Hepac

[skullcap]

charles;

Please accept my apology, the furthest thing from my mind was to belittle your frustrations with tc, I do not know any information on your plight other than your past posts. Honestly my heart goes out to you and how it must feel to work so hard and have it yanked out you chest by some pr8cks.

My intention was/is to try and get you and others to refocus on what is happening today and tomorrow. From what I have read here I believe that both you and Don have a great deal to put towards an effective winning battle against the bs that people are ignoring. I am not anywhere even close to being able to know the right people in tc and the ins and outs of the buraucracy, we NEED your help.

It just bothers me when people get personal, and disrespectful, I know it will happen again and again and I will do so myself but, nevertheless it bugs me.

We all get emotional at times and it is hard to look into these words to find the sincerity of my thoughts now but try to understand that I am in fact sorry if I made your past seem unworthy of any future discussions.

Perhaps we can build something that will be better and stronger to make a difference, something has to be done to stop the endless cycle of crap we live with in the industry.

sc

 

[Charles W.]

Skullcap:

Please do not feel that I am in any way angry with you personally, far from it because there really is no way you would know the situation I have with TC.

If I thought I could do anything for those who work in Aviation both in the industry and all the decent good people who work for TC I would gladly do it.

The problem is beyond us, it is a systemic mindset within the top levels of Government including TC Civil Aviation.

You need only watch Alfonso Gagliano on TV to understand how corrupted our leaders have become.

Skullcap, I went to the Director General with hundreds of pages of documentation asking for his help. The documentation is proof beyond doubt of wrongdoing on the part of the individuals that are named in my complaint to him. There is proof witholding of documents, changing and altering of documents by these people and all we get is denial, stonewalling and arrogance beyond beliefe from the top people in TC.

I have several letters signed by the Director General in answer to my requests for help that are so insulting and arrogant that it is all I can do to not to go to Ottawa and ram the letters up the Director Generals ass.

Now can you see the level of frustration I feel?

So do not worry, I understand what you and all my colleauges want, I just don't know how to help you anymore.

We are friends, not combatants Skullcap.....

Chuck Ellsworth

 

[skullcap]

Thank you for the reply sir. Perhaps you have more patience than I previously thought for am not sure if I would have your composure during these stressful times.

I will sleep better now.

sc

 

[Charles W.]

Im glad we came to understand each others positions better Skull cap, I also sleep better when we try and help each other.

Look on the bright side of this, maybe someday we will meet and you will better understand how I manage to survive....

I'm a tough old bastard, and these pr.cks form TC are going to learn that I am to old a cat to let some kittens screw me.

I really believe your organazation will be sucessful, just needs some grooming.

Chuck

 

[Albert Ross]

Skullcap - you're right! We have to educate just about everybody!

And we're not going to do it singly! My point exactly!

Phil

 

[Blackmac]

Having talked with some who post on this site, I have decided to re instate HEPAC on the web site, with Kyles permission.

I started this association for you guys, the money is already spent (mine) and we do have a CA, Bank Account in HEPAC name, person at present who is looking after getting members, without much success.

I am looking forward to getting enough members so another person can take over as spokeperson and I will remain in the background.

Approaching CALPA, I believe, does not exist.

I have talked to ALPA as they are funding our PHPA down south.
e-mail: [email protected]
Send him an e-mail.

I talked to ATAC Fred Jones about some funding and was advised that they have members from the helicopter industry and would not want t to siss them off.

Talked to some members of HAC, Alpine and Great Slave to try and get industry support, no luck.

Sent HAC an e-mail requesting an invite to the up coming convention to try and speak with the membership and would you believe I never even got e response, it was addressed to B. Jenner.

Last but not least Industry Canada and HRDC and as we are not ownwers of Golf Clubs or Hotels and do not live in a certain place that starts with Shawin, something. Again no luck.

The membership fee has not changed, we need bucks to get this going.

Associate members are welcome at $500.00 bucks donation. NO VOTING RIGHTS, BUT WILL BE LISTENED TO.

This would help to possibly lower membership costs to individuals.

So the SkullCaps, etc., can possibly bring this thing together.

Everybody is free to promote the association in thier own area.

The more the merrier.

 

[Sisyphus]

Most people work a 40 hour week and work maybe 48 weeks a year. That is a total of 1920 hours a year. Because the MOT in its infinite wisdom has legislated 42 consecutive days at 14 hours a day as the maximum, in six weeks one can work 588 hours or more than one quarter of what most others work in a whole year. Then the fortunate pilot has a whole five days off to get back home and enjoy his family and return to work again. It might not be so bad if at the end of such a day a pilot could go back to his home but he probably has to go back to a tent somewhere. Helicopter pilots are living to work instead of working to live.
Several companies in the States are unionized and it is only a matter of time before it happens in Canada. Some American pilots are working two weeks on, two weeks off, making $42,000 US annually and getting two weeks annual vacation. Why does not every Canadian helicopter pilot work for the same in this country? HEPAC can help with this.
There are plenty of helicopter jobs in the States. G Dubya has a plan to open up the American job market and match ‘willing employers with willing employees’. There will be a bit of an exodus of pilots from Canada if this happens.
Operators must hire more pilots and raise their tariffs to pay them and move them around.
Remember when tariffs were approved by the MOT? Perhaps it is time to return to that scheme.

 

[Albert Ross]

Then again, most of us only work for 8 months, but that's no excuse for flying when you're tired. If the present experience gap in the middle widens, I can see that those who can fill spaces will be paid more and more to move around and nobody will do anything to bring younger blood in. As sisyphus says, if they can go down to the States as well, it will only get worse (see you down there .

Phil

 

[Blackmac]

I have stated on numerous occassion that biggest harm done to the helicopter industry was putting us under the "Air Taxi" banner and de-regulation.

MOT never regulated the tarrif, it was done by Canadian Transportation Commission (CTC).

The only way to bring up the standards in the industry, is through industry agreement, in conjunction with employee's and/or re-regulate the whole GD thing.

If somebody has an old tarrif book around, check it and you will see that the customer and the operator had certain rules to live by.

If you are responding to RFP from the fed's (PWGSC) Air Charter Section, you will see a reference to "Air Charter Conditions", I wrote them when I was there.

De-regulation took control of any contract away from the operator.

RFP's were written in such away as the customer telling you how to respond to different scenario's or requirements.

Ferry flights to get to the job were not paid for so that every operator from any part of the country could bid. It was assumed that the operator was smart enough to include it in his total monthly costs or minimum hourly rates.

Having been on both sides of the fence, I can attest to the fact that the operator's are there own worst enemies.

I also stated a while back that I was wondering were the hourly rate for a helicopter was normally 10% of it's purchase price.

VIH paid 5.5M$ for the ruskie helicopters and are charging $5,500.00/hour, amazing, somebody is making sense.

Food for thought.

 

[T-rex]

Sisyphus,
Good luck getting a job in the US as a non resident pilot! I deal with L1 visa applications weekly, All I say best of luck to you there, If you think the grass is greener go! Most guys I work with make well over 42K annually! And they get holidays! Maybe you should apply at Canada Post!

It is quite amazing all the wining on this thread! If you don't like your job or situation quit! Nothing more to #### about! There are alot of good and bad in any industry out there, learn to live with the problems! Nothing states that after 5 days off you MUST go back to work! Stay home if you are too tired! The industry will not fall apart if you don't show up back to work!

It is a slow time of year in the industry for some people and I believe you have nothing better to do than complain! HELPAC?? I not sure if it is good or bad?!?! Good luck trying to get started! Good luck with the Union crap as well, you'll be on a fast track to being on UI. Well I guess you will get all that time off you are looking for and get paid!! wow what a deal!

 

[Albert Ross]

An L-1 is not hard to do, just paperwork - simply create a company in the US and post yourself to "head office", provided you have been "trading" as a foreign company for over a year, and you don't even have to be incorporated. If you have a degree, look at a TN if you are a Canadian citizen. PM me if you want the name of a good lawyer. It's a bit fiddly, but there are lots of good jobs available down there - just look at www.jsfirm.com.

Apparently, the justice department wish to know if you're going to be a pilot, but this appears to be for larger stuff.

Phil

 

[MagSeal]

sounds like alot of work...creating a company, posting yourself to the head ofice, publicly trading for a whole year.

It sure doesn't sound like a walk in the park.

I had my L1 visa in about a week, and was classified as a S61 Carousel Specialist. So I'm sure if you are already set up to make the system work for you, it's not a hard thing to overcome.

But what if you're not going to be working for the company who's already got the ball rolling? Can you go it alone?

 

[Albert Ross]

You can do an L-1 and a TN at the border - takes about an hour. As you say, you can do it with some sort of specialisation as well as posting yourself - I just need needed to incorporate anyway, so it seemed a good idea to make the money work twice

Phyil