bladerunner racing meanwhile has recently welcomed our first corporate sponsor! Qwest Helicopters has offered a much needed injection of cash and this will allow a few engine performance upgrades. Hopefully I can get the new engine ready for the big Rocky Mountain Rally at the end of May. The car performed well at the Cochrane Rally where my new Navigator Bryan Lord and I finished 2nd in class and 8th overall, but is clearly underpowered and we did well considering this. Competition will be stiff at the RMR in May and we are expecting 50 entries. We are very excited about our second event in the Western Canada Rally Championship.
Family is well and I will be going home in a few days to see them, seems like forever, can't wait to kiss my wife and kids.
Tags:
autosports, bladerunner racing, chopper, cochrane winter rally, flying, focus, ford, helicopters, qwest helicopters, racing, rally, rocky mountain rally
Posted at: 11:27 AM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink
Back in BC
July 13, 2010
I'm back in Fort Nelson with Qwest Helicopters and have simply slipped into familiar shoes, After a while it felt like I never left. Weird...
Got endorsed on the Bell 205 this spring and have been flying that a fair bit recently. Say what you want about that noisy, rattly 1974 Vietnam Huey, but I'd rather fly something old than something new in the final analysis. I do like this machine and it flies rather like a huge bloated jetranger, and the jetranger and I are old friends.
Have been moving wireline equipment by longline and fighting fires with it and quite enjoy it. Its a good stable platform and flies like I like to fly, slow, steady, and precise.
Also recently got endorsed on Canada's only currently operating domestic Eurocopter AS365 Dauphin. Let me tell you something, after flying helicopters in the bush for a few years, flying this super-fast, retractable-landing gear, air-conditioned, and auto-piloted machine is quite a change. Pictures to come.
Been busy anyways and thats better than not busy enough.
Tags:
as365, bell 205, chopper, dauphin, helicopter, huey
Posted at: 04:55 PM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink
Current State of Affairs...
November 28, 2009
Its now Late November and I can look back at this year and tell you what kind of year its been. In a word - Terrible. The industry is pretty much in the doldrums and while I'm always optimistic about the future, this past year has done nothing to prepare for the coming winter, a time when things in our industry is traditionally slower.
Alberta's fire season was virtually non-existant. I strapped on the Bambi bucket once this whole year for an hour and a half and aside from that any fire-related work involved simply flying crews around on patrols. At one point I was asked to take our B2 to BC to see if we could get in on BC's biggest fire season on record but I was called back the next morning to service our regular clients in High Level before I could get hired on in Williams Lake. Of course Murphy intervened and promply set the mountains ablaze shortly after I left! Oh well, thats the way the cookie crumbles.
Delta has expressed their intent to endorse me on their Bell 204's and I'm excited to gain this new skill and experience. That should happen at some...
[More]
Tags:
a-star, astar, autocross, b2, bambi bucket, bush pilot, chopper, fire-fighting, helicopter, left-foot braking, mike koloff, panarama hills, rally, scandinavian flick, sti, subaru
Posted at: 09:22 AM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink
Slow season
August 23, 2009
Have been struggling with the current slowdown in the industry. Most of us have never seen it this bad.
In July I flew 12 hours compared to 120 last year. Many companies are facing hard times and many more pilots and engineers are looking for work due to downsizing-rightsizing. Have been contemplating checking out of the industry for a year or so and spending more time with family. If I could only find work flying near Calgary for decent money...Its not so bad when you are busy and making good coin. It makes it a lot easier to leave family behind while on tour, but when its slow it seems a waste to make the sacrifice for little reason.
Still, I enjoy what I do and can think of nothing else that I'd rather do. If I did leave I'm sure I would miss it terribly. Ive never worked indoors in an office or something and literally my entire life and career has been spent outdoors and I go rather squirlly if I spend much time inside.
The kids are doing great but miss their father when he is away. I make efforts to connect with them on webcam at...
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Tags:
argo, family, flying, helicopter, long-lining
Posted at: 09:19 AM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink
Hurry up and wait...
May 14, 2009
Am currently sitting in a hotel room in Lac La Biche waiting for forest fires! Seems unlikely given the recent snow and rain! Oh well, such is the life eh. Gives me time to work on other things. Am trying to add a counter to the website but have been unsuccessful so far. I have inserted the html code for the counter several times in several places but it won't appear. Not like a whole lot of traffic visits the site yet but I haven't finished meta-tagging everything yet so I wouldn't expect it yet anyway.
Posted at: 06:20 PM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink
website
April 25, 2009
Ok, so the website has been up for almost two years now and I haven't done a damn thing with it until now. I'm flying out of a remote northern alberta oil/gas camp and there really isn't too much going on so Ive got time to get at it. In the past two days I have loaded hundreds of pictures and edited the site a bit, but there is much left to do. I'm thinking of adding a page for video clips, I think that would be interesting for visitors to my site. Problem is, all my footage is pretty raw and I have to go through years worth just to come up with some short clips that say what I want.
Keep checking by as I will be titling my pictures and adding meta-tags so the search engines can sniff me out...
Tags:
animals, capture, flying, helicopter, pictures, pilot, website, wildlife
Posted at: 10:44 PM | 1 Comment | Add Comment | Permalink
