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I've been pretty fortunate to be learning helicopter flying in decent weather. It's been in the 70's F for most of my 11 or 12 flight lessons. All it takes is a 10 knt wind to really throw you for a loop. Literally. I can't imagine what it might be like in a larger bird fighting fires. At least not yet.
I'm doing all the set downs and lift offs these days -- not pretty yet but I can do it. I'm pretty sure that if I had to (my instructor was unconcious or some other emg) I could lift off, take off, fly to a destination, and set it down reasonably well provided the weather was calm. But boy that wind.
I was watching a student today with about twice my hours attempting to set it down with a 13 kt tailwind and he was fighting it.
Made me feel a whole lot better about my struggles with it. But we probably need to be able to set it down with a tailwind on the checkride.
I'm doing all the set downs and lift offs these days -- not pretty yet but I can do it. I'm pretty sure that if I had to (my instructor was unconcious or some other emg) I could lift off, take off, fly to a destination, and set it down reasonably well provided the weather was calm. But boy that wind.
I was watching a student today with about twice my hours attempting to set it down with a 13 kt tailwind and he was fighting it.
Made me feel a whole lot better about my struggles with it. But we probably need to be able to set it down with a tailwind on the checkride.
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SF Bay Area
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Re: Windy landings
Thu, October 6, 2005 - 9:32 AMSounds like you've been comming along nicely. If you can, the mornings are typically alot calmer so you shoud try to come in then. You might be able to hone your technique as opposed to fighting the wind. Not that training in windy conditions is a bad thing. But if your always fighting the wind it will be hard to get a sense of what your supposed to do.
Keep up the good work, -
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Re: Windy landings
Wed, October 12, 2005 - 9:56 PMThanks. I can pretty much hover pretty well now, even with some good wind. It isn't always pretty but I can control it and keep it there. I can lift off the ground, set it down, pedal turn in both directions, hover taxi, take off, fly straight & level, turn, do rapid descent with power. I seem to be able to do autorotations okay but I want to flare too early. I get a bit lost on patterns but I've had only about 4 or 5 flights about an hour or so each and many different patterns at 3 different airports.
I only have about 18 or 19 total hours flying so I guess I'm doing okay. I'm having a bit of trouble on my final approaches. I either approach too shallow and too slow or too high and too fast. And of course I'm making little mistakes constantly that my instructor is hammering me with. RPMs a bit too low or too high, climbing creep when trying to maintain a constant altitude, not checking the carb temp or other guages regularly. He popped the instrument breaker at 2000 ft and it took me a while to notice that the fuel guage said Empty, the carb heat was super cold, etc. He hasn't chopped the throttle yet though but its coming.
Thanks for the support, guys.
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