As Darren McLean embarks on the final leg of what has been a near 11-year journey to become the first Caymanian police helicopter pilot, he is urging other young Caymanians to consider following the trail he has blazed.
“The journey will be a little challenging. The journey will be long, but you can do it, whoever you are. If I’m speaking to someone right now, who is the next person after me, just know that you can get through it. You have the support,” McLean told the Cayman Compass in a recent Zoom interview.
McLean, an auxiliary constable, recently received his pilot wings, and is in the United Kingdom where he will spend the next year flying operations as a single-pilot captain.
This followed his secondment with National Helicopters Services Ltd in Trinidad where he logged more than 1,000 hours twin-turbine flight time, and completed more than 3,000 takeoffs and landings.
Goal in sight
McLean said receiving his wings was a “surreal moment”.
“It’s one step closer to the ultimate goal, which would be, of course, a captain in Cayman for the RCIPS. To me, the finish line is just one step closer. I’m almost to my end goal,” he said.
McLean said he was looking towards flying in the UK to build his hours and then return to Cayman to take the pilot’s seat for the AirOps Unit.
Commissioner of Police Derek Byrne, who presented McLean with his pilot wings upon his return to Cayman recently, said in a statement, that the future “is very bright for Darren as he begins this next step. He is not only on the verge of being our first Caymanian police helicopter pilot, he is also serving as an example for other Caymanians who may one day follow in his footsteps”.
McLean recounted his first time flying in Trinidad, which was at his first assessment for his secondment.
Everything happened quickly for that test, as after he got the call to attend, he had to leave Cayman within a day to fly a 14-seater helicopter.
“I was nervous. A lot of pressure was on me to succeed at the time, and I wanted to make my country proud as well. I was sent away to accomplish something and that was the first step, that was the first obstacle I had to overcome,” he recalled.
He said, before that, he had only flown two-seater helicopters, so it was very differnt flying a 14-seater.
“At first I was trying to get back into things as it was a while since I flew. So I did about three patterns, and on the last time the chief pilot [said], ‘Alright, Darren, you did a good job here, so I think we can take you on.’ It was a big moment because that was the start of my official journey,” he said.
Path set for others
RCIPS AirOps Unit head Inspector Neil Mohammed, who helped McLean along his journey when he first started in 2017, said, he was “extremely proud” to see his progress.
McLean, he said, faced one of the toughest assessments in the Caribbean when he first started with National Helicopter Services Limited.
“So, for him to have gotten past that first hill with the chief pilot Sean Reid, was a major accomplishment for him,” Mohammed said, adding that he is very confident that McLean will continue “to do us proud and continue serving his country and just being a role model for those behind him”.
“We didn’t really have a path in place, nothing set out. This development with Darren was being written as we experienced it,” he said.
He said there is now a clear plan and path for the unit to train another Caymanian to join the team in the cockpit.
“All the lessons learned and pathways that we have developed with Darren will be committed to a document that will set out the pathway to develop another young Caymanian. We are very desirous of that happening. It’s just a matter of when,” Mohammed said.
McLean, while in the UK, will gain the necessary single-pilot captain hours to qualify to pilot for the RCIPS Air Operations Unit, but the RCIPS said in a statement that his UK secondment will also allow “him to gain experience flying in different weather conditions, over different terrain, and in a much busier airspace”.
All of this will serve him well when he returns to Cayman to take up his post as helicopter pilot on the Air Operations Unit, the RCIPS added.
McLean said the road has been tough along the way and many have only seen a small fraction of what he has put into getting to this stage.
However, he said, while he has felt the pressure to succeed, he held firm to his faith in those times of strain and his goal to keep going.
“God got me through everything that I set my mind to,” he said. “He helped me through. There is a lot of commitment, a lot of sacrifice. This took me 11 years, a consistent five years of training, so whoever comes next, they have to know that, yes, it is a big commitment, but the reward is great as well. You are serving your country.”
McLean said his hope is to encourage at least one more person to become an RCIPS pilot and if he is able to do that, “I know I’ve done my job”.
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