Helicopter Dreams

On Friday, we started the PPL (H) Bridge course. Three weekends where we´ll cover the topics:

• Air Law (AL)
• Operational Procedures (OP)
• Principles of Flight (PF)
• Aircraft General Knowledge (AGN)
• Flight Planning and Performance (FPP)

We are about 20 people in the group from all parts of Sweden and I don’t really know how many of us that will continue with the commercial licence CPL (H) in november. Don”t ask me, I haven’t decided yet but as soon as i get up in the air again I guess I have

There are rumors saying that there are plans of starting a CPL “light” course covering more or less the same amount of information than in the regular CPL course, but in 200 hours instead of in 700 hours, can someone explain to me how this will work (probably no one)? I’ll follow up on this issue later on…

Today we had 6 hours of Aerodynamics talking about different forces and theories of flying an helicopter, airfoils, drag, translational lift, Bernoulli’s Principle, Newton’s third law, Angle of attack, Gyroscopic Precession, semirigid rotors, autorotation, torque, Ground effect, transverse flow effect, dissymmetry of lift, flapping.

Now it starts to get really interesting, need to dig a bit deeper into the subject! What I also need now is some sleep, good night!

So, another long day, first full day at work then went for the LFV test in HP (Human Performance) which I passed (85%) and then 4 hours of simulated flying and round up of the PPL course. We are 7 people from the course that will continue with the PPL(H) bridge course that starts January 25. I really should try to do the LFV tests in NAV and MET before that!

Talked to Jon, my instructor at Helicopter Assistance, today who asked if was interested in booking some airtime. I can’t wait, need to do the bookings for January and February soon!

100 % on the Human Performance Qualifying Test, 20/20, that’s my Markus! I already signed up for the LFV test tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the last lesson with the class before our PPL(H) bridge course. We’ll do some simulated flying to summarise what we’ve learned. Need to go to bed, had no sleep last night, my son pushed me out of bed. Good night!

Horrible, almost one month since I wrote something. I’ve been far to busy on work and then had a great Christmas vacation for almost 2 weeks in the northern part of Sweden, meaning that I haven’t been in the air for a loooong time now, I’m really looking forward to speed up the theory and the flying during January to March.

Tomorrow we have QT (Qualifying tests) in Human Performance, the last subject together with the class. After that we’ll continue with the last five helicopter specific subjects during three long weekends in January and February. As I mentioned earlier it’s too much to handle besides a full time job and a family, that’s why it feels good that I’ll work part time during spring. My accumulated flight time so far is 10 hours and I’m really eager to continue flying more frequently.

Hmm….still haven’t decided how to do with the CPL theory that starts in september.

I also have to do the LFV tests in Meteorology and Navigation, it was a while since I passed the QT, need to book that!

Tip of today: I found a good blog that might be interesting for you, it’s a girl called Kristie that is describing her way to the certificate. Click here to read it!