NICK SHEW - NEW UPDATE

So finally I've made it! Cracked that out-of-sight-for-so-long goal!

There I was looking for work. Many letters were sent and follow up phone calls made. I got a few replies, most of which were "Thanks for the letter, we have nothing for someone of your experience, however when you have 1000 hours and a twin turbine rating please get back in touch". There I was with about 200 hours and a Robbie 22 ticket. Talk about feeling inadequate! It had taken *lots* of time and money to get this far and I was less than a fifth of what was needed.

I started offering cheap flights to friends, family, strangers in the pub so I could at least hour build and pay less for it. Then the beginning of the turn of events that ended out in my first pay check this month occurred. An instructor at an airfield near me called up and said she had a PPL who wanted to hire her 22 but she wouldn't let him without a safety pilot, would I lend a hand? I agreed thinking I could log something in my log book and at least I'd be around helicopters and could keep my hand in. Well I couldn't log anything, but at least I was flying again.

The PPL and myself did a few of these flights where I just sat there in case he couldn't fly well enough. As it happens we were getting winds which were very challenging in a 22 and he managed fine if not a little gingerly. As things were though it was getting harder to keep going as I was totally skint. Fortunately the PPL pilot happened to sell cars and needed some delivering so gave me a job. Not only did this help to stop me drowning financially, but it was near another airfield where I had completed my CPL the previous February (It was now October).

About now the PPL pilot started hiring a 44 Raven II and I was approached to be a safety pilot in 44 Astro. I've got my 44 CASA rating, but decided to get my JAR 44 rating also as I was hopefully gonna need it anyway (and my nan had given me some cash to cover it - thanks nan x). On the back of this I got a few short ferry flights and got speaking to the owner of Sandtoft Helicopters. It turned out she needed an instructor and asked me if I had considered becoming one. We now have an arrangement where I got my instructor course, rating and Bell 206 rating too and I will work for the company. (Thump! That was me landing on my feet! :-)

I started instructing at the beginning of January and thanks to the weather it's been a slow start, but I now have over 330 hours of which 50 are instructional hours and 12 solo sendoffs and I'm halfway to having the restrictions lifted from my FI rating!!! Even better, at last, the money flow has changed direction and I have the best office window I have ever had!

This time last year I had just got my JAA CPL and was quite disheartened about the position I was in. I knew the whole process was going to be hard back when I was training at Beckers and nothing can prepare you for how that dip that claims so many of us will feel. A year on and I'm out the other side and on the bottom rung of my new career ladder looking up. What a difference a year can make.

Here's some pics of my new office. Some are taken with a mobile phone,so better pics to come when I can stand outside for long enough not to loose limbs. (It's been -10 degrees celsius and 1046hPa this last week. There were even icicles hanging from the door hinges yesterday!)

So for all you budding professional pilots - stick with it. Even when it's going slow or even not moving - you got skills very few people ever get. The opportunities will eventually arrive and probably not from where you expected.