Had to cancel for things to do with Karen. But, the weather would have not been too clever, I think, so nothing lost. Two lessons booked for next week – Tues/Wed.
Helicopter Training
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No Lesson today :-(
Friday, August 14th, 2009Second Part of next exam = Aircraft General and Principles of Flight
Tuesday, August 11th, 2009Did mock test and got 80%. Pleased with that.
Now, to reread the WHOLE book !!
Weather forecast not too clever this week
Monday, August 10th, 2009But, that suits the theory revision I need to do. Principles of Flight – Technical “H” is the book of choice. Lesson booked for friday. Once this test is past and hopefully passed (sic), I’ll ramp up the practical flying side and make the most of the rest of the British Summer 
Video of Solo Navigation to Alnwick and Back.
Friday, August 7th, 2009Lesson 23 – 6th August 2009 – 1440 – 50 minutes – Total so far – 25 hours 14 mins
Thursday, August 6th, 2009Gorgeous weather today. I had, in my mind, an idea of what today’s lesson was going to be, namely some low level work (quick stops, autos and the like). It wasn’t to be, but I thoroughly enjoyed the alternative.
Steve suggested to maximise the weather and get a solo cross country in – Alnwick and back. Winds were mostly easterly and light – Runway 07 in use.
I plotted the course, and Steve went through the routing and features, which was helpful. 14 gallons of fuel required to allow for delays, taxi’ing, and I left with about 19 on board, so I was good to go.
I decided to use my iphone as the nav plan. It allowed me to easily time the legs and see when I should be arriving at the end of each leg.
Once we’d filled her up, we moved her well away from the bowser and other aircraft – a wise move !!! Actually, we’d have been ok for the liftoff, not so sure about the return bit though, but more on that later.
Permission to taxi to Foxtrot was granted with the clearance and I was asked to hold, which I did into the light wind. My first thought was to put it back down again on the ground, but then I thought that a bad idea as it’s good hover practice. After about a minute of waiting, I realised that I’d cocked up one of my checks. The door was open (my door). So, I had to put it down to close that. Silly me – done it before too. Need to ensure I do the checklists and don’t get carried away with the excitement of being solo.
With the door shut, Tower were on the blower asking me to perform a northerly departure straight away as they had an inbound. I was ready and I was off 
2300 feet was the intended altitude and i’ve realised that if I want to hold a certain altitude and I concentrate on it, I can do it, but when I want some sight-seeing or to check the map, then it can drift off.
With only me in it, I was maintaining more than the 75knots on 21 manifold pressure, more like 80-85 knots, so I arrived early at Morpeth, and similarly early at Alnwick. It took about 15 minutes to Alnwick. Quite a calm, non-turbulent flight.
Once at Alnwick, I travelled west for a bit over the golfball radar thingamajig, and then back to Alnwick. Then I took up the heading back to Morpeth, and mosied on back.
On the way back, I noticed that the Oil Pressure had gone into the red. Steve had gone through what to do in loads of scenarios before I left.
Steve :- If the clutch light comes on and stays on for 8 seconds or more, pull the clutch fuse out, and land immediately
He went through a similar spiel for every possible scenario you could think of.
Apart from this one, sod’s law !!!!
But, I was high up, circa 2500 feet, and I had the time to think it through logically. My thought process went something like this….
David thinking :- ok, it’s something to do with the engine, so if that stops, it won’t stop the rotor going because of the sprag clutch. ok, ok……erm……Pressure is high, too much oil, nah, there was only 4.7 litres in. What’s the oil temperature ? It’s fine ! Oh, that’s good, maybe it’s a faulty instrument
At this point, I gave it a good bang. And nothing happened. But then about 20 seconds later, it came out of the red, and into the yellow, top of the green.
And relax……….
To be fair, I didn’t relax, and was on high alert for an engine failure just in case. I kept a very beady eye on the Oil Pressure. It did go back in the red again, but because the oil temperature was fine, I wasn’t overly concerned.
Steve had told me to ensure I was at least 2000 feet over Eschott (another smaller airfield). I was keeping my eyes peeled, and saw a light a/c (Cessna) which was quite close, but we’d seen each other, or at least I’d seen him/her, so there never felt like there was any danger there. Hopefully, that will be on the video that I’ll put up tomorrow.
I reported back to Tower once at Morpeth and was asked to join left base, which I did. I was number 1 to land, reporting finals. Before I had chance to report finals, I was cleared to land, but asked to expedite the landing as someone was on 4 miles final (behind me).
So, I kept the speed on and it ended up being a fast approach, 80/85 knots. I’d forgot to cancel carb heat, not drastic with just me on board, thankfully.
I ended up doing quite a high flare, with very little collective pulled and a 15 feet high taxi (should be 2 to 5 feet) to get out of the way of the incoming. Steve suggested that i was quite within my rights to say “negative” to the request to expedite my landing. I am definitely too polite at times.
Now, this is where it got messy (in my book). I knew where to park, Steve had told me and the taxi and turn went fine, but then I started doing my “fart around for a minute” landings. I think the fast “transition to taxi” had made me tense. I could sense I was holding the cyclic very tightly, never a good sign and not something I generally do any more, but obviously, I did today.
Well, as can be seen by the video that I’ll put up, it wasn’t pretty to look at, but it was safe. I was up and down like something that’s up and down a lot !!
Eventually, I was down. For a second, I thought I’m going to do that landing again, so I can end on a good note, but then I remembered the oil pressure issue and thought better of it.
So, really enjoyable flight. Next flight, next friday. I’ve booked one for wednesday too, but there’s an appointment with kp on wednesday, so I’ll need to cancel that one.
Revise Revise Revise
Wednesday, August 5th, 2009Been doing some working out. If all goes to plan and I am ready for the PPL(H) practical test by 45 hours, I am over half way through the flying side of things. That’s the good news.
The bad news is I am therefore behind on the theory side of things, having sat only 3 of the theory exams out of 7. So, I’ve decided to throttle back on the practical side until I’m evened up. Which is a shame, ‘cos today was perfect flying weather 
And I’ve been revising Helicopter Technical I think it’s called this week, basically how helicopter’s manage to fly, how the engine works, weights and balance and things like that.
But, I still need my fix, so hopefully tomorrow’s lesson will provide that.
Timeout from Helicopters
Monday, August 3rd, 2009Diving in Eyemouth…..
Lesson 22 – 31st July 2009 – 1455 – 1 hour 25 minutes – Total so far – 24 hours 24 mins
Friday, July 31st, 2009Today’s lesson was a cross-country navigation exercise. It was a round trip from Newcastle, flying overhead Seaham, Durham Tees Airport, Hexham and then returning to EGNT (Newcastle Airport).
It was in G-BZBU, the HP variant of the R22.
I was kicking myself before we even got started, because I’d charged up the camera, brought “film”, even got windscreen wash to clean the helicopter bubble window, only to find I’d forgotten the mount which straps the camera to my head ! Gutted !!
Quite an uneventful flight as flights go, but good pratice nonetheless.
We departed south over the Tyne Bridges, and headed to Seaham. I’d plotted the route the day before and updated the headings with the Spot Winds earlier in the day. The route was a very easy route. Halfway between EGNT and Seaham is a windfarm. In fact, each of the 3 main legs had windfarms half way along the legs, which made navigation a breeze. I held headings ok, but my altitude varied +/- 300 feet depending on how much there was to distract me on the ground.
The only eventful things were some amusing R/T banter. Someone had had a bird strike at EGNT after we had took off, and someone sounded like a 12 year old girl, which we found amusing and then someone else sounded VERY laid back, not so funny when you just read about it, but funny to us. Oh, and while I remember, EGNT Tower hadn’t received our booking out form, so I had to book out on the radio, which was a first.
On the leg from EGNV (Durham Tees) to EGNT, Steve said something like……..
Steve :- Do you remember the adverts about Martini ?
dp :- Anytime, anywhere, any place, that’s…………
Steve :- Engine Failure, Engine Failure, Engine Failure.
Well, by the time, I was answering him, my heckles were up, and I was ready for something unexpected, so I don’t think he even got his second Engine Failure fully out, and we were autorotating. It still took me a bit by surprise though, ‘cos I hadn’t thought through what I had to do, so although I had rammed the collective down, I’m not so sure I would have caught the rotor rpm if Steve hadn’t done his spiel where he reminds me about that and balance.
But, I caught the rotor rpm, I even caught the balance, but then as things were going so well, I started doing the Mayday call, and then I lost track of the balance, and the speed “appeared” to drop off, but that was soon corrected.
When Steve asked which field am I going for, I had a nice one into wind, but it was an uphill slope, so when Steve told me of this, I chose another next to it. Lesson learned ! When I used to fly microlights, I would often land on uphill slopes, but I expect this is much trickier in a helicopter.
We did a power recovery at about 500-600 feet and then continued to Hexham. On the way back, I called Newcastle Radar, and their reply didn’t make any sense. I think they told us to not go any farther south than Blyth. Well, we were 30 miles south of Blyth when we called ?!
A little later, it was very clear that he had us confused with another aircraft, even after I had told him we were over Tow Law (10′s of MILES south of Blyth). Eventually, he asked our intentions, once I told him what they were, he seemed happy with who we were.
We had to hold for about 7 minutes overhead the Northern Boundary as some a/c landed and departed, but then we were cleared to land on Taxiway Foxtrot (not the runway), which was nifty. It was the first time I’d done this, and it was nice to do a transition that carries on in the same direction as a taxi to the stand.
Sorry there is no video footage, my bad.
Here’s a photo of Steve about to fill up G-BZBU.
Videos from Saturday’s flying
Monday, July 27th, 2009Lesson 21 – 25th July 2009 – 1455 – 1 hour – Total so far – 22 hours 59mins
Saturday, July 25th, 2009Well, I was gutted last night when I learned that the Carlisle trip (planned for today) wasn’t going ahead for various reasons. I found out when I was half-way planning the routing, just to make things even more frustrating. But, all is not lost, with a great lesson taking its place.
Sunderland International Air show is going on today at the seafront, so Newcastle Airport was hectic traffic-wise with all the departing show traffic. But, Steve said he could do a lesson nonetheless, so I went to EGNT.
He was still out on a trial lesson, so while I waited I planned the routing for a trip I wanted to do. Steve had said that the next lesson would be some navigation to a certain spot. I was keen to do some more autorotation practice, so I had planned a lesson in my head, that involved a navigation to Esh Winning (where we live), and then on the way back, I’d hope we’d do some autorotation practice.
I put the idea to Steve and he was very happy with the plan. He told me to book out via Blaydon VRP, which I did and then went out to check over the helicopter.
It was great being out on the General Aviation (GA) Apron as all the fast jets for the airshow were there. There were F16s, RAF Hawks, Apache Helicopters, a Chinook taking off, some aerobatic planes taxi’ing. It was awesome. I took some video footage today of the GA Apron, and hopefully will post the edited highlights tomorrow. I also video’ed the whole flight today with a helmet cam, but that will need heavy editing, so again, hopefully tomorrow, that’ll be up.
So, I went out to check out the heli. It was VERY close to the bowser (about 10 feet from the rotor blade, and VERY close to a beautifully decal’ed Hawk (probably about 10 feet too). As I was doing the checks around the heli, the pilot was in the Hawk, prepping it for departure. He’d started up and taxi’ed off before I’d finish my checks. I think word has got around about my hovering skills
Busy on R/T today. I asked for startup, and was granted that straight away. Whilst I was waiting for things to get upto speed, I called for clearance, but was asked to “Standby”. 5 minutes later, Steve arrived, and still no callback, so Steve suggested a reminder call, and it worked, and we had clearance to go.
Once upto speed, call for taxi. I didn’t think Steve would let me liftoff so close to the bowser, but he did. Thanks Steve. I was pleased when we were clear of it. We taxi’ed past 4 fighter jets (2 on the left, 2 on the right), an Apache Longbow helicopter (I think) and a light a/c who’d taxi’ed ahead of us. And we hovered next to Foxtrot. Typical polite dp, I just hovered next to Foxtrot, thinking the light a/c was first and he should go first, but Steve just said to tell Tower we’re ready for departure and sure enough, we were given immediate takeoff clearance. Footage to follow……
For the first time ever, we headed south ! Exiting the zone overhead Blaydon (Visual Reference Point). And then following the headings I’d worked out to get us to Esh Winning. Although I did set the headings and fly them, I was too much in awe of seeing the geography of the south of Newcastle to properly do the navigation. I had forgotten to time the legs, and was just navigating (with Steve’s help), by the 2 (bloody) big aerials between Newcastle and Esh Winning.
It took me 40-45 minutes to drive to the airport, it took 13 minutes to fly it in a helicopter. Straight line travel is awesome !
I’d warned kp that I was due (and what time), and she’d tipped off Tommy and Eileen (our neighbours) so when we overflew Esh Winning, I could see Tommy and Eileen in the drive, but couldn’t see kp and Michelle and Freddy who were visiting. I purposely had flown a safe height (probably about 800 feet agl), so they were just dots, but because I was looking for kp in the front garden, I didn’t see them waving in the back – I was too much concentrating on the flying.
We did a 30 degree turn out of Esh Winning and headed to the Windmill Farm at Tow Law, where we started the first of many autorotations. The first one was a simple (no turns) job. I was pleased that I controlled the rotor rpm correctly, and would have made a field into wind fine.
The next one was a 90′ turn autorotation. Again, that went fine, and then I think we did a 180′ turn auto somewhere near Kielder reservoir. That went fine too.
It wasn’t all good though. Although I had done what I told myself I MUST do, AVIATE then COMMUNICATE. I had totally AVIATED correctly, but had forgotten to do the Mayday call. But Steve did it each time, so it gradually sinks in to me !!!
I’ll get that next time.
A lot of learning to fly helicopters is getting so comfortable with something that it requires zero thought, that you can then concentrate on something else. For example, hovering used to take 150% of my CPU cycles to do it badly and now I can do a half decent job on 20% of my CPU cycles. In fact, at times, I’m not even thinking about it, which is great.
Once i get to that stage with auto’s, I’ll be able to do the Mayday call no bother.
So, all the autos went well. These were all autos with powered recoveries at about 300-500 feet.
Once we were getting close to the Newcastle Zone, we stopped doing them and I made the call for rejoin instructions and we were told to hold overhead the Tyne Bridges, which we duly did. The reason for the delay was the most sophisticated fighter a/c ever built (Typhoon) was on final approach and for some reason he had priority landing
With him down, we flew onto left base leg for Runway 25, and then unusually Steve said something to Tower. I couldn’t hear what he said, just as he can’t hear what I say to tower, because of the headset setup G-MAVI has. We can hear each other without having to push any buttons (live setup I think he calls it), but it means we can’t hear what each other say on the radio.
It turns out he’d got permission to do an autorotation final approach to a powered recover at 5 feet and I’D be doing the whole thing. So exciting !!
I’d asked Steve before we left, if he’d mind if I call out what I’m doing and when I’m going to flare. Normally Steve does a running commentary, saying “Not Yet, Not Yet, Not Yet, Flare” as we come in without engine power.
I thought if I did it, Steve would feel more able to relax knowing that I WAS going to do the flare at the right point.
So, as we were coming in with a very fast descent rate, I was calling out “Not Yet, Not Yet, Not Yet, Nearly going to Flare, Flaring Now” or something like that. I did the flare and the flare (I thought) was good. We ended up with zero ground speed and zero vertical speed, so all was left was the final cushion. So, as Steve says, it was then time for “Pop”, pull the collective up and recover to a 5 feet hover. Well, there was a bit too much yaw, but that was my bad. Overall, I was really pleased with it. Steve later told me that the rotor rpm went a bit high. I have NO idea why it did this, so will have to ask next time.
This was the first time I’d done the whole thing from entry to recovery with no Steve input. As Steve later said, it’s a good autorotation if you can walk away alive and he said we would have done. Good enough for me.
The final bit was the best bit. The GA apron was still chocka block and the Hawk was back, meaning I had 10 feet (if not less) either side of me to get the heli down. Steve let me do it, credit to him. I went in nose first, and then had to do a 180′ yaw. It felt very close for the tail close to the fence and the bowser. Not sure if it will feel that close on the video footage. We’ll see…. But, I did the turn and landed it. It was a hard landing, but Steve said it was safe and it felt safe. But I didn’t fancy farting on for one of my 30-second kiss-of-a-touchdown landings with so little room for error.
So, great lesson. Loved it and the first one was some video to watch back.
Next lesson is more navigation, but more thorough next time. We going to (or I should probably say I am going to) navigate to Seaham, Durham Tees Valley airport (passing overhead), then Hexham then Newcastle.
Not sure when this week, but I’m already looking forward to it !
