Almost scared off

So yesterday was an emotional challenge for me. I've had lots of gaps in my flights, to the point where I'm about 6 weeks behind. This is due to weather cancellations, plus my own so that I could study for my college courses. It's gotten to the point where I'm pretty demoralized about the whole thing.

Last week I was scheduled to have a flight, which my CFI quite selflessly cancelled. He knew I only had one or two more flights before my solo, but as he was leaving town to go back home for the holidays, he didn't want me to have another 1 or 2 week gap. It would defeat the purpose of flying to prepare for a solo if there was a delay, as my skills would rust. Which is still what happened, but at least now I'm only two flights from solo instead of three.

Studying for ground school had taken a back seat, as I had all that meteorology to focus on. Plus, some days I would come home from two part time jobs feeling dead tired, and I didn't have the brain cells left to concentrate on a textbook. I'm catching up on the flight theory now, but it's pretty clear it's not where it should be.

I flew with another CFI at my school yesterday, never met the guy before. I didn't schedule a ground lesson before the flight, but that's what ended up happening. I was nervous with this new instructor, as I didn't know his personality and he has a lot of power in his hands for giving me the all-clear to solo. I also choke under pressure, like when I'm asked questions and have to come up with answers. If you gave me a written test I'd probably do fine, as I'd have time to compose what I wanted to say mentally, before writing it down. This isn't the case when you have someone sitting in a chair across from you, and you're trying desperately not to flake out like a dumb blonde, but you're finding that it's happening anyway.. it's like watching your own car crash from up above. Save me save me, but I'm the one driving into the tree...

So I pretty much bombed the oral review. He also had a lot of questions about emergency procedures, which is not a chapter I had recently studied. All the words flew out of my head, I couldn't remember terms I had studied: ground resonance, dynamic rollover, mast bumping, semi-rigid and fully articulated rotor systems. Really, I know what all of these things mean, but for that hour in his office I couldn't remember the words, much less how to describe the concept. It was totally embarrassing, and not a good setup for my flight.

So out we go, and I'm doing the uneventful preflight (thank God for small mercies). Then, after I get the thing started with a jump from the line guy after the battery died, I perform the most dangerous lift off I've ever done. The instructor pointed out that I had the transponder set to the wrong setting, which I attempted to correct *after* raising the collective - big no no. We spun violently around as I tried to regain control. Then I knew the flight wouldn't be much better from the disastrous ground school session.

Then I did it again, later on in the flight! The instructor actually had to take over the controls, as we were about to rollover and hit the ground on our side. I still have no idea what happened. It was like my skid was stuck on the ground, but we were taking off from grass and there was nothing there to keep us down. To make matters worse, we were performing patterns from runway 33, which I hadn't used in months. (You take off into the wind, and on this particular day it was coming from the north instead of the usual south.) I fretted and fumbled my way through the whole flight.

There are two saving graces here. One, even though I was completely distracted by my perception of my own incompetence at the time, looking back I do feel pretty accomplished that I didn't need help flying. I did the hovers, I did the clearing turns, I did the patterns, I did the autorotations (until after the flare, which is still a problem for me). I was acting as Pilot In Command, like I had a passenger along for the ride. The instructor actually had his feet off the pedals and hands off the controls for most of the flight. If nothing else, I went from not being able to handle one control at a time to flying the whole thing in 14 hours. Which, despite it all, I'm pretty damn proud of. Later, the instructor conceded that I was "right where you're supposed to be" before a solo flight. If I can get my game together enough to answer direct questions under pressure, then I'll have the full package. Hopefully that will come with time.

I titled this post "almost scared off" because that's what it feels like to come home from a bad flight. It's interesting, on good days you think it's a piece of cake and you can't imagine ever having troubles in the future. On the bad days, you wonder why you even bother. When I got home I had to remind myself of all the somewhat successful flights I've had since September, as I felt so completely incompetent I almost wanted to walk away from the whole thing. Of course I know better, and I realize that this first rating is the hardest one of all five I'll need to be marketable. The learning curve is highest when you don't have previous experience. When you're starting from scratch you don't know what you're capable of, or what requirements you'll have to meet to accomplish the goal of earning a rating. It's a big head game. I'm definitely in one now!

pre-solo work continues

On one hand, I should have solo'd a month ago but had many delays because college coursework comes first. On the other, I have only flown 14 hours so far, so I'm doing pretty well. My solo will consist of a few patterns at the primary airport I've been training at. My instructor and I will fly a few patterns, then he'll jump out and talk to me with a hand-held radio as I try to complete a few patterns on my own, without getting the seat wet. A pattern is where you do a takeoff and landing loop. For helicopters, this means starting at one spot (in my case a field next to the airstrip), ascending to 500 feet, and make right hand turns to come back to the field, descending to a hover. In most instances, the hairiest part of the whole procedure is doing coordinated turns in a hover a few feet above the ground, checking to make sure that no airplanes are on their final approach or starting to takeoff as I get ready to depart. Hovering is definitely the most complicated flight maneuver, as you have to coordinate your hands and feet like an organist.

There are flight and knowledge competency checks before I'm allowed to solo, obviously, and here's what they consist of:

For the flight portion, I will have to master climbing and descending turns (which are done in the pattern), radio communications, hover taxi, emergency procedures like straight-in and 180 degree autorotations with power-on landings, settling with power, power failure during an above-ground hover and low rotor rpm recovery. My airport doesn't have a tower, so the radio comms are used to let other air traffic know what my intentions are.

For the knowledge portion, I'll need to have the basics down, such as FAR/AIM (the FAA bible) regulations on 4 sections, aerodynamics, engine and mechanical components, instruments, weather and atmospheric basics. This information spans 8 chapters in my textbook. This will involve answering questions that the chief CFI will throw at me, as we sit in his office for two hours... not looking forward to it.

A note on emergency procedures:

Settling with power is a situation distracted helicopter pilots can get into if they're performing a hover at altitude. You basically start a vertical sink, which is very not good. This emergency is something that is completely and entirely the pilot's fault, as no mechanical error could cause this to happen.

Flying machines need a way of landing safely if the engine goes out. For an airplane, if the engines go out it becomes a glider. An airplane is aerodynamically stable (as it wants to fly and will self-correct to make that happen), so gliding to a landing is a matter of finding the best speed for your descent, and locating a clear area in which to land. While most of the land in the US is developed, this may be harder than it seems.

However, helicopters operate differently when they loose power. You just kind of fall. The helicopter doesn't "want to fly", the mechanics are very complicated to make flight happen, but they're not entirely natural. If the rotor blades were permanently attached to the engine, then when an engine quit in flight the blades would stop spinning, and contact with the ground would happen very quickly. Instead, the freewheeling clutch unit will disengage the rotor blades from the engine if rotor revolutions exceeds engine output. This means the engine quit, but the blades can still spin. Instead of air coming in through the blades from above, now you're basically falling, so air comes up from below. This situation is simulated in training by leveling the blades and rolling off the throttle. You keep the helicopter moving forward at 55 knots, then at 50-75 feet above the ground you perform a "flare" to reduce your forward speed. Sometimes this isn't possible, in which case you would do a "running landing" onto your gear at a fast forward speed. For my solo, I need to be able to initiate an autorotation, perform the flare and do a pedal dance as I reapply power just prior to landing. It's very complicated and scary. Not the falling out of the sky part, ironically, but I get nervous after the flare when we still have a lot of forward airspeed and the ground is coming up quick!

This is a video of a full-down autorotation, in which power is not applied after the flare.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phaWRjAVnes

I have to note that there is a Russian helicopter that can't perform autorotations due to design, in which case the pilot would literally blow off the rotor system from the aircraft and use an ejector seat. The aircraft would essentially be destroyed two times.
You can see a picture of the Kamov here:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Russian_Air_Force_Kamov_Ka-50.jpg

For an example of its maneuverability, watch this vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RITbQHLLhU

The KA-50 was single-seat, the KA-52 can hold a pilot and co-pilot. The Kamov kind of moves like a boat, where the turn is initiated from the center of a craft, not the nose.

Anyway, I digress... Hopefully my next post will be post-solo!