Today's flight was longer but more of the same, prepping for the up coming check ride. We took off and flew towards a TV station that the school has permission to use their land for off-airport landings. C2 had not been there and I have only been there once. We departed TLH and flew to the North looking for a small clearing and the tower by the station building. We found it and I proceeded to perform an off airport landing.
I started by circling the field at a high altitude looking for any obstacles and searching for something that would indicate wind direction. The field at the station is surrounded by power lines, trees, and has two tall towers on either side. It is a fair representation of what an off-airport landing could be. There was smoke in the distance that showed the wind was probably from the North. I made a lower circle around the site and planned my approach so I would land into the wind.
I slowed down and began my decent, holding altitude over the trees, waited until I was sure the tail would clear them without contact, and continued descending. I was in a steeper than normal approach, but not a real steep approach. I continued my descent ending in a hover near the middle of the field. C2 asked how I was going to take off, so I explained I was going to hover to the back of the field and make a maximum performance take-off. Waiting until I was clear of the trees and power lines in front of me to begin any forward movement, picking a path over the shortest trees with an open field behind them. C2 showed me a few things about the max. performance take-offs, confined areas and off airport operations. He also has a different way of doing the max. performance take-off; I like it better than the other way I was taught.
I made a max. performance take-off out over my planned departure path and we headed to Quincy. I found Quincy and made a normal approach. That was good because my first approach was a good one. Sometimes when the first time I do a maneuver while flying it is bad, but when I do it again later in the flight it is good. One of the things I have to do as I prepare for the check ride is to make the first maneuver a good one. We headed for the slopes and I did them really poorly, I mean really poorly. One of the mistakes I was making was looking at the ground close to where I was trying to land. Noting that slopes still "need improvement", I held a hover while Jump1, the plane from the local skydiving school, took off and ascended with jumpers. C2 wanted to look for more potential off airport locations and I needed to practice recovering from settling with power (AKA vortex ring state).
We took off and headed Northeast of the airfield looking for the field I had used once before to practice off airport landings. I found the field but trees has been planted since I used it making it unusable for off airport operations. Settling with power is a condition where the helicopter sinks into the vortices created by the main rotor. These vortices disrupt the airflow causing a loss of lift, applying power to stop the descent makes it worse. To recover from settling with power you must reduce power, which stops the vortices, and apply forward cyclic to move the helicopter away from the disturbed air. After you gain some airspeed, you can add power to start climbing and finally leveling the helicopter returning to a normal flight profile.
The jumpers were still in the air as we traveled back to the airfield, so we continued out over the town of Quincy and climbed to 3000 feet. It is common to introduce new concepts at higher altitudes so you have time to recover if things don't go as planned. C2 discussed the points of a turning auto-rotation and what to watch out for and how to manage the rotor RPM. Turning causes the rotor RPMs to increase, so to avoid an over speed, you have to raise the collective (which will decrease rotor RPM) before you turn. I entered an auto-rotation, got into a glide and began to turn. I controlled the RPMs the whole time! Since we were well above the ground, at the point where you begin to flare for landing, I rolled the throttle back on and allowed the governor to take over. After the engine and rotor RPMs had stabilized I added power and again headed towards the airfield.
The jumpers were on the ground and we practiced a few more things before heading back to Tallahassee. I am getting better at all the maneuvers I need to be able to do. I feel confident on the controls of the helicopter.
Leave a comment if there is something you want me to explain in more detail or if you have questions. I got the mounts I needed for my GoPro camera so I will be able to add pictures and videos soon.
R48
No comments:
Post a Comment