It happens with anything you are trying hard at your next flight will be
probably be a pearler

"The OTHER Kevin in San Diego" skiddz "AT" adelphia "DOT" net wrote in
message ...
I'm going to put it very bluntly. I flew like crap today. Absolutely
horrible. Couldn't hover, couldn't do approaches, couldn't stick my
altitudes/airspeeds while in the pattern.. I sucked.

It'd been 8 days since I last flew. Partially because of some
personal commitments and partially because of the flight schedule
getting jacked up earlier in the week. I was supposed to fly Wed, Thu
and Saturday this week. Tuesday, I get a call from Q asking where I
am and am I going to fly or not? I know I checked the schedule late
Sunday night like I always do and entered the dates/times/ship numbers
in my Palm Pilot.

Evidently something changed between Sunday night and Tuesday morning
because the "current" schedule didn't mesh with what I had recorded.
I wasn't the only person who "missed" their block because of schedule
"oddities" that day.

So anyway, I'm on the schedule at 10 (as usual) in a ship that's just
received a freshly rebuilt Lycoming 4-banger. I hadn't flown this
ship in a couple months and wasn't sure if I was going to be solo or
dual so I worked up weight and balance at home and promptly forgot to
bring the worksheets to the field. (an omen perhaps??)

Not a huge deal as I arrived at the hangar a little after 8 and had
plenty of time to work up new W&B before I joined Q at the cafe' for a
cup of coffee. ($1.66 for crappy airport coffee.. I should have hit
7-11 on my way in and got decent coffee for a buck twenty nine...

Q tells me I'll be going solo today and I ponder my destination
choices over the aforementioned lousy coffee and decide to just fly
patterns locally. I need to work on my approaches and figure I'll get
in a couple dozen of 'em in my 2 hour block.

Halfway through my preflight my ground school instructor walks over to
chat. He tells me I have a "fan" that's a friend of his who has been
reading this stuff. Nifty. I either have a stalker, or someone who
really needs to get out more.

Q walks up as I'm getting ready to strap in and asks if I want to take
the right door off. School policy is solo student must leave the left
door on and I usually fly with the right door off. I thought I'd try
with both doors on today so sent him on his way.

I strapped in and started the ship up, keeping the right door ajar to
get some air in the cockpit as I waited for the temps come up. Once
the ship was warmed up and I got all my pre takeoff checks completed,
I picked up very slowly and once hovering, checked the MAP gauge. A
tick over 18 inches for a hover in ground effect. This new engine is
putting out some power. I'm usually closer to 20 inches when I'm
solo.

I hover taxi the 20 yards to the hold short line and call the tower.
I want to run patterns and I'm told to standby. Ok no biggy, I can
hover for a bit. Yeah, right. I was all over the place. No major
excursions, but I wasn't nearly as steady as I know I can be and the
tail seemed to have a mind of it's own. I attributed it to "rust" and
went ahead and took off once I'd received my clearance.

To make a long story short, I think I forgot how to fly helicopters.
Takeoff was ugly and I couldn't hit my numbers to save my life. The
1st approach I came down final at mach 3 and had to really steepen it
up to hit my target. 2nd time around I was too low and too slow and
the 3rd time around I was way too high. Just crappy flying all
around.

I was frustrated and sweaty. BAD idea to leave that right door on. I
felt like I was in a sauna and decided to try a little hover work.
Normally, I can hover with the wind coming from any direction and do a
respectable job even with a tailwind. Not today. Even pointed in to
the wind I couldn't stay in one place and my altitude went from 6
inches to 3 feet.. Absolutely horrible.

I went back to patterns and continued on my path to frustration. I
think the only thing I did right the entire flight was a left 360 I
had to do to allow a really nice looking RV8 to take off from the
runway I was shooting approaches to. At least I stuck it at 700 feet
and 60 knots all the way around. The approach following that was
supposed to be a steep approach and I ended up well short of my
intended landing point.

I was getting annoyed with myself by then and took a few moments to
collect myself, take a deep breath and mentally fly a pattern while I
hovered. Once I went over it in my head, I told the tower I was on
the go again and off I went. Still can't hit my airspeeds but I
managed to almost nail the altitude. About halfway through the
downwind leg, I smelled something funny in the cockpit (no, it wasn't
me. hehe) just as the tower cleared me to land.

I'd been smelling oil since I first started the sip, but expected that
because of the new engine. This smelled electrical. I quickly
scanned the panel and didn't see anything abnormal and called the
tower and told them I was smelling something odd in the cockpit and
would like to change my approach to land back at the ramp.

I was approved immediately and made the one good approach of the
entire flight, but once in the hover, I was back to flying like a
2-hour student instead of a 30 hour student. Set down at the pad was
ugly as hell and I had to pick the ship back up and move it forward on
the pad to get it positioned properly. I dialed up the school's
frequency and reported the problem. Q, who was with another student,
was monitoring the radio and asked what the problem was. I explained
the smell and he had me defer to the A&P once I got the ship shut
down.

I couldn't find the A&P so had to leave a message with the front
office to have him and/or Q check it out. Normally, I hang out at the
field for a bit, but was so annoyed with my crappy performance, I
filled out my logbook and took off. 1.1 on the books, but the way I
was flying, it felt like 3 hours. I'm hoping this was just one of
those bad days and not a bad slide like I had just before I soloed.

Hopefully tomorrow's hop will be better otherwise I'm going to change
my name to Hoover.