Woody McClendon

I started flying in my teens and was instructing by age 19. After college I joined Boeing as a flight test engineer and was assigned to NASA flight research projects on fly-by-wire concepts. It was exciting, graduate-level work.

Later I searched for a flying job that would take me to new places and was hired in sales at Hughes Helicopters. In the first few weeks I completed my helicopter ratings. I flew a lot and even became a Company Instructor Pilot.

From then on my career was a mix of helicopters and jets, Learjets and Citations around North and South America, Challengers on overwater trips and helicopters in a variety of missions.

In the late 80’s I flew patient and organ harvest team flights at UCLA. I served in two other air medical jobs in the ensuing years along with various projects in jets, finishing up in Arizona flying air medical missions in AStars. It was very special flying, saw a lot of trauma patients survive who wouldn’t had we not flown them.

Retirement in 2020 has opened up space for book projects as well as writing articles for aviation trade publications. 

The website will share flight experiences from which we hope to learn something. The ‘we’ includes pilots, flight nurses and medics.

Air medical crews share a unique relationship with danger. While technology has worked well making flying across most venues wonderfully safe, the air medical world still operates too often in marginal conditions. The deaths of air medical crew members are grim testimony to this issue.

Our hope is that by sharing those experiences as told by pilots and medical crew members we can help shine a light on the problem, a beacon flashing a bright plea for help.

At the same time, offering sections on the issues of the day in airplanes and helicopters, input from readers will hopefully contribute to better understanding of them.

Manufacturers and operating company managment have dominated those discussions, but surviving an encounter with these issues is solely in the hands of the pilots. Pilot input is what’s needed for better solutions.

Please read everything here with an eye to offering your input. Your experiences and wisdom are key elements to better flying for us all. Let’s create a powerful tool for better flying.