FULL THROTTLE ON CO-PILOTS' CAREERS

Photograph by: Alicia Earle

Alicia ‘Liss’ Earle and Cory Sutton were the first candidates onto PHI’s newly launched helicopter co-pilot training programme run out of its flagship New Zealand base in New Plymouth.

The opportunity was a dream come true for both, who had long-held aspirations to qualify as pilots and spent years driving towards their goal while balancing full time jobs in other professions.

But it wasn’t quite a smooth ride from there. Almost immediately after the pair were accepted onto the twoyear programme, the pandemic struck. It threw a spanner in the works with being able to get them on the base to gain hands-on experience.

Our New Plymouth team worked quickly to reshape the programme and had Cory and Liss focus on learning the theory online until they could join the team on the ground.

Since then, Cory and Liss have completed instrument rating training and begun flying the line as fully qualified co-pilots.

Liss said recently she has been remembering where she was this time last year, which was on a farm in a far-flung location in New Zealand studying ground school classes remotely.

At that point, she was yet to meet our New Plymouth team with a country-wide lockdown in force.

It’s amazing to think how much has changed since then,” said Liss. “I’m so grateful to the team for the hard work they put into the programme and continued learning opportunities.

I’m now a fully trained signed off co-pilot. I’ve come through a lot of uncertainty to land my dream job.

Cory in the air with PHI International Pilot Russell Pirihi

Cory said he is loving life as a qualified co-pilot and enjoys the challenge of applying his instrument training during poor weather.

It’s an awesome job. I’m getting more comfortable with flying in the clouds. The instrument side of things is pretty cool.

Being in New Plymouth, you get quite a few days where the weather is bad so it keeps you on your toes.

In their second year, the trainees will build up their hours and experience in the air. Liss and Cory have both been cleared to fly the line for day and night operations.

Liss will do this in New Plymouth while Cory will continue his development in Broome where he been transferred for six months to help out our team in Western Australia.

Liss says a highlight so far has been flying in parallel with another aircraft for a photoshoot for industry magazine HeliOps.

She said:

At the time my adrenalin was pumping – I didn’t really realise how much of a one-off it is until afterwards. We got to fly down the runway pretty fast and low.

Liss said another highlight, despite the early starts, is catching beautiful sunrises.

The early bird catches the worm.

Nothing gets you used to the super early starts but the sunrises make it worth it.