I had already planned to do a two flights this weekend. One Saturday with the instructor to practice maneuvers and one Sunday morning to fly the last hour of solo time I needed for my private license. Saturday morning I get up and drive over to Tallahassee for a flight. I also got to meet the new flight instructor. I knew the school was getting a new instructor, but I didn't know it was going to happen so quickly. After introductions, discussing where I am at in my training, and what I wanted to do for this flight, I did the pre-flight and we were taking off toward Quincy.
Charlie2 (Code name for my new instructor, hereafter shortened to C2) said he was going to observe and only intervene if he felt it was absolutely necessary, so he could feel OK with me flying solo the next day. It's about 20 minutes by air from Tallahassee Regional to Quincy Municipal; I flew the whole way with out issue. C2 noted several times that I was flying well and he didn't notice anything that would cause him concern in me flying solo.
We practiced some maneuvers that I felt I needed to practice, slopes and auto-rotations. We were limiting the flight length because thunderstorms were forecast to begin and we wanted to be on the ground before they started. I did really well at slopes and fully executed a straight in auto rotation 100% on my own.
Not everywhere you land will be a nice flat surface and helicopters have limits on how much of a slope they can safely land on. Anytime the helicopter is on uneven ground a dynamic rollover is possible; this video shows one. When landing on a slope the pilot is also working to avoid a tail strike, the maneuver has you analyze the landing area, pick a landing spot, safely hover to your spot, land the first skid on the ground while holding your heading and keeping the helicopter level, lowering the other skid to the ground, fully reducing power and making sure the helicopter is stable on the slope. Then reversing the process to pick up off the slope and navigate away safely. I don't think it would be so bad if there weren't trees so close to the few slopes available at the Quincy airport (if you look it up, there is a picnic table on the west side of the paved runway. It is in the area where I do slope practice.).
We moved on to auto-rotations or "autos". In the event of an engine failure, the pilot quickly enters an auto-rotation; this allows the helicopter to "glide" back to the ground. Auto-rotations are complex because you are using altitude to build energy in the rotor system so what when you get to the ground, you use that energy at the end to stop your decent and most forward speed to gently land. You have to balance airspeed, rotor RPM and altitude so you have enough rotor RPM at the end to land safely. When you practice auto-rotations, you also have to protect the aircraft from an over speed. The rotor system has limits on what it can handle and if you exceed those limits it leads to very costly inspections and possibly having to replace components. In a real emergency, the primary goal is get on the ground and live. We did a few autos and on the last one I did it was good. That was the first time I had executed the maneuver 100% with no control input or correction from the instructor. It was pretty exciting for me.
I am very close to earning my private license and am working hard to make sure I know everything I need to know in both flight skills and regulation knowledge.
R48
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