Posted: Sun Dec 07, 2008 8:23 pmI intend to dine out on this one. It's the first time in my life I've ever had any serious hands-on flying experience so I thought I should make the most of it.
For my 30th birthday, my wife bought me a trial flight at Helipro. I've developed a strong interest in helicopters over the last few years, and she was adamant that neither flightexperience nor a fixed-wing trial flight would be sufficient. I'd been waiting for the right weekend to use it, since I had to travel to Paraparaumu to take it and I live in Palmerston North, an hour's drive away.
This weekend, I went and did it. The last time I was in a helicopter fullstop was when I was 4 years old, so it was great just to even SIT in one again. First, we had a look around the machine and the engine bay to get an idea of how it works. The instructor asked how much flying experience I had, and I had to admit that I'd had some very limited fixed wing experience but a problematic addiction to flight sims, though I was trying to clear my head of that experience and approach this with a fresh perspective.
We hover-taxied then lifted off and he climbed us to about 700ft then let me take the pedals just to get a feel for it. Then he gave me the collective as well, followed lastly by the cyclic. What a change in flight attitude that created! We went from a nice smooth gentle climb into a less-than-attractive oscillation in no time! He then took over to bring the inherently unstable R22 (this applies to any helicopter) back into a steady flight, then he told me to try holding the cyclic against my leg to help steady it. After that, he gave me control again and things were very different. I also gave it a little more collective to enable more forward airspeed, then we settled into a gentle climb. I asked whether we needed to maintain 1500ft, but he said that any altitude was fine , but that we should try and stay below 2000ft. On I went up to 2000ft, following SH1 all the way up to Te Horo. We got a little higher than 2000ft at one point, so I just brought us back down again and pretty much held this alt until we reached our most remote point on the flight.
He said to me that this wasn't the type of flying he was used to seeing on a trial flight. Quite a nice feel-good moment for me, since I was picking my flying to bits quite hard and thought I was doing an average job. No, apparently he was most impressed. I was maintaining altitude, airspeed and keeping us well co-ordinated. It's amazing how flying a real helo can be both so very like FS and yet so different at the same time.
From there, we did a 180 degree turn and started our descent back down to circuit height of 1000ft. I told him to sing out when he wanted to take over as he'd already told me that he'd fly the circuit. He told me I was quite alright doing what I was doing, but that he didn't normally let guys fly this close in. I must have impressed him! I asked which position in the circuit we should head toward, and by that stage he'd worked out that I understood terms like 'Right hand downwind' so that was cool. From there we did a practice autorotation - those things are SO cool - then it was off to Helipro for some hovering.
If my in-flight handling was impressive, my hovering certainly was not! Although after a few goes, it did take me longer and longer to make a hash of the R22's attitude. I can certainly see that it's one of those things you'd take a long time to master, but afterwards it would be like riding a bike. It was still fun trying to make a machine sit still in the air.
And then, we returned to Helipro to shutdown. I had very sore muscles - from the classic first-time tensing of muscles obviously! I'd really like to have another go, knowing what I know now about what you can and can't do, to see how i'd go when I relaxed a bit more.
The purpose of a trial flight is to allow potential pilots to figure out whether flying is for them. It IS for me, I already know this. The view from a helicopter versus a fixed wing just can't be beaten, and the challenge of flying them is so great, but the sad reality is (and always has been) that I just don't have the money to do anything about it. I'm thinking about even just going flying once every couple of years with an instructor just as a fun thing to do. We'll see how the financial situation goes I think.
For my 30th birthday, my wife bought me a trial flight at Helipro. I've developed a strong interest in helicopters over the last few years, and she was adamant that neither flightexperience nor a fixed-wing trial flight would be sufficient. I'd been waiting for the right weekend to use it, since I had to travel to Paraparaumu to take it and I live in Palmerston North, an hour's drive away.
This weekend, I went and did it. The last time I was in a helicopter fullstop was when I was 4 years old, so it was great just to even SIT in one again. First, we had a look around the machine and the engine bay to get an idea of how it works. The instructor asked how much flying experience I had, and I had to admit that I'd had some very limited fixed wing experience but a problematic addiction to flight sims, though I was trying to clear my head of that experience and approach this with a fresh perspective.
We hover-taxied then lifted off and he climbed us to about 700ft then let me take the pedals just to get a feel for it. Then he gave me the collective as well, followed lastly by the cyclic. What a change in flight attitude that created! We went from a nice smooth gentle climb into a less-than-attractive oscillation in no time! He then took over to bring the inherently unstable R22 (this applies to any helicopter) back into a steady flight, then he told me to try holding the cyclic against my leg to help steady it. After that, he gave me control again and things were very different. I also gave it a little more collective to enable more forward airspeed, then we settled into a gentle climb. I asked whether we needed to maintain 1500ft, but he said that any altitude was fine , but that we should try and stay below 2000ft. On I went up to 2000ft, following SH1 all the way up to Te Horo. We got a little higher than 2000ft at one point, so I just brought us back down again and pretty much held this alt until we reached our most remote point on the flight.
He said to me that this wasn't the type of flying he was used to seeing on a trial flight. Quite a nice feel-good moment for me, since I was picking my flying to bits quite hard and thought I was doing an average job. No, apparently he was most impressed. I was maintaining altitude, airspeed and keeping us well co-ordinated. It's amazing how flying a real helo can be both so very like FS and yet so different at the same time.
From there, we did a 180 degree turn and started our descent back down to circuit height of 1000ft. I told him to sing out when he wanted to take over as he'd already told me that he'd fly the circuit. He told me I was quite alright doing what I was doing, but that he didn't normally let guys fly this close in. I must have impressed him! I asked which position in the circuit we should head toward, and by that stage he'd worked out that I understood terms like 'Right hand downwind' so that was cool. From there we did a practice autorotation - those things are SO cool - then it was off to Helipro for some hovering.
If my in-flight handling was impressive, my hovering certainly was not! Although after a few goes, it did take me longer and longer to make a hash of the R22's attitude. I can certainly see that it's one of those things you'd take a long time to master, but afterwards it would be like riding a bike. It was still fun trying to make a machine sit still in the air.
And then, we returned to Helipro to shutdown. I had very sore muscles - from the classic first-time tensing of muscles obviously! I'd really like to have another go, knowing what I know now about what you can and can't do, to see how i'd go when I relaxed a bit more.
The purpose of a trial flight is to allow potential pilots to figure out whether flying is for them. It IS for me, I already know this. The view from a helicopter versus a fixed wing just can't be beaten, and the challenge of flying them is so great, but the sad reality is (and always has been) that I just don't have the money to do anything about it. I'm thinking about even just going flying once every couple of years with an instructor just as a fun thing to do. We'll see how the financial situation goes I think.
- and that your finances are in a terminal nose-dive 
. the instrucotr would say "ok, you have control I have control. this time try small movements you have control i have control. ok one more time, you have control i have control" he didnt even have enough time to finish saying I had control before he took over again 
