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I flew my first Helicopter on Monday.
My new girl knows how much i like Helicopters, so last year she bought me a lesson. It has taken me so long to do it, because i wanted to have my son with me when i did it. In one sentence, it was unbelievable. 5 days on im still on a high.
I went in and we walked out on the apron with my boy and showed him around the R44, before he had to leave to the viewing area.
I spent the next ½ hr with Mike my instructor and went over the controls and gauges and a first parade of the chopper.
Then we jumped in and took off. We headed straight West out to the training area and within 5 mins i took control of the 1st control the Cyclic. The Cyclic it the control that controls direction of the aircraft. You want to go forward, you push it forward, you want to go slight left, you push the Cyclic into the 11 oclock direction. I had a few minutes playing around with that.
Next was the Collective. The Collective controls the height of the craft. Want to go up, pull it up, down, push it down. On the Collective you also have the Throttle control, which you only really have to worry about when landing and taking off. Within the Throttle Control, there is a like Auto Pilot. When it reaches 88 ?!?! (cant quite remember the terminology), the Chopper kicks in and keeps it within the green range. WHen climbing or pitching, you need more grunt so it does it all itself.
Next in line were the foot controls. What the foot controls do is to move the choppers nose basically left or right, and only really used when we are not in the green zone on one of the gauges, and in a Auto Rotation.
With all these controls, used all at once, you can fly a helicopter. I got to ride in the 4 seater R44 and not the 2 seater R22 which was booked for me. This lovely upgrade was because the 2 R22’s, 1 was in for service and the other was booked out to a actual paying customer going for his license.
After playing with all the controls by themself, he handed the whole chopper and all the controls over to me, and for the next 15 mins i flew a Helicopter all by myself. I chased a train, more raced him, did circle work, and went to the ceiling and flew around in the cool.
It was now time to head back and i flew us to within the Jandakot Airspace and mike took the controls. Before hand, he told me to climb to 2500 ft which i did, then he ot us into a Auto Rotation, where the Turbine has lowered its RPMs to nothing BUT the Blades are still going the original RPMs. What this does and used for is incase it looses power, we have a chance to land safely, not so softly lol
We got to within20ft and Mike flared and we hovered mtrs above the ground.
The next for me was to try and hover . . . . . . AND WOW this is hard to do. I knew it was the hardest manouver to do, but didnt realise how hard it was, and i have a new appreciation for these blokes. For 5 mins i played and tried to hover and i did stay in one place for about 4 seconds which seemed the longest 4 seconds of my life. Up down up down sideways up down sideways lol
At one stage i took a quick dive to the ground but Mike pulled us out of it. The controls on these things are so very touchy. You only have to move them millimeters and they react. In the R22 they are even more touchy than the R44. They reckon if you can fly the R22 with no problems, then you can fly anything.
Story goes a BlackHawk Pilot from the US Army, came to Perth and wanted his Civvie license and having 15yrs BlackHawk pilot, he thought he would have no problems with the R22. It took him 6Mths training until he was competent enough to fly it on his own.
Being a Truckie Mike put it to me like this. The BlackHawk is like a 52Mtr RoadTrain. Big, slow, heavy with lots of power and the movements are big and desisive. The R22 is like a GoKart. Quick, light, touchy with little power. Fully Laden with 2 passenges the R22 doesnt top 700kg . . . . Blew me away…..
Gone on long enough but wanted to share my experience
Thanks for reading
Brent
My new girl knows how much i like Helicopters, so last year she bought me a lesson. It has taken me so long to do it, because i wanted to have my son with me when i did it. In one sentence, it was unbelievable. 5 days on im still on a high.
I went in and we walked out on the apron with my boy and showed him around the R44, before he had to leave to the viewing area.
I spent the next ½ hr with Mike my instructor and went over the controls and gauges and a first parade of the chopper.
Then we jumped in and took off. We headed straight West out to the training area and within 5 mins i took control of the 1st control the Cyclic. The Cyclic it the control that controls direction of the aircraft. You want to go forward, you push it forward, you want to go slight left, you push the Cyclic into the 11 oclock direction. I had a few minutes playing around with that.
Next was the Collective. The Collective controls the height of the craft. Want to go up, pull it up, down, push it down. On the Collective you also have the Throttle control, which you only really have to worry about when landing and taking off. Within the Throttle Control, there is a like Auto Pilot. When it reaches 88 ?!?! (cant quite remember the terminology), the Chopper kicks in and keeps it within the green range. WHen climbing or pitching, you need more grunt so it does it all itself.
Next in line were the foot controls. What the foot controls do is to move the choppers nose basically left or right, and only really used when we are not in the green zone on one of the gauges, and in a Auto Rotation.
With all these controls, used all at once, you can fly a helicopter. I got to ride in the 4 seater R44 and not the 2 seater R22 which was booked for me. This lovely upgrade was because the 2 R22’s, 1 was in for service and the other was booked out to a actual paying customer going for his license.
After playing with all the controls by themself, he handed the whole chopper and all the controls over to me, and for the next 15 mins i flew a Helicopter all by myself. I chased a train, more raced him, did circle work, and went to the ceiling and flew around in the cool.
It was now time to head back and i flew us to within the Jandakot Airspace and mike took the controls. Before hand, he told me to climb to 2500 ft which i did, then he ot us into a Auto Rotation, where the Turbine has lowered its RPMs to nothing BUT the Blades are still going the original RPMs. What this does and used for is incase it looses power, we have a chance to land safely, not so softly lol
We got to within20ft and Mike flared and we hovered mtrs above the ground.
The next for me was to try and hover . . . . . . AND WOW this is hard to do. I knew it was the hardest manouver to do, but didnt realise how hard it was, and i have a new appreciation for these blokes. For 5 mins i played and tried to hover and i did stay in one place for about 4 seconds which seemed the longest 4 seconds of my life. Up down up down sideways up down sideways lol
At one stage i took a quick dive to the ground but Mike pulled us out of it. The controls on these things are so very touchy. You only have to move them millimeters and they react. In the R22 they are even more touchy than the R44. They reckon if you can fly the R22 with no problems, then you can fly anything.
Story goes a BlackHawk Pilot from the US Army, came to Perth and wanted his Civvie license and having 15yrs BlackHawk pilot, he thought he would have no problems with the R22. It took him 6Mths training until he was competent enough to fly it on his own.
Being a Truckie Mike put it to me like this. The BlackHawk is like a 52Mtr RoadTrain. Big, slow, heavy with lots of power and the movements are big and desisive. The R22 is like a GoKart. Quick, light, touchy with little power. Fully Laden with 2 passenges the R22 doesnt top 700kg . . . . Blew me away…..
Gone on long enough but wanted to share my experience
Thanks for readingBrent
