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