Today I started an intensive PPL(H) course. (I'm going to fly three times a
week, two hours a day.)

I did an hours trial lesson last year in an R22 which I enjoyed immensely
and cemented my determination to learn to fly these bizarre contraptions.

Finally, nearly a year later I've got the finances sorted out and I'm going
for it. (I'm actually supposed to be in the US doing a full CPL course, but
I couldn't sell my house in time so had to drop the place.) So I'm doing
the JAA PPL(H) in the UK as a first step before deciding on my next course
of action.

My nearest school flies Schweizer 300CBs, so I'm doing my PPL(H) on them. I
know everybody's got their views on the pro and cons of this compared to the
R22 but in the end for me it came down to local convenience.

So, it's a fine Oxfordshire autumn morning and I turn up for the first
lesson, hoping to get a second in today if there's an aircraft's available.
The sun's out, wind is 5 kts, and barring a bit of low haze it looks like
it's going to be a nice day.

The instructor does the initial pre-flight, startup and climb-out to the
west as I shadow him on the checklists and controls. We rise through a
turbulent layer (could be a small temperature inversion as the haze is
suddenly clear), and it's over to me for control familiarisation. Cyclic is
instantly familiar, and I do some turns while trying to keep the airspeed
constant by adjusting the nose attitude. Not too bad, but the instructor
knows I've a lot of r/c heli, a few hours of fixed-wing, and a lot of sim
time.

Next I'm given the collective and make the power adjustments as the
instructor demos climbs and descents. Easy enough. Then I've got the
pedals and things are a little more complicated. As the instructor changes
the power I'm having to compensate on the anti-torque, at this point
over-correcting and occasionally getting into a bit of a yawing oscillation,
but I get it under control. I try a bit of control co-ordination. I can see
it's going to be a challenge mastering them all at once, throughout the
flight envelope.

We land, grab a sarnie and de-brief. He's happy, says I did really well. I
didn't find any of it too taxing, and I've still got a grin on my face 20
minutes later.

The 300's free until late afternoon, so we head out again. This time I do
the checklists and startup, and do the pick-up to where we're light on the
skids. The instructor hover-taxies us out across the active to the heli
practice area on the field, and from there takes us west again away from the
airport. This is where it got interesting! I did turns again, this time
handling the collective, pedals and throttle on my own. Happy with that we
then did climbs and descents, again with me do al the attitude, power, trim
inputs, overspeeding the engine a few times! I'm not having trouble with
knowing what inputs I need to make, the difficulty is knowing how much I
need to do and learning the "feel" for the machine. A couple of times I had
to think twice about which way the throttle works, and it caught me out at
least once when I lowered the collective, and the throttle and the engine
rpm increased, and I reacted by twisting the wrong way. No hassle though,
only slightly above the red, and I corrected once I'm mentally kiced myself.

Climbs and descents went well, so on to climbing and descending turns. This
was 2 hours into the days flying and I was starting to feel a bit full.
Still as enthusiastic as hell, but I began to realise the values of breaks
to let it all sink in. Still, I got the hang of them, and got to the point
where I don't need to think attitude, power, trim, and just do it, otherwise
I too busy thinking about the order in which to do things rather than
watching what's actually happening.

Anyway, back to base for a coffee and debrief again. The instructor thinks
I did really well and reckons if I do 4 to 5 hours a week I should breeze
through it. Not sure how much of that is genuine, and how much is
encouragement to a newbie, but I came away pleased with myself.
Unfortunately, I can't go up again until next Wednesday due to other
commitments, and I can't wait!!

Si