OR38 - Harchenko

Flight #: 084 [Commercial VFR61]
CFI: Kristie E.
Aircraft: Robinson R22 Beta II
Aircraft ID: N2356T
Duration, as PIC: 1.5hrs
Cumulative Time: 101.9hrs

Another cross country flight (a.k.a. X/C) today. Pretty much the same thing as the others, but we're really branching out into new airports. As I said earlier, Kristie, likes first-time airport flights. Keeps me out of my comfort zone and teaches me better pilotage / navigation skills too.

Was a little bit off today... mostly due to clouds in my way. I started to the north of the Newberg VOR. There were some low lying clouds over the ridge, so I headed west to get around them. This was actually my error... I was not really aware of how far west it took me. So, when I came around, my angle was off a bit, and I ended up being about 5 miles south of Aurora airport. I realized this and decided not to bother to head to Aurora and just find Harchenko. Along the way I saw, what I now know is, a drag strip. From 1500ft, a drag strip looks alot like an airport runway, except no numbers. I knew this was not a runway. I continued on south along I5 and looked for Harchenko. I knew it was to the east of the highway and north of a bit of a mountain. So, when I pased the ridge, I just turned around and spotted it pretty quickly. Not a bad find. Being off course is OK as long as you know how to get back on track.

After Harchenko we headed back home. Along the way Kristie had me climb to 3000ft for a demonstration. 0 airspeed autorotation!

In an autorotation all you care about it keeping your main rotor RPM in the green. As long as that is spinning you are generating lift - which means you can land safely. Now, when you lose an engine, you have to trade the energy from your airspeed or your potential energy from weight for rotor RPM. Say you need 100% energy to land safely. In a normal auto you are at 700ft and 70kts - 50% Airspeed (kenetic energy) 50% Altitude (potential energy). This is a nice setup for a safe landing. But, rarely do you have all the things you want in an emergency - sometimes you will need to convert energy from one type to the other. For example, we did a low airspeed auto earlier (25% Airspeed / 75% Altitude), and that was cool. You nose down a little... gain some speed... then enter your auto normally.

Anyway, in this auto we got lots of altitude (100% potential) and no airspeed (0% kenetic).

So, we climb up to 3000ft and get level. Then slowed down to 0knots and entered an auto. You start to sink... fast. You still have control over your yaw (with the pedals), but you drop. As you are falling you nose down and start gaining speed... as your speed comes up, you pitch the rotor blades a little and the RPM stars coming up. Once you are in the green, you are back in a normal auto and safe.

Really impressive maneuver. Whole point is that you have to think outside the box a little to get the situation back in your favor.