Too much fun.. almost..

Wow, sounds like such a great day! Congrats Kevin! :-)

Isn't it wonderful when everything comes together? Ok, so you had a sloppy
one. The important part is that you reacted properly and didn't bend the
bird. It's all part of the learning experience.

Question: Maybe I'm reading you too literally but, are you going to have to
get through your 10 hrs of solo time "before" you start the x-country time?
I would think that you could do a lot of that concurrently.

Take care & Fly Safe,
Steve R.


"The OTHER Kevin in San Diego" skiddz *AT* adelphia *DOT* net wrote in
message ...
Got in another hop today, with some solo time tossed in for good
measure.. Was supposed to fly yesterday, but the aux fuel gauge went
batty on the flight before mine. It was nice to get a call from the
school letting me know before I took the drive down. Unfortunately, I
was informed this morning the ship was ready to go by the time I was
supposed to fly. Minor procedural goof with the school. No big deal
as far as I'm concerned - I got some things done around the house and
actually got some work done.

Weather here in the Golden State has been crappy of late and I woke up
to a bit of rain. I wasn't too concerned because the outlook showed
it would be cool and cloudy today, with rain beginning tonight.
Looking outside right now you wouldn't expect rain but I digress..

Got to the field and worked out my W&B for both dual and solo flight.
I wasn't aware I'd be going solo today, but I knew that paperwork
would be required if I did. I knew the CG would be different without
150lbs of human next to me, but wow! What a difference both laterally
and longitudinally..

Preflight went ok, but I thought the lower swashplate was a bit
"jiggly". I hadn't flown this particular ship in about a month so had
Q check it out before we launched. He said it was ok so I strapped in
and got it started up. Slight issue with the left mag check - the
right mag showed the expected drop but when I went to both and then
back to left, the RPM took a good 10 seconds to drop and then it
didn't drop half what I was expecting. Back to both and back to left
and it did what it was supposed to. Guess I didn't get it "in the
groove" the 1st time. I got an 'attaboy" from the left seat for
catching that one.

Everything was in the green so I picked us up (I'm getting pretty good
at those with two of in the ship) and headed for the taxiway as I made
my initial call. We were cleared for takeoff so I taxied to the
runway centerline, made a right pedal turn, checked the gauges and we
were off. Nice cool day with DA about 150' below actual field
elevation so there was power a plenty and it didn't take but 21inches
to get us outta there..

1st approach was a little ugly, but I hadn't flown this particular
pattern more than once or twice before so didn't know how I had to be
set up for each leg. 2nd time around was pretty good and didn't
require much fiddling on final. Q asked me to set down and pick up a
couple times then asked the tower to head back to the parking area. I
wasn't sure if I'd done something wrong or if Q had noticed anything
with the helo..

We got back to the ramp and he set the ship down and asked "You want
both doors or just the left one?" I opted for the left one only and
he trotted to the hangar to pick up my logbook and the door. I sat
there on the ramp, throttle at idle and watched one of the new
students going over a preflight with an instructor. I couldn't help
but puff out my chest a bit whenever he'd glance over at me. Pilots
ego already? At 24 hours?? What a dork I am.. Good thing there was
a helicopter to deflate my head a bit...

Q got back with the door and my log book and in a couple minutes he
was leaning in the helo and telling me what I could and could not do.
Basically, I couldn't do jack. What I could do was hover, fly
patterns and approaches and have fun. Ok, not much leeway but what
the hell? I get to fly a helicopter all by myself again.

Remember the pilot ego? Detonated like a nuclear bomb on the 1st
pickup. I was all over the place for a few seconds until I figured
out the balance point. Perfect situation for one of those "wanna get
away" Southwest Airlines commercials.. heheh

Once I was settled down, I pointed the nose towards the runway and
called the tower for clearance. I had to hover at the hold short line
for a min or so and then was cleared to take off so I taxied out,
pointed the nose down the long direction of the runway, made my checks
and I was off. Before I knew it, I was climbing out at 1000 FPM and
doing 65 knots.. Before I'd even made my crosswind turning point, I
had to decrease the power about 4" and add some forward cyclic to
stick the altitude at 800'.

Turned downwind and made my downwind checks.. Abeam my landing spot I
set up my descent and got slowed down before turning base. Slowed
down a bit more and was at about 45 kts and 300' AGL as I turned
final. Got the angle set up and was bit high so I lowered the
collective a bit more and stole a glance at the panel. Wow.. 10
whopping inches of MAP and I'm comin' downhill at a steady 300fpm.
The ship started to rumble a bit about halfway down so I started
adding power slowly and adding a smidge of forward cyclic.. I came up
a bit short, but otherwise I felt the approach was a good one. Very
little to do on the way down but ride it down. Just have to adjust my
final turn numbers a bit.

Went around again and this time it was much better. I turned final a
little higher and faster and once I'd got the pitch angle established,
it was a matter of collective and pedal until about 50' when I had to
start adding forward cyclic as power was pulled.. About 10' the nose
suddenly swung to the right and it took a healthy measure of left
pedal to get it squared away. I thought I was just late adding left
pedal as I pulled power, but found out on the next approach it was
actually the wind coming from between two hangars.

The third one was pretty. I hit my numbers all the way around the
pattern and don't think I made a single adjustment to the cyclic on
final. I ended up in a 3' hover right over the spot I was aiming for
and went ahead and set it down. I called the tower and told 'em I
wanted to hang out at the numbers and do some hover work. I was
cleared and proceeded to work on pickups and set downs. I'm still not
used to the tail down attitude these little dragonflies get when
flying solo so the first few pickups were ugly to say the least.

Set downs, on the other hand, are pretty much cake and I started
making up games for myself to test my hovering skills. I'd hover taxi
away from the numbers, turn around and pick one small spot to set down
on and see how accurate I could be. Even in that last foot or so
where I'd had so much trouble in the past was smooth. It got to the
point where I was putting the wheel attachment point within just a few
inches of where I wanted it and I was able to put the tip of the right
skid right on the tip of the arrows leading to the displaced threshold
several times.

I tried some sideways hovering and managed to get it moving left
pretty good, but right was a little erratic.. I had a hard time
keeping the centerline right under my butt going that way.. Still, it
was good practice.

I noticed the CHT creeping up a bit so called the tower and asked to
enter the pattern again. I was cleared after a few moments and off I
went. Damn near busted the 800' pattern altitude 'cuz I was a bit
slow in reducing power and got to my downwind checks. Everything was
cool so I checked the clock to see how I was doing on time. 20
minutes before I had to head back to the ramp. I thought I'd get
about 3 more patterns in after this one so got set up to make my base
turn and flew a pretty good steep approach. Got a little too shallow
right at the end, but that was fixed with a touch more collective..

Went around again and again, made a decent approach - not great, but
not too bad.. The wind that caught me by surprise at 10' was still
there, but I anticipated it and as soon as I felt the nose start to
move, that left pedal got jammed in and the nose hardly budged.. Once
into the hover I set it down and did some quick mental calcs. Ok,
about 4 minutes per circuit, I've got a little over 10 minutes before
I need to head back and it look like I've got about 7 or 8 gallons of
fuel left in the main and a couple gallons in the aux. I'll do one
more then call it a day.

I call the tower to get cleared and I'm off again.. Crosswind and
downwind legs are good, but I'm a bit too fast as I turn base and too
high as I turn final. I get my angle set up good and have to lower
the collective a bit more to get my descent rate up as I'm too high..
As I get it back on track, the rumble starts and I decide I'm going to
make it a steep approach. I start to pull power and take a peek at
the VSI.. Yikes.. 400fpm and I'm getting a bit slow. I figure I'm
going to have to overshoot my spot even if I add power at this point
I add some power and forward cyclic.. The rate of descent doesn't
seem to be slowing and I really looks like I'm dropping rapidly and
the airspeed is slowly creeping up.. At about 20' up the "oh ****s!"
start and the ground is coming up pretty damned fast..

I add a handful of forward cyclic and drop the collective ever so
slightly and as soon as the ship stops vibrating, I pull power and
just get it stopped about 2' off the ground. I set down, collect my
thoughts and pick it up. At least I've figured out how to pick up the
ship solo without it wandering all over the place. I'm still
uncomfortable with the "wheelie" liftoff.. I'd kinda like someone to
take a video of me picking up solo so I can see how close to the
ground the tail rotor is actually coming.

I call tower and request a taxi back to the ramp and just as I turn
around, I see Q standing near the fuel shack. Not sure if he'd just
visited the soda machine or he was coming to see where I was. I was
hoping he hadn't seen that last approach. If he did, there was no
indication of it because as soon as I started down the runway towards
the ramp, he turned and walked to the hangar.

I taxied back and made a nice set down right in the center of the pad.
throttled down, flicked the governor off and set the cool down timer
and thought about that last few seconds of the last approach.. I'm
not sure I actually got into settling with power and am thinking that
I probably was just too slow adding power on final as the 1st part
looked and felt pretty good.

Either way, it was a really crappy way to get a helicopter back to
Mother Earth and it definitely got my attention in a big way. Other
than that approach, I thought I flew pretty good and looking back, I'm
pleased I was able to execute a recovery for whatever the hell it was
I'd got myself in to and not bend up a helicopter. Can't say the same
for my ego though. Probably a damned good lesson in any case.

Got the ship shut down and secured and can't help giving the ship a
pat on the canopy and uttering "good girl". As I round the nose and
start my walk back to the hangar, I see Q walking out towards me and I
meet him halfway.

"How'd it go?"

"Did you see that last approach?"

"I wasn't watching you.."

"Good. I scared the crap out of myself."

I went on to explain what happened and he kinda grinned and asked "Got
into a little settling with power didja?"

I had to admit that I probably had and told him what I'd done to get
out of it. Q just smiled and walked away. Ok, I guess I did the
right thing. I hit the "pilots lounge" and made two entries in my log
book. 0.3 dual and 0.9 solo.. Q came up and asked how much time I
logged and then told me he wanted be to blow through my next ten hours
of solo so we could work on cross countries and asked me where I
wanted to go. What a baited question.. I'd really like to fly over
my mom's house and drop water balloons but I don't think the FAA would
like that too much.

I told Q I'd like to fly out over the desert and buzz the lizards and
he said "Yeah, I'd like to do that too. Plan it out.." Cool. I'll
give you one guess what I'm going to be doing later tonight.. Not
sure we'll go any time soon with another storm coming through, but
even if I end up flying dual in the pattern tomorrow, it'll be cool.
Anytime I can get in the helicopter is great. I love this stuff!