Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise April 2, 2006
Flying for Team U.S.A.
By Trevor Persaud
Warrant Officer Taylor Oliver can't tell you exactly where he's based or what he's doing in his job flying helicopters for the U.S Army; but wherever he is, he's clearly living his dream.
“It's all I've ever really wanted to do,” says Oliver, 24, who grew up in Bartlesville. “I've considered lots of other careers, but those thoughts were just passing phases. There's nothing that comes close to flying, period.”
He's not too bad at it, either. Oliver graduated first in his class at military flight school.
“It's not because I'm stronger, faster, or smarter than anybody else,” Oliver says, “because I'm none of those. What it boils down to is that I had a strong foundation of flight experience that I was able to rely on to skate through.”
It's a foundation he started building right here in Bartlesville.
Raise Your Right Hand
“I have some really great memories of Bartlesville,” Oliver says. “Some of my best involve the fly-ins at Bartlesville airport. I remember when Fifi, a B-29 bomber, stopped in. I was probably 10 or so and my mom got me out of school to go see it. I got to crawl around in the various crew stations and get my picture taken in the left seat.”
In high school, Oliver spent a lot of time working on computers with his friends, doing file-sharing and multi-player games a few years before those pastimes became as near-universal as they are today.
“We would all get our computers together at a designated location and hook them all together,” Oliver says. “We would share files and play video games, stopping only to eat or go out and cause trouble somewhere around town. It was fun.”
He also found time to start pursuing what would become his dream career.
“Toward the end of high school I started taking flying lessons in a Cessna at the Bartlesville airport,” Oliver says. “I managed to solo there, but I didn't get my private pilot certificate until I went away to college.”
While attending the University of Oklahoma, he picked up his flight instructor certificate and logged some time teaching instrument flying at the Max Westheimer Airport in Norman. During his first year at OU he met Staci, the woman who's now his wife. He graduated with a degree in botany.
Botany?
There are some good collegiate aviation programs out there, Oliver says; but he believes it can be a smart move for a would-be professional pilot to study another subject in college - just in case something happens that makes you unable to fly. Also, “having a degree in a subject other than aviation,” he says, “shows potential employers that you have other interests and are a well-rounded person.”
In Oliver's case, the employer that attracted him was the United States Army.
“I really liked the idea of serving my country as an aviator,” Oliver says, “getting good benefits and a decent wage to boot. In a way, I feel that military service is a way to earn the rights and freedoms that a lot of people take for granted. I wanted to do my part to help the team.”
And the hardware's not too bad, either. Fighters like Navy's now-retired F-14 may be considered sexier subjects for Tom Cruise movies, but Oliver wanted the helicopters.
“I thought that the idea of flying an Army helicopter at 200 mph and 10 feet above the group while wearing night vision goggles was really cool,” Oliver says. “They were able to promise me a pilot seat in one.”
So he decided to answer Uncle Sam's call: “I raised my right hand in December 2003 and shipped out in February 2004.”
Pushing the Limits
Oliver says he's spent 16 of the past 24 months in some sort of training program or another: “I first entered basic training, then went on to officer candidate school, flight school, and the aviation officer basic course. In the last couple years, I've been stationed in four different states.”
His first stop was the Army basic training camp in Fort Benning, Ga. And yes, Oliver says it can be like what you sometimes see in movies and TV.
“It depends on what movies and TV people have been watching,” Oliver says. “The best depiction of basic training is the first half of the movie Full Metal Jacket. There are differences between that movie and my personal experiences, but that is by far the closest portrait of military training that I've seen.
“All of my training has been very tough, mentally and physically. There are definitely a lot of skills that I have acquired though the Army out of necessity to complete the Army's training programs.”
Was he confident that he could make it through?
“Basic training and officer candidate school, no. Flight school, yes.”
Since he graduated at the top of his class, Oliver had the chance to pick his posting. His home base, he says, is somewhere in Hawaii - but that's all he feels comfortable saying.
“There is a mix of military people, tourists, and locals here on my island, which creates a unique environment,” Oliver says. “My job involves flying missions in the Chinook helicopter in day, night, and adverse weather, over water, and/or under goggles.”
According to globalsecurity.org, the Chinook is a twin-engine helicopter with a crew of three, a passenger capacity of around 30 ground troops, and a payload capacity of over 10,000 pounds. It's been in use since the Vietnam War era. Boeing, the Chinook's manufacturer, says they designed the craft for missions like troop transport, medical evacuation and supply delivery.
“I really don't have what you'd call a typical day,” Oliver says. “I come in to work based on when I'll be flying. Our flight crew duty day is very important and very strictly enforced. I have some minor collateral duties that I might attend to, but usually I'll do some flight planning, a maintenance flight, or I'll study with friends.”
For Chinook pilots, it seems, the studying never ends.
“We like to quiz each other about aircraft or mission tasks,” Oliver says. “Sometimes we'll go out to the aircraft and talk about aircraft components and argue. It keeps things light and it keeps us up to the Army standard.”
And if you don't feel like giving it your best all the time, maybe you'll want to choose another career.
“You have to be able to continually push your limits while operating your aircraft within its design envelope,” Oliver says. “You have to be able to react very quickly to extreme changes in your environment and have solid decision making skills. Being a pilot isn't about wiggling sticks, that's the easy part. It's about being able to make the best decision possible with the information that you have and sticking to it.”
When he's not flying for the Army, Oliver can often be found flying “a variety of aircraft” for his own pleasure, or spending time with his wife. He doesn't really know what the rest of his career will be like.
“I'm just trying to go with the flow at this point and seeing where I end up,” Oliver says.
Be All That You Can Be
So what does it take to be a professional pilot? Oliver can think of a few suggestions:
€ Get out there and start flying. Books are great, but there is absolutely no substitute for flight experience. Challenge yourself with new aircraft and airports.
€ Talk to experienced pilots and try to learn from their experiences. Fly with as many different people as you can and make note of what they do wrong and what they do right.
€ Set a goal for yourself every time you fly - that way you'll get something out of it rather than just wasting time, fuel, and money.
€ Be good, study, and don't do drugs. Things as minor as traffic violations on your record can prevent you from getting a job.
€ Take as much math and science as you can stomach. Those skills learned early can provide a competitive edge in the future.
€ Learn good people skills and if you're shy, get over it. You can't get anywhere in aviation without knocking on doors and making good connections.
€ If you are considering military aviation, take some flying lessons and solo prior to commissioning. It requires a significant investment in time and money, but you'll find that it will pay dividends in military flight school. On the military side of things, you have to be physically fit and have decent leadership skills.
€ Be honest, dependable, and work hard. Nobody is going to trust you with their multi-million dollar airplane, business reputation, insurance policy, and the lives of their passengers if they can't trust you.
© Copyright 2006, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise
