I did it! After almost 15 months of hard work, I finally passed my flight skills test on the helicopter. I’m now officially a commercial helicopter pilot.

I’ve dreamed about this since I was a boy and to finally be able to call myself ‘captain Rory Auskerry’ is absolutely fantastic.

Back in October 2019 we began ground school, learning the syllabus to pass the 14 ATPL(H) IR exams. In January 2020 we started flight training on the Cabri G2 helicopter and by Christmas we had logged over 135 hours and were ready for our skills tests. 

However, the weather didn’t play ball and coupled with heightened covid restrictions I ended up sitting my test on the 18th of January 2021 with CAA examiner Ric Fox OBE. 

In the video below, I look back over the whole course with all its milestones and challenges.