Helicopter Life HonEd Jennifer Murray Atacama Race

At the beginning of March, grandmother Jennifer Murray, best known for flying round the world both East and West and North and South, will set out to overcome age, injury and her critics when she takes on the toughest footrace on the planet, the Atacama Desert in Chile, in the hopes of raising £50,000 for Macmillan Cancer Support.
Jennifer ran straight in to the record books once more as is the oldest woman ever to have attempted this race, and is the oldest competitor in the race by ten years.
This is no ordinary race, and along with running partner, Head of Macmillan Support Line, Blanca Fernandez, Jennifer will be racing across a vast Chilean desert that is 50 times drier than Death Valley and widely known as the driest place on earth. The race itself is an epic 250km self-supported race lasting six days, in other words a marathon a day for six straight days in temperatures reaching as high as over 40C.

Jennifer said: “Macmillan Cancer Support is a wonderful organisation that offers every type of support for people affected by cancer. My darling cousin Sophie died of cancer when she was just 18 years old, so I know firsthand how devastating cancer can be. Age is just a number to me, and I am determined to take on this final epic adventure and complete this ultra marathon for myself and for Macmillan”.

Jennifer is a trained helicopter pilot who learnt to fly aged 54. She solo circumnavigated the world in a helicopter in 2000 and in 2007 co-piloted a helicopter to circumnavigate around the poles, a trip that crossed 25 countries, lasted 171 days and had never before been accomplished. The 2007 trip was a second attempt, after Jennifer and co-pilot Colin Bodill suffered a near-fatal accident and severe injuries during the first.

To donate to Jennifer’s desert marathon attempt for Macmillan go to www.justgiving.com/Jennifer-Murray2 .

London Helicopter Accident

On Wednesday 16th January 2013, a helicopter on the way from Redhill, south of London, to Elstree, north of London, ran into bad weather and was diverted into Battersea Heliport in Central London. At some point, most likely on his approach into the heliport, the helicopter hit a crane which was obscured by the cloud. The helicopter came down in a clear area near the base of the crane but unfortunately both the pilot and one person on the ground were killed. Because the helicopter also hit a couple of cars there was a fire and all the emergency services were called.

Because London is a major city and these kinds of incident are very rare, this accident created a lot of press coverage and all the networks were fighting for 'helicopter experts' to explain what might have happened. As editor of Helicopter Life I was asked by Sky News, Canadian TV, Radio Derby and The Times of London to give my advice on what might have happened and what affect the crash might have on helicopter flying in London.

I talked on the various networks and did my best to try and give a sensible and calm view of the matter. These accidents are incredibly rare. Aviation is a highly regulated business and pilots have stringent and frequent checks both on their flying skills and on their health. The weather is, however, an important part of this and many other accidents and as ever it is important to think about how we pilots, when we find ourselves inadvertently in bad weather, may get out of it quickly and safely.

This is a matter I had recently been discussing with the CAA, although not in relation to London. We were discussing the necessity to reassure pilots that if they do something that was otherwise illegal (such as landing in a built-up area without permission) because it was necessary to save life, they would not be prosecuted. I would like to bring up this position again and to relate it to London in particular. Had the pilot felt it was possible to land somewhere in London immediately the weather got too bad to continue flying, would he have done so? It does take quite a psychological leap to land in, for example, a park in London, knowing there will be people around and that their safety must also be taken into account. There is also the question of Battersea Heliport and the equipment that is there. Would it be a good thing to modernise the only general heliport in central London. This certainly seems like a good idea.

Whatever happens in the future, one thing is certain, there will now be considerable discussion on the subject of helicopter flying over London. I hope there will not be any immediate and automatic reactions which will lead to greater legislation which may not have any affect on safety.

Helicopter Life Winter 2012

Helicopter Life Winter 2012

The latest edition of Helicopter Life has gone to press and will be out later in December.
In this issue we have : test flight of the Bell 407GX, with its new Garmin 1000 instrument panel; training for the special services; Guardians of the Golden Gate, US Coastguard in San Francisco, AMREF Flying Doctors and many other stories.

Both the recession and the weather are making helicopter flying in Europe pretty quiet at the moment. After yesterday's UK budget, with its revised forecast for the downturn to continue until 2018 or beyond it seems likely that this will continue. However, on the bright side more companies are using helicopters and the oil and gas industry continues to thrive. And, of course, outside Europe and the USA the number of helicopters and helicopter owners is growing...

CAA and EASA Licences

Black rhino at Ol Pejeta

Now back in the UK and back to problems with the CAA.
Because I recently renewed my examiners rating and sent the test results to the CAA I have to update my JAA licence to EASA immediately. If you don't make any changes you have until 2017 to comply, but as soon as you make a major change it has be updated. The cost was £477. This in itself was bad enough but worse still the licence did not arrive. So, I wrote to the CAA checking they had sent it. They said it had been printed out and sent on 7/11/2012. Note printed out ie no huge cost to them here.
Anyway, since it had not arrived I asked them to send it again. This is the letter I received back from the regulatory authority.

Dear Mrs Hunter-Jones,
Thank you for your email.
In order for us to re-issue a duplicate EASA licence and EASA examiner certificate, we require the fee of £52.00 as per our scheme of charges, which includes the £6 FedEx fee. Please see the payment form SRG1187 attached and submit to our Licensing Department. ..
Kind regards,
Licensing & Training Standards

My reply to them was not particularly diplomatic but it was heartfelt.

Tell me you are joking! Even the CAA cannot be asking me to pay for a licence they either have not sent or has got lost in the post. I shall keep your letter in my licence and I will write about this in my magazine and when I am asked for my licence I think this will explain why it is missing.

I had not further correspondence with this lassie, but now I have an email from her boss.

Dear Mrs Hunter-Jones
Your email has been forward to me as you have requested a duplicate licence....

NO I DID NOT! I asked for the licence I had tested for and paid for to me sent to me without further hoo ha!

Anyway, I wrote again and finally got a phone call from the CAA representative who agreed to send me another licence but insisted I should pay £6 for FedEX. I refused. I have already paid far too much, I hardly earn anything and this drain of money to the CAA from working pilots has to stop. It is ridiculous.

In the end he did agree to put it in the post, although with dark warnings that if the post lost it again I would have to pay for a duplicate. I won't! I can tell you now.

And of course the joke is we are arguing over a piece of paper, not the examiners rating, which has been done and is not in doubt, but a piece of paper which could more easily be emailed to me! I suggested this, that it was emailed to me, and the CAA rep nearly jumped down the phone. His horror was only equal to a Train Driver's Union representative on discovering that the underground trains are going driverless...!!

My campaign is now for a more uptodate CAA that uses email for delivery!

Ol Pejeta and the Nanyuki Triangle

 There are two types of Zebra the Grevy's zebra - comparatively rare and actually endangered, and the common zebra.
The mother feeding her foal is the common zebra, the one below is the Grevy's. Note that Grevys look more horse like and have downwards stripes, plus huge ears.
The mother and foal were photographed at Ol Pejeta outside Nanyuki in Kenya and the Grevy's near where we were staying in Ol Jogi.

Watamu

We are between Malindi and Mmbassa. Fantastic shop names here like Harmonious Butchery and Be Patient Bakery but very little in the way of electricity and wifi, so not too much on the internet front - hard to survive these days but once we lived without it!

Now in Nairobi for a quick break before going to Nanuki where even less electricity and no wifi at all!

Until a return to Nairobi then.... who ever thought one would think of Nairobi as the height of sophistication!

Tsavo West and on to Kilifi

Giraffe disturbed from feeding watches us curiously

Baboons

Driving out of Nairobi for Tsavo there was a fire on the Mombassa Road. For a while everyone sat there, then they got bored and decided to 'go bush' we followed as cars turned off the roads and headed into the rough, down goat paths, sheep tracks and into the back of estates- it was driving that made you glad to be in a landrover!
Finally, we got back onto the road and carried on - a half an hour detour.

Later between Tsavo and Kilifi we came across similar roads, where the tarmac had been washed away by the rains and was just mud and ruts. As we went up and down the holes, wondering if this was really a c 2nd class road as depicted, we thought the bush road diversion from Mombassa was actually a better quality road.

Here we have a few baboons, quite clever chaps I wondered if they had ever thought of learning to fly helicopters.