Flying in North Jersey... forgettaboutit!

So, we've relocated from Portland, OR to Bryn Mawr, PA and during the transition I've not been able to fly... at all... for about 2 months.  Was starting to get the shakes from the lack of 100LL in my blood. Scary.

Luckily I've got a new friend out here, Jefferson, who runs HeliFlights.Net.  Jefferson actually got his CFI from Jerry Trimble - same as me - so I know he's got a very high standard for his students.  He is a great pilot and put aside some time to fly with me a little bit.  Luckily I remembered to keep the big spinny part on top.

Nothing particularly interesting from the flying side, just a few patterns, some quick-stops and maneuvers.  Just getting used to the airspace, airport and helicopter.  Nothing but good.



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CFI Flight #1 @ Jerry Trimble Helicopters

Backdated.

This was the right decision. No question.

I wish that McMinneville (MMV) was closer... we're at about 45-60 minutes.  It is a really nice and easy drive into Oregon country... but it does add and additional 2 hours to any training I might set up.


We spent about 1hr doing ground and 1hr in the air. My initial reaction is that Jerry is an very down to earth instructor and an incredible pilot.  The ground lesson was more or less a level set on what is to be covered and a basic FoI level information.  Mostly review as I've just come off of my FOI test.


The flight... well, it was mostly a "proof" of my ability. We did at least one of every maneuver.  He wanted to see what he had to work with.  Interestingly, he knew where I got my training because I executed the maneuvers to HAI standard.  There are flavors of maneuvers, obviously, and mine are all HAI tinted.


For example, HAI is a proponent of a "little flare" and then "big flare" in an autorotation with a power recovery.  After I did it, Jerry asked me "Why?".  And, the only response I could give him was "Because that is the way I was taught at Hillsboro."  Now, while he understood that, and took it as a valid reason he said that he was going to break me of all the bad habits I picked up at Hillsboro.  Not that it was dangerous or anything, but if I can't back up every thing I do in the helicopter with a concrete reason based in aerodynamics, mechanics or safety... I should not be doing it. 


Good point.


Jerry teaches the autorotation with a big flare, lowering collective to prevent ballooning up, level the helicopter and recover.


Seems quite reasonable.


He also rode me pretty hard about my Max Performance Takeoff.  I've been taught, MIPOC:

• M : Magneto Check
• I : Instruments Check
• P : Available Power
• O : Identify Obstacle(s) to be cleared.
• C : Clear the side, skids, tail.

Well, "Why do you need to check the magnetos before your max performance takeoff?  Should we get out and check the rotor blades?  Check the oil?  There are plenty of things that could be checked, but they are working now, we can expect them to work for the next 15 minutes too."

Point taken.

0.0 PIC Remaining - Commercial Requirements - Complete

Flight #: 141 Commercial
Aircraft: Robinson R22 Beta II
Aircraft ID: N8361N
Duration, as PIC: 3.7hrs
Cumulative Time: 183.8hrs

Well, I've done it. Made it to the end of my Commercial Helicopter rating. You need 100 PiC (Pilot in command) hours for your commercial... and I had 3.7 yet to go. Well, as of tonight... done!

I really enjoy night flying. Night has to be great, since your margin for error gets pretty small at night, but when it is good... it is great. Tonight was perfectly clear, full moon, all goodness.

Nothing out of the ordinary to speak of on this flight. Only thing to note is how bored the PDX tower / controllers get at night. Really nothing landing or taking off at 12:30 am... so they like to talk and help out. In fact, I got VFR flight following from PDX most of the way since they had nothing better to do.

Now comes the FAA test.

Solo X/C - Day - South

Flight #: 127 Commercial VFR61
Aircraft: Robinson R22
Aircraft ID: N2356T
Duration, as PIC: 1.5hrs
Cumulative Time: 160.6hrs

Another cross country solo flight... this time during the day. It was a beautiful day and just there just happened to be an open helicopter for me.

No real special stuff to note on the trip, except this time I decided that I wanted to circle some things to look at later. And, as you can see from the map below... I did.

You'll see a prison, a logging yard where the logs are stacked radially, and this really odd building up on a hill - in the middle of nowhere. I think it might be an insane asylum or possible a rehab for movie stars. Who knows.




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Night Cross-Country Solo - a.k.a Heaven & Hell

Flight #: 125 Commercial VFR61
Aircraft: Robinson R22
Aircraft ID: N2223p
Duration, as PIC: 3.1hrs
Cumulative Time: 157.4hrs

First of all, I love night flying. On a clear night you can see incredible distances and you get to see amazing views of the city, towns and roads. Purely awe inspiring.

There are, obviously, negatives to night flight:

• emergency landing spots - hard to see good ones... simple as that.
• clouds / mist - again, hard to see them.
• obstacles - yet again, can't to see them in time.
  
• distance estimation - at night, your depth perception is off... so it is hard to judge distances and altitudes. Coming in to land is rather tricky as you can't really tell where the ground is. All you get to see is two hyper-bright spots where your headlights meet the ground. I happen to come in to a high hover each time. Practice.
• weird wind patterns - as the earth cools down, you get some changes in wind... and as I found out on this flight... it can be a really big deal.
  

So, lets talk about the flight... in general a really good flight. The flight down had great visibility, a little bit of turbulence in the known spot where 26E meets 217S, but nothing to write home about. Kept the helicopter controls loose and under 60kias, went right on through just fine.

On the way down I decided to make a quick approach at Aurora (KUAO) airport. I've had a few approaches here in the past, but this was my first at night, so I felt relatively comfortable with the layout of the airfield.

I have to mention one of my favorite things about night flights... pilot controlled lighting. Basically, airport landing lights are just for aircraft landing at that local airport. No other reason for them. So, when there are no aircraft, no point for them to be on. Most airports will power down their lighting systems after XX minutes of innactivity on the radio. Basically, everything goes dark. (Except the airport beacon... you can see that flashing white-green from miles away.)

So, at night, on a speficic communications frequency, you can click your mic and turn on/off the airport lights. 3-clicks within 5 seconds = low intensity. 5 clicks within 5 seconds = medium intensity. 7 clicks within 5 seconds = high intensity.

There is something incredibly cool to be flying along... know the general location of the airport (from the rotating beacon), clicking your mic 7 times, then all of a sudden a full airport lighting system comes on to welcome you. Obviously the bigger the airport, the cooler it is... but still, even at a little airport like Aurora... it is cool.

So, as long as nobody is near the airport with me... I will put the lights on full for an approach. After I turn downwind, put them on low (or off), then put them back on high as I turn base. Kind of childish, I suppose. But it is really cool to turn final and click on the lights and see it just jump up out of nowhere.

Cheap date.

After departure, I headed down to Salem (KSLE). Salem is a Class-Delta airspace, so you are required to get permission to enter their airspace. It is good practice to enter these airspace from time to time. Luckily, Hillsboro is also a Delta airspace, so I'm used to the back and forth communications. On the way in they had me come in rather close to the runway and I obliged. They then told me that if I could make it, I was able to do a quick / hard right turn... followed by a hard left to make a direct in approach to the runway. Being a helicopter, this was no issue. I did a few approaches, and then headed down to Albany (KSLE)

This is where the fun began. Another Hillsboro student / CFI were doing their first night cross country flight here, and I could recognize their voices. I joined the pattern and made a few appraoches, but also noticed that there was another helicopter on the ground, in front of the 24 hr, self-serve fuel pump. No big deal... happens all the time. I'd just wait my turn.

Well, as it turns out, this person happened to have an overspeed. A serious overspeed during the run-up after getting fuel and could not fly the helicopter from that point on. Why? Well, lemme tell you. Pull up a chair, sit back...

The main rotor blades are mounted to the mast via a series of bearings and hinges. The outward force, directed along the length of the blade, is proportional to the speed at which the blades rotate around the central hub. The faster the rotation, the more force there is trying to pull the blades out of the hub. To allow the pilot to still be able to conrol the pitch of the rotor blades with the cyclic, there have to be bearings at that rotor/hub junction. Apply too much force at that joint, you could have blade seperation (rare) or serious damage to the bearing itself (common). This damage is called Brinelling. Think of it as the internal hub bearings being stressed to the point where they either crush, or dent the inner/outer surfaces of the bearing itself. Basically... bad. Real bad thing to have happen to you.

If you get an overspeed with 100% - 104% rotor RPM, things are egenerally fine. The helcopter (Robinson R22) can take it... and you don't have much to be concerned about. 104% - 110%, you need to shut down, and have the helicopter inspected. >110%... is really bad. Basically, the aircraft it completly torn down, and sometimes requires that the ship be sent back to the factory for an overhaul. At that speed, they have to check, not only the rotor blades, bearings and hub, but they have to check every bit of the drive train as well. Everything has to be going over-max speed to get the rotors going that fast.

Lets just say, you do not want an overspeed of any kind. Definitely not one >110%. This one was "well above 110%". The result of all of this... that helicopter was not going to be moving from the spot that it was in... directly in front of the refueling station. Which meant... I was not going to be refueling the helicopter at Albany as planned.

So, I headed back to Salem to refuel. Certain Delta airports close down at certain times... Salem shuts down, converts to Echo airspace, at 10:30pm. The first time I was here, it was a Delta airspace, now it was Echo. Basically, no tower to help me find the fuel pump.

So, being a helicopter, it really is not that big of a deal... you just go searching. Off in the distance I found a nice, bit BP sign and headed that way. As it turns out, this is a mega-self-service pump with multiple hoses, and the other student/CFI who I saw in Albany were there doing the same thing. We chatted a bit, stretched and refueled.

By the way, the seats in the R22 suck. After about 90 minutes, your ass is numb. But, you are flying a helicopter... so things could be worse.

I finished up first, and headed out... back to Hillsboro. Back with the pilot controlled lighting. But, this time, I was at a big airport, with real lights and approach lighting systems. So, 7-clicks, and the world just lit up. Taxiway lights, approach lighting systems, all kinds of cool stuff. Thrills!

Headed north, as usual. Now, as I mentioned before, wind gets a little weird at night around here. I expected to run into a few bumps on my way back when I hit the 217N & I5N intersection. And boy did I.

I am, in general, not a motion sick kind of person. I have been on plenty of boats, car rides, airplane rides to know what turbulence is... how you just have to take your knocks... and move on. This was different. I was sick as a dog - this was horrible. I can honestly say, I have never been in such a bad batch of turbulence in my life... let along behind the stick at the time. After the fact I checked the wind in the area (local airports had minimal wind), but right at that spot... 20knot gusts. PDX, after I landed, had 30 knot gusts. Now, that kind of wind sucks in general... let alone in a tiny R22.

I swear I was getting knocked around like I was in a inflatable raft on the open ocean. I would yaw 30º in either direction. +50 feet, -50 feet in altitude. My speed would jump from 60kias to 40kias in a second.... then jump up to 75kias. Really, sucked. About halfway in, I had to make a real decision about what I was going to do. Would I make an emergency landing? What if I puked? Finally I decided to pick out two points of decent spot for an emergency landing. If I made it to the first, I would pick one just on the other side of the second and limp my way along. If I puked... I would just do it right in my own lap, and clean up afterwards. Twice I thought... "Ok, this is it... I'm going to boot."

Now, everyone knows that fresh air helps when you are nauseous. What about 2º air at approximately 60 knots? Sure, it helps, but you freeze too. So, I opted for uncontrollable shivering rather than puking on myself. Nice choices.

Anyway, I made it back to the airport safe... which, in the end, is all that matters. But, it sucked.

I landed, post-flighted the helicopter, and stuffed the helicopter log-book into a door slot and went home. Sandy greeted me at the door and said I looked "really green, are you OK?".

As Sandy pointed out, there is a good thing as a result of the last 15 minutes of flight... "You know your limit now... you can do it again if you had to, and you know the outcome." She is absolutely right.

I would certainly never intentionally go through that again, but if circumstances forced me there again, I'd make it through. Puke / Emergency free.












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Commercial Night Flight - North

Flight #: 121 Commercial VFR61
CFI: Kristie E.
Aircraft: Robinson R22 Beta II
Aircraft ID: N856HA
Duration, as PIC: 3.1hrs
Cumulative Time: 152.9hrs

Knocked out another night cross country flight. This time, we went North into Washington. The interesting stuff on this flight was that neither Kristie or I had been this far North before... neither day nor night. So, it was fun for us both.

Since for night flights you stick to lighted areas, we fly over I5. That takes us right into PDX airspace... and actually right across the approach path for PDX's runways. This is not a problem... since you are on with PDX Tower at all times, but it does make for some interesting situations.

Me: "Portland Approach, Helicopter 856HA, one-thousand-five-hundred feet, 11 South-West with request."
PDX: "Helicopter 856HA, Portland Approach, go ahead."
ME: "Request transition through the airspace to the north, via I5"
PDX: "Squawk 0124 and Ident"
ME: "Squawk 0124 and Ident, 856HA"
PDX: "Radar contact, 6HA, maintain 1500ft, remain on or west of I5, Transition Approved"
ME: "Remain west of I5, maintain 1500ft, transition approved, 6HA"

So, we keep putting along at a slow, but adequate pace of about 75kias to the north, and we see that we're coming to the approach path for PDX's active runway. Not a problem, PDX tower is aware of us, and knows what we want... but it is still funny looking out the right window and seeing the airport... then out the left at a line of jets lining up for a landing.

PDX: "Helicopter 856HA, I've got some jets coming in, I may need to vector you for spacing."
ME: "Roger, 6HA"

...puttering along...

PDX: "Helicopter 856HA, 30º to your left, I'm going to bring this jet in."
ME: "30º left, 6HA"

Now, at this point, we are about 5 miles from the jet... but headed directly towards them. They are crossing our path, left to right... quite a bit faster than we are. The is no chance for collision, but is does feel weird. He is descenting as well, so the controller is just giving the jet more time to descend, before sending us behind him.

PDX: "Helicopter 856HA, 20º to your right, pass behind the jet landing 10R, climb and maintain 3000ft. Caution for wake turbulence."
ME: "20º right, behind the jet, climbing to 3000ft. Cution for wake turbulence. 6HA"

OK, so as you might imagine the wake of a landing jet is quite intense... in any aircraft, let alone a tiny little R22. Wake turbulence always falls and is behind an aircraft. SO, if you cross their path above and in front of their line of travel, you will be fine. Only problem is that an R22 does not climb so fast. I start a 1000ftp climb, and make it to 3000ft well before any point of concern, but what ends up happening is that we are about 1500ft above the jet while it lands. Directly above. Got to tell you, that was pretty interesting to see.

Rest of the flight was pretty uneventful. Easy to follow the road all the way up to Chehalis, where we refueled. Turned around and headed back home the same route.

All in all, pretty good night.

Now that I have the north and south run down, I'll pick and choose which one to do for my upcoming 5hrs of night solos. Actually, I'm going to try to knock those guys out pretty quickly as the days are getting longer and I'd rather not be leaving for my night flight at 9pm.

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Commercial Night Flight - South

Flight #: 120 Commercial VFR61
CFI: Kristie E.
Aircraft: Robinson R22 Beta II
Aircraft ID: N227SH
Duration, as PIC: 3.1hrs
Cumulative Time: 149.8hrs

Part of commercial training is flying in normal, everyday, situations for a commercial pilot. This mean being redirected to a new location during flight, and flying at night, etc. Today was training for both situations.

We headed south to Albany, OR via Route 26E, 217S and I-5S. You really would be amazed at the stuff you can see from 1500ft. Especially when following a major road. I'd say we saw 3 cops hiding behind road embankments/signs along the way. Actually got to see someone get pulled over.

This was not my first night flight, that was back in April of 2008. This is really just prep for my 5.0 Solo Night hour requirement for Commercial. Since the rule is that you only fly over lighted areas... we are pretty limited to where we can go. I-5 is the biggest, and most traveled road around that would allow us to go more than 25nm. This trip was South. Next one is North to Chehalis (KCLS).



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Long cross-country to the coast...

Flight #: 116 [Commercial VFR61]
CFI: Kristie E.
Aircraft: Robinson R22 Beta II
Aircraft ID: N779SH
Duration, as PIC: 4.1hrs
Cumulative Time: 142.0hrs

I'm going to do this blog post with minimal text. Just three words to describe it:

IT
WAS
AWESOME

Leg 1 of 3: Hillsboro (KHIO) to Tillamook (KTMK)

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Leg 2 of 3: Tillamook (KTMK) to Independence (7S5)

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Leg 3 of 3: Independence (7S5) to Hillsboro (KHIO)
Sadly, the battery in my iPhone died. Have to fake it a bit.

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Solo, Live ATC Streaming Radio, GPS Tracks

Flight #: 114 [Commercial VFR61]
Aircraft: Robinson R22 Beta II
Aircraft ID: N2304W
Duration, as PIC: 1.1hrs
Cumulative Time: 136.5hrs

Been quite a while since a blog post. It's not that I'm losing interest in flying or anything, it is purely a perfect storm of Oregon weather, holidays and maintenance.

Oregon weather this time of year just plain sucks. Really, it is the inconsistency that gets you. Some days, like right now, it is cool and sunny. Others, rain. Others, pure white-out of clouds. Blech!

Holidays... friends, family and just fun take up time - and they get priority.

Maintenance... there had been a few times where friends or family wanted to go up for a spin, but depending on out combined weight, we would only be able to fly in the "Flying Tractor" a.k.a. the Schewizer 300CB. That sucker went in for its 100hr maintenance rebuild. There are very few people that fly the tractor, so it does not get priority... and so it sat. Almost 8 weeks.

Solo:
Anyway, I FINALLY got up the other day. Kind of a crazy day, actually. The weather was cold, a little windy, but relatively clear.

Headed out to, what is now a pretty common and mindless run for me, Portland Mulino Airport. 25nm South East of the airport. Takes you over some nice areas... and this is generally the flight I take friends on. The less "work" I have to do to fly, the more I can relax. A new place... I need 100% concentration and I can't answer any of the "hey, what is that?" type questions from passengers. It is their first flight, they could care less where we are going.

Anyway, good flight out. Ran in to some nimrod fixed wing dude who got his runways mixed up and was landing the wrong direction... wind at his tail. So, I had to loop around and wait for him to figure it out - with some help from me. Did a few patterns, headed back. As soon as I started looking North West, I noticed a serious weather cell coming in... and it appeared to be about 20nm west of HIO. I tried to tune in ATIS (Weather Reporting) for KHIO, but was getting too much static, so had to climb a little to listen in. Things sounded fine, so I headed back, via UAO, like I normally would. About 10nm from Mulio, I tried ATIS again, but things had not yet changed... however, the cell seemed to be quite a bit closer and looked really ominous. I tuned in to the tower frequency and heard them talking about gusts etc.

It was at this point where I decided to high-tail it back to the airport to see if I could stay ahead of the weather. I figured I had about 15 minutes before it hit... and I needed less than 10 to get there. Nosed 04W down, and brought it up to about 90kias and headed in. I was rather high at the time, 2500ft, and I started to encounter some precipitation, not freezing yet, but close. Then a few flakes started to hit the windscreen. We've been taught to have a real eye for ice. Not only does ice add extra weight to an aircraft... it spoils the aerodynamics. If you get build-up on the rotors... bad news. The last thing you want is your rotor lift efficiency to decrease.

So, we're taught to keep an eye on droplets on the window... do they freeze? Then, you also continually look at your skids. They are easily visible from the pilot seat, are direct into the wind, cold metal, and will get ice (most of the time) before any other part... especially any moving part. No ice, but I did not feel like taking any chances so I descended to about 700ft. The lower you go the warmer it should be... but the less time you have if you run in to an engine issue and need to execute an emergency landing. Hunch paid off, and things started to warm up and I was left with a little bit of spitting rain.

So, not going to ice up, but that weather cell was getting really serious. I was on Tower Frequency and they started talking about wind changing directions, gusts to 15knots. Not really dangerous stuff... yet, but it was certainly not the best choice of landing weather.

I requested access to the airspace, was granted and came in. On my way in, I started hearing chatter on the radio about the field "going IFR" (weather conditions bad enough to require special instrumentation and training). Luckily I was in a hover right off the end of my landing spot when the field did go IFR.

So, little bit of excitement.

Couple cool things as a result of this flight. I found Live ATC broadcasts, and recordings. This site broadcasts tower communications over net radio. So, you can listen in to the chatter for almost any towered airport. fly-geek, I know, but still cool. If you want to listen in to Portland-Hillsboro Airport (KHIO), you just search, or click this link.

The really cool part of it is that they archive the streams as MP3 files for up to 30 days. And, well, here is the audio from the 2nd half of the flight - the return. Apparently the feed was down for the first part, but that's fine since I was just requesting a south departure.

@3:20
Me: "Hillsboro Tower, Helicopter 2304W, 7 miles south with Siera. Request parking."
Tower: "Winds calm. Correction, Wind 260 at 15. Helicopter 2304W, Hillsboro Tower. Report 1 mile south."
Me: "Report 1 south, 04W."

@5:49
Me: "04W is 1 mile south."
Tower: "Helicopter 04W, not in sight, proceed to HAI"
Me: "Proceed to HAI, 04W."

If you are interested, take a listen. I've noted (above) the approximate time into the MP3 file these comms happen. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be downloading ALL my flights recordings from now on.
Live ATC Streaming Radio


GPS Tracks:
So far, I've been estimating my flight tracks with Google Maps, and their ability to superimpose a line over a particular map. I've done that here with this flight:

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The fun thing is that I've just purchased ($7.99) a great little iPhone Application, MotionX GPS. (iTunes Download) Anyway, it allows you to track, to a very high accuracy, the location of your phone, save the points, and then post them up on Google Maps to provide a very accurate map of where you have been. So, I set it up, throw it in my jacket pocket, and off I go.

Now, it would be really cool if I knew how to use the application before this flight... cause I have a really impressive GPS track of me walking out to the aircraft. Next time, I know what to do, and it will be sooooo cool.

Solo X/C to Kelso - Just for fun.

Flight #: 111 [Commercial VFR61]
Aircraft: Robinson R22 Beta II
Aircraft ID: N227SH
Duration, as PIC: 1.2hrs
Cumulative Time: 135.4hrs

Got a call this morning that told me there was an open helicopter - if I wanted it. Hell, yea!

So, did my pre-flight planning (Weight and Balance, Weather Check, Flight Manifest, and filed my flight plan with Seattle Flight Service) and sped out the door. 227SH was sitting there waiting for me with 47.5 hours left before maintenance - so it was in prime condition.

Day was perfect; cold, little bit of wind from the west and clear to 25k ft.

Nothing particular to speak of, other than the fact that I know understand the frustration our CFIs go though listening to us murder communications - particularly in uncontrolled airports. It is pretty bad. I felt, however, pretty damn good since I was noticing the problems.

You just can't beat the feeling of flying.

PAX Flight #3: Rod

Flight #: 107 [Commercial VFR61]
Aircraft: Schweizer 300CB
Aircraft ID: N61482
Duration, as PIC: 1.2hrs
Cumulative Time: 132.7hrs

My college computer science professor / adviser / good friend Rod, and his wife Anita were in Portland for a business trip. Weather was nice enough to get Rod up for his first helicopter flight.

"First few minutes were a little weird, but then it was amazing."

'nuff said.

PAX Flight #2: Becky

Flight #: 106 [Commercial VFR61]
Aircraft: Robinson R22
Aircraft ID: N2223P
Duration, as PIC: 1.0hrs
Cumulative Time: 131.5hrs


Got a chance to take my high-school / long time friend Beck up for a spin. Beautiful day!

Back in the saddle again.

Flight #: 105 [Commercial VFR61]
CFI: Kristie E.
Aircraft: Robinson R22 Beta II
Aircraft ID: N2548S
Duration, as PIC: 1.2hrs
Cumulative Time: 130.5hrs

With the birth of my son, Addison, I've not been doing much flying recently. But, since he's doing really well, and actually letting us sleep reasonable stretches, I got a chance to go up for a bit of a refresher.

Nothing earth shattering to speak of this time, just a nice morning flight to get back in the saddle again.

ps: Just to be clear, I'm skipping a lot of flights in the blog... not because I'm not in to this anymore, but there is a lot of repetition in training, and you don't really want to read about it. So, when something cool happens, I'll be here to post about it. Commercial training is mostly hour building and fine-tuning your skills. IFR is just going in circles (well, pill shaped paterns) with your eyes closed. Really.

PAX Flight #1: Sandy!

Flight #: 101 [Commercial VFR61]
Aircraft: Schweizer 300CB
Aircraft ID: N61482
Duration, as PIC: 1.5hrs
Cumulative Time: 125.4hrs

Today was my first passenger flight. Sandy and I had a very nice flight up to Scappoose, OR and then transitioned through Hillsboro airspace, then on to Twin Oaks.

She seemed to really enjoy it... as did I!

Robinson Safety Course: Torrance, CA

Flight #: 095 [Commercial VFR61]
CFI: Derek
Aircraft: Robinson R22 Beta II
Aircraft ID: N42059
Duration, as PIC: 1.1hrs
Cumulative Time: 116.8hrs

During August 24th to August 28th I was in Torrance, CA for the Robinson Helicopter Corporation Safety Course. The safety course is designed to explain the intimate details of the R22 and R44 helicopters so you learn to safely take the helicopter into the full range of its abilities.

One word... awesome.

Not only did I get to fly around Compton, CA... yup, Compton. As in South Central, LA. Bloods & Cripps. But I got to fly some of the most amazing maneuvers with a Robinson Test Pilot in a brand new R22. See, each time a helicopter leaves the factory, it needs to be ground tested, flight tested, and then maneuver tested. I get to fly (with the test pilot) the helicopter for the maneuver tests. I was the third person to fly this helicopter, and it had 3.2hrs on it. Sweet!

The class was about 60 people from all areas of the world, all experience levels, and all jobs. I was in the class with people from the LA Police Department as well as some guys from Brooklyn PD. People in training, like me, an others that have been flying professionally for 20 years.

Very cool stuff!

VOR Navigation

Flight #: 090 [Commercial VFR61]
CFI: Kristie E.
Aircraft: Robinson R22
Aircraft ID: N856HA
Duration, as PIC: 1.5hrs
Cumulative Time: 109.9hrs

As I'm starting my IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) training, today we did a bit of VOR Navigation. Put simply, a VOR is a radio beacon that broadcasts very focused signals radially out from the center at 1º intervals. Think of spokes on a wheel. The VOR below is south of Hillsboro airport and is named the "Newberg VOR". You can see the center of the blue circle is a box. That is the VOR itself. The blue "clock dial" around the VOR helps you determine the radials that are projected by the VOR. The blue line, pointing NNE is the 0º/360º radial... or magnetic north. Anyway, draw a line from your position to the center of the VOR dot... calculate the º on the VOR... you are on that radial. SO, draw a line from HIO to UBG, you will see that we would be on the 346º radial. Make sense?

Now, it is a little more complicated that that... but not much. Draw a line, perpendicular to the radial you are on, through the center of the VOR. In the diagram below, you will see a red side and a green side. Now, say we want to fly from Hillsboro to the VOR. Since we know we are on the 346º radial... we actually want to fly over the VOR, therefore we want to be 180º off of the radial we are on... on the other side. 346º - 180º = 166º. So, we want to get to the 166º radial.

To use a VOR for navigation you dial in the frequency, 117.4, into your navigation radio, and then look at the instrument. If you were sitting at Hillsboro, tuned in the Newberg VOR (UBG), you might see something like this. The little knob to the lower left actually rotates the compass dial. The vertical line in the middle is ligned up dead center. The arrow is pointing to the radial we want to go to... and the tail is pointing to the radial we are currently on.

Now, in our specific example, we are North of the VOR.
If you split the VOR in half, perpendicular to the radial you are on... If you are on the red side, you are on the FROM side of the VOR. On the green? Then you are on the TO side. Think of it like this... the arrow points TO or FROM the VOR.


So... our indicaor actually would look like this:

We are on the 346º radial of the Newberg VOR, pointed to the 166º radial on the other side of the VOR. If we follow this course... we will cross right over the center of the VOR.

Using this logic, we can fly to/from the VOR to get anyplace... we just have to decide what radial we are on... and which radial our destination is on. There are VORs all over the place... so this is a really handy way to fly.

For my flight, we left HIO, headed to UBG, then to a private airport called Mach-O. About 15nm west of McMinneville (Town / Airport).


Here is what we did...
166º TO (To the Newberg VOR)

220º FROM (To Mach-O)













We then headed north just to explore a bit.


Once we were ready to head back, we dialed in:

244º TO (To Newberg VOR)













345º FROM (To HIO)













Pretty simple once you know the rules, eh?

X/C Diversion and Schweizer Decisions

Flight #: 087 [Commercial VFR61]
CFI: Kristie E.
Aircraft: Robinson R22 Beta II
Aircraft ID: N2548S
Duration, as PIC: 1.3hrs
Cumulative Time: 105.8hrs

Kind of a back to basics flight today. Headed out to Sandy River airport this morning but was diverted to Mulio airport due to low clouds. No biggie, found everything I needed to... first try. Really helps to see the airport first.

Anyway, decided to start flying the Shweizer 300CB as well. Primarily to gain more experience on different machines. Has a lot more lifting power and is not quite as squirmy as the R22... but it is a beast compared to the R22. See...

Frustration, thy name is ABBA

Flight #: 086 [Commercial VFR61]
CFI: Kristie E.
Aircraft: Robinson R22 Beta II
Aircraft ID: N956SH
Duration, as PIC: 1.5hrs
Cumulative Time: 104.5hrs

See the airport in this picture?



















No? Really, it is right there. I swear. How about this... you fly 40 minutes to this friggin' airport that some joker named ABBA, btw, to prove how you can find things. Well, I fly around in circles... looking for the airport. NW of the town of Sheridan, OR and at 200ft. Looking, looking.





Give Up?










Scroll down...











Little more...










Take a look.


















Airport my ass. I found it, eventually tho... so there is a bit of positive. Stupid ABBA.

Morning Solo

Flight #: 085 [Commercial VFR61]
Aircraft: Robinson R22 Beta II
Aircraft ID: N2548S
Duration, as PIC: 1.1hrs
Cumulative Time: 103.0hrs

Wanted to get some solo time in... so I just signed up for it. See, I get to do that now that I'm certified as a helicopter pilot. I get a real kick out of saying that; I'm a helicopter pilot. :)

No thrills, no surprises. Just a 8:00am flight through some beautiful Oregon countryside with the sunrise.

I tell ya, one hell of a way to start the say.

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.