Cross Country (as in Fly over here and then over there)

I haven't been blogging much because I have been busy with school, work, life and everything else.  No matter how much time I try to spend relaxing it is not enough, I always seem behind on my school work and regular work wants me to work all the time.  

The cross country flight is near the end of your flight training and brings all the skills and knowledge learned into one long flight.  Radio communications, flight planning, dead reckoning, cockpit resource management are just a few of the things needed to complete the flight.  

My most recent flight was my first cross country flight.  Cross country flying is technically when you fly more than 25 Nautical Miles (straight line) distance to another airport.  We had 6 airports on the plan to visit before returning to KTLH.  We made it to 4 of them before my instructor directed us back home.  The flight was very taxing.  I wasn't allowed to use the GPS and had to fly based on a heading and time I calculated before the flight and get to the next check point and have a good idea when looking at the aeronautical chart where I was.  I had a hard time maintaining my airspeed and heading, which changed the times I calculated, which got me "lost" a couple of times.  

We departed KTLH for Quincy (2J9) and then headed to Bainbridge, GA (KBGE).  I ended up about 10 miles west of the airport because of my piloting failures listed above.  After climbing, looking for and finding the airport, I flew a traffic pattern and headed on the next airport.  Doesn't sounds so bad, remember that while all this is going on my flight instructor is doing his best to frustrate and stress me out.  He did a good job, I was pretty stressed but I know that when I am flying cross country by myself, he won't be there to give advice or tell me what I am doing wrong.  As we traveled by my poor dead reckoning skills (using landmarks to identify where you are and where you are supposed to be), I missed the airports by several miles each time.  Since I wasn't doing very well, my instructor had me plot a course back to KTLH.  We flew the 35 miles back discussing what I needed to improve on and what I should be checking when I fly by myself.  

I was pretty upset with how poorly I flew, until I was filling out my log book and realized that the last time I flew was on the 30th of September.  I felt a little better about the flight but not really.  I discussed the next steps with my instructor about when I should be ready for my check ride.  I wanted to use the time between the two school semesters over Christmas to have my check ride, but that would require flying twice a week and I don't quite have that ability.  We discussed where I am at, what I need to work on and set a goal of 30 January 2013 for me to have my check ride completed.  So shortly after the New Year I will have my private pilot license (rotorcraft) and will start working on my commercial license and instrument rating.  

My next flight will be another dual cross country with my instructor with a shorter route so that I will have the required hours and then I will be making solo cross country flights until I have the 10 solo hours required for my license.  

One part of the flight that was interesting was flying between three broadcast antennas about 30 miles north east of Tallahassee.  I was flying at 1000 feet and they still appeared very tall to me.  The towers are about 2000 feet tall, I tried to find a good picture of them, but I couldn't.  I am still saving to get a camera similar to the GoPro Hero camera.  Something I can position and have it take pictures or video while I fly so I can share some of the images.  

R48

Update (as in, In Other News, a Helicopter Crashes into a Lake. Details at 11.)

As some of you know I have been waiting for the flight school to get a replacement helicopter to replace the one that was crashed during the early morning hours of July 4th.  The replacement arrived about a week ago and I have been able to fly again.  I started school this week and have not had much free time.

A lot has been going on the past three weeks between semesters.  I thought I was going to get a nice break to relax, but it didn't happen.  I will post about my most recent flight in a few days (hopefully before I fly again this Sunday).  After I get school lined out so I do not miss any assignments I will write up last week's flight.

I have a full course load this semester; the classes don't appear to be too hard or challenging.  The real challenge is remembering and recalling all the new information I need for the tests and such.  I am also studying for the written portion of the private pilot exam.  It is important to score well on this test because the (check-ride) examiner judges you on your score, I am told the higher the score, the nicer the examiner is.  It may also help me get a job in the future.

R48

Solo #2 (as in More flying around alone and WTF is that parachute doing crossing the runway?!)

01 July 2012 - (Sorry this is so late in being posted, the last two weeks have been non-stop busy!)

This trip was basically a repeat of the previous one.  Departed KTLH with my instructor and we reviewed the basic maneuvers and procedures.  We identified some areas I needed to improve on while I was flying solo.  After a stop for fuel and water, I took control of the helicopter and brought it in the air.  We added almost 300 pounds of fuel when we filled up and with out the weight of my instructor to help balance the craft, the initial pick up was a bit awkward.  Any aft (rear) movement of the controls made it feel like I was headed for a tail strike.  This led me to have a slight forward movement 90% of the time while hovering.  I spent some amount of time trying to figure out what the correct movements were to stop this motion and managed to do so some of the time.

After flying the pattern for 25 or so minutes, I maneuvered to the Southwest side of the runway and practiced hovering, left pedal turns, moving forward at a slow pace and stopping and hovering some more.  I flew some more patterns, this time with an airplane in the pattern with me.  This pilot was either keeping current his ability to carry passengers or was a student pilot practicing take offs and landings.  I didn't avoid other air traffic this time like I did last time; we flew the pattern, making our landings and take offs, me in front of him.

As you might recall, Quincy has a jump school located at the airport.  Some days I fly they have people parachuting the whole time I am out there and others no one is falling out of the sky.  Today was a busy day. Before my instructor exited the helicopter, there was about 8 jumpers (we flew together for about 45 minutes) and after I started flying solo, they had back to back to back jumpers.  Jump 1 would land, load up and be taxiing to the runway before I even completed my one pattern.  Some were jumping at 5500 feet, others 8500.  The rules are that the parachutes are not supposed to cross the concrete runway, they jump over the northern side of the airport and they are supposed to stay on that side.

So I am flying the pattern 500 feet above the ground, hear call the jumpers are out.  It takes about 2 minutes from that call until you see the parachutes opening.  I am in the downwind leg of the pattern and I see the chutes open.  I begin my descent and turn base keeping an eye on the chutes, I make the call for my turn to final and over the runway above me is a parachute!  My first reaction was call off my approach and fly away for a few minutes and give them time to land, then re-enter the pattern and do my thing.  So I am descending about 60 seconds from being on the ground and the parachutes turns towards his side of the runway, so I slow a bit (not too slow or I enter the dead man curve) and wait for him to clear the runway.  I am flying as slow as I could stand, getting closer than I want to be to a parachute that is in the wrong spot, while descending over trees.  The plane behind me calls a right 360 to give me some extra time.  This jumper is slowly descending over the runway, so I call a right turn out because of the parachute and begin to climb and turn right making a wide circle to line up for a straight in final.  The jumpers just touched down and I land and moved to the North side of the runway to practice pick ups and set downs (they were easier now that I burned off about 80 pounds of fuel).  After I made a handful of good set downs and pick ups I saw my instructor walking over from the FBO.  So I flew towards him and set down, he climbed in and we flew back to KTLH and did an auto rotation down from 1000 feet as we made our way to the North Ramp.

The next flight will be me taking off from KTLH alone, flying to Quincy, doing more traffic patterns to perfect my take offs, landings and ground maneuvers.

Well the "next flight" would have been two weeks ago but a renter crashed the helicopter into a private lake while working on night flying requirements.  The helicopter is totaled and I am waiting for the school to get a replacement.  Some news stories can be found here.

R48

Solo (as in Flying with out anyone else in the aircraft!)

23 June 2012

Today I made my first solo flight!  That's right, no one but me in the helicopter!  Before today, a tropical wave developed in the Gulf of Mexico and started bringing rain and wind to the area.  With 30% chance of rain in the forecast I drove to KTLH because there was a 70% chance of sun shine.  The rain chance increased to 60% starting around 4 PM Eastern, so I knew I had to be done before then.  Looking at the radar when I arrived I knew President Bush's "weather machine" was active; rain every where except Panama City and Tallahassee!  I could see I had just a few hours worth of flying weather before the bands of rain would over power the "weather machine" and I would be grounded.

Today's session started out with some paper work and getting endorsements in my log book, then pre-flight and run up.  The first time you solo, they want the winds to be below 4 knots.  The wind was blowing about 7 knots at KTLH and 3 in Quincy.  After getting takeoff clearance, my flight instructor and I took off towards Quincy to review the basic flight maneuvers and to be sure I was ready to take the $800 thousand helicopter out on my own without any issues.  As we were lifting off, it started to rain slightly, making it difficult to see until we reached 50 knots and the water was driven from the windshield.  Once we cleared the airport's perimeter the rain had stopped.  I forgot to program the GPS, so I tried to fly by land mark to Quincy but the low clouds and mist made it difficult.  I dialed up 2J9 on the GPS and headed the correct way (I wasn't too far off while guessing where to go).  We flew threw another brief shower just before we arrived in Quincy and after that rain cell, it was sunny, but windy.

We flew the basic maneuvers, normal approach, normal landing, hovering and normal take off.  The wind was around 10 knots with gusts as high as 14.  There was the rain cell close by and it looked like it was headed towards the airport.  My first solo flight might not happen today.  I kept practicing the basic maneuvers, while my flight instructor used his smart phone to view the latest Doppler images of the area.  The cell was moving away from the airport, all I needed now was for the wind speed to decrease.  I landed and while hovering, I was tasked with moving over into the grass area to practice pick ups and set downs.  I would set down, wait a few seconds, then pick up and hover maintaining position, move forward a bit and set down again.  Did that for about 15 minutes, then was tasked with hovering in position with a cross wind.  I did OK although I kept maneuvering the nose into the wind.

At some point there was a strong gust that sent the helicopter, well not out of control, but not under control very well.  I don't know what happened but my body went from average/normal to freak out!  So I am trying to bring the helicopter back to a stabilized hover while not crashing or damaging anything (my flight instructor didn't even move close to the controls, so that should have tipped me off that it was not as bad as I felt it was).  I manage to bring the helicopter from kinda controlled to mostly controlled and attempted to pass the controls to my flight instructor so I could relax and get my brain dialed back (if I think too much about flying, I fly really poorly.  When I just fly and don't think about what needs to happen, flights are smooth and calm). Of course he refused to take the controls, citing the fact that he wouldn't be there to pass the controls off to when I was flying solo.  So I kept fighting with the controls while working to calm down and (somehow) managed a mostly stable hover.  I set down, turned the control frictions on and settled down.  I was ready to fly back to KTLH and solo another day.

About 10 seconds after setting down I was normal again.  No idea what caused all that or why it went away so quick.  So I picked us up again and was maintaining a steady hover and making 90 degree pedal turns when we did something new.  My flight instructor would take the controls and start the helicopter in an abnormal movement, then pass the controls to me and it was my job to recover into a stable hover.  We did this about 5 times and I was able to recover each time.  I guess he thought my freak out was about me feeling I could not control the helicopter or something.  I knew I could fly the helicopter, I don't know why my body freaked out.

We flew a few more patterns and the wind finally calmed down to 4 knots with gusts up to 10 knots.  I was asked if I cared about the gusts and I said no.  I have flown several times in 10 knot winds with gusts as high as 20.  I knew what to expect and mostly how to handle extra wind.  So we landed and hovered over near the airport office, set down and brought the engine near idle.  It was time!  My instructor got out, let me know the helicopter will perform quite different with out his additional weight and that I would not need so much power when maneuvering.

After taking a minute to relax, open the door for some air flow and let my instructor get fully away from the helicopter.  I increased throttle to above 80% and let the governor take over bringing the rotors to operating speed.  After the blades had stabilized, I began to lift the collective, increase left pedal and move the cyclic slightly to the left.  I kept raising the collective until I could feel the helicopter was light on the skids.  Making sure all the forces from the increased power were neutralized with control inputs by me, I lifted the collective a little bit more and the right skid lifted off the ground, quickly moving the cyclic to the right and bringing the left skid level I was in my first solo hover!  I took a look around to see if anything was near by I needed to avoid, self announce on the radio I was taxiing to the runway and then called I was taking off on the grass runway 14.

Basically everything my instructor has taught me was playing in my head as I moved the cyclic forward, gained speed, pushed the cyclic forward some more when the helicopter wanted to climb to stay about 5-8 feet above the ground and when things felt right (about 40 knots) I eased the cyclic back and started to climb.  Every time the helicopter wanted to go faster I held it back at 60 knots to keep climbing, clearing the power lines and trees flying out and turning right when about parallel with the tanks at the waste water plant.

Here is a picture of the take off path for RWY 14.

Maintaining 60 knots and continuing to climb to 700 feet MSL I turn right just past the waste water facility flying a slightly larger pattern than normal so I would have plenty of time to get setup for landing (also the wind was pushing me towards the runway).  Announced my turn to the downwind leg of the pattern.  Stopped climbing so I was at 700 Feet MSL and flying 60 knots, ready to begin landing.  The part of landing I need to improve on is maintaining my descent through the base and final legs of the pattern.  I started my descent just before I turned base and announced my position.  Descending at around 500 feet per minute (FPM), I turned and managed to keep descending and maintain the 60 knots for the landing profile.  Announced my turn to final and kept descending watching the power lines get closer and closer, I cheated a little and slowed my descent from 500 FPM to 100 FPM until I was past the power lines.  Clear of the power lines and the barn I began to slow down to 40 knots and maintain that until I was close to the ground.  As the ground gets closer I start raising the collective (pulling/adding power) which slows me down even more, slowing adding power until I am hovering just past my spot and enter a stabilized hover (another area I need improvement on).  Hovering for about a minute and then call that I am taking off.  From here on out, my solo flight pretty much repeats.  Take off, fly the pattern, land, hover, take off, fly the pattern, land, hover, etc.

The Approach path for RWY 14.

There was other air traffic and some jumpers mixed in.  I did what I could to avoid all that I could.  I had one plane get into the pattern behind me, so I felt a little rushed to land and clear the runway.  I used the time to take a break and practice pick ups and set downs so the other pilots could get to where they wanted go with out delay and to avoid flying near the open parachutes (they are not supposed to cross the concrete runway but I avoided them entirely.  Don't want to be on the news as the student helicopter pilot who chopped up some enthusiasts just out to have some fun).

After an hour of flying around I saw my instructor walking towards the field so I landed, set down and idled the engine so he could climb in.  After a short break for some cooler air, I returned the blades to operating speed, picked us up into a hover, called the take off and flew back to KTLH.  I had some trouble understanding what was wanted while talking to approach, but I figured it out and we landed at the North ramp and shut down.  We discussed what I did good at and where I could approve.  Next week another flight like this one.  In two weeks, I will leave from KTLH alone, fly for about 2 hours and return to KTLH.  I will probably just fly to Quincy and do more flights in the patterns.

R48

Objects (as in Operating near Objects is Stressful Regardless of the Actual Threat the Object Possessiveness!)

17 June 2012

Today's flight was pretty much a repeat of last week.  The focus was mainly on the maneuvers I need to be able to perform while flying alone.  Normal take off, landing, hovering, hover taxi, pick up, set down and auto rotation.

I am doing pretty much all the radio calls now since I will have to do them when I am flying solo.  No instructor in the cabin to prompt or complete the call.  Just me.  I am confident enough to be maybe a bit over cautious.  My dream is to fly helicopters not die in a helicopter crash.

Today we flew out to the old commercial airport just North of KTLH.  The runway is closed but it makes a nice place to practice with no other traffic.  The runway is not very long and has trees on all sides.  Trees on the left or right side don't really bother me, it is when I have to land flying over trees or take off with trees in the departure path.  I'm not really sure why it bothers me so much, I know I can maintain altitude until I clear the trees when landing and I can climb fast enough to clear the trees on departure.

While practicing pick ups, set downs and hovering I got close to an old set of traffic cones that were positioned on either side of the runway.  I noticed them as I would pick up, move forward a bit, hover to a spot, stop and set down (again opening the door to get some cooler air).  These are the larger cones that come up to about the middle of your thigh, 30 - 36 inches tall.  For whatever reason, I did not want to get near them.  They couldn't damage the main rotor, it is 12 feet off the ground.  The tail rotor is about 5 feet above the ground, so no real threat to that, but as I moved closer to them I could feel my self starting to get nervous about them being there.  I did fly past them a couple of times before while doing landings and take offs before I even noticed them when I started practicing hovering maneuvers.

I had a hard time getting my landing profile correct.  My approach was too steep most of the time, I was too slow or too fast, but mostly I was too high and was not descending as I should.  This matters because of something called the "Dead Man's Curve".  There is a chart published by the helicopter manufacturer that outlines flight conditions that if you are operating in those regions you will not have time or aircraft performance to safely land in the event of an engine or other failure.  When you are low and moving slow, you will not be able to enter an auto rotation that will provide the performance needed to safely set the helicopter down.  If you are operating in the Dead Man's Curve and you have a failure of any kind, you can bet on being dead.

I did pretty good overall and it was time to go back to KTLH.  Once again my approach was too steep, but I managed to land and hover to the parking spot and made a decent set down.  On Saturday, my instructor and I will get in the helicopter, fly over to Quincy (2J9), review the basic maneuvers and after about 30 minutes of flying together, we will land and he will get out of the helicopter.  Then I head off on my own for 30-45 minutes, landing to pick up my instructor and fly back to KTLH.

Then I start learning about navigation methods and cross country flight planning.  Then comes a few cross country flights, night flights, solo cross country flights and probably a solo night flight.  My goal is to have my private license by my birthday (which is in October) and my instructor says that should not be a problem.

I am still working on getting a GoPro Hero camera to record my adventures, hopefully I will be able to afford it soon.  I know that reading about something and seeing that same thing are different.  I really want to be able to contrast the decent rate of a normal approach versus an auto rotation!

R48

Oh! (as in Oh! Why wasn't I told this earlier?!)

10 June 2012

Since I am getting close to having enough hours to fly solo, today's flight focused mostly on the maneuvers that I need to know to fly safely with out my flight instructor and all the information in case I encounter an emergency.  It was hot today; 30C (86F) with dew point at 24C (75F) meant the Relative Humidity was 80%.  After pre-flight and run up I made the radio calls to get clearance and took us up.  The wind was from the South so we had to fly out over the central ramp, up over Capital Circle and then across the airport to the Northwest towards Quincy.

In Quincy we did a lot of the basic maneuvers, regular approach, regular takeoff, flying the pattern, self-announcing on the CTAF.  We also spent a lot of time practicing hovering, pick-ups and set-downs.  Quincy was practically void of any other air traffic.  I didn't even see anyone at the jump school!  I was able to maneuver all over the runway surface and not have to stop for in or out bound traffic.

I have not been using the pedals enough while hovering, I could hover sufficiently, but after I started using the pedals as I should be today, hovering was outstanding!  To hone my skills I would hover to a spot, set down, pick up, hover forward one stripe, hover over the spot and set down again.  I did this down most of the runway pausing every few set downs to open the door and get some air because it was so hot.  Now that I was using the pedals as I should, my ability to maneuver while hovering was markedly improved.  I was pretty excited about my new knowledge and skills, until it was time to get fuel.

We also did some straight in auto-rotations to practice, but I didn't do very good today.  There isn't a lot of time when you enter auto-rotation at 900 feet.  I did note that I didn't get stuck staring at the gauges and spent most of the time looking out side, watching where I was going.

It's not that I didn't want to get fuel, it's that I am still a little shy about flying near other objects.  Not to mention a huge fuel tank!  Putting my reservations aside I maneuvered us towards the fuel ramp and set us down (I am sure I had some help, but I was so focused on not damaging the helicopter or us that I didn't notice).  After a short break in the air conditioning of the airport office, we started up and flew back to KTLH.

Next week we will do more of the same, making sure that my flight instructor feels confident I can take off and fly by myself and land safely.

R48

Trees (as in I am surrounded by trees!)

03 June 2012

As I prepare for flying solo one of the things I needed to accomplish was a full review of the Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR) I need to know for passing the oral and written exam for my private pilot license.  The FAR tells what you can and can not do as a pilot, when aircraft have to be inspected, when you can/can't fly, what type of repair/alteration is major or minor and who can/can't perform that work.  I spent about 4 hours today going over the FAR, highlighting, making notes, putting tags in, etc.  There are only a few sections I have to know by heart, but I have to know just about where everything is at, which part gives the requirements to earn a private license, which parts talk about maintenance, etc.  (I should probably be reading and reviewing those instead of writing this!).

After dredging through the FAR it was finally time to fly.  Performed the pre-flight and noted we were low on fuel.  The weather was 34C (about 94F), I would have liked to take the doors off but we were going to stop in town somewhere and get something to eat.  Locking our gear in the helicopter and others out took priority over having a cool flight.  I start the engine, engage the clutch, the blades start spinning and while waiting for the Cylinder Head Temp (CHT) to enter the green, listen to ATIS and call Ground control.

Talking on the radio is not hard, sounding like you know what you are doing on the radio is.  Every call entails the same four items, Who you are calling, Who you are, Where you are at and what you want to do.  Simple to do while sitting on the ground but when you add flying, scanning for traffic, checking gages and warning lights it gets a bit tougher.

After the CHT was in the green, increased throttle to 75%, checked the magnetos and sprague clutch, turned the governor on and increased 102% blade RPM.  No strange noises, contacted the tower and requested take off clearance.   Clearance was granted and with the wind blowing from the South we lifted off into a hover and made a left pedal turn into the wind and began to build airspeed, make a climbing turn over the central ramp, turned to follow Capital Circle.  Traveling at 60 knots we made a turn to the Northwest towards Quincy, flew over closed RWY 18/36 gaining altitude. I missed the fact that the pedals were moved all the way forward, which made using them difficult because the angle was off.  I would correct that during our fuel stop.

Because of the wind RWY 14 was active in Quincy, I made some radio calls and landed.  My hovering was poor because I missed a week of flying.  Made a normal take off, was flying the pattern while the Jump plane was taxiing to the Runway.  I was nearing the end of the downwind leg and preparing to turn base when Jump 1 called he was taking off.  Glancing over my shoulder and seeing the plane on the runway I wanted to extend the downwind leg to ensure we didn't come close to each other.  Soon Jump 1 was in the air and making a right turn to climb to 8500 feet with two jumpers.  I made the turn to base, then to final, made my radio call and landed.  We needed fuel so we taxied over to the fuel pump. 

While fueling up we were approached by a guy who wanted to parachute out of the helicopter.  We agreed to take him, he took off to get his gear on and we went inside for a break.  As we were walking into the building the two jumpers were making their landing.  As we were headed back to the helicopter, he met up with us and we all got in.  Got the helicopter started, safety checks made, picked up into a hover and moved away from the fuel ramp.  Jump 1 was landing on the grass runway, we waited for him to clear, made our radio call and began to take off.  Now that we were full on fuel and people, we pulled full power and began a slow climb to 3500 feet.  We turned to the south and continued to climb, turning west after a while staying close to the airport.  We approached 3500 feet and began to maneuver to where the jumper wanted to bail at.  After he bailed and the door was closed, we continued to climb to 4000 feet, watching, waiting for his parachute to open.  His chute opened and we made a clearing turn to prepare for an autorotation!  I forgot to correct the pedal position.  This made it feel like I was just smashing the pedals to get them to move.

We are flying 70 knots at 4000 feet and entered autorotation.  Descending at nearly 2000 feet per minute, we have just under two minutes before we would be at the ground!  After entering an autorotation and maintaining the correct rotor RPM and airspeed, you have to look around below you and pick a landing spot (in a real emergency we would have landed there).  After you pick a landing spot you have to determine if you can make it there and maybe pick a different landing zone.  We could make it and made our turns and control adjustments to maintain airspeed and rotor RPM.   At about 500 feet we begin to flare, this reduces the decent rate and speed of the helicopter.  Using the energy stored in the main rotor allows this to happen.  At 400 feet (about 200 feet Above Ground Level (AGL)) you level the ship and begin to raise the collective to further slow your decent.  While the helicopter  is slowing, the throttle is reapplied to maintain rotor RPM and we ended up in a hover about 150 feet AGL.  Doing most everything correctly (I get stuck looking at the airspeed and rotor RPM, instead of most of my focus being outside) we climbed to about 1200 feet and flew towards the East.  

We flew over the now closed commercial airport, Lake Jackson, over a bunch of houses and made a North turn to follow Thomasville Road.  I knew we were going to land and get something to eat, but I didn't know where we were landing.  It sounded like there was a place that it was common for people to fly in and eat.  Well this was nothing like that.  Here is a picture of where we landed! (Coordinates if you want to map it yourself! 30.565430, -84.216878)

The red arrow shows the landing zone and the orange arrow shows where we met up with some of the flight instructors friends and ate food.  It was fun, both the landing and hanging out with friends.  After eating we went back to the helicopter, which was attracting spectators, started up and took off (there was a small child in the one car that stopped to watch us takeoff).  I fixed the pedals this stop, and we took off, flew over the restaurant and headed back to the airport.  We flew over downtown past a club that is usually busy, but no one was in the club when we flew by.  After landing we shutdown and discussed what I did good at and what I need to practice on the next few flights so I am ready for solo flight. 

It had been a long day, almost 12 hours of driving, learning and flying.  I was headed home and ready to relax. 

R48

Preparing - As in "Preparing for solo flight"

20 MAY 2012


It has been two weeks since I last flew.  I was pretty good on the controls today.  As of today I have 16 hours of pilot time, at 20 hours I can begin flying solo.  Alone with no passengers (I can't take passengers until I have my private license). I feel ready to fly solo, mostly.  The next four hours of training will focus on all the emergency procedures I need to know so that if something happens while I am flying solo I will be able to land safely.  We spent today practicing maneuvers to recover from situations like engine failures, settling with power or low rotor RPM.  

It also means I need to make sure I review the emergency procedures a lot in the next couple of weeks.

In a helicopter you have very few seconds to react and begin to recover from emergency situations compared to fixed wing airplanes.  In a fixed wing aircraft you have time to open the Pilot's Operating Handbook (POH) and look up what to do; in a helicopter, you don't.  You have to know the emergency procedures by heart and be ready to execute them in an instant.  Keeping the rotors spinning is critical to survival, it is the energy stored in the spinning rotors that allows you to create a cushion of air to slow your decent and safely land the helicopter.

Checking the main rotor blades during pre-flight.

Nothing exciting really happened today.  Performed the pre-flight, started the helicopter and the run up, listened to the weather for the Tallahassee airport, calculated max and takeoff power, contacted ground to obtain our squawk code and inform them of our intentions, tuned to the tower frequency to gain situational awareness of what is going on in the airspace, discussed what we were going to do today while waiting for the engine cylinder head temp needle to get the green area.  When all gauges were green called the tower requesting takeoff clearance, obtained clearance and gently lifted off, gained airspeed and began our climb out over closed runway 18/36.  After we climbed to around 1000 feet, I increased speed to about 90 knots and we flew to Quincy.  Quincy (2J9) is about 15 miles (straight line) from Tallahassee Regional (KTLH) It takes about 10 minutes to get from Tallahassee to Quincy by air.  

Since I am approaching solo flight, we flew mostly basic maneuvers so I would be able to safely perform my solo flights.  We also worked on recovering from settling with power and low rotor RPM.  We also did a lot of auto-rotations, about every other landing was an auto-rotation.  Imagine going from 1200 feet to the ground in 45 seconds while trying to maintain safe rotor RPM, airspeed and fly the landing pattern.  My goal is to be able to afford a Go Pro Hero camera next semester so I can capture what it looks like to do some of these maneuvers.  (If I can get some OT at work, I might be able to afford one before I make my solo flight!)

The next four hours of flying will be spent doing flights like this.  Basic maneuvers and emergency procedure and recovery reviews.  

R48

Grounded (as in no flying recently)

I have not flown any in the past 10 days, I really miss it.  The training school bought a new R66 helicopter and my instructor had to travel to California to pickup the helicopter and fly it back to Florida.  Then his brother came to visit from Germany, so he took some time off to spend with his brother.  I will be back flying some time next week, I can not wait.

Life has been less busy with out having to travel to fly, it has been kind of nice, but I would rather remove work or school from my schedule and fly more.

The summer semester has started and I am taking three classes.  A health class, a personal finance class and some kind of transport class.  The health class runs the full 12 weeks of the summer semester.  The personal finance class runs the first six weeks and the transport class the last six weeks.  So far so good, I am on task and keeping up without feeling overwhelmed.  We will see how I feel after I start flying again.

I am pretty excited that the school got a R66.  Right now I am flying a R44, it is a 4 person reciprocating air-cooled engine helicopter.  It has pretty good performance and they are very common because they have a reasonably low per hour operating cost.  An R66 is a 5 person turbine engine helicopter, the bigger helicopters all have turbine engines.  If I get to fly it, I will have turbine experience, which can be helpful in the future after I have my commercial license and am applying for jobs.

Maybe in the Fall semester I will budget to get a GoPro Hero camera so I can record my flight adventures.

R48

Calm - As in "Calm Down, This is Normal!" or Experienci​ng new things and remaining calm while your body wants to freak out

28 April 2012

Did some new maneuvers today. Did some Autorotations, landing on slopes and even took some "jumpers" (with parachutes) up so they could fall back to the ground.

The training school is based in Tallahassee and most of the training is done at the airport in Quincy. Traffic patterns, autorotations, steep approaches, maximum performance take-offs, run-on landings and more are done while at Quincy. Quincy is a non-towered airport, meaning there are no controllers managing the flow of traffic into and out of the airport. You use the Common Traffic Advisory Frequency (CTAF) to self-announce who you are, where you are and what you are going to do.

Autorotations

When an (fixed wing) airplane loses engine power the wings continue to create lift so they can glide to a landing site and land safely. When a helicopter loses engine power (or during other emergency situations) an autorotation is performed to keep the rotor blades spinning so that when it gets close to the ground it can bleed off airspeed and touchdown safely. During normal maneuvers we descend at a rate of no more than 500 Feet Per Minute (FPM) but when you perform an autorotation the descent rate is almost 1500 FPM. Blade rotation is the life of the helicopter so you have to monitor it so you can make control inputs to keep the rotors spinning at the correct speed, not too fast, not too slow. You also have to maintain airspeed, so during the autorotation you look outside, at the airspeed indicator and at the rotor tachometer.

Run-on Landing/Takeoff

When performing a run-on take-off or landing you run the skids of the helicopter on the runway. During a take-off you build airspeed so you can generate lift and not use too much power from the engine. During a landing you touch down on the runway doing about 40 knots and run-on down the runway until you come to a stop.

I pre-flighted the helicopter and prepped for takeoff, Quincy is to the Northwest of Tallahassee and the wind was blowing from the south so we took off toward the south (you always want to take off into the wind whenever possible) made a wide left turn over Capital Circle and then began flying to the Northwest. Flying about 60 knots we climbed to 1000 ft. We had to doors off the helicopter since it was in the upper 80s, that was first time I flew with the doors off. The never exceed Velocity (Vne) with the doors off is 100 knots, so after we were at our cruise altitude, I sped up to a cruise speed of about 90 knots. With the wind coming from about 187 degrees that meant that Runway (RWY) 14 was the active runway in Quincy. We started with a normal approach and landing in a hover over the runway numbers. Holding the hover was average for me, mostly under control but needing some help from the flight instructor when things got too crazy.

Quincy was busy compared to the past flight lessons, usually in the 90 minutes I spend learning we are the only aircraft operating in the vicinity (excluding the jump planes from the parachute school that is located at the field), it has the cheapest Avgas in the area, so everyone comes to fill up there. So as I was learning we had to do a lot of radio calls and looking for other traffic as they made radio calls to announce their landings and take offs. Several times a fixed wing would announce they were in the pattern for RWY 14 and we would look and look to where they should be and not see them, then several minutes later we would see them crossing field preparing to enter the pattern. Radio calls are not required because Quincy is a non-towered airport; you should self-announce your position and intentions to alert others who are operating in the area.

With the parachute school operating from Quincy there are always jumpers going up to anywhere from 8-12 thousand feet and landing on the grass near the school. Today we took two jumpers up to 3500 feet and they jumped off of the helicopter. It was pretty cool to experience. Being pretty heavy we took off using maximum power and began our climb to 3500 feet. We were climbing at about 700 fpm, so it took about 5 minutes to reach jump altitude. After we were at 3500 feet and were over the area the jumpers wanted to bail at. They climbed to the skids of the helicopter, made their final preparations and after an audible count they were gone, falling back to earth. After a few seconds they opened their chutes and glided to the ground. We descended to 3000 feet and prepared for a normal approach for one last landing before we headed back to Tallahassee to do some ground lessons.

Learning about autorotations today, meant this last landing was going to be an autorotation in! You start by lowering the collective all the way and rolling the throttle down to about 65%. A Sprague clutch or free-wheeling unit allows the rotors to keep spinning if the engine stops or you are practicing autorotations. We setup for maximum glide configuration, 90 knots and 90% rotor speed. Your eyes do a continual sweep of outside, airspeed, rotor RPM while you make control inputs to steer to the landing site, maintain the airspeed and control the rotor RPM (too fast or too slow is bad). While we were descending I glanced at the vertical airspeed indicator (which tells you how fast and what direction (up or down) you are traveling) which was pegged past 2000 fpm descent! We went from 3000 feet to the ground in about 70 seconds (a 2800 foot difference, the Quincy airport sits about 200 feet above sea level).

We flew back to KTLH (Tallahassee Regional Airport) landed and shutdown the helicopter, that ended the 2 hour flight. I got positive feedback from the instructor about the new maneuvers we covered today and about my flying skills overall. He says I am on track to be able to start solo flights when I reach 20 hours (I am only 5 hours away!). Thinking of flying solo is kind of daunting for me, some days I feel and fly like I could do it and others I fly like crap and I feel like there is no way I will be ready to solo at 20 hours. After I do some solo flights, we will start cross country flights while I learn flight planning and navigation.

R48

Sleep (As in 'I should be sleeping...')

Sleep is a valuable commodity. Everyone wants it, you never have enough and no matter how hard you try to get some, it always eludes you. I sit here and write when I should probably be working to acquire some sleep. But sleep is not coming easy for me. Big changes took place this week, my best local friend started working nights. No more hanging out, shooting the breeze or goofing off. Now all I have is school and Netflix; currently I not desire to engage in either.

Flying is going well, I am getting the hang of things. Getting better and hovering and overall control of the aircraft. Learning the things I need to learn to be successful.

Working sleep into my busy schedule is challenging, but I am managing to do so. The most frustrating thing is feeling sleepy, going to bed and then laying there awake for hours.

R48

Busy - As in I don't really have time to write this...

I don't really have time to write this, that is how busy I really am!

When I first stated this adventure I knew it was going to be stressful, but the areas that are causing stress are not the areas I had planned on. I figured school and flying would be major cause of stress in my life, but I am strangely peaceful and mostly relaxed while I am doing school work. (I don't know how stressful flying will be, I will find out Friday!) Work is causing the most stress in my life right now and I don't know what to do about it.

See, that was two days ago I started working on this post! Work is stressful, school is time consuming and while I know it is for the best, the ride right now is not that enjoyable.

R48

Pilot (as in, "This is your Captain speaking.")

Monday began the first day of college for me. I have been to college before but now I am going to learn something new. I will be earning a Bachelor’s of Science in Aviation, emphasis in Aviation Administration. I will also be learning to fly helicopters and becoming a commercial helicopter pilot. This is a change from my current career as an IT Professional.

Why? Well, I don't like computers new like I did 10 years ago. Sure they are great for playing games, surfing the internet, writing a college paper and what not, but I don't like fixing them anymore, saving them from viruses, troubleshooting home wireless networks, building my own server, or trying some new architecture. Computers now days are pretty much a throw away device. Network cards and video cards are built into motherboards so if one goes bad you have to replace the motherboard, but the cost of the motherboard is almost the cost of a new computer.

Flying gets my brain active; I can not stop learning about anything that deals with flying. The different jobs, the cool things they do, everything. Especially with helicopters. Saw a video on YouTube where a power company is using a helicopter to lift their linemen to the top of the high power transmission lines to check and service the electrical tower. The helicopter can lift the men and supplies to the top of the tower in less than a minute, where it would have taken them over an hour just to climb to the top! How cool is that?!? Very cool!

I know there are parts to every job that are boring or mundane, but with flying there seems to always be something new. A different craft, a new type of craft, a different mission to fly.

College is taking more time than I remember, the first go round seemed like it didn't require a lot of time. This week alone I have spent over 2 hours each night studying, reading and taking quizzes. (I should be doing more of than rather than writing here now!) After my financial aid arrives, I will also begin flight school. So I will be working full time (40 hours/week minimum), going to school full time (12 credit hours) and attending flight school (not sure of the time requirement yet, but I have to drive 90 minutes one way to get to the school) all at the same time, plus my regular life and family. My goal here is to document my adventures in flying and regular life here for my friends and family to read about. I expect to have time to post here on a regular basis. How regular, I don't know. That will be determined after I start flight school and get in a groove with everything else.

Here starts a brand new adventure!

R48

Pilot (as in the first episode of a TV show)

Greetings,

It's been a while since I have blogged about anything. This blog will fill the gap that was recently made when I deactivated my Facebook account. I still want to let my friends and family know what I am doing, but don't want to have to hassle with the short falls of Facebook. In short, there was not enough "value" being on Facebook for me to continue to have a presence there.

This blog will include my life adventures as I attend school, change my career, raise a family and get older. It will probably also include flashbacks to any random point in time before now.

I want to keep a decent level of anomity, so if you know who I am or think you know, keep it to yourself!

I have spent the last 10 years working in the computer industry and I am tired of it. Partly because of the actions of the company where I have worked for the past 5 years (being outsourced twice). I am ready for a change, 10 years ago computers had my interest, I was interested in everything about them. The new technologies, the new ways of doing things, everything. Now not so, not at all. So I am going back to school to get a different degree, which will enable me to get a different job which I am currently finding to be a very interesting field of work.

It will take me about three years to change careers and four years to complete school. So many adventures to be had.

R48