| icefield helicopter tours |
| icefield helicopter tours kananaskis heli tours dangerouus ripoff, banff, nordegg, cline river, Alberta Canada |
| 22nd of Jan, 2011 by User658559 |
A tour with this operator is putting your life in danger. he tour operator has perfected the art of squeezing as much profit out of his rinky dink tour operation by cutting corners in all areas, including safety``
Just for example:
1. use one of the oldest aircraft in the industry, some of which are 30 to 40 years old,some of whichare rentals, not even owned by the tour operator. Maintenance or abuse history may not be known to the tour operator and he may not care.
2. pilots are the youngest, least experienced in the world. He hires two dozen fresh faces with fresh licenses, some with the ink on them still wet, mostfresh out of flight school.(he saves money this way)He then puts them to work dawn to dusk, painting, cleaning and cooking for him (for free) in exchange for the opportunity to fly his helicopters and advance their starting career. He gets basic slave labour and he abuses this masterfully.
3. put the rookie pilots into one of the highest elevation, windiest, roughest environments in the world, above the Canadian Rocky mountains. winds so strong it can slap a small aircraft hard enough to do damage. safe landing zones so infrequent that even an experienced pilot would have difficulty
4. load the helicopters to capacity, using weigh scales to get max capacity into each. ums in the seats is the revenue requirement. safety pused to max and then some. the heavier they fly, the riskier they fly.
5. did i mention winds? winds so strong it has been known to blow doors open in mid flight.
6. mechanic or flight engineer may or may not be around to fix machines. owner operator will make crucial safety decisions based on his income. same with weather. owner operator will push weather and visibility to suit his revenue and not necessarily his customer
7. same with speed. tours are timed with stopwatch precision, and if it means loading and unloading get rushed, so be it. time is money. if it means pushing max speeds in the mountains or cutting corners, so be it. tick tock is all the owner knows. your tour will be rushed, your a** will be jammed, your view will be impeded with the middle seat in a 40 year old helicopter
8. this operator does not have a reputation as a nice person. not to his workers. not to his neighbors. he knows one thing and one thing only. how to try and make money by cutting as many corners as he can
i write this to prevent another accident by this tour operator, or to make potential customers aware that there are other, more professionally run, tour operators out there. who have not gone down the road of cutting corners. Operators who pay their staff a fair wage, and work them a fair day. Operators who own newer machines, with mechanics on site at all times to keep them safe.
there are good helicopter tour operators out there and icefield helicopter tours is not among them
flyer beware
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Well the Pilots seem to be happy and are well trained. From personal observation & time spent as a repeat customer, among many others, Safety is their #1 priority! We will never stop visiting and touring with them and never worry as we don't see any deaths occuring. LOL
The staff is great and nothing goes unnoticed! They are not treated as slaves either LOLOL They have it good.
Your webpage is obviously coming from a frustrated company (or friend of) in which has lost some business to Icefield Helicopters. Or perhaps a staff member who got the boot that in turn, would create such a hateful page in hopes of deterring future customers. One has to look at this page and it's repetitive, hateful jargon and know that it is a mere personal vendetta. Readers with any intelligence will note this and move on.
On a lighter note...have a great day! |
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I am troubled when I see people with alterior motives try and justify their lies by hideing behind nick names or by a user #. Who ever wrote this is uneducated in not only the business world, but also the aviation world.
The realities are the aircraft that they use are the safest production aircraft ever produced. Their maintance is exceptional, and due to the fact that they have a accident free record for many years I think that it speeks for it's self.
Every aircraft ever produced has a manufactor maintance schedual. In order to legaly fly that aircraft you have to follow the maintance schedual.
Every aircraft has hundreds of parts, all of which have to be replaced by one of three terms according to the manufactors maintance schedual. Time, as it is only aloud to be flown or in service for a given number of flight hours. Calander life, which means that it can only be used on an aircraft for so many days. Or on condition, which means that an authorised person must inspect the part in question and certify it's condition.
Every part on an aircraft has a part # as well as serial #. All are tracked with the aircraft flight time and are a part of the aircrafts certificate of airworthyness. Every time you get into any aircraft, know that it dosen't matter when it was originally produced. Chances are that if it is an old airframe that it has probably been rebuilt at least once and every single part has been replaced numerous times.
It's all according to the hours it is aloud to fly before it is completely rebuilt. There have been many aircraft that have far more things wrong with them straight from the factory than one that has just come from a certified rebuild facility.
One of the largest myths about low time pilots is that they are unsafe. The realities are that if you keep them in a properly structured enviroment, and provide them with superior training, that you are statistically safer than if you were to fly with an older more experienced pilot. The simple reason is that we as humans get complacent with repetitive tasks, especially over large time periods. If you look at the risk factor, it is much more dangerous to fly with an individual that has 30 years experience with out an accident than a young cautious pilot with out any accidents. The law of averages says that the high time pilot is due.
As far as I know, this operator has weather minimums for all of it's pilots. And from my understanding, they are higher standards than is required by Transport Canada. They also place limitations on how much wind they are aloud to fly in. This is also alot lower than what many other companies say is safe. And as far as flying with an aircraft that is too "heavy" or fly it too high. That is rediculous. Every aircraft produced has weight restrictions as well as altitude restrictions. Any aircraft operator that tried to break these limitations would be shut down and never aloud to open again.
As far as being friendly, I have never seen any of the staff upset or misserable. I would think that they would be a pretty good first indication of poor working conditions. The owner has to be doing somthing right. Oh yah, he has given more pilots their start in the helicopter world in Canada than any other companie for the last 10 + years. Just ask around with all of the companies accross Canada. Chances are that one of their pilots got their start with this company.
And the last two things that I have to point out is the comment that everything is timed. Of course it is!!! Time is money, especially in the flying world. Oh yah and the business world. What a complete revelation of consepts, go into business to make money. As far as cutting corners, or being more professional. I have never seen this operator cut any corners. Infact it's been the opposite. If there were any problems, they were addressed in a prompt and curtious mannor. And always to the customers benifit. This operation is professional on every level. |
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