I am slowly eking my way towards 5,000 total flight hours, so I thought it would be interesting to show what I've been doing all that time, aside from being slowly shaken to death.
Flight Hour Breakdown
My Navy experience still takes up the largest minority of time, part of it deployed doing anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and a little too much Search and Rescue (SAR), and the other part as an instructor to new pilots coming into the fleet. Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) is the next chunk, most of with Air Methods but some in a death-defying stint in a Bell 206 Long Ranger. VIP stands for Very Important Person, and if you are wondering what constitutes a Very Important Person then you aren't one, lol. The "other" section I will need to parse out, but not on a Swiss train to Milan at 9 o'clock at night, which is where I am now. It includes a good deal of non-VIP charter, off-road racing support, and local news support. It also includes about a 100 hours of flying a Cessna 152 in Lexington, KY, where I learned to fly.
Overall, I consider myself quite fortunate in what I've been able to experience, and the different environs in which I've flown. There have been lows, no doubt, and lots of spikes of blood pressure, but so far it's been a magical trip for me. With no offense to KPMG Peat Marwick and Booz Allen Hamilton, I am so thankful I left financial consulting in the early 2000's and returned to the cockpit, and so thankful Stewart supported and encouraged the move.