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First 2 1/2 hours PPL(H) today!
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 |
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