Flight #: 083 [Commercial VFR61]
CFI: Kristie E.
Aircraft: Robinson R22 Beta II
Aircraft ID: N2356T
Duration, as PIC: 1.4hrs
Cumulative Time: 100.4hrs
The flight to Vernonia was a blast. Mainly because it is beautiful country and it was a perfect day. Sky was clear, had a nice breeze from the west, and I happened to be going out as the temperature was cooling down in the evening. Also, a few milestones for today's flight.
- first flight to Vernonia, OR
- first flight in to true logging country
- first real off airport landing
- first real pinnacle landing
- first "brown out"
- first maximum glide configuration auto-rotation
I kind of have mixed emotions about flying to airports for the first time. You are challenged by the fact that you have never found them before, and it takes some real looking to find the them.
The larger airports, with towers and multiple runways are easy to find. You can seem them for 5+ miles. Their sheer size is the win here. Obviously runway lights are good too. Terminals, ground crews... like Portland International - PDX. Can't miss that puppy.
Mid-size airports, like Aurora - UAO, paved with one runway are pretty simple as well, but you generally can't see them until you are about 3 miles away. Sometimes they can be tricky because they often look like roads, or parallel big roads. Some have lights, others do not... so you need to focus to get on these.
Small airports are tricky, Twin Oaks - 7S3. They are generally paved, but very small. They really look like driveways. Usually the give away for these puppies are the kind-a-hanger looking buildings on the side. Beat up tarmac, faded paint, etc. Tough.
The micro-airports, like Vernonia 05S, if you can call them airports, are impossible to find. Grass strips, is more like it. These things cannot be see until you are on top of them. Literally the change in color of the grass helps you find the runway, if they have grass, that is. Most of them are dirt road looking things with a faded orange rag blowing in the wind, rather than a wind sock. Man, they can be tough. Vernonia was not too bad because it was the only flat area witin 5 miles that was not covered in clear-cut tree stumps.
Anyway, found it and our first approach was aborted because there were kids, on their 4 wheelers, playing on the runway. So, went around for another approach. This time they were running back on to the runway to pickup something they had dropped/left earlier. Ugh. We did an approach and then just headed north for an off airport landing. Not our average, "hey, go land in the field" off airport... a real live one.
This was incredibly cool. Kristie picked out a clearing on a pinnacle and asked me to land. Took a little maneuvering on my part, but once we got lined up and headed in... it was very impressive. 100ft drop down a slope on my left. 50ft on the right. If you watch Ax Men, this is the place they would put the yarder.
Anyway, came in for a landing, and at about 10ft we kicked up a cloud of dust... causing a mini-brown-out. Generally you would come all the way to the ground here because in a real brown-out your visibility is gone and your last known spot is safe... down.... so you go there. In this case, it was just a little bit obstructed so we immediately took off. Altitude over airspeed in this situation, so you "fall" off the pinnacle into the valley a bit to get some air under you in case of an emergency. Plus, it looks really impressive when you do it.
Tooled around a bit more in the area, and headed back for HIO.
Along the way, Kristie asked if she had shown me a max-glide... she had not, so we set up for it. Situation is this... you get an engine failure and you can't find an open spot anywhere near you... only way far away. How do you get there? Set up for a maximum glide configuation auto rotation. 75knots, 90% RPM... and you literally glide/float to your point. Just the aerodynamics of the helicopter taking over, really, but you can extend your point quite a bit. For every 1500ft in altitude you can glide over a mile. Impressive, right? Did one of those... to test it out. I was a little bit un-nerved during this because <97% rotor RPM, your low rotor RPM warning horn is going off. Ever try to do someting physically/mentally demanding with an horn balring? Remember, I'm wearing a $1000 noise cancelling headset in the helicopter and this thing is LOUD! Anyway, with a little help, Kristie got me to my setup and it was pretty impressive.
After that, headed back home. Nothing to interesting to speak of, honestly... a pretty standard approach and landing. Although I don't undestand why they put the sun directly in your eyes like that when you are trying to land.
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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 #: 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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