In the Irish airspace, we frequently witness these awe-inspiring machines. However, have you ever pondered the identities of the individuals who pilot them? Fortunately, in recent weeks, I had the privilege of meeting two pilots, an engineer, and a winch operator.
Today’s video features an informal and friendly conversation with one such pilot, Ken Skelly. Ken is also an avid motorcycle enthusiast, which we also will delve into.
He graciously answers all our inquiries and provides us with invaluable insights into various aspects of their shift patterns and the intricate mechanisms of the rescue helicopters. Our aviation enthusiasts and enthusiasts alike will undoubtedly find this video captivating.
See you in the video ✊🏻
For more information on The Irish Coast Guard (ICG) ℹ️
https://www.facebook.com/IrishCoastGuard/
YOUTUBE CHAPTERS
0:00 Intro
0:11 Ride Through Dunmore
1:06 Arrive Waterford Airport
1:14 Discover Two Rescue helicopters
1:37 Rescue Base Information
3:22 Pilot Comes Out to Meets Us
3:30 Bike Chat
4:25 Helicopter Types
4:51 Speed/Performance
5:25 Flying/Rescue Timings
5:53 Rescue Crew Shifts
6:36 Personal Previous Visit
7:01 Helicopter Comparisons
7:15 Infared System Talk
7:32 Engine Cleaning
8:33 Tea Talk
8:43 Rescue Helicopter Lifespan
9:04 Materials/Durability
9:14 President of Irelands Helicopter Chat
9:44 Take Off Info
11:03 Bike Talk
12:26 Real Truth About Biking
12:47 Thank you Outro
13:30:08 Outro
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Walters Motorcycle Diaries
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Walters Motorcycle Diaries
[Music] [Music] what’s [Music] on top [Music] [Music] [Applause] oh two of them holy i’ve never seen two of them never seen two of them here before ei and that’s the ICD wonder what’s the difference it’s just a different est
maybe a different model number it’s rare you have the two of them together
i only ever see So which one is it rescue 117 and 116
no uh we have five in country so ICS is on duty uh see the back planners aircraft
so that one’s on duty the other one’s empty uh and because we’re folding up like with CHC
um we’re going to change into D over the next I don’t know month or two uh because ICS needs a force for crew to fly it different equipment inside it rear crew so as they kind of depletes um they’ll move the kit into D and then mean guys can support us and all that stuff they’re closing Dublin on the the last day of the month
so is the S on that for Siggo
no
no
no the the whole CD ICD Irish Coast Guard so uh there’s G U A or D
oh yeah yeah and the last letter India is Ireland ic is Irish Coast Guard but when we fly on the duty aircraft it’s Coast Guard 117 or Coast Guard 116
okay yeah
it’s the base is 117 doesn’t matter
oh good
yeah so 116 Dublin 115 Shannon 118 uh in
Yeah change like it’ll be still Coast Guard 115
yeah so whatever leaves from here is the is the rescue 117
oh yeah yeah that’s class yeah i I always come out here on the bike or in my car and stuff like that and I’ve
Is that the T120 is it come down here here we go again
siggo spare so uh they worked on the one the other that’s the other spare and then they sent the other spare up to Siggo
yeah it’s the the Bonavville SE so it’s the T100 version
right that’s the 900 cc is it it’s lovely yeah wonder has one in here um one of the pilots has a T120 i think you brought it back for
Yeah t120s are savage right
yeah yeah i haven’t driven it now but
I have a Z900 RS myself
oh nice
yeah it’s lovely i didn’t have it there couple of months like
Yeah
i got rid of a GS Adventure big that’s the thing it’s kind of
Yeah it’s great bike like once once it’s moving but too big for most of me work you know i did tour on it like I took it to Pyrenees and Germany and uh
Yeah it depends what you’re using it for as well doesn’t it you know
it’s great for touring too yeah but um
that’s like what you’d be using if you were going that like
Yeah yeah she was falling asleep on the back it’s that big yeah literally the helmet was going think
I do a bit of a shimmy down and sh That’s an older version isn’t it that one
is one
i was only I only actually coped the difference of the two when I was looking at it we got this one in from Australia they shipped it up for
a bit of hardware
40 million a pop i’d say 40 million
yeah new like
Yeah
they’re a big beast now compared to the the newer one there after agreeing to guess you know it’s the what they call it one 189 the Augusta
smaller one is it
yeah yeah although they say it’s the same power in the engines
so top speed will be about the same and then lift and weight will be about the same what’s the top speed we cruise about 140 knots so that’s I don’t know 160 mph you know
uh to go a little bit faster v which is velocity not to be exceeded is about 160 180 um they’re all kind of effects like if you if you cruise at a certain speed like 140 it’ll go further you know so they’re they’re good up to 250 miles offshore yeah she’s and that gives you 40 minutes 45 minutes on scene
to get the wingspan on board package the casualty get him the casualty on board
and then back again so it’s roughly 2 hours out 2 hours back but 45 minutes on scene
yeah I was listening to um Haley is it
or the girl Debbie Debbie yeah sorry hi
yeah she was on strap your boots
one of my friends another girl from Muai and stuff like that
and I was listening to it was fascinating like it was absolutely brilliant like you know
yeah don’t like I know obviously you’re doing stuff in yeah we train we do a 24-hour shift so we start at about half 12 1:00 um it’s a 1:00 clock officially but we’re all in for half
till tomorrow 12:00 12
so we try and do about two 2 and 1 half hours training to stay on the on the boil with it like you know cuz it takes a lot of practice
just keep Yeah keep
keep always training training training you know keep sharp but we have to be airborne within 15 minutes um during right up to 10:00 at night and then after that it’s 45 minutes but that’s that’s kind of for a long range job because you you want to wake up like you probably have a cup of coffee as you do the fuel planner and stuff
you don’t want to get into that half asleep and then find you don’t not enough fuel to get back to
i was out here with my young about two weeks ago and just before a party I said we come out and see if it’s out here and it was out here so uh Colin is it Colin or Colum
i think it’s Colin brought us in engineer is it
yeah yeah he brought us in
and uh we got a tour um
the heli
yeah the one over there yeah the
ICS one jesus it was unreal
sure i was worse than the than the child like you I don’t know if you can see the search light on the bottom left there like the other one’s different that’s a tracker so it’s much more powerful
and then that one has much more lights on it belly light controllable that doesn’t
He was controlling the lights and everything on it it’s like a PlayStation motor
oh that’s the infrared infrared night vision all they have
yeah with night vision goggles now and everything yeah
that’s a game changer like
you need all that hardware don’t you
yeah like into the mountains at night time you can’t
the dark up behind me you can see the thing with the canisters
they’re holding the chemical that breaks down salt
here’s the engine isn’t it
yeah so we started the APU there which is a small little exhaust so it’s a third turbine engine that’s the APU now is put out and I don’t know which engine you’ll see the water yeah so that’s going before every flight
uh once a day
once a day yeah once a day i think it’s once a week
yeah they sh fresh water first and then they introduce the chemical and then they’ll shut it down and leave it sit for uh the chemical do the work and throw it out again yeah yeah see the way it’s allowed
air coming up there yeah
oh yeah
you can see water coming out of it in a minute [Music] that’s actually steam like Yeah
i hope yeah
oh I said be some T drank in here all right
oh yeah jesus uh that’s how you get that
yeah barry’s or alliance
uh I’d be a lions man because I’m controversial controversial but
there’ve been some machine now they’re really really you know
just inside it now i was just looking at just going “Wow one of them.”
Uh
depends on how we had the 61 before that the So how it works is of course make them and 61 was designed in 1961 so one of the aircraft S was 45 years old and was still on satellites these ones aren’t as good like the obviously there’s different materials a lot of carbon and
that’s the thing
uh they don’t last as long as steel um like the president you might have seen the footage there today like he’s still flying um an S61
yeah do
you know they’re that reliable
that a beast of overengineered you know
they’re even shaped like a boat they they used to train the pilots here they’d go up to Scotland um fly up to Scotland and then they’d take off and land on the the lakes there freshwater lakes taxi it around like you would on the ground and then take off and you know you can’t do that with this one
now it will do it they say i wouldn’t like to try it but uh
yeah they lift straight up don’t they when you’re taking off
uh yeah the hover they check the power and then we use the runway just in case there’s a problem you can put it back on the run like we could lift from here but these things are so the down wash often is so bad
uh you probably blow We run that out yeah
um so they stopped us doing that the second one used to come in
yeah they’re getting some jets in here aren’t they i I watching the aviation
the bombardia one came in yesterday one of the lads lives across that way and he said he never seen that in his big coming in
from the old Instagram
go for it
i’ll be talking to you right again anyway yeah i’ll show you around there whoever’s here there’s no bother it’s just they’re going to pack this one in now i’m coming out here years now seeing it and I’ve never seen two like I’ve seen the the blades there and then I was kind of coming around the corner you know I see blades back there as well Shannon right
so they had they can hanger two in Dublin and two in Siggo and one here
but now they’re closed in Dublin at the end of the month so they need to get you know the one in Dublin’s on till the end of the month
so they had D there so that they service the other one give that to Siggo and then this one has to come down here
so we can just about get two in there it’s tight tight
it’s Probably be rare enough to have two though is there on the on they’ve done it like but it’s rare yeah at least yeah
love it that’s why I come out a good bit cuz you never know you never know what you’re going to come across like you know
yeah yeah yeah but a good friend now had one of them the street circles love it
i just I love being behind it because the back wheel is so just big fat back wheel like you know what I mean and when he moves then you don’t even really hear it you know what I mean
just smooth like Yeah real chuckable like
Yeah
yeah same for that too like the brakes are big radial Bremmbos
exactly
steel R lines yeah so
they look great yeah they’re not too bad looking
right just like a simple bike
yeah like there’s no such thing as a bad bike
ah yeah exactly wherever I go there’s there’s rarely ever another Bonnie anyway do you know what I mean
rarely anywhere
i find a lot of lads are stopping with the Z900 now cuz I I was at the in the Kawazaki
yeah oh they’re lovely
they caught my eye now i really There’s kind of like an old
kind of like an old sty look to them aren’t they
yeah i had a green one
i have a red one now
usual dark green or something
red mine’s a red and black
you had the Z900
uh I had the Z 900 uh 1000 SX
got rid of that and got the Z 900
oh they’re lovely bike
those lads stopping in their cars like to look at it and then a couple of girls come up like I was sitting outside having lunch with the misses and then a couple of girls stopped and looked at it i was like “Oh
this never happens.”
Pass the GS
when you’re getting on bikes you think you’re going to be chanting to women all over us all out fellas the whole time
yeah yeah yeah screw it up sake you think you’re going to be cool when there’s a load of old fellas then inside the sand castle
yeah they’re good stuff
ah yeah it’s deadly like like you said with Freddy go anywhere in the world on bikes like and for people that just warm you do you know what I mean
we stayed chatting with Ken for another while there um could have talked to him all evening actually he was really really sound we all the three of us got on really great but um it was a fantastic experience and hopefully another day now we’ll get on with get on the the helicopter and um we’ll film it for you as well i have filmed footage of with my son as well but I’ll keep that private so when I go out myself on the bike I will definitely go out there but I hope you enjoyed the video give it a like and subscribe um I’m trying my best to make good videos and look they’re random videos as well because when I go out I can get chatting to anybody and I just really enjoy filming and sharing it with you all so until the next time take care [Music] [Music]