Episode 103: The Greener Grass: Flying the Cormorant in Gander, Flying the Airbus H145 with STARS, and returning to the RCAF to instruct on the Bell 412 Outlaw Part 2 - Troy Clarke

So as you got into the SAR world, what was the transition to helicopters like after your time on jets?

It was very different.

You know, my time in jets, it was great.

Flying a jet was exciting and fast and, uh, now, mind you, I didn't get too far into the jet world.

I certainly didn't identify as a, well, definitely not a fighter jet pilot, but the time that I did spend working toward that was, was fantastic.

It was really enjoyable.

Now pivoting over to helicopters, it was something, uh, just, um, in a whole category of its own.

Helicopters fly very differently.

They do much different jobs.

They, you know, they sound and feel different.

They vibrate.

They force themselves into the air where, where a jet just glides itself into the air.

You know, there's, there's all those little different, uh, nuances that come with flying helicopters.

So that was pretty cool, and it was a big learning experience trying to, um, convert from fixed wing over to rotary.

And, uh, yeah, it was, it was enjoyable.

Um, at the same time, you know, it brought its own element of, of stress with it, but, uh, it was, uh, it was a fun transition.

It's not like you got there and you were, you know, full of regret or, "Holy cow," like, "I can't believe this is where I've landed," or something like that?

No, no, not at all.

Um, so yeah, like we talked about on the last episode, uh, it was disappointing not being able to continue with, you know, that opportunity that I, that I had on the Hawk and to become a Hawk instructor.

You know, I was, I was pretty sad about that.

But, uh, oh boy, I, I was very excited about where, where this was gonna go.

Mm-hmm.

You know? I grew up in, in Newfoundland, watching, uh, the, the thing I didn't mention on the first episode, yeah, the, uh, the old Labrador helicopter would fly over my house once in a while.

Mm-hmm.

And, uh, and that thing was cool, you know, and I didn't really know much about what they did other than they rescued people.