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R22 Checklist

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

One of the tricky things I am finding is to remember all the startup/shutdown checks to get the helicopter safely started and ready to go.

Initially, I found a checklist off the web, and it was good, but there was no logical order to it, that was conducive to the eventual remembering of all the items.

I then tried an app for my iphone called AirCheck. For a £1, it was worth a go, but I find securing the iphone on my kneepad a little unwieldy. And it got in the way of writing down bits and bobs from the R/T.

So, I decided to make my own in Excel. It’s here in case it may be of use to anyone following a similar path. It is customised for Newcastle (EGNT), with the frequencies on, but that’s easily changed.

I have grouped the items in such a way, that there’s a hierarchical structure, the aim being, that I hope to remember the top-level structure and then the smaller sub-items over time.

Click Here to download it. It’s been created in the latest version of Excel, so use that to maintain the formatting, although it may work in other versions.

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Lesson 16 – 29th June 2009 – 1500 – 1 hour – Total so far – 17hours 33mins

Monday, June 29th, 2009

Today’s lesson – more solo’ing. And thanks to Steve (the instructor), we got loads of video of it.

The lesson was basically in two halves. It consisted of 18 minutes of dual instruction with Steve and then the remaining 42 minutes of me on my lonesome.

With Steve onboard, I lifted off between 2 other helis, always an anxious moment, and then hover-taxi’ed to the Hover Square and did some taxi’ing to a point next to a concrete slab embedded in the grass where we put her down. We then did some liftoffs, and landings, with some 360′ turns, and after a couple of them went ok, we did some practice “engine failure in the hover”s. This is where Steve took over and I followed him through. They are very fast maneuvres, where Steve cuts the power and then uses loads of right pedal, a little cyclic and then some collective to cushion the landing, but all in the space of 2 seconds.

I find them very daunting, and when it came to my turn, I was piss poor. I did some right pedal (I remember that much), and I know I touched the collective in some way, but I am pretty sure Steve took over and saved the day. So, after 3 of them, 1 of which I “did”, Steve left the helicopter and it was my turn to practice some take offs, landings, hover turns, hover taxi-ing, etc…

So, the instructions were clear. I had to imagine a rectangle on the ground (75m long, 20m wide) and liftoff, 90′ turn, fly to the 20m corner, 90′left turn, fly to the 75m corner, 90′left turn etc etc until I was back at the concrete slab where I was to land next to the slab. And rinse and repeat.

Steve kindly offered to film it with my camera so he got some great footage.

My liftoffs are feeling much better and although I wouldn’t say I’ve cracked them by a long shot, I do feel they are controlled and relatively stable. My 90′ turns are a bit messy, my hover-taxi’ing is iffy, not very straight lines, and my landings, well, improvement needed FOR SURE. I seem to have a mental block on “touching down (landing)”. I remember (from my fixed wing days), I always wanted to go for the lightest kiss of a landing, and would flare endlessly, until I virtually stalled the a/c onto the ground albeit from 2 inches up.

Without realising it, I seem to have this mental subconscious attitude of doing a similar thing in the helicopter. I asked Steve later, if I was being too much of a fanny, but he seemed to suggest that there’s nothing wrong in getting it spot on. So, in some of the video, the landings last quite a while ;-)

I really enjoyed the lesson. It’s a wonderful feeling being on your own, and in control of your own life. Once you lift off, you really are on your own, and noone can help you. Steve told me to keep the hover high, and I thought I was. To me, they felt 5-10 feet off the ground, but after the first flying of the rectangle, Steve gave me a sign to say “Higher”. In my head, I went higher, but they still appear quite low to me when I watch them back. Bear in mind the grass is probably 2 feet tall, so it’s not as dangerous as it looks, well, I didn’t think so.

I think the wind situation made the whole thing a lot easier too. The winds being variable (direction) at 3 knots.

So, absolutely cracking 1 hour of flying, and to top it all off, the landing at the end was between 2 helicopters and was the kiss of a landing that I had longed for. Always a nice way to end.

Here’s where I parked G-MAVI (the middle one)…….

dpparking

So, the video……

First Liftoff

First Landing

Second Liftoff

Second Landing

Third Liftoff

Fourth Liftoff

Final (and worse) landing (must have been getting tired)…

While, I remember. When two aircraft have a near miss, there is a facility the CAA provide to report it. It’s called an Air Prox(imity) report.

They tend only to be filed if one party believes another party is at fault, but at the moment, it seems that all parties (Merlin, Us, and Newcastle Radar) are happy it was one of those rare things where noone was at fault.

The Flight Lieutenant of the Merlin was happy not to file one. Steve feels the same and Newcastle Radar seem to be happy that all parties were a victim of faster than anticipated weather changes.

However, the Wing Commander (the boss of the Flight Lieutenant who was piloting the Merlin) was sitting in the back seat and he has a different opinion apparently. So, we’ll have to see what happens, but the Merlin had 2 instrument rated pilots on board and instruments that allow it to fly in cloud, so an argument could be made that they should have been flying IFR (by their instruments in or above cloud). Interestingly, after this incident, they subsequently went IFR upto 3000′.

We’ll see.

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First Solo – An exciting day – YOU BET !

Saturday, June 27th, 2009

Lesson 14 – 26th June 2009 – 1115 – 1hr 00mins – Total so far – 14hours 45min
Lesson 15 – 26th June 2009 – 1300 – 1hr 48mins – Total so far – 16hours 33min

Well, today has been one of the most exciting days of my life and a huge learning experience, and not for the solo flight.

The day started off with a full cross country plan of the route to Carlisle. We worked out the headings to fly and how long to fly them. Scott came to help at one point, with a view how to plan it for the final exam to tick all the boxes. I went to do the checks and put some oil in G-MAVI. We had fuel for 2 hours and were good to go.

Once I’d started her up and got us nearly ready for the off, Steve came out and we did the final checks and we were on our way. Hold at Foxtrot, 07 takeoff, left turn after the fire station, and our first track of 310′ to the North of Ponteland (2 minutes). The weather was great at this point, although not quite great enough to fly the 1800′ we had planned, so we were down at 1400′.

Next was a 6-mile 272′ track to Stagshaw Masts and that went fine too. Finally the 17 mile 263′ track to Carlisle. I lost the heading by a few degrees quite a few times, but at our half-way point we were bang on where we should be, and with a nice tail-wind, we made Carlisle 25 minutes after departure from Newcastle. We then proceeded to do 35 minutes of circuits and autorotations, with me doing the last couple of circuits totally without input from Steve. I was pleased with my liftoffs, they had really improved, and they felt very smooth, and my circuits were generally ok. Not perfect 90′ turns and also, I forgot Carburettor Heat once and Steve gave a few coughs, and when they weren’t subtle enough, he looked down at the Carb Heat knob, and as I was concentrating so hard, I still didn’t get it, but when I did I was laughing !

So, with the circuits done, we taxi’ed to the fuel pump and while Mr Fuel Pump man filled her up, we went for a bacon buttie in Carlisle’s excellent little cafe. Cracking little airport Carlisle, scenery and wildlife (in the form of birds) are amazing !

Once we were refreshed, we checked the weather for Newcastle and it seemed to be getting worse, so Steve contacted another student who was going to come to Carlisle (Rupert) for some lessons to abort his lesson, so we could do what we had to do and then return before it got too bad. Weather-wise at that time, it was good for a return to Newcastle.

So, started Lesson 15, a Lesson I will never forget and probably the lesson I have learned the most valuable lessons from. Steve too I think.

So, I’m doing all the flying unless I say otherwise. Liftoff from the pump, taxi past Bravo to the grass hover triangle and then a few more circuits where Steve kept schtum. All good. One more autorotation (just in case the engine failed), I only entered it, Steve controlled the rotor speed and the final powered recovery. And then one last thing, before I went solo, we practiced an engine failure in the hover. We did about 3 of these, but Steve did them all, while I followed through. The way it works, we’re in the hover, Steve cuts the throttle, we apply pedal to counter the loss of torque and then a final pull on the collective to cushion the landing. Pedal-Something-Cushion. Pedal-Maintain stability-Cushion, something like that. Steve’ll remind me when I see him next.

So, with that done, it was solo time. I was as excited as a pig in sh+t. Gagging for it. So excited, I had forgot that the camera I had brought to ask Steve to record the moment for the blog was under the seat I was sitting on. Thankfully, Steve said he’d record it on his phone, which he did. So when I get the footage, I’ll post it on the blog. I reviewed it afterwards and some of it was great. He got my final landing and approached the copter with his camera video’ing and got the biggest smile on my face I have ever seen. The grin never ended. Can’t wait to see it again.

The solo’s were uneventful. Steve had said to do a circuit and if I felt comfortable with it, to do another couple if I wanted. He said not to worry about the spot turns, and just do 90′ turns to check we were clear, but I wanted to do them. He warned me that the heli would handle differently because of the different CoG. It did, the nose tended to lift up more if i recall correctly. I think the first liftoff was the worst, I seemed to spin round about 70 degrees, before I caught it, but once I’d sussed the differences, I was really pleased with how the 3 circuits went. A couple of the landings I did I was over the moon with, but the first one felt different (again, because of the CoG difference I suppose).

I didn’t forget Carb Heat once – result !

There were 3 helicopters doing flights around the airport at the time I was doing my solo. One taxi’ing, one inbound from the west.

Some nice R/T from when I was doing my solo bit….

Tower    :- Callsign, Approach from the west, caution the Robinson Helicopter doing his first solo left hand circuits to the left of (Runway) 07.
Callsign :- Approach from the west and good luck to the solo pilot. He’ll thoroughly enjoy it (or something like that).

Of course, I had to say thanks….I was genuinely chuffed…

dp :- Many Thanks, Northumbria01.

When I took off for the last circuit, I gave Steve a sign to say this was the last one. Each time, I’d picked a landing spot well away from Steve (who was in the Hover triangle), for safety, but also ‘cos I knew he would then know I was going up again. For the last one, I landed about 50m away from him. Thumbs up to Steve to show that I had the controls and it was safe to approach, and at this point, I became more aware of the surroundings. Once Steve was in, I noticed the fire engine was out and I pointed this out to Steve.

Steve :- Yes, that was for you.

And he was serious. Standard practice for first solo apparently.

So, with Steve back in, we headed off to the East and back to Newcastle and the most memorable flight of my 250 hours flying, bar none.

At Carlisle, the weather was ok. Cloudbase was about 1000′, if not a little higher. As we headed East, it got progressively lower and lower. Each time, we would have to fly lower and lower to maintain “Clear of Cloud” and “Visibile with the surface”. At some points we were flying at 3 to 500 feet. Forward visibility wasn’t brilliant at this stage, but it was a good 2 or 3km, which is fairly decent and very flyable in. One of the beauties about flying in a helicopter is that you can fly as slow as you want to stay safe. So, when we’d go through a patch of 1km forward visibility, we could slow to 50kts, or even slower.

Stagshaw Masts was in cloud, so we tried to head north of it, but the cloudbase was too low, so Steve (rightfully) felt it best to come through Hexham and follow the low ground in the valley, so we could keep under the cloud. I am flying at all times at this point, with Steve instructing me heights and speeds to fly.

We picked up the A69 at Hexham and followed that, both of us keeping a beady eye out for pylons. Suffice to say, we saw a few. Steve told me to fly directly over the pylon at an angle, so we knew we were over the wires. Good tip !!

So, here comes scary moment number ONE. 3 incidents occurred on the way back, they get increasingly scary. This was the least scary….

At one point, we were about 200 feet above the pylons, but starting to lose forward visibility because we were skirting the cloudbase. It’s important to remember that I am doing the flying at this point, for when scary moment number two comes. So, once over the pylon and having crossed it at an angle of about 60 degrees, I started to descend to increase the visibility. Once the visibility was back to “ok” and we could see again, we both sighed with relief and continued on. A second later, the pylons reappeared, they had changed direction and were crossing our path again !! This was scary moment number ONE. We had to skirt the clouds again to safely get past the pylon.

But, we made it and things seemed to improve after that, the forward visibility was fairly good at about 2-3km. As we continued to follow the A69, it seemed to worsen a little and come down to about 2km.

Now, although I am doing all the flying at this point, Steve had took on all the R/T, which was a welcome relief from my workload. But, because we are so low, we are only occasionally appearing on Newcastle Radar. So, quite often, Steve would report our position when they asked where we were. They were very helpful actually, relaying latest weather at Newcastle etc……

Scary moment two – So, we’re flying along with the visibility ok, but with us flying at 3 to 400 feet to get that visibility. All of a sudden, our helicopter is pulling 3G and turning to the left. Steve had instinctively grabbed the controls pulled full collective and yanked us right over to the left. I looked to Steve’s side and see a green military Merlin helicopter coming from the left, that is within FIFTY feet flying at 90′ to us but on a collision course. Instantly, without thinking I also pulled my collective lever up fully thinking we’d need more than Steve could pull (silly really). It was the closest miss I have ever had while flying. 50 feet may seem like an exaggeration. I can assure you it was not. As we were banking SHARPLY away, the Merlin helicopter was putting in a half-hearted turn to the left. It felt like Steve had seen it before they had seen us. Here’s what a Merlin looks like….(Thanks to Scott for pointing out that the first Merlin image (now removed) was NOT a Merlin, but a Sea King.) To give you some idea how close we were, it looked bigger than this when we saw it !! And coincidentally, the turn the Merlin pilot was pulling was in the same direction as this, but a little less severe.

merlin3

That was scary moment no. 2. Sighs of relief doesn’t really do justice to the relief that we had after that. But, the scariest moment was yet to come.

What made this last incident funny, was the R/T that followed. This was pretty much the conversation that ensued AFTER that incident.

Newcastle Radar   :- Merlin Helicopter, we have a Robinson Light Helicopter who has just appeared on our radar in your vicinity.
Merlin Helicopter :- Yes, we have seen the helicopter, I think we gave it quite a fright.

Steve and I were laughing. They would have had the shits put up them JUST as much as we had !

Even though this moment was hairy, it didn’t really phase us too much, at this point, we were starting to discuss putting down in a field somewhere as our real concern was the weather. We were SOOOO close to Newcastle, but it just seemed to be getting worse and worse. If you’re reading this blog entry, you might recall a recent flight where the weather at Newcastle was gorgeous and everywhere APART FROM Newcastle seemed to be having horrible weather. This time it was the reverse, it seemed that Newcastle was the epicentre of the bad weather, but we only know this in hindsight. The ATIS (a radio service telling us the weather), was saying the weather at Newcastle was ok to proceed. No LVPs (low visibility procedures) were in force. LVPs would have stopped us going any further.

So, we push on, and as we do, we seemed to be skirting cloud more and more at lower and lower heights above the ground. But, we were still in sight of the surface and clear of cloud, although, AT TIMES, lower than we would have liked. We were having to fly slower so that we could avoid pylons if they appeared. I was back on the flying at this point and followed the A69 all the way to the A1. As we approached the A1, it seemed to be improving, and we were both a little relieved ! We were able to fly at 500 feet, and at 50-60kts. As we turned north, following the A1, we were 2 miles from the airport and within sniffing distance of a cup of coffee.

Scary Moment 3.

Suddenly, from following the A1 by sight at about 400 feet, we could see virtually nothing. We had entered cloud. We could JUST make out ground beneath us, but not the detail of the ground. It was quite frightening. For the first time, I was anxious and I could hear same in Steve’s voice.

Steve :- This isn’t good.
dp    :- Let’s just do a 180′ and pick up the A1 again

Steve took over the flying and really took command…….

Steve :- Full Carb Heat (we had entered cloud, therefore more moisture in the air, more chance of carb icing)

dp :- Full Carb Heat Set

He then flew a 180′ on the instruments and to our great relief, 20 seconds later, we could see the surface again.  Within a further 20 seconds, we saw a green patch of land and there was no doubt that we had to put down. Steve landed us next to the A1 and a housing estate at Blakelaw. Steve got out as soon as we were down to stop the inevitable crowd of onlookers from endangering themselves by approaching this weird flying thing that doesn’t normally land on their grass next to their houses. He also rang the flying school, while I shut the heli down.

Suffice to say, in Steve’s words….

Steve :- David, we’ve shared a special moment together up there

I knew exactly what he meant. He need say no more.

Once the copter was shut down, I got out and we chatted about what we could have done differently. Things like this happen in aviation. I had similar experiences in my microlighting days. Sh+t happens. The most important thing is to learn from those experiences and work out what we could have done differently.

What did we learn ? Well, the weather at Newcastle (when we left and a good part of the way there) was ok for us to approach and land safely. But the trend was a bad one, it was getting worse and worse.

At the same time, we were getting closer and closer. And so, you get this “nearly there, nearly made it” kind of mental attitude. In hindsight, we should have paid more attention to the trend and less attention to how close we were. That’s what we learned. Would we do the same again ? I am 100% confident that neither of us would let the situation get so bad in the future.

We were down on the ground, and we were safe. Or so we thought…… ;-)

It turns out Blakelaw isn’t the most safest place from a crime perspective to park a £100k helicopter.

Before the blades had even stopped turning, people were coming from everywhere. It was just before the schools finished for the day, so once they were done, we were bombarded from all angles with school kids of all ages. Then the parents, passers-by etc etc….

If I had a 1p for every time someone asked one of these questions…..

Question 1 – Why have you landed here ?
Question 2 – When are you taking off ?
Question 3 – How fast does it go ?
Question 4 – Is it yours ?

etc etc….To be fair, even though Blakelaw might not have the lowest crime rate in the Tyne region, everyone who approached was friendly, but we did have to keep our eye on the kids.

At one point, when it was pouring down, Steve and I took shelter in the helicopter. All of a sudden, the helicopter starts bouncing up and down. Some kids were at the back of the copter, pulling down on the stinger (a black bar to stop the rotor hitting the ground).

We both jumped out and “asked” them not to do that. After that we were a bit more attentive.

So, very friendly people, but quite a few of them warned us NOT to keep the helicopter there over night, as it would be on bricks the following morning.

One bloke who lived in a nearby house, offered us the use of his bathroom and brought out some coffee for us, which was lovely and welcome. But where was the BRANDY !?!?!??!

About an hour after we had landed, Scott came out, and then a little later, the big boss Neil came out and we pretty much spent the whole afternoon (from 2.50pm until about 8pm) standing in the rain considering options. Discussed were taking off and flying 200 metres to the local car dealership and asking them to put it inside, or the local bus depot. But, after visits to both, they weren’t viable options.

So, it was left as waiting for the best visibility possible and then Scott and Steve took off and flew the final 2 miles to Newcastle, with me driving back in Scott’s wife’s car.

It was good we had all made it back in one piece.

So, a memorable day (to say the least). A VERY valuable one to me (and Steve probably) from a learning perspective. My first solo faded to insignificance from a learning perspective, but I didn’t mind. Flying a helicopter on your own is easier than with Steve’s weight on board anyway. He weighs a LOT ! ;-)

It wasn’t just us affected by the weather. I had recently got in touch with an old friend from my RAF days (Hamish Mitchell) (http://www.scotlandonfloats.com/). He is an Air Traffic Controller for the upper airways, but also runs a floatplane company in Scotland. He was flying from Norfolk back upto Scotland with his floatplane and we had arranged to meet at Kielder Reservoir, where he was going to land and we were going to have a cup of something and catch up. But, Kielder refused him permission to land, so we were going to meet up at Carlisle airport instead. But, by the time he was as far north as Carlisle, the weather had got so bad, he had to fly to the west of the Lake District and from the email I got, he was pleased to be back home too !!

So, an incredibly interesting, exciting and valuable day. The kind of day, money can’t buy and one I’ll never forget.

Roll on the next flying lesson !

Here’s a piccy of where we landed at Blakelaw. Note the visibility.

heligathering

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Lesson 13 – 23rd June 2009 – 1430 – 1hr 12mins – Total so far – 13hours 45 min

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

Good Day today. No Solo, but still great day.

This morning, I did some last minute revision for the Meteorology exam. I was expecting a 40-question affair like the Aviation Law one, but it was only 20 questions. The revision paid off with a 100% pass mark. It makes a such a difference if you’re interested in the topic.

Today’s lesson was about emergencies. I thought it was going to be “the first solo”, but apparently, they are only done at Carlisle (cheaper landing fees), and less pressure on student (negative r/t). But today was very interesting nonetheless.

A lesson takes the form of a briefing, sometimes with some work on the whiteboard from the instructor, or sometimes we’ll go through one of the many manuals. Here is one of the pages that the manual said for today……

ex11b

Here is what was on the whiteboard…..

lesson100

As I rode into the GA part of the airport, the helicopter was taking off with another student, so I cracked on with the Meteorology exam. Once that was done, I went to the observation part of the flight school and watched the Harrier pilot mess on with his a/c. Apparently, 2 Harriers had been flying in the vicinity and one had a bird strike. It was over at the main terminal part of the airport. The one in the photo below is the one with no bird guts in the engine…..

harrier

Both a/c had a full set of ordinance onboard (a/g bombs and a/a missiles)…

It was intriguing to watch him do his checks and then he got in the cockpit and seemed to wait for something. Eventually a Newcastle Airport Fire Engine turned up and he started his engines. I assume, because it was loaded with bombs that they play it extra safe. It was great watching him taxi away and then takeoff in what must have been less than 300m.

Perfect timing for Steve returning with a student and “my turn”. :-)

Steve debriefed the other student and then briefted me for the lesson.

We wheeled it over to the bowser for some fuel and then wheeled it back and then Steve left to book us out and I did the checks. Here’s G-MAVI (or Callsign = Northumbria01)

weatherindistance

Checked over, I called for startup clearance, started her up and did all the checks bar the 2 where the rotor is going full pelt. I called for departure clearance and then awaited Steve. When he turned up, I did the last 2 checks with the rotor at full speed, called for taxi and we we’re off.

I did all the flying. In fact, assume I do all the flying now, unless I say otherwise. So, to the holding point, and then take off, left turn after the fire station and north to morpeth. The weather was absolutely perfect !!! And what was weird is that it seemed there was a circle around Newcastle of perfect weather, but Teeside and Alnwick areas were full of thunderstorms (Alnwick area visible in the photo above). When I say perfect, I mean perfect. The air was so still………..There wasn’t a bump of turbulence en route to the site.

We did a couple of autorotations en route, and then did one down to about 200 feet above the beach. I was desperately keen to do the whole “entering into autorotation” thing, as normally I don’t control the rotor speed, Steve beats me to it. With the exception of the first one, I did the rest and I was pleased with the whole thing.

Once they were done, we went over to the plateau and did some circuits (they were fine) with some fake landings/take offs ;-) . My takeoffs were much improved today throughout. My landings too, probably because the wind was only about 10-15 kts. We then did some more autorotations, but this time with turns to see the effect that had and Steve got me to follow him through as he controlled the end part where you recover with full power.

Fake Land/Takeoff, spot clearing turns to ensure no a/c in the vicinity (there was another fast jet today (RAF Hawk)), and then we flew back to Newcastle. Short wait for 1 landing and 1 departure a/c and then landing on 07. Hover taxi in. Not that graceful, but not bad and a nice enough landing apart from the position which was too far away from everything, my bad !!

All in all, a great lesson.

The next time it’s definitely solo. We’re going to Carlisle for the day on Friday (weather permitting). Full cross-country planning, flying, the works. Once there, cup of tea, and then circuits with Steve, and then he gets out, and it’s just lil’ole’me. Can’t wait. Then lunch, then plan flight back and it should be great :-)

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Bit breezy today

Friday, June 19th, 2009

Went to the flying school on the offchance of a lesson, but it was too blowy. So, instead, we wheeled G-MAVI into the hangar and Steve gave me the Robinson R22 operating manual and with Scott (examiner), we went through a complete external check of the a/c. They referred to it as a “Check A”.

VERY interesting. I learned so much and it was well worth the trip in on the bike.

Next lesson booked for Tuesday pm.

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Lesson 12 – 18th June 2009 – 11.13am – 1hr 12mins – Total so far – 12hours 33 min

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

I really didn’t think today’s lesson would go ahead, but I’m glad it did.

The weather was in excess of the minimum required for me to fly solo (winds need to be less than 15 knots). Winds were at around 20knots, gusting to 30knots, which is quite blowy (35mph). But, Steve felt I would benefit from a lesson where the weather wasn’t quite as ideal and he was dead right.

First off was a cup of coffee and a brief. Dynamic Rollover was the topic of the day. I asked Steve if we could practice one of these, but it’s a “no” ;-)

So, I went out to check the helicopter over. Steve went to check us out with ATC. The helicopter needed oil and fuel, so I texted Steve to bring the oil when he came out, to save a trip back to the hangar. As he arrived at the helicopter, his phone went off with my message – doh !!  He is on the “3″ network, and we have quite a few family members on “3″ and they sometimes never get texts or get them ages later. Weird !

So, we went back to get the oil and it started raining, so we waited in the hangar as it’s not pleasant checking an a/c over while it’s p+ssing down. Once it had enough oil, I wheeled the copter over to the bowser (my first time pushing it) – surprisingly light. Note to self, get the rotor blade in line with helicopter before pushing it.

Steve filled her up and then we wheeled it back to a safe distance from the fuel bowser and continued checks.

Flying a helicopter for someone with my low experience is quite different in calm or low wind conditions than when it’s blowing like it was today. I was concerned about the takeoff as we were probably only about 10m from the fuel bowser. But, Steve let me do it remarkably. I taxi’ed to Holding Point F(oxtrot) got the “go” from ATC, (hover) taxi’ed her onto 25 and then transitioned us off. I did every bit of flying today again, which is quite a good feeling, but TOTALLY exhausting. 30 minutes flying a helicopter is quite draining. I _KNOW_ it will become effortless with time and experience, but right now, it’s like when you start driving abroad and at first, you’re quite tense, but by the end of a holiday, you don’t give it a second thought.

So, we flew north, past Morpeth to “the plateau” as Steve calls it. It’s an area by some working quarries where we can “land”. We can’t land per se, but near as damn it ;-)      So, in our heads, we look at the wind, and pretend the hover landing spot is at a certain spot and then do circuits. My circuits still need to be tighter. This is where it would be easier with a runway, because it’s easy to know when you’re going downwind, base leg etc…. ‘cos you can compare it to the runway. With a plateau of grass which has no distinct shape, it’s less easy, but I did my best. Everything went fine, and I was pleased because the last blowy day (less windy than today), had seen my hovers be ALL over the place, but today, they were “ok”.

Steve is a great instructor. He had me in stitches today and at a time where I needed to really relax. When a helicopter comes into land, you do a transition from forward descending flight to the hover, before putting the heli down. So, I did that, got us to the hover and then “landed”. So far, so good. Taking off is trickier than it sounds as you need to be in a hover before your skids leave the ground, failure to do this correctly and we get the Dynamic Rollover thing, which we don’t want. So, I take off and get us in the hover, all good.

Now, then what we need to is to do a 360′ turn whilst hovering to check that the sky is clear of any a/c before we start a “take off”. Even in calm winds, this can be tricky, but in calm winds, I can do it. In these winds, and it was showing as 35kts on the instruments whilst we were hovering, it’s not quite as easy. The tricky thing is that you need to keep the cyclic constantly with some pressure in the direction of the wind. Not too tricky by itself, but then you need to use the yaw pedals to do the turn, but when you initiate the turn the wind wants to blow the tail back to the same position (like a weather vane) , so you need quite a lot of foot pedal work. Also, once the tail goes across the wind, it catches the wind and then you need the opposite pedal to stop it from whizzing in the other direction. Foot pedal work (depending on the direction of the turn)  needs more or less collective. So, it’s quite a balancing act. So, here’s the funny bit…..

Imagine the most ungraceful 360′ turn you possibly can imagine. That’s the turn that I did. In fact, it was probably 480′ turn and then a correction back again. But it included a climb of 20 feet, a movement to the side of 40 feet. It was quite a nightmare. Once I’d got it back to the hover and Steve was adamant that I fix the problem I made (nice one Steve), he said……..

Steve :- So, did you see any aircraft ?

Well, of course, I wasn’t paying attention to anything but getting the hover back. I chuckled at the time, but on the way home in the car, I was reviewing what we’d done in my head and spontaneously burst out laughing thinking of that moment.

So, although this particularly 360/480′ turn was horrendous, there were some that were more controlled, I’m pleased to say, but FAR from graceful. But, I was pleased with my performance given the wind.

So, after about 4 or 5 circuits, we did 2 autorotations. They were both just about me getting into autorotation, not the full thing. EVERY time I do the autorotation, I can get us into autorotation fine, but EVERY time, I say I will try and stop the rotor from overspeeding, but for some reason, Steve does that bit before I get chance. Will have to ask him about this. One of the autorotations was to a powered recovery at about 300′. The other was a powered recovery at about 5 feet, which Steve did.

Once done, another less than graceful 360′ turn and then I flew us ALL the way back, down runway 25, lovely transition to a hover and then hover taxi’ed us back AND landed but NOT by the fuel bowser like the last time and I’m more than happy with that, given the winds.

All good.

Steve got out of the helicopter as soon as it landed and left me to shut it down. I really appreciate the trust this shows.

Once back, debrief and then we sat for about 90 minutes listening to one of the helicopter engineers tell us all about which are the best helis from a service perspective – very interesting. Schweizer 300′s sounds like they should be avoided from a cost point of view. Very interesting.

2200 hour service on a Robinson R22 (if you send it back to the USA to get it done) is about £60k, but it effectively comes back a new helicopter. Interesting stuff.

In summary, a very enjoyable lesson. The weird thing is, I probably didn’t “learn” a lot, but the experience was invaluable.

Next lesson booked for tomorrow, 9.30am.

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Lesson 9 – 8th June 2009 – 13.30pm – 50mins – Total so far – 9hours 6mins

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

Loved this lesson. It was hovering/transitioning/circuits and autorotations, and my favourite, landing/taking off. I did everything bar the autorotations.

So, Steve caught up with Rupert and he had a chat with him about how his cross-country had gone – interesting to listen in on.

I went out to do the checks, start her up, and Steve let me take off, hover taxi along the yellow taxi line cross all the way to a grass triangle (size of a football pitch (I NEED IT THIS BIG !!!)). And then using that as a BIG helipad, we did circuits and they felt much more polished this time, plus as a lovely twist, after each one, I landed and took off. Once I get it on the ground, I always have this huge sigh as I push the collective down as if to say “I’m still alive”, Steve always seems to find this very funny, which in turn makes me laugh. So, we probably did about 5 circuits and they felt really good. With only a minor thing wrong here and there (ie speed, tightness of turns) they went really well. And then we finished off with 3 autorotations. So, the first one, I followed Steve through – I did a circuit, but we end up very high on approach and then Steve did the first one and I followed through. Then the second one, I did it and he monitored the rotor rpm, and then a third ‘cos I didn’t get what he meant by “POP” which is what he says at the very end as he “POPS” the collective to bring the engine back in.

He let me hover taxi back and then he did the “park by the fuel pump” manoeuvre, although I’d loved to have seen the fuel guy’s face if he saw me hover park next to the pumps ;-)

It was then Rupert’s turn again. Whilst he was out, there was a lady in the cafe who was waiting for her son to fly in. He was one of the pilots who was flying a Lynx helicopter in a formation consisting of 2 Lynx and 1 Sea King helicopters. I think I overheard that they had come all the way up from Yeovil (Devon) to Carlisle, NOT ABOVE 200 feet !!! And sure enough, when she pointed them out (flying in), they were at about 200 feet.

Here’s a picture of them getting refuelled (rotor’s stll running and VERY loud).

lynxseaking

And here’s some video of them taking off beautifully and flying off (in formation).

Once they had gone, Steve and I had a chat along the lines of “You need to get your medical Dave”. That’s a sign that Steve thinks I’m nearly ready to go solo. He mentioned this the other day but I thought he was joking when he said “We’ll have you solo by 10 hours”. I thought he meant in 10 hours time, but I think he meant 10 hours flight time. Yikes !! But, compared to the other day, where I thought he was joking and one screw short of a full bag, when he said it this time, I thought, “Yes, I could do a circuit on my own, and there’s a good chance I can land it”. That felt good !

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Lesson 8 – 8th June 2009 – 10.30pm – 60mins – Total so far – 8hours 16mins

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

Weather surprisingly good today. Wasn’t expecting much flying at all this week.

The plan for today was to fly over to Carlisle, do some circuits there (where it’s cheaper and less R/T required), some autorotations, take offs, landings, transitions and fly back. Sounds like a lot of flying, but another student pilot (Rupert) was going to be flying also, so we were giving each other breaks.

We didn’t plan the trip and legs as I thought we would, but rather, pretty much checked the heli over and set off. I suspect the full cross-country planning stuff will come later. I forgot to mention that on the last trip, Steve was confident enough in me to get me to do all the checks, initial R/T and start the helicopter up without him there, which strangely I found quite nerve-racking. It was the same today, so….

  • External checks
    Before Start Checks
    Get the ATIS (weather, runways in use)
    Call for Startup
    Startup
    Post Startup Checks

    • At this point Steve joined me and it was Run-Up Checks, call for taxi and then I took us up in the air and started the hover taxi off. Steve took over approaching the hold and he did the transition to forward climbing flight and then it was my turn :-)   I flew us to Carlisle, with Steve explaining the landmarks to look out for (Stagshaw Masts, Craggy Cliff in the distance, and then Haltwhistle). Pretty straightforward routing. We had to fly south of Spadeadam, which I think is a big army/air force expanse used for military training. The R/T was trickier, because we were passed to Newcastle Radar and then Spadeadam, and then finally Carlisle. I’d like to say I did it all, but Spadeadam was very hard to understand, and not knowing what to expect (comms-wise), there were a number of times, I had to say “Steve, can you get that ?”.

    On the routing from Stagshaw Masts to Haltwhistle (just south of Spadeadam), we were receiving what’s called a Basic (Information) Service. And in a nutshell, that’s them informing us of information that’s useful for the safety of our flight, eg weather, traffic. They called us and informed us of a fast jet flying south in our vicinity. VICINITY !!!!! Well, we scoured the sky and Steve spotted a Tornado which passed about 300 feet below us and 300 feet in front of us. Moments like this are just awesome. It had a full load of ordnance on too.

    Carlisle is a beautiful little airport, much more suited to private pilots. It has views of the Lake District, the sea, and the most amazing variety of birds. I know all the birds that visit our bird nut offerings, but didn’t recognise one of the birds that I saw. Must look them up. Anyhow, back to helicopters. So, arriving at Carlisle, we were ok’ed for circuits with negative R/T (a dream), no talking on the radio. Full concentration on helicopter flying ! I did all the flying from the transition to hover (which I feel much more confident in), and then from the hover to forward/climbing flight, turn left, left again and then left again and another transition.

    My first circuit was pretty poor (and that’s being kind). Steve told me circuits should have 3 x 90′ (90 degree) corners, whereas mine were more 2 x 180′ turns. I knew where he was coming from 100%. But, after the initial awe at getting back in a helicopter and hovering, they became better. I am sure I did about 4 circuits and the last one definitely had 3 x 90′ turns. All the hovers, at this point, were much improved. FAR FROM perfect, but safe and I was confident that I could bring it back to the hover if I lost it, which is key really ;-)

    Then, Steve let me hover-taxi to the apron and he took over to do the final parking next to the fuel pumps. I can’t think why he didn’t trust me to put it down within 10 feet of 20,000 gallons of aviation fuel ;-)

    That was Flight 1 of the day !!

    Steve left me to shut it down, which was nice, another sign he trusts me to stay alive and not damage the helicopter. I followed him in to the office the school has there and met Rupert (the other student).

    Rupert was further on in the course and he was going to be doing some cross-country solo work and some solo circuits.

    I followed them out to watch Rupert take off and get some pictures.

    gmavi

    Plus some video of his takeoff (very like mine!)

    Whilst they were away, I got chatting to some microlight aircraft pilots. I was asked where I did my microlight aircraft flying and who was my instructor, and was told that my instructor Tony Wells (one of the first microlight instructors) had passed away a couple of years ago. Very sad ! Nice bloke.

    When Steve had done a few circuits with Rupert, he got out, leaving Rupert to do his cross country and Steve and I went to the cafe for a cuppa ! We then went to have a look at the tower at Carlisle Airport. Very helpful crew in there who explained all the equipment.

    insidetower

    We saw Rupert return and land on the helipad…..

    fromthetower

    And then it was my turn again…..

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    Lesson 4 – 13th May 2009 – 4.00pm – 1hr 5mins – Total so far – 4hours 16mins

    Sunday, June 7th, 2009

    Autorotations today, but me doing them. Not the full thing down to the ground, just entering autorotations and holding them with correct rotor speed down to 500 feet and then we carry on flying normally.

    I am now doing all the R/T as a matter of course, plus all the initial checks, including starting the helicopter up, shutting it down etc…..

    Steve does all the low level stuff, hover taxi’ing, takeoff/landings, and I do everything else (the easy bits).

    Today, we were number 2 for departure after a Cessna Citation and we were asked to take off immediately heading due north from the taxiway, which took us within 200 feet of the Emirates Tower at Newcastle. That was great, you could see all the controllers. I was tempted to give them a wave, but Steve would have not been happy with me taking my hand off the collective ;-)

    Off we flew, north, past Morpeth. Absolutely gorgeous day, despite predictions of potentially gusty weather. Very calm ! Calmest it’s been.

    So, autorotations. I flew us upto 2000′ and then we do HASEL checks (Height, Area, Security, Engine, Lookout), and then for the first one, I follow him through doing the whole thing first to get a feel for it. So, then we do another one, and I did the cyclic only. As soon as you have no lift from the engine, the nose drops and you need to pull back on the cyclic to maintain a 60knot speed. Then back upto 2000′ again, this time, I was doing the Yaw pedals. Without the torque from the engine, the helicopter veers a lot to the left so right pedal was needed to counte this and keep us in straight balanced flight.

    Then repeat again, but with me doing all 3. I did it twice in total. On one of them (the first one I think), I let the rotor rotate too fast, but generally found entering an autoration straightforward(ish). Of course, if the engine ever did go, I’d need to instinctively do the maneuvre, PLUS find somewhere to land and land it, so this bit SHOULD be the easiest bit and should be stress-free because there’d be more to worry about should I ever need it.

    I asked Steve, if he’d ever had to do a real one (and he has been flying heli’s for about 1300 hours I think) and he has NEVER had to do one for real. Reassuring !!! The R22 Beta has an AvcoLyoming engine and from what I have read, they seem incredibly reliable !!

    To top off the autorotation lesson, Steve did a full one, all the way down to land, which was very impressive. We aren’t allowed to land away from a licensed airfield during training, so he could do everything apart from the final touchdown but I got the idea ;-)

    Once he had it in a hover, he handed it over to me to do some more hover practice. It was “ok”. I was better than my first attempts, but not much improved on the great day of hover I had in Lesson 2 or 3. But, it could have been worse. Still needing Steve to save our lives when the hover was lost !

    After the hover practice, we do a lookout to check we’re ok to transition to forward/climbing flight and lucky we did, as a pair of Harrier’s flew directly over us – exciting stuff. Could hear the roar through all the rotor noise and the headsets !!! I asked Steve if they often do that, and he said they often use us as target practice – GULP ! I wasn’t sure if he was serious or not. And I’ve had another experience with them in a later lesson (Lesson 8), so I think he may be telling the truth.

    Flew back and arrived back in the vicinity of the airport at rush hour (5pm) and we’re greeted by some queuing. Couple of flights queuing for takeoff and a couple coming into land PLUS us. And the added stress that Marky Mark (the local eye in the sky) wanted our heli to do his commentary on traffic asap. The tower asked us to do orbits over the golf course, which I did, but kept slackening off on the speed every once in a while. After a while of going round in circles (orbits), it gets a bit dizzying, so Steve put us into a hover at 1000′ and that was much easier and allowed us to watch the takeoff/landings from a great vantage point :-)

    I found the hover much easier to keep at this height, but probably because you can’t tell how bad the hover is ‘cos of the height you’re at !! ;-)

    Here’s Marky Mark getting ready to life off……Notice the tail rotor. It’s a straight line, but it appears bent because of the speed it’s rotating….

    markymarkheli2-1024x768

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    Lesson 3 – 12th May 2009 – 12.45pm – 1hr 5mins – Total so far – 3hours 11minutes

    Sunday, June 7th, 2009

    Thoroughly enjoyed this lesson. It didn’t feel as exhausting as the hover lesson from the previous day. It was mostly practicing climbing/descending, climbing turns, descending turns etc..PLUS we got another 15 minutes worth of hover practice in !! :-)

    The climbing/descending turns etc was all fine and event-free, and the hover practice was the bit I was really looking forward to and it went MUCH better today. From yesterday’s “How will I ever crack this ?” to “Yes, I can see it’s possible I might be able to crack it”. It was a big relief to me, and I felt good. Don’t get me wrong. If you’d seen my hover, you would have thought I was doing aerial aerobatics to music, but whereas yesterday I managed a ONE second hover, I managed a 30-second hover and that’s a LONG time when you’re doing it. Still, not there yet. I still lost it, and could maybe only get it back to hover 50% of the time. Steve saved the day, the rest of the time.

    Another plus is I did all the R/T myself. I did have a bit of a scare though. Not sure if it’s my headset or me concentrating too much on flying the helicopter, but the Tower had told me I was “Number 1 to land”, which means I should be the next one to be given clearance to land, so we turned onto final approach, all lined up with the runway, where I heard “SOMETHING SOMETHING, Cleared to Land”. I didn’t hear our callsign (Northumbria ZERO FOUR), and nearly shit a brick thinking there was an Easyjet 767 right behind us. Steve quickly told me “don’t worry, that’s us”. Phew !!!

    Steve found it funny – ha bloody ha !

    So, great lesson. I am quietly confident that I will crack the hover now. It may take a while, but at least it’s a possibility !

    Bonus today was that we did one autorotation. That’s what a helicopter does when the engine goes. Bit like a sycamore from a tree when it falls, it spins round. When a helicopter falls through the air, the rotor does the same and spins round itself. This potential energy in the spinning rotor can be used to safely land if the engine goes. So, Steve did a complete autorotation. Cut the power, enter autorotation, last second, flare, kick the engine back in. Very interesting maneuvre !

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