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Always found pedals the hardest.

Follow Ericks suggestion you wont go far wrong.

Still cant get spell check to work on this site, & only on this site.

Being dyslexic is a bunner :)

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Dyslexic.....or maybe it's dylsexic... who really knows?

 

All good advice, just remember that we recognize the ship is moving before you do, and we make a smaller faster correction than you do, and then we re-center the cyclic before she starts to swing in that direction, requiring yet another larger correction.

 

Good times, I used to hate it when my CFI would reach out and put one finger on the cyclic and stop my swing into a dead hover.

 

It comes with time, so give it some. Enjoy your flights.

 

Goldy

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So, now that I am 9 hours in, I figured time for an update. Hovering is much better, not perfect but the instructor doesn't need to take over. I fight my way back to where i need to be. Goldy, my instructor pisses me off the same way.

 

Ground school is at the half way point and at least tolerable....lol

 

Doing my own take off and landings now. I do tend to either slow down too soon on my approaches or come in way too fast and have to go around. At least I figure it out on my own and the instructor is hands off.

 

We are going to be doing auto rotations as well flying without the governor this week.

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It's easy to control your speed.

 

Just look at the ground over your toes, and keep it at an apparent walking pace. From 60kt/300' it looks the same all the way to a real walking pace at a 5' hover taxi. Just be ready for the sink around 30kt as you pass through the bottom of the drag curve, when you will need to pull a little power to keep the glide angle constant - but DON'T LET THE NOSE COME UP! A secondary effect of collective, that nose rise will make you slow down even faster and drop like a rock. Don't want a "chop, drop and plop" approach. Just select and hold the hover attitude from 60kt/ 300' all the way to the actual hover. Attitude is airspeed, power is rate of descent.

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Did some flying without the gov. today. Of course also did a number of laps around the airport....lol

 

I know none of you know how well or how poorly I am flying, but is there a typical track I am on? In other words, hour 11 will be autorotation; can you tell if I am behind, ahead, or on track of the typical trainee? I don't like to fall behind in anything. I am assuming my instructor won't be advancing the lessons if I am not passing some type of standard for the previous lesson but what the hell do i know?

 

Thanks in advance

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Did some flying without the gov. today. Of course also did a number of laps around the airport....lol

 

I know none of you know how well or how poorly I am flying, but is there a typical track I am on? In other words, hour 11 will be autorotation; can you tell if I am behind, ahead, or on track of the typical trainee? I don't like to fall behind in anything. I am assuming my instructor won't be advancing the lessons if I am not passing some type of standard for the previous lesson but what the hell do i know?

 

Thanks in advance

 

You should know the desired level of performance for elements of the lesson via a walk away assignment from the previous lesson and also during a pre-brief of the lesson for the day.

 

This ensures that both you and your instructor are working as a team.

 

Demand this from your instructor and yourself. Own your training, do not be in a follow along position, act with a PIC mentality and approach every flight with a "best flight ever" mentality!

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My instructor is quite positive about my training, but that does not mean he is telling me the truth. He tells me what we are going to work on each lesson before it and reviews it with me afterward. He also states we are on a normal training schedule, I just know what a normal schedule is. It may just come from being too hard on myself and believing him because his confidence in my flying seems much higher than mine. I want perfection from my performance every flight and that just doesn't happen so it pisses me off.

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My instructor is quite positive about my training, but that does not mean he is telling me the truth. He tells me what we are going to work on each lesson before it and reviews it with me afterward. He also states we are on a normal training schedule, I just know what a normal schedule is. It may just come from being too hard on myself and believing him because his confidence in my flying seems much higher than mine. I want perfection from my performance every flight and that just doesn't happen so it pisses me off.

 

Welcome to the art of flying helicopters…..

 

I suggest, if you don’t trust your instructor, then get one you do trust. Moreover, coming to the internet to tell us about your progress is one thing. Asking the internet if your progress is normal is another…. We’re all different and learn at different rates so your question can only be answered by you and your instructor…

 

With that, concentrate on what you need to do to improve. Don’t waste time here asking for opinions (mine included). Take each lesson one step-at-a-time and build from the last. And no, in the beginning it won’t be perfect so you can rid yourself of that burden -like right now… What you are learning has a curve and a plateau, a curve and a plateau, a curve and a plateau, so-on-and-so-forth… Take a chill pill and go with it. And, trust your instructor. Why? Simply because it appears he trusts you…..

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Your progress sounds normal. Perfection eludes us. You will set increasingly high standards for yourself. Now it might be hover within a 5 foot circle. My wife likes to squash snails and that takes about 1x4 inch positioning. It will be a while before you do a set down that is imperceptible.

 

You should work for precision improvement and increase in awareness. You will have a off day and not progress. Soon the helicopter will fly by thought control. You think and the helicopter does it. What your hands and feet do becomes automatic.

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Don't worry about keeping on track for the "norms" of how long training is supposed to take. If you feel like you're making progress then all is well. As soon as you start focusing on deadlines for learning you're going to get anxious which is just going to make your flying worse. In the end, it will take as much time as it takes and it'll cost whatever it's going to cost. Try to be as prepared for every flight as you can be, make sure you're studying on the ground to minimize time spent in ground school but really that's about all you can do.

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Sounds like your flying is progressing as it should based on what you've posted. The best advice I can offer you though is to not get so focused on the flying that you neglect the ground school and home study.

 

The book work (in my experience) is the majority of learning to fly helicopters.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Have not posted in a while so here is an update. Ground school is damn near completed aside from the reviewing that will be needed until check ride time. I have about 16 hours of flight time in the air. I have however built a wooden to-scale mock working r22 cabin with instrument panel, pedals, collective, throttle, and cyclic. I have flown that chair for at least as many hours already. The time spent building was worth its weight in gold. I expect there will be a vast improvement in my flying over the next couple weeks just from increased muscle memory. At the very least, I will be an expert at autorotations and quick stops in a stationary chair very soon....lol Hope you all are having a great day and thanks for all the advice.

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I have been told to visualize what I'm going to do before doing it, this fits in with your chair flying. Do this in the helicopter as well, it does work. When I tried it, I made a beautiful approach... To a go around.

 

Short story behind that and a lesson I learned. I was having a great day, on it with the radios, weather, planning, solid airspeed and altitude, you know one of them days I was feeling like a helicopter pilot and not beating myself up well, because I was flying good. Even my instructor, who had constant suggestions (all positive, he just instructed the whole flight normally), sat quietly/BS'd about life. We had talked about how some instructors expect somewhat different approach angles for the different type of approach. E.g. One guys normal approach was another guys shallow approach etc. So as we come up to our practice airport, he tells me just visualize what you are going to do, and make it happen, not another word.

 

So, why the go around? Well even though I had listened to AWOS and knew I was going to fly a pattern for 16, I visualized flying 34, which lead me to fly the perfect approach to 34. So see, it works great, as long as you visualize the correct procedure. I caught myself as I flew past the numbers ( landing on a parallel taxiway), as I cussed my instructor for letting me go all the way to final approach without correcting me, he just said "you visualized flying 34 didn't you? "

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Maybe he didn't land at all in that particular approach. Maybe he was attempting to land with a tailwind, realized his mistake on the final approach leg, cussed out his instructor, aborted the final approach, and initiated a go around.

 

Either way, I'm guessing the point he was making has absolutely nothing to do with what constitutes a go around.

Edited by Pohi
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Ok, so I wasn't clear, let me clarify. We usually make our approaches to a parallel taxiway to stay out of the fixed wing traffic, and there are heli pads painted on the taxiway. So on final as I was parallel the numbers, I looked over and realized my mistake. That is when I initiated a go around to get in the pattern for 16. Winds were light, and I felt I could have easily made the landing, but there wasn't a need to so I opted to announce my mistake and fix it with a go around.

 

You hit the nail on the head Pohi. Sorry I was not more clear in my post all, guess I should work on my story writing skills.

 

I guess what I was trying to get across was that visualizing a maneuver can be a powerful tool, I flew the whole approach just as I had visualized it... Problem was I visualized the approach going the wrong direction, probably because that seems to be the more common pattern at this airport, at least in the afternoon (when I usually flew there), this was a morning flight, and winds were from the south.

Edited by gary-mike
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