Prep (as in Check-ride prep)

I am a little late this week with this post; school and work have been taking all my free time.

Today's flight (29JUN14) was longer and it was working on maneuvers for the check ride.  Working on the maneuvers that I can do well to maintain the skills I do have and improve the others.  Overall, I am getting better at doing the maneuver on the first try.  I brought and mounted my GoPro camera (Full disclosure: I own GoPro stock); I was able to capture video of the flight, but because we had the doors off and I haven't bought an adapter cable, you can only hear the audio when the engine is idle and airspeed zero.  I will eventually buy an adapter cable that will capture all the intercom and radio communications.

After getting the helicopter started, we headed out toward the TV station again.  Being the only off-airport location they have permission to land at, we went there to practice off-airport operations.  I made my assessment of the area and began my approach.  I wasn't descending like I needed to, so I went around again.  I made a better approach the second time and landed as needed in the field.  The field at the TV station has some slopes that are not as steep compared to the Quincy airport, so we tried a new technique for landing on slopes.  I did better at slopes on the first try and the new technique helped overall.  I made a max. performance takeoff from the field and headed towards Quincy.

As we were approaching Quincy we heard the jump plane call "4 parachutes out over Quincy", so we flew towards town and climbed up to 2000 feet for some turning auto-rotation practice.  I entered the auto, established the glide and properly managed the RPMs as we entered and exited the turn.  I rolled the throttle back on and flew towards the airport.  The jumpers were on the ground, so we made a normal approach.

I did the approach fine on my first attempt.  I took off again and landed with a steep approach.  Performed an air taxi, followed by a quick stop.  A trip around the pattern for a running landing.  A running (sometimes called a run-on) landing is used when you don't think the helicopter can hover.  Maybe one magneto is malfunctioning, you are at a high gross weight, or at a location with high density altitude.  A running landing is also one of the components used if I had to make a real forced landing; after the auto-rotation you flare to reduce descent and airspeed, then you let the helicopter settle to ground and touchdown with the skids level, running on them until the helicopter stops.

After running landing, we moved to the slopes.  The slopes at Quincy are pretty steep, nothing outside the limits of the helicopter, but probably close to them.  I did OK, on the slopes at Quincy, better than the last time. 

After slopes, we waited for the jump plane to take off, then I went around the pattern and setup for a straight in auto-rotation.  I entered the auto slower than normal and lost additional airspeed as I descended.  You need the airspeed to have energy to use at the end for the flare and touchdown.  I got the airspeed back, but I lost RPMs.  The maneuver was recoverable, but in the interest of safety, both C2 and I at nearly the same instance said to add throttle and go around.  Went around again and had a successful auto.

I setup for a turning auto.  Sometimes the best place to land isn't in front of you, so you have to turn to land safely.  The first one went OK, I did pretty good.  I turned kind of tight so I had to adjust to make my spot.  The second one was good, but I turned very steep, which drove the rotor RPM almost to max.  With jumpers on their way up we taxied to the fuel pump, shutdown and got fuel.  After a short break, we started up with an airplane really close to the tail rotor.  It made us kind of nervous, so we quickly started and hovered away from the fuel pumps. 

I did another running landing in preparation for a hydraulics off landing.  The R44 has hydraulics to reduce the force from the pilot needed to control the helicopter.  When the hydraulics fail, hovering will be practically impossible.  After a successful running landing, I took off for the pattern and once I was in the downwind leg, the hydraulics went off.  Controlling the helicopter without hydraulics is not hard, sort of like driving a car without power steering.  Fine until you need to travel through a parking lot at low speed.  The camera battery ran out as I was on final.  I landed perfectly and was happy to have the hydraulics back.

After this, I am pretty sure we took off and went back to Tallahassee.

R48