On Mon, 25 Aug 2003 13:46:44 -0500, "Gig Giacona"
wrote:

When I was able to demonstrate Solo flight in an R-22 I was not ready to be
a helicopter test pilot. I probably still aren't.


Yeah, no ****. I'm a commercial helicopter pilot who flies all the
time with about 600 hours logged now and about 2000 hours in
government helicopters that isn't logged. I'm not qualified to be a
test pilot in some experimental piece of crap...and never will be.

I have to hand it to the people who build these things then think they
can test fly them to work out the bugs of blade tracking and balancing
and the sympathetic resonances between all the moving parts. More
power to them. They are brave men.

I'm not so brave. I flew R-22's 8 hours this weekend and an R-44 for
about 4 hours around thunderstorms here in the Southwest. I was real
happy to think that I had a proven machine around me. Even then,
some-one of a thousand parts could have failed and that would have
been the end.

BWB