the other kevin in san diego

3rd hop this week and I got to fly a ship I'd never flown before. 4th
R22 Beta II I've flown and this one is by far the quietest of the
bunch. Today was the same deal as yesterday. Up at the crack of
dawn, roust the kids and hit the road by 7 - only the kids did pretty
much nothing after they were dressed and I didn't get out of the house
until nearly quarter after.

Got to the field about 8:20 and set a personal best on my W&B/DA time.
I'm beginning to memorize most of the W&B numbers just 'cuz it's sheer
repetition at this point. Low temps and higher than standard
pressures have made for low DA numbers so lotsa power to play with.

Preflight goes pretty smooth, but I've got to get the dual controls
installed - never done it before - and figured out the pedals and
cyclic in mere seconds, but struggled with the collective for a minute
until I realized there were TWO little "nubbies" to press in before
inserting the control arm. Gonna make a point of demonstrating that
particular procedure once I start instructing.

We're headed to another field today to work on.... yep, approaches..
I check out the other field's info in my AFD and scribble down CTAF
and ATIS freqs on my knee board - well, the back of my left hand..
hhehe My knee board is too big for helos and I haven't picked up a
new one yet. Fill out the dispatch paperwork and update the flight
board and I'm off to strap in. (I won't bore anyone with preflight
stuff anymore unless something 'interesting' comes up) I program the
GPS and set it to moving map so I can follow the little black line and
I'm set to go.

We're recently started using school call signs instead of tail numbers
at the home field and I think some of the tower folks are still not
quite used to it. I call the tower and tell 'em I want a south
departure. I'm told I've got company traffic inbound so I report I've
got 'em in sight and will maintain visual contact and they clear me
for departure.

I'm much more relaxed today than yesterday, but still a bit tight on
the collective. I sense myself tensing up as we're accelerating and
make a conscious effort to relax and then climb out at 60 knots to
1000' and change freqs to the practice area freq so I can monitor for
any other traffic. "Go ahead and switch the governor off" comes over
my headset.

"What??"

"Go ahead and turn off the governor. We're going to fly the rest of
the time with it off."

Yeah, ok. I'm having a hard enough time landing with it's help and
now you want it off? OK. I flick it off and nothing happens.

"Don't worry about the throttle too much. The correlator does a
pretty good job of keeping the power settings."

It certainly does/did. Of course I wasn't used to it being off, and
my eyes kept sneaking back into the cabin to peek at the tach but
those needles barely moved as I flew south at 75kts and 1500'.
I can almost tell when RPMs are getting towards the bottom of the
green just by the sound and the vibration and soon stop looking at the
tack too often.

5-6 mins later I'm 7 miles from the other field so I dial in their
ATIS, get the current info and call tower and tell 'em I'm inbound,
using the school callsign. The tower confusion is lost on me for a
sec until my brain realizes callsigns are just for our home field.. I
make the proper call and am cleared to enter the pattern.

1st approach is ok until the last 10 seconds or so. I'm still trying
to fly the helicopter like a Cessna and end up high and too slow. My
instructor takes over and sets the ship down and tells me to relax. I
hadn't realized it, but I'm white knuckling the controls again. Still
don't know why I'm doing that lately. I'm not scared of heights, I'm
not scared to fly and I'm beginning to feel very comfortable in the
helicopter. Just can't figure out why I'm so tense..

My instructor demos pickups without the governor two ways.. 1st, roll
on the throttle to get RPMs into the green arc then roll off throttle
to keep RPMs in the green as collective is pulled. I do it this way
and it's not as hard as I'd thought it was, but I can see how easy it
would be to overspeed if your throttle control wasn't good enough.

The 2nd way was easier and made for a better pickup. RPMs to about
85% then let the correlator add power as collective is pulled. A very
small reduction in throttle just as we picked up and everything was
cool. I did one of these and found it to be pretty simple.

We'd been cleared for the option so I took off for another trip around
the patch and damn near hit my numbers on each leg. Approach was
good, but I ended up a little bit steep at the very end. Hit my spot
right on and went around again. Still trying to fly the damned thing
like an airplane..

Last one was pretty good and even my stop at a 3' hover was solid.
1st one I've felt completely happy with in the past few weeks of
flying. It was time to go back so I call the tower and tell them I'd
like to depart to the north and am cleared immediately. I did a
pretty cool turning takeoff - I was pointed West when I made the radio
call - and was soon at 1300' on my way back. I'd almost forgotten
about the governor being off and took a quick peek at the tach..

All those lectures about low RPM accidents came rushing back as I saw
the RPMs below the green arc.. I rolled in a bit too much throttle
and ballooned a bit. I didn't realize how touchy the throttle really
was. Again I dialed in the practice area freq, then home field ATIS
and finally CTAF. I completely buggered up the initial radio call and
felt like an idiot for a few seconds and then made a proper call and
was told to reply 1 mile out.

A couple minutes later I'm a mile out and slowing down and I make the
call and get approval to land and taxi back to our ramp. The same
approach that's bitten me with that ugly crosswind each time I've
flown it. It wasn't too bad this time, probably because I was too
fast and blew right through it, but I got slowed down enough to hover
taxi off the runway and head towards my parking spot.

Only a couple times have I been able to set the ship down exactly
where I wanted to on the 1st try. Usually I get close, get the
"wobbles" and then get it where I want it 15-20 seconds later. This
time I got abeam my pad, made a crisp 90 degree pedal turn to the
right and taxied right up and set it right down. Almost like I knew
what I was doing.

Got the ship cooled down and shut off and took off my headset and
started slowing the mains down with the rotor brake. This ship's
rotor brake is pretty week compared to the other 3 I've flown and it
takes a while longer to get it stopped. I secure the ship, fill out
the paperwork and head to the hangar. No hanging out today, I've got
to get home and get some work done. I meet my instructor in his
office and have him sign my logbook and confirm tomorrow's flight
time.

"What are you doing the rest of the day?" he asks.

"Nothing really, going to head to my office and get caught up on some
paperwork. Why?"

"I don't want you to think about helicopters for the rest of the day.
You need to relax, your tension is annoying me."

It's annoying me too. "yeah, I can tell. I don't know what's going
on. I'll try."

Of course, the entire drive to my office I've got the last 2 days'
flights on my mind. What went wrong, what went right and I think I
finally figured out what it is. Not then, but as I was writing this.
I'm being too hard on myself. I'm comparing my fixed wing abilities
from 10+ years ago to my helicopter abilities and getting frustrated
at not being able to make the helicopter do exactly what I want it to
do.

Tomorrow, I've been told, we're just going to go up and have some
fun.. I'm kinda hoping we can fly over to my kid's school and circle
overhead while they're at recess. I can imagine 'em looking up and
saying, "Hey! That's my dad!" If not, no big deal. Flying for the
sake of flying is cool, regardless of where I am.

I'm off to play Halo and get my ass handed to me by my 7 year old.
That ought to keep my mind of helicopter's for a couple hours.

jim105

The OTHER Kevin said


My kids got so tired of it, I don't really do it much anymore! Of course my
wifes (and mine to if I have to admit it) dog runs and goes crazy every time he
hears a helicopter. I guess I have better luck training the dog then the kids!
I'm now working on him only going nuts for something with a turbine...of
course no offense to the Robbies and Switzers out there, just that there are
too many that fly over my place these days for me to go out and take a look at.

Jim

micbloo

LOL, I still do that.

Gerard (Arf arf)

the other kevin in san diego

The novelty of "buzzing" the school still seems fun to me. Every day
I fly, my kids ask, "Are you going to fly over us today?" Chances are
it won't happen until I get my ticket. The field is about 20 miles to
the Southeast from their school and we typically stay close to "home".

My house is near the base leg of traffic for my local GA airport so I
see helos all the time. I only really get interested if it's turbine
powered, but I do look up to see what kind of ship it is if I'm
outside..