First, I got my own pilot headset. For $100, I purchased off craigslist a decent set of David Clark H20-10 and no longer have to mooch headsets from the flight school.
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Second, I flew a helicopter.
In the interest of developing into a more well-rounded pilot, and because it's just plain awesome as hell, I wanted to get some rotary wing experience under my belt. So on my way home Wednesday night, I called the helicopter training outfit "Blue Ridge Helicopters" located in Lawrenceville and lined up a discovery flight for 5:30 that evening. I've never been in a helicopter before and was really excited about it.
Blue Ridge is located at the same airport as Advanced Aviation, but on the opposite side of the runways. I got to Blue Ridge and met up with Travis, who then introduced me to Derick - the pilot I would be flying with. We would be flying a Robinson 22. I knew from what I had read on the web that this would be an entirely different experience from the fixed wing, but it really hit home seeing the R22 up close.
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The R22 has fewer interior guages, most notably the lack of an attitude indicator. The visibility is far greater in the R22 than the DA-20 because of the lower orientation and smaller footprint of the instrument console. This configuration greatly reduced the temptation for me to stare at the instruments. Like in the fixed wing, we were flying VFR.
We did a quick briefing on what the controls did and how I would be operating them. Helicopters are piloted via 3 coordinated controls.
1: Cyclic. The stick/yoke analog. Push to nose down, pull to nose up, left and right to roll.
2: Collective. Handle on left (between seats). Pull up for vertical rise. Push down for vertical drop.
3: Anti-torques. The rudder analog. Pedals turns nose right, left.
There is also the throttle control. The throttle in the R22 is automatically adjusted by a "throttle correlator" linked to the Collective which keeps the RPMs at a constant rate.
Derick had already done the preflight so we were ready to go. He and Travis both stressed to me the importance of using gentle, controlled pressure and not jerking the stick. "It doesn't take much to enter a dangerous attitude," said Travis.
"Got it," I said. "Do not yank the controls. Understood."
Just then Derick walked up. "I just heard the word 'Yank'" he said.
"No, what you heard is the tail end of 'DONT yank!' I kidded back. We all laughed for a moment, but I reassured Derick that I understood and would be ginger with the controls. In the fixed wing DA-20, it seems practically impossible for a student pilot to put the plane into an attitude the instructor couldn't easily recover from. I got the distinct impression that helicopters were a different story.
Derick started the rotors. "So what I'm doing here is waiting to feel us start to lift and tilt, and then do little corrections. That way we rise straight up." Soon, I felt the tilts and rise begin. Where airplane takeoff is about speed, helicopter liftoff is about balance. I had my hands on the stick to feel the liftoff. Indeed, small corrections and pressure induce big attitude differences. I could already tell. We lifted up about 10 feet and cruised over to a runway.
Derick explained the take off. "To get speed we pitch down the cyclic." We pitched forward. "And push some collective," he continued. We thrusted forward and lifted gradually. Soon we were in the air. After we cleared LZU, Derick handed me the controls and I flew for a while. It's true that flying a helicopter is a balancing act, but straight and level flight is not a hard balancing act. I felt very comfortable with the controls.
Normally Derick would take the controls 8 miles out from LZU, but since he felt I was comfortable with the controls he allowed me to do the approach. He complimented my performance several times which made me feel good. Later Derick would tell me that the really hard part is hovering.
"It's like standing on a basketball," he described it. I already cannot wait to try it. Flying a helicopter was really fun and I'm sure I'll be back for more. My next fixed wing lesson is Friday at 10 AM.
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