Flight #: 039
CFI: Kristie H.
Aircraft: Robinson R22 Beta II
Aircraft ID: N2356T
Duration: 0.8hrs
Cumulative Time: 42.8hrs
Again, we prepped for the stage 1 check flight. And, again we headed out to the WPA. On the way out, Kristie rolled down the throttle to check me on my Low RPM recovery... and I caught it. So that was good. We then went up to 1000ft MGL to do some autorotations. My entry was decent and I did a pitch pull. Was a little too much as the RPM dropped... to 90%. At this point the Low Rotor RPM light came on... but no horn. I corrected things and brought us to a decent steady state. Descended a bit further and rolled on and took us back to normal flight.
Problem. No Low Rotor RPM Horn. Part of our required equipment for an R22 is summed up with the GOAL acronym:
- G: Governor
- O: Outside Air Temperature
- A: Alternator
- L: Low RPM Warning System
And, without a fully functioning Low Rotor RPM system, we're not supposed to continue flight. So, I made the decision that we were not flying within the rules of flight and that we needed to head back home... which we did.
Kind of sucks to have to cut a short flight, but it's not worth falling out of the sky.
Flight #: 038
CFI: Kristie H.
Aircraft: Robinson R22 Beta II
Aircraft ID: N8361N
Duration: 1.3hrs
Cumulative Time: 42.8hrs
More practice. A lot of the same. I certainly don't mean to sound blazé about it... this stuff is awesome. It is just that there is really nothing new to talk about. I am definitely getting sick... which is exactly what you want before you go in to a Stage 1 check. Ugh.
Getting better on the hover autos too. I think I was just chopping the throttle too fast. Why make it harder for myself, right? This is a test to see if I know what to do... and I do. So why do I have to make it incredibly hard.
Flight #: 033
CFI: Kristie H.
Aircraft: Robinson R22 Beta II
Aircraft ID: N8361N
Duration: 1.2hrs
Cumulative Time: 36.5hrs
Autorotations in the West Practice Area - the theme for today's flight. Things are definitely getting better. I'm a lot less anxious now and focusing on the smooth steps to execute the maneuver.
Also been focusing on those nasty hover autos. I'm getting quite a bit better, if I do say so myself. A successful HA is to not only land safely, but also to do it gently and without much yaw. I'm now withing 15º about 75% of the time. The other 25%... more like 45º.
Kristie and I had initially talked about getting my ramp solo in before the end of the month, but I'm pretty doubtful that this will actually happen. I lost 3 days this week due to weather and wind. I think I'm probably there, we just want to be sure. I still have some slop in my flight that I need to iron out.
Plus, no rush, right?
Flight #: 023
CFI: Kristie H.
Aircraft: Robinson R22 Beta II
Aircraft ID: N8361N
Duration: 1.1hrs
Cumulative Time: 23.4hrs
Well, I was determined not to be that "idiot helicopter student who keeps getting lost." So I made myself a map to print out and keep on my knee-board until I figured things out. It worked like a charm. I'm sure it was mostly a confidence issue... but having a backup map to know where I was made a big difference:
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Same maneuvers as the past few times... and I am definitely getting better. Now I'm just not lost.
Flight #: 022
CFI: Kristie H.
Aircraft: Robinson R22 Beta
Aircraft ID: N8340S
Duration: 1.1hrs
Cumulative Time: 22.3hrs
We continued with Low RPM Recovery, VRS / Settle With Power and Autorotation practice. I think I'm getting better bit by bit. But...
...I got really flustered today and made a lot of stupid mistakes with my radio communications. When we are in the west practice area we are in an uncontrolled airspace with a lot of other helicopters. As such, we have to spend a lot of time telling everyone in the area where we are, what we're doing, and the like.
This is normally not an issue for me since Kristie has been telling me, "make your call and we're over the turning tree". At which point I say, "West practice area traffic, helicopter 8340-Siera at the turning-tree operating at 1500ft and below, west practice area." Now, since I'm further along in my training, all she tells me is, "make your call." Which means that I need to know where the hell I am at all times. Sounds pretty basic, but you'd be surprised how difficult it is to know where you are; especially in WPA since it is so large and covers parts of Forest Grove, Banks, Gaston and Cornelius, OR. Not only that, but after doing circles looking for landing spots and doing controlled falls out of the sky... I just get all turned around.
I hate being lost. It gets me flustered and throws me off my game. I get annoyed when driving on roads... imagine what it feels like to be lost in 3D space. Sucks.
Anyway, I get flustered, overly critical and I fumbled each and ever radio call I made. First I would forget to tell them I was a helicopter. Then I would say "over Forrest Grove"... which is useless since there are 2 other helicopters over Forrest Grove at the same time. I was supposed to say "2 miles west of Gaston", but I stammer out "NE of Banks". Why? I have no idea. Just making stupid mistakes.
Not only did I get my location wrong, I always forgot my current heading.
Stupid mistakes. I spent so much time thinking about what I was doing wrong, that I started doing other things wrong.
Ugh! Totally off my game.
Flight #: 021
CFI: Kristie H.
Aircraft: Robinson R22 Beta
Aircraft ID: N8361N
Duration: 1.1hrs
Cumulative Time: 21.2hrs
Wow. Just plain wow.
Today we finally made it to the next flight lesson; and it included some of the most interesting and exciting helicopter maneuvers to date.
Off Airport Landing:
This was just a test run, as we did not actually get to land, but there is a lot to have to think about before you actually land off-airport. As you might expect... and acronym. PAWOTFEEL:
- P: Power check.
- A: Altitude of potential landing spot.
- W: Wind direction
- O: Obstructions in/around the landing spot
- T: Turbulent air in/around your landing spot
- F: Forced landing areas, within your glide path.
- E: Entry point for your landing.
- E: Exit point for your takeoff.
- L: Landing Spot
The idea is that you select your spot, execute a few right-hand circles, so that you can see your landing spot and evaluate. Then, if all things look good, land. I did 4 circles around while I went through the checklist above. It will get better over time, I'm sure.
Autorotation:
Autorotation, or the state powerless flight.
A well done YouTube video of an autorotation; a few differences in what I learned, but essentially the same maneuver.
Very little lift, in a helicopter, comes from the wind being deflected down by the rotors. The majority comes from the rotating airfoil (main rotor) producing lift via a low pressure area above the main rotor disk. This is summed up nicely with Bernoulli's Principle. So, what does this mean... well, simply put, if the helicopter blades are turning, you are going to get some lift. In normal flight, the main rotor blades are given energy from the powerplant / engine. In autorotation, you are using the kinetic energy from your forward motion and the energy stored to the helicopter due to it's height (gravity pulling the helicopter to the ground). By altering the pitch of the rotor blades, and the attitude of the helicopter you force air up and through the disk, causing them to rotate; and generate lift.
That's it. You glide gently, and most importantly - safely, to the ground.
The creepiest part of it is the sound... then engine is put into idle and essentially noise drops to zero. You don't drop like a rock, you don't spiral to the ground... you glide back to the ground. There is quite a bit of adjustment in the cyclic, collective, and pedals during this time, but it is essentially a normal approach.
There is a slight dropping feeling when you drop the collective to full down, but that goes away rather quickly. The whole experience is utterly amazing. Clearly there is going to be a lot of practice going forward, but the point is to make this almost a second nature move... so that when (not if) you need it again, you are familiar with the move.
Settling with Power:
Next, we tried Settling With Power (SWP). This is a condition where large rotor-tip vortices (turbulence) occur and the lift generated by the main rotor disk is eliminated. Essentially, the helicopter is "chopping up it's own turblence" and can no longer maintain necessary lift. If you try to increase the blade pitch, what you normally do to get more lift out of the blades, you just make the condition worse. The only corrective action is to, 1) reduce pitch, and 2) push out of the turbulent air to get into "clean" air. Once you have forward motion, you can then again, raise collective and start slowing your descent.
This is a very easy condition to get into as you need three, very common, things to happen:
- a descent rate >= 300ft / minute
- an airspeed < ETL (Effective Translational Lift)
- power in use
When this triad is present, the helicopter just drops out of the sky and a very high rate. To practice this, we climb to 2500ft AGL (for safety), position ourselves with a tail-wind (to hasten the dispatch of ETL) and slow our forward motion. The first thing you feel is vibration as you enter the ETL curve. Then, when you start to lose ETL, you get serious vibration. It is at this point when you start settling with power. The vertical speed indicator needle drops, and you start to fall - and fast. Kristie had said that you could easily get 600feet + per second if you let things go too far. In our case, we only dropped about 300ft before we pulled out of it.
After another test, Kristie gave me a shot and recovery, and I must say... I did quite well. Lower collective, forward cyclic, and you gain forward speed. Then, once you have speed, you raise collective and you are back to normal flight.
One hell of a day.
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Flight #: 004
CFI: Kristie H.
Aircraft: Robinson R22 Beta II
Aircraft ID: N8361N
Duration: 1.7hrs
Cumulative Time: 2.5hrs
View Larger MapI think I'm getting it... I really do. This morning's flight was fantastic. Weather was a little rough this morning on the way in, but winds and rain stopped during my pre-flight check. I completed 100% of the pre-flight today, and I think I'm getting pretty good at it - if I do say so myself. Basically it is a confidence around knowing that I am looking at the yoke flanges when I'm really supposed to.
After we powered up we actually decided to hold back and let the Jet Ranger, turbine chopper used by the local Fox news network land first. I was surprised at the effect of their down wash... felt like we were going to get blown away.
We got clearance for the WPA and headed out for some maneuvers. Plan was to set the floor at 1000ft and act as if we were executing a series of approaches.
Kristie keeps telling me to keep my eyes off the instruments and look outside. You do this,
obviously, in a car when you drive, but I'm just not used to the feel of the helicopter yet... so I keep checking altitude, speed, manifold pressure and carburetter temperature. Fact is, if you jut glance down, every so often, as you do now with your rear-view mirror and speedometer you are much better off. She was telling me that she uses the position of the compass / compass mount in relation to a point on the horizon to estimate the pitch angle (nose down) of the helicopter - this is related to the speed when in forward motion.
This is, obviously different for everybody and every helicopter, but it turned out to be a pearl of wisdom... because I stopped fixating on the gauges.
My flight was sooo much better. I stopped wobbling and executing rapid speed changes, etc.
She really knows some good tricks and I enjoyed the flight a lot more... not only can you focus on what you are trying to do... turns, climbs, etc... but you enjoy scenery too.
At this point, turns... that's the coolest part of flight. The banking.
Flight back was uneventful, but interesting because thre were so many people coming back to base. Lots of radio chatter.
Flight #: 003
CFI: Kristie H.
Aircraft: Robinson R22 Beta II
Aircraft ID: N8361N
Duration: 0.7hrs
Cumulative Time: 1.4hrs
View Larger Map
Today's flight was into the western practice area, aka WPA for some basic flight maneuvers.
I did all of the pre-flight check on my own this time... Kristie, of course, did a follow up at the end to make sure I did not skip / miss anything. The checklist does include the nuts that hold on the main rotor (aka Jesus Nut) - you need to make sure they are tight.
When complete we jumped in and began the start-up sequence. I ran through most of the steps which did not involve throttle or collective control; Kristie handles that for now.
We got clearance for a west departure and headed out to the west practice area - an airspace above and around Hillsboro that is used by the HAI students. As you can see from the rough path in the map above, it was to do a series of turns to get comfortable with the controls. Kristie asked me to do things like:
- 90º turns and maintain airspeed
- 90º turns and maintain altitude
- 90º climbing or descending turns
- 180º turns maintaining airspeed and altitude
The R22 is a small helicopter, but it is not under powered at all. I think the toughest part for me was maintaining airspeed. While a helicopter can stay in a motionless hover at any altitude, there are certain aerodynamic forces which come in to play when in forward motion... namely lift. Basically, the rotor disc, under significant forward motion gains additional lift, beyond what is generated by rotation. When you stop moving forward, you lose (lessen) this component. For this very reason the airspeed indicator has a green zone where you want to keep the needle:
I was all over the place! When you pitch forward, you both increase airspeed and descend. Pitch aft, you decrease airspeed and ascend. I was at 40 knots then at 60, back to 50, then up to 80. Remember when you were learning to drive and didn't figure out the accelerator pedal... the lurch feeling. That... only at 1500ft.
I did get a little better at it... but I kept focusing inside the cabin and not outside... which, apparently, is a newbie thing to do... but I'm not yet comfortable with the feel of things yet. SO, got plenty of stuff to work on.
Then at about 18:30, and here comes the drama, we got a call from another HAI helicopter in the northern part of the WPA. Basically looking for any/all HAI flights in the WPA to report in. We happened to be the only other ones out there and we were asked to help out. Apparently a third helicopter was doing off airport landings and was doing some in a field in the WPA. In the middle of the landing, one of the anti-torque pedals locked up and they started to yaw. The CFI safely landed, and radioed maintenance back at HAI. A fourth helicopter came out, bringing the mechanic and taking the student back to the school. Turned out that this was not an in-the-field fix and it was getting dark. So, we were asked to high-tail it back to base, drop me off, and then Kristie and another helicopter with another CFI were to fly back to pick up the mechanic and original pilot. All before it got dark. Mind you, it was already pretty dark.
Kristie took the controls and pointed us back towards home. She gave me the controls back to see if I wanted to take it home.... I did, and we headed back. About 1 minute after she politely pointed out that I was back at 50 knots airspeed and wanted to get back a little faster. I gave controls and she powered back to the airport. She landed very quickly (but softly) and left power on while I grabbed my stuff and headed in. As soon as I was clear, and they were both ready to go, both helicopters took off like a shot.
Turns out, everything was fine and the pilot / mechanic were picked up in time. No major issue... but some drama, no doubt.
