Advertise on podcast: Rotary Wing Show - Interviews from the Helicopter Industry

Have you applied the idea of situational awareness to weather before? Knowing what the weather was doing, what the weather is now and what it will be in the future. With access to the right weather products and knowing more about how they are developed you can level up your pre-flight weather assessment.  Weather is … Continue reading "RWS 110 – Better Weather Situational Awareness with Matt Johnson"

You have probably seen the video clip on social media multiple times – a OH-58 comes into land and as it touches down the blades contact another helicopter ground running beside it. Both aircraft are destroyed in spectacular manner but luckily there is no loss of life. In this episode we give a lot more … Continue reading "RWS 109 – Going Beyond the Social Media Clip – Pasadena PD Accident (2012) with Dan Parsons"

As aircrew we spend a huge amount of time training for different circumstances and emergencies. Dealing with a burning flare in your cockpit fired from a wingman’s aircraft is not one of these circumstances!! Add in the complications of being a few thousand feet in the air, over hostile controlled land and in a sealed … Continue reading "RWS 108 – Sharing an Apache Cockpit with a Burning Flare with Clive Richardson"

Halfway through 2021, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) put out a call for assistance for information from the aviation community. What they are looking for is feedback or more information about any ground handling incidents on Robinson type helicopters, especially focused on the aft tail cone bulkhead or tail rotor gearbox areas  If you … Continue reading "RWS 107 – ATSB Request for Information with Robert Chopin"

Cattle are big business in Australia. Rough round numbers has us at 25 million head of cattle and the industry employs somewhere around 200,000 people. Australia is the 3rd largest beef exporter in the world. The cattle industry also contributes a sizable chunk of the annual helicopter hours flown in Australia.  One set of figures I … Continue reading "RWS 106 – Mustering with Sam Chisholm"

Chatter in the cabin starts to die down, you have reduced power and started to bleed back the airspeed. Outside your world is starting to shrink as the conditions start to deteriorate. You lean forward in your seat to try and see a little further ahead. The VSI is showing a descent as you keep … Continue reading "RWS 105 – Enroute Decision Point with Miles Dunagan"

How would you like to have been holding a steady hover and taking off and landing at 3 hours of helicopter flight time? Chris Ryan couldn’t afford helicopter lessons so he built himself a simulator to practice at home. His instructor was so impressed at his progress that he encouraged Chris to turn the simulator … Continue reading "RWS 104 – Virtual Reality Simulators 2021 Revisit with Chris Ryan"

Before this episode if you told me that there was more than an hour conversation that you could get out of talking about the governor in Robinson type helicopters I would have been dubious. I was wrong! Today we have back on the show pilot and engineer Richard Mornington-Sanford. Richard Mornington-Sanford was an engineer in … Continue reading "RWS 103 – Robinson Governor Operation with Richard Mornington-Sanford"

If the images and text on the page of your aerodynamic textbook are starting to blur together then it might be time to take a break and try to ingest the information using another format. Jacob from the YouTube channel Helicopter Lessons in 10 Minutes or Less is an Apache instructor and standards officer who … Continue reading "RWS 102 – Helicopter Lessons in 10 Minutes or Less with Jacob"

Helicopters make fantastic photo subjects! There is still something special about flying that captures the human spirit and the intrinsic movement and energy in a helicopter especially so. Mark Watterson has been photographing helicopters professionally since 2014. He shares some tips for how best to work with aerial photographers for a great product.  Mark has … Continue reading "RWS 101 – Air to Air Photography with Mark Watterson"

Two US National Guard pilots are developing a new training tool to reduce the risk of and improve the fidelity of reduced visual environment training. IIMC, dust landings and white outs have all been the causes of both training mishaps and real world accidents and deaths. We talk about what it missing in the current … Continue reading "RWS 100 – Degraded Visibility Training with Tyson Phillips and Andre Lavallee"

It is not unusual for helicopter pilots to take a winding route to before they end up with a career in the cockpit. Tryggvi worked as a baggage handler, in flight operations and as a quality auditor before taking on a flying job. Now he is flying for the Icelandic Coast Guard on missions as … Continue reading "RWS 99 – Helicopter Flying in Iceland with Tryggvi Helgason"