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!