What seemed like a very long wait for Lesson 2, but it was gorgeous weather finally !! Quite a bumpy lesson this one, probably thermals causing a bit of turbulence.

This lesson left me totally braindead. I have found this with helicopter lessons. It’s after Lesson 8 when I write this, and just in these few short lessons, I have found that some lessons, I come away calm as a cucumber, and others I am left with my brain going at 100mph trying to compute what occurred in the lesson. This was one of the latter.

So, this was the first lesson, where I did all the R/T ie….

Speaking to ATC to get ….

• Permission to start the engine
• Flight Plan Clearance
• Taxi Permission
• Takeoff Permission
• Leaving the control zone
• Rejoining the control zone
• Permission to land etc….

I say “All the R/T”, probably a bit unfair on Steve, who had to step in when I had no idea what had just been said, but I probably did 80% of them.

Today was mostly focussed on straight and level flight, turns and climbing/descending. I think my PPL(A) from 25 years ago stood me in good stead here and they all went swimmingly. I think Steve thought it was going so well, he’d see how I was at hovering, so Steve asked me to fly down to this field and at about 300 feet he took over and got the helicopter in a hover. So far, so good !!

Now, he asked me which control I wanted to take. Now, knowing that they all affect each other, I thought, “I’ll take all 3″. Cocky Git !!

Well, could I hover, could I bloody hell ! I was all over the place. Steve was great in that he didn’t step in until the last moment, where not stepping in would have been dangerous, but he wanted me to try and recover from a lost hover. He would step in if I asked him too though, thankfully. I maybe recovered from one out of 4 hover attempts, he did the rest. Hovering (or attempting to) TOTALLY drained me !

There was one of the hovers where I managed to keep it in the hover for about half a second, maybe a second, that’s how bad I was !!!

My thoughts were “How on earth am I EVER going to crack this ?”

He then let me have a go at each of the controls seperately. The pedals were easy enough on their own (in light winds), the collective, same. The cyclic was the tricky one, keeping the helicopter in the same spot was a bitch !

And together on lesson 2, it was too much, but I’m glad we tried it !!!

I asked Steve “how many people don’t crack this” and he said “Everyone gets it eventually”. It comes with a Eureka moment apparently. Albert Einstein I need you !

Thoroughly enjoyed the lesson.

Note to self – keep an eye on the collective. Collective effectively controls the manifold pressure (engine power) and it kept dropping without me realising, so need to keep an eye on this !!