Helicopter Dreams

So yesterday I was up there, once again, but today flying in an extraordinary scenery. We flew north of Stockholm late afternoon for some hovering exercises. Since I’m know starting to control the hovering (at least OK in head wind) I now tried to do hovering turns. A hovering turn is a maneuver performed at hovering altitude in which the nose of the helicopter is rotated either left or right while maintaining position over a reference point on the surface. The maneuver requires the coordination of all flight controls and demands precise control near the surface. You should maintain a constant altitude, rate of turn, and r.p.m.

Boy, I can tell you that it wasn’t easy! Starting in head wind everything is OK (almost…), but as soon as you turn 90 degrees using the pedals (important to start the turn by looking the direction you aim to turn) you’ll have the wind from the side, which means that you have to compensate that using the cyclic. As soon as you have a stable hovering you continue to turn another 90 degrees and then you’ll have the wind from behind, use the cyclic to stop the helicopter from moving forward etc. A really good exercise!

All of a sudden we realized that it started to become dark outside so we took off for Bromma airport. The picture above gives you a slight idea of how beatiful the trip back was, what a feeling! 

Ended the day at the Flight Theory School studying 3 hours of meteorology (MET3), interesting but it’s hard to be focused after a full day at work followed by 1-2 hours of flying, but I WON’T COMPLAIN!

“What do you think will happen if I turn the engine off?”, my instructor said smiling at me. “ARE YOU NUTS, I paid for a try out lesson, not a death experience!” He turned the engine off, and what happened? Pretty much nothing, we descended a bit faster than normal and he landed the helicopter by flaring the helicopter close to the ground. What we did is called an “autorotation”. Autorotation of the main rotor allows a controlled descent to an emergency landing in case of powerplant failure.

In the following movie clip you can follow the procedure of an autorotation from inside the R22, check it out

Ha ha, it’s amazing how innovative people can be. In this movie clip you’ll see an attempt to open a 6 pack of beer in record time, sit back and enjoy! Too bad that the one recording the movie had a 6 pack before the shooting…

So it’s Friday and I’ll share with you a movie explaining the basics of the rotor systems and how it works, interesting huh? The rotor system found on helicopters can consist of a single main rotor or dual rotors. With most dual rotors, the rotors turn in opposite directions so the torque from one rotor is opposed by the torque of the other. This cancels the turning tendencies. In general, a rotor system can be classified as either fully articulated, semirigid, or rigid.

So, today it’s time again, time to fly! At least I hope so, because the weather is not the best. Had to check the TAF (Terminal Area Forcast) for Bromma Airport and according to that it’s a 50/50 situation or what do you say: ESSB 250830Z 250918 18003KT 0500 FG VV002 BECMG 0911 8000 BR SCT005 TEMPO 1113 BKN005 PROB40 1718 BKN008. Hmmm, sounds like chinese to you? It did to me at first but now I’m starting to understand the codes pretty well. I’ll try to explain how it works some time. After having spent over 10 years in the IT business overwhelmed by all abbreviations I’ve now relized that the flight business is far more developed in that area.

However, I’ll give my instructor a call to check if we’re on or off. I’ll be back with a resume of what happened. Please Mr weather guy let me fly today!!

8 hours later…

No flying today, my instructor Jon called and cancelled the lesson 

But, since it’s Thursday, it’s theory time! Today we had the NAV6 lesson (Navigation). A really interesting subject but quite demanding. Today we talked about ADF/NDB and VOR’s….ha ha I told you, abbreviation rocks…NOT! It’s all about how to navigate to a beacon using different instruments. You might have seen a VOR (probably not), here’s how it looks like:

That’s the name of the helicopter I’m flying.

The Robinson R22 is a small, light two-person helicopter, designed around 1973 by Frank Robinson and produced since 1979 by the Robinson Helicopter Company.

The first version was produced as the R22, followed by the R22 HP, R22 Alpha, R22 Beta and R22 Beta II. Superficially, the machines look similar. The R22 HP was fitted with a 160 bhp Lycoming 0-320-B2C engine, an increase of 10 bhp over the original R22. The landing skid assembly on the R22 Alpha was modified by extending the rear struts, giving it a slightly nose-down attitude on the ground and better matching its attitude in a low altitude hover. The R22 Beta added an engine speed governor, rotor brake and auxiliary fuel tank. It has been offered as an instrument trainer version, with optional fixed floats as the R22 Mariner, and other special configurations for police work, electronic news gathering, and so on.

The R22 became the world’s top selling civil helicopter soon after its introduction. Due to relatively low acquisition and operating costs, it has been popular as a primary rotorcraft trainer around the world and as a livestock management tool on large ranches in North America and cattle stations in Australia. With its quick response to control inputs, it emulates the performance of turbine powered helicopters, making it easier for flight students to transition to larger aircraft.

(Source: Wikipedia.org)

The sound from the rotor blades gives me goose bumps (ta ta ta ta ta) when I make my first 360 turn over a beautiful Stockholm in autumn colors. Shit, I’m finally here, I’m flying a fu”#%& helicopter (OK my instructor is on my left side).

I have 3 months of theory and almost 4 hours in the air and I’m walking around with a constant smile on my face.

I’m learning to fly a helicopter and I’m going to share my experiences and thoughts during my journey to a certificate. Let’s take off!