Helicopter Dreams

I found a sneak preview movie clip showing the new Robinson R66 leaving the factory, interesting to see.

Yesterday I passed a milestone, I made my first solo flight, an awesome feeling, great! A bit weird balance in the helicopter though, huge difference in attitude when flying solo. Since I’m not that heavy I had to hover with forward cyclic. Another difference was the power, didn’t need much power at all to take off.

Here’s the evidence (poor quality from a mobile camera but anyway…)

Accumulated flight time: 20.7 hours

080626 Flight time: 1.4 hours

080625

Session 1: Autorotations
Started the day with some briefing of the day. A bit bumpy winds in the afternoon so we went out for some autorotations. Today I got the entering of the autorotation quite good. Feels like I can handle that part of the autorotation in a safe manner now. What I find a bit more tricky is to keep the RPM and speed on the way down, at the same time as you have to navigate to a proper landing spot. It went good, but it’s something that I for sure want to practise more, and I’m sure I will.

After the first session I spent some time at the office, planning the navigation trip that we did later in the evening. Shit, the calculations, was a while since I struggled with those. Had to dig way back in my head to plan my track, calculate the flight time and fuel consumption, weight & balance etc. After a couple of coffee jugs and some struggeling I had finalized my flight planning. I will never forget “The Dane with a TV in the basement” (Ha ha, nice translation…) But I’m sure you get the point. To calculate the Distance (D), Time (T) or Speed (V), just use the formula D/T*V.

What’s the distance (D): Time (T) * Speed (V)
What’s the flight time (T): Distance (D) / Speed (V)
What’s the speed (V): Distance (D) / Time (V)

After the planning I watched a safety movie from Robinson with Mr Frank Robinson him self. A really nasty movie showing how to NOT fly a helicopter. Will finalize that tomorrow with a test on the risks and hazards of flying an helicopter.

Session 2: Navigation (Bromma - Trosa - Bromma)
Ended the day with a beautiful navigation flight from Bromma airport to Troslanda. No wind and a wonderful sunset over the area. The navigation part went good, was a bit hard though to find the destination airport, a really small one. On our way we practised some spot landings and autorotations. Here’s one nice landing spot:

Shit, next time I fly this route it might be on my own. Really exiting that I soon will start flying solo!

Accumulated flight time: 19.3 hours

080625 Session 1: Flight time: 1.1 hours
080625 Session 2: Flight time: 1.6 hours

080624

Bad start of the morning, thought it was wednesday and got up early for some flying but that was wrong. Too good I had a booked session later in the afternoon, but not, too much wind so it got cancelled

Spent some time at the office trying out my brand new camera kit, a Cambike with microphone and remote, really cool. Will try it out tomorrow and maybe I can post something here soon. Have to order some cables to make it fit in a good way in the helicopter though.

A bit windy today so we decided to practice some navigation. Flew from Bromma to Gripsholm and had a great lunch nearby the Gripsholms Castle. Had to make a tricky, steep landing on a small spot close to the lake, went well though. Got lost once on our way back, got stuck in the map too long…hehe.

Accumulated flight time: 16.6 hours

080623: Flight time: 1.2 hours
080618: Flight time: 1.1 hours

Two sessions tomorrow, see’ya!

Had a great day yesterday, practicing autorotations. Same as with every other exercise, it takes a couple of times before you’re mentally prepared for the operation. Think I made it quite well. Here is my third attempt. Will tell you more later about what to think of before and during the autorotation.

Here’s a good instruction movie clip on an autorotation, turn up the volume though!

Session 1 

During the first we practiced quick-stops, simulated power failure from hover, flying with governor off. Good excercises and I think I got the most of it, a bit of fine tuning needed though.

Session 2 

During the second session we practiced navigation, flying from Västerås (ESOW) to Bromma (ESSB). Good practice since I had to navigate through some bad weather, it was hard to find good spots on the ground to navigate on. Had to fly close to some Cumulus Nimbus clouds during landing and experienced the phenomenon of strong up winds close to a Cb. It was a really strange feeling, I couldn’t descend, collective full down and I still gained altitude. The only way to descend was to make some really steep turns.

Accumulated flight time: 14.3 hours

080617: Flight time: 0.9 hours (Session 2)
080617: Flight time: 1.1 hours (Session 1)
080612: Flight time: 1.2 hours

More flying tomorrow, we’ll try to mount a camera in the helicopter so maybe I can share some of it with you, after some editing of course ;-) 

See’ya!

Last week was a good week, except for my flight lessons I started the week by flying an Robinson R44 for the first time. My instructor asked if I was interested in moving a R44 from Bromma to Västerås, about 40 minutes in the air. Not a big difference in flying the R44 from the R22 except for some small details. BUT a great difference in power, it was like flying a Porsche compared to my R22, great feeling!

Then on Thursday night I had the opportunity to join a photo session over Stockholm city in sunset. We took of from Barkarby airport at 10 PM.

Then we picked up the photographer closer to Stockholm city. Since it was a photo session we had to get rid of the doors. If you haven’t seen Stockholm from above you should try, it’s just beautiful, ok not on my pictures but anyway!

My instructor showed me some tricks of what to think about when flying during a photo session, I wonder when I will practice that… After about 1 hour we went back to Barkarby and made a quick turn over my house, waving to my neighbours who wanted to sleep, he he!

Tomorrow it’s time to practice some “quick stops” if the wind is ok, will be fun!

Accumulated flight time:  11.1 hours

Perfect conditions, almost 30 degrees celsius, a day off since it’s the Swedish national day and I was so eager to fly since my last flight was in december, JMX, my helicopter in great shape after a major maintenance, couldn’t be better. Here she is by the way.

I must admit that I was a bit nervous the first couple of minutes when we took off from Bromma airport. Same old habits during take off, too much attention on the instruments, my eyes down in the ground instead of straight forward. I reminded my self to “feel the helicopter” and all of a sudden I was back on track. We left Bromma for a fly over in Stockholm city, people all over waving flags and hanging out in the parks in the summerheat, a wonderful day for flying. Because of the heat we removed the doors, a bit strange, like flying a cab! 

Then we flew south to a field in Tullinge to practice some landings, take offs and 360 hovers, worked like a charm. As a bonus we flew to a quarry nearby for some cowboy flying, an awesome feeling.

 I was flying with a big smile on my face today, a great flight and more to come, Tuesday and Thursday next week I’ll continue my road to certification.

Yes, of course I had a great time in Canada, wonderful skiing in Whistler and Blackcomb, no heliskiing though. Rented a car with my sister and drove to the end of the world, a place called Goldbridge, northwest from Whistler. On the way there we studied two helicopters putting up poles in the forest. Told them about my interest in helicopters whereby they asked me if I wanted to come back and join them the week after, DAMN DAMN DAMN! What an opportunity, and I had to head back to Sweden the day after. Shit happens, at least I saw my first Bold Eagle. 

OK, that was 2 months ago now, what have happend with my helicopter plans since then? Pretty much nothing, ah forgot that I got two RC Helicopters on my birthday that I have smashed a couple of times, a Picco-Z and a E-sky Lama V3.

My plan was to fly as much as possible during May but then my instructor got busy and my helicopter was sent for maintenance. Now they’re both back and I’ll get back up in the air on Friday, I’m soooo eager to get up! So my new plan is to fly as much as possible in June and hopefully I can have my certificate during summer.

All for now!