My [second] helipro introductory flight

[2fst4u]

this morning i had the pleasure of doing a circuit in helipro paraparaumu's R-22 HGY (i think it was HGY. it was white anyway) under the instruction of Matt. he was pretty cool, he made me feel very comfortable in the right-hand-seat, letting me fly upwind, cross, down, and autorotation for final. my favourite part was hovering. i told matt i was colour-blind at the start of the flight so while i was hovering he said to me...


"tell you what mate, its a shame you're colour-blind because you're a natural."


i felt pretty chuffed about that. he then let me taxi back to the base almost by my self. unfortunatly i havent got any photos because we had to rush to paraparaumu early in the morning.

we had a bit of a chat about FSX and he told me about his machine (core 2 quad(soon to be core i7 ( )) SLI etc).

it made me think about getting my PPL maybe, but unfortunatly i dont have the money or neccesity i have realised now that rotorcraft are my preffered aircraft of choice

tommorow im going gliding aswell! just a normal weekend being part of the Air Training Corps!

[benwynn]

Core i7 sucks apparently..

Sounds awesome! Ive never had a great fantasy about flying a helicopter, but it sounds like something I must try! Thanks for sharing.

[creator2003]

Hell yeah sounds a ripper of a time

[greaneyr]

I flew with Matt for my trial flight late last year too. It sounds like your hovering experience went a little better than mine did! Handling the aircraft in flight was an entirely different story, mind you.

Very jealous of you now!

[ardypilot]

Good stuff man- a few of the instructors at Ardmore at colourblind, and they have current medicals and everything.

Not sure how the CAA work things, but I believe it is possible to still fly with it with conditions on your license?

[2fst4u]

yea, i heard of someone who got exemption because he could prove that he could tell the difference between red, green, blue and white lights (all things that im sure i can do because i frequently see aircraft out my bedroom window at night and i can tell whether its the starboard or port facing me).

maybe i should try but im worried about the cost. how much would i need to fork out if i were to continue? i already have my heart set on CIS in the air force and i know how many people get turned down to be pilots because when i was on air force experience, purcell (officer selection) was happening at the same time and nearly every single one of the 40 or so people wanted to be pilots. (RNZAF probably would take any chances with colourblindness anyway)

P.S. gliding was cancelled for today

EDIT: i just did a bit of research and it seems there are alot of colourblind commercial pilots. if you fail the coloured dot test you can apparently do a test where they shine red and green lights at you from a distance (control tower in most cases) and if you can blatanly tell the difference you are exempt from restrictions. http://www.caa.govt.nz/medical/Med_Info_Sheets/MIS006.pdf

maybe i should go for it!