Weather looked to be perfect a couple of days ago, but visibility atrocious. Can’t see across our road ! Fingers crossed for next week. Might try and get the radiotelephony practical exam done, dreading that !
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Lesson booked for today is no go
Thursday, February 4th, 2010Flight 40 – 28th January 2010 – 1210 – 1 hour 6 minutes – Total so far – 40 hours 46 mins
Thursday, January 28th, 2010It’s good to get back in the saddle. Was surprised how much I missed my helicopter lessons.
Thankfully, the weather was perfect for it. Nice cold temperatures meaning high performance from the engine, and good visibility, with no precipitation.
I had in mind what I wanted to get out of today’s lesson. I wanted to leave it thinking “Oh yes, I can still fly a helicopter” and I achieved that, so am happy.
I arrived at the flying school early (10am) for my 11am lesson. I had decided to take a couple of exams today, the last 2 theory ones. I did some last minute revision, but was surprised about how much I had remembered from previous revision. Scores on the doors :-
Human Performance – 95%
Radiotelephony – 93.33333%
Well pleased with that. All theory exams done, just the radiotelephony practical exam to do PLUS the helicopter equivalent of the driving test ! The end is in sight.
So, today’s helicopter was G-DOGI (Doggy as it’s affectionately known). It was in a hangar next to where the police helicopter operates from, so a bit of a trek in the cold to get to it.
The great thing was I got to fly it from there around to the flying school at no cost to me ! So, takeoff, some precision transitioning (or fast taxi at least) and then landing. Loved it.
The takeoff went “ok”, but then the initial hover showed my lack of experience for the last 3 months, but I was pleased at how quickly I got the knack again.
Once filled up, I started her up again or at least tried to. But it wouldn’t start AT ALL. Steve was booking us out, and I couldn’t work it what I was doing wrong. I knew it was something stupid, but just couldn’t figure it out ! I rang Steve and he said he’d be there shortly.
Well, before Steve returned I realised that the rotor brake was still on, and that was the cause of it not starting. It started fine without the brake on 
Once I’d started it and all the checks were done and I had the clearance, Steve returned and we headed off north. Past Morpeth, we did a vortex ring exercise. We were at about 2300 feet, and Steve asked me to enter a hover. Once in the hover, we entered vortex ring and then came out of it by gently increasing speed and powering away. Then onto the plateau where we did some autos, some quickstops, quite a bit of precision transitioning (fast low stuff, love it). We finished off with an auto to powered recovery into the hover. It went “ok”, but I could tell I was out of practice and Steve could too. But, I wasn’t disappointed, in fact, I was quite pleased that so much of his training was still in me.
I have a tendency when doing “autos to a hover just above the ground” to keep the nose high for too long, whereas I should be levelling out. I know why, but it’s only just dawned on me. At no point, am I thinking of landing it, and although we don’t ever land it (when practising an auto), I need to think and do everything as if I was going to land it. With that in my mind, I feel sure I’ll do it to Steve’s (and my) satisfaction next time. On the way back, we had a good catchup. Steve also slipped in a “small criticism”. Apparently, I’ve been hovering too low. Wasn’t aware of it, but he wants it about waist height for added safety, so I’ll work on that next time too.
So, all in all, a fruitful lesson. My helicopter head is nearly fully back on, more practice required.
I’ll try and get a lesson in next week (weather permitting).
I took video of both flights (PLUS atc), so all being well over the next couple of days, I’ll edit and upload that.
Been as busy as a busy thing that’s very busy indeed
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009And can’t see it getting any less busy over the next couple of weeks. 
With a bit of luck, my busy-ness will subside in time for Steve returning from his IR rating. Fingers crossed !
Lesson 28 – 2nd September 2009 – 1330 – 1 hour 6 minutes – Total so far – 29 hours 10 mins
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009Today was Quickstops, Autos, Simulated Engine Failure, Emergency Turns
G-MAVI was getting its 100 hour service, so G-BZBU was the bird of choice (HP variant), aka Northumbria02.
It has a David Clark Headset and was a much better experience on the R/T front than the old school headset in MAVI. I didn’t need Steve’s help with any R/T today, which is a bit of a change.
As per usual, I went out to do the checks and start her up. I used the new checklist that I’d done from the R22 manual after Scott’s comments from the previous lesson. It seemed easier for some reason.
When it came to starting her up, it was clear the starter motor wasn’t engaging and she wouldn’t start. After each attempt, I’d wait a while and try again, but nothing.
I got out and had a look and it looked ok to me, so I tried started it whilst I was outside the a/c and it turned over ?!?!?! Weird !!! I got back in to start it properly.
With Steve in and all the checks done, it was a Runway 25 departure, right turn out to Morpeth. En route to the practice area, we did a couple of autos to a powered recovery at 500feet with me doing throttle and controlling rpm, they went fine 
Then we did a steep descent to the plateau, but it was a bit too steep and to keep it safe, I overshot by 30 feet, rather than risk Vortex Ring.
Once in the hover at the plateau, we did 25 minutes of quickstops, precision transitions and clearing turn practice. The winds were quite strong on the plateau so the clearing turns were interesting, but I was pleased with them.
The quicksteps started off being too quick, my bad. But, as Steve said, they should be a gradual steepening nose high attitude to stop quickly (when you’re practicing them anyway). In real life, I expect you’d do them as steep as they need to be to stop before you hit whatever it was that caused you to have to do it in the first place.
By the 4th attempt, I was doing them ok and was happy with them. Between each couple of attempts, we were doing precision transitioning, which is seat-of-the-pants helicopter flying at its best. Whizzing along with a groundspeed of 50/60 knots, whilst being <50 feet above the ground is awesome. I _DID_ take the camera and set it all up, but because of the different headset in this a/c, it didn’t keep the camera angle, so all I have (footage-wise) is a couple of minutes of initial heli checks and then 1 hour PLUS of the ceiling of the helicopter. Gutted !!!! Because it would have been great footage.
On the way back, Steve surprised me with a simulated engine failure and it was definitely a surprise. But after a few surprise remarks, I pushed it down firmly and the first bit went well. Steve suggested a turn to get to a certain field and it worked out great. The last 5 seconds are full on, because about 50 feet from the ground, there’s a flare, collective, throttle and pedal work. It was over in a flash. I didn’t think I’d done anything at the end, but Steve said I’d done a fair bit, but definitely not the whole thing.
Absolutely bloody gutted that the camera was pointing at the ceiling, ‘cos I’d have learned so much by watching it back !!! And it would have been fun viewing too (for Karen).
Damn and blast it !
That aside, was a great lesson.
