Just like the return of the swans every spring, helicopter pilots take to the air over Whitehorse and around the city for annual training and re-certification.

Operations director Clint Walker from Fireweed Helicopters said Wednesday that because some of the mandatory re-certification involves simulating emergency landings, it must be done over the Erik Nielsen Whitehorse International Airport.

Emergency landings involve simulating engine failure where pilots must throttle back the engines and use what’s referred to as auto-rotation of the rotors to touch down on the runway, he explained.

Because it’s a simulated emergency, if anything were to go wrong, Walker said, they want to be close to emergency response services in Whitehorse and not out in the bush at a remote area.

The “annual recurrent training” involves a number of procedures and manoeuvres such as flying approaches into confined areas like the Hidden Lakes behind Riverdale, or mountain approaches, he said.

Approximately 38 to 40 local pilots and pilots from around the Yukon go through the re-certification here, Walker said.

Each pilot must be checked out on each of the helicopters they’re certified to fly, he explained.

Walker said re-certifying a pilot on one type of aircraft takes approximately an hour in the air, in addition to classroom time.

In the case of Fireweed Helicopters, most of the company’s 12 pilots will be getting checked out on two or three of Fireweed’s four choppears, and a couple of them will be re-certifying on all four, he pointed out.