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First lesson today!!


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Good Afternoon All!

 

1/2 mile and 200 feet, light rain, 34 degrees, winds maybe 10 knots... R22 beta. $189.00/hr in blocks of 10 hours. $40.00/hour for the instructor.

 

I went into this first lesson after taking the King knowledge CD course in late Dec / early Jan and passed the FAA written 1/23/08. I then spent some time with Microsoft's Flight Sim flying the R22 around an airport on Kauai using pedals, joystick and throttle (reversed).

 

We did the pre-flight and then went out for 1 hour on the meter. He gave me the collective first, then the pedals, then the cyclic. Then all three at once. He let me hover around the (empty because of the weather) taxiways and we did one short loop around the pattern. I believe the X-plane really helps as the MS R22 is similar to the real one. I got to taxi the R22 back to the taxiway in front of the hanger and I have to tell you, I would have loved to keep going for another hour! The biggest problem I had at first was I kept bumping into resistance on the left pedal which turned out to be his boot protecting the pedal. My attention would come off the horizon and I would get wobbly. Once he backed off the left pedal a bit so he was not causing resistance, it stopped distracting me and thing got a lot better.

 

This helicopter flying is really the hot ticket!!! I have no interest in airplanes, but helicopters, it doesn't get any better than that! The next lesson is Wednesday if we don't get the 10" of snow they are projecting.

 

Once again, thanks to the forum for all the pointers.

Edited by Wannabe1
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1/2 mile and 200 feet, light rain, 34 degrees, winds maybe 10 knots... R22 beta. $189.00/hr in blocks of 10 hours. $40.00/hour for the instructor.

 

 

Wow, bad weather, actually great weather considering Wisconsin in February !!

 

Congratulations from an old cheesehead (Beloit).

 

Goldy

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Ya, and it caused me to go wobbly again. Little things like thinking about rotating the throttle backward from way my motorcycle works, snow plow in the distance, smiling, all can mess something up in a hurry. Once in the barn though, and all the way home...

 

 

Sounds like you had a blast! I bet you were grinning ear to ear when you had all of the controls!!
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Thanks! Beloit eh? So are you still a Go Pack guy? I am driving down from Prairie du Sac to East Troy. The wind wasn't gusting. The big storm comes in tomorrow (9-12" again).

 

Wow, bad weather, actually great weather considering Wisconsin in February !!

 

Congratulations from an old cheesehead (Beloit).

 

Goldy

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Thanks! Beloit eh? So are you still a Go Pack guy?

 

 

Actually more of a Badgers fan,,, BTW, good rates on that R22....usually at least $200 an hour plus CFI

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Ain't it a blast? The bummer part is that it gets better as you go along. KAWABUNGA DUDE !!!!!

 

Later

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Want some advice from the peanut gallery? Give up motorcycles if you're going to fly helicopters. I know of two crashes caused when motorcyclists rolled the throttle the wrong way close to the ground. You do not need to make your flight training any riskier than it is. If you keep flying/riding both you will eventually have an occasion of cranial flatulence and your hand will go the wrong way. I believe the buzzword is "muscle memory". Just my dos centavos.

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Here's an excercise you can do when watching tv...

 

Get a broom handle or equivalent and place it between the cushions on your couch so it looks like a collective. Practice the movements of the controls. When you pull up, start with the roll on of the throttle with a slight lead on the throttle, push left leg out (left pedal), pull right leg in. When you push down, do the opposite...roll off, push down, right pedal (left leg back, right leg forward).

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Good Afternoon All!

 

1/2 mile and 200 feet, light rain, 34 degrees, winds maybe 10 knots... R22 beta. $189.00/hr in blocks of 10 hours. $40.00/hour for the instructor.

 

I went into this first lesson after taking the King knowledge CD course in late Dec / early Jan and passed the FAA written 1/23/08. I then spent some time with Microsoft's X-plane flying the R22 around an airport on Kauai using pedals, joystick and throttle (reversed).

 

We did the pre-flight and then went out for 1 hour on the meter. He gave me the collective first, then the pedals, then the cyclic. Then all three at once. He let me hover around the (empty because of the weather) taxiways and we did one short loop around the pattern. I believe the X-plane really helps as the MS R22 is similar to the real one. I got to taxi the R22 back to the taxiway in front of the hanger and I have to tell you, I would have loved to keep going for another hour! The biggest problem I had at first was I kept bumping into resistance on the left pedal which turned out to be his boot protecting the pedal. My attention would come off the horizon and I would get wobbly. Once he backed off the left pedal a bit so he was not causing resistance, it stopped distracting me and thing got a lot better.

 

This helicopter flying is really the hot ticket!!! I have no interest in airplanes, but helicopters, it doesn't get any better than that! The next lesson is Wednesday if we don't get the 10" of snow they are projecting.

 

Once again, thanks to the forum for all the pointers.

 

Glad you had fun. Its easy to get hooked. When I used to instruct I would never let a student near the controls when we were close to the ground. I would only take a first lesson up on a really nice day and introduce them to the cyclic and let them get the feel of that first.

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Here's an excercise you can do when watching tv...

 

Get a broom handle or equivalent and place it between the cushions on your couch so it looks like a collective. Practice the movements of the controls. When you pull up, start with the roll on of the throttle with a slight lead on the throttle, push left leg out (left pedal), pull right leg in. When you push down, do the opposite...roll off, push down, right pedal (left leg back, right leg forward).

 

Great unless your helos have correlators. Our do, and when the governor is off and the correlator is doing the work you actually have to roll OFF the throttle a bit when you raise, and roll ON when you lower, cause the correlator is trying to do the work for you and it's overdoing it. Completely counterintuitive. If your R22s have this you may need to unlearn that throttle practicing. <_< (though not the pedal work) so it's worth finding out if they do.

 

Have fun, you're gonna love the spring!

 

HVG

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Spring? I'm not sure we are going to have a spring if we keep getting the snow we got last night. I had to detour around the BIG backup that shut down (800 cars parked on the highway overnight being keep fed, gassed etc by snowmobiles) I90 I39 south of Madison overnight to get to lesson # 2 today. Only a 2-1/2 hour drive today to get to my lesson.

The boss said we were kicking up too much snow to practice more than a couple of minutes of hover this am. Did the straight and level while maintaining speed and altitude and then did circles around a point (ski hill). A few S turns back and forth over I43.

If spring is better, than this is going to be pretty great!

 

 

Have fun, you're gonna love the spring!

 

HVG

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Okay, learning to fly a helicopter is unbelievably rewarding, but pretty frustrating at the same time. You take it personally when learning new stuff takes more than one try, nevermind when you goof up on something you should be remembering! The weather cleared up enough today (3 miles, 2000', maybe 8 kts) for lesson three, so we practiced hovering, taxi, flying takeoffs and landings and experiencing what flying the pattern means. You guys that have been doing this forever don't even think about some of the stuff a rookie wastes time thinking about in flight. Bring it up to a hover, do a clearing hover turn on the runway, do the green, fuel, lights out and heat off check, why is the instructor so quiet, means I must be forgeting something? Try not to pull pitch when pushing GENTLY forward cyclic for the take off run, get to 1300', turn back to downwind, maintain 65 and 1300, do the green, fuel, lights and heat routine again, clear all directions, listen to the boss talk on the radio (thank goodness I don't have to do that yet). Get down to 55 ish, 1100' ish, turn to final, and get that 200' per minute (think 30,30,300) decent to touch down (Now remember right pedal and down collective at touch down). The first few trys you feel the boss helping out, which means I'm messing up. Then it starts to make sense when the mental overload starts getting behind you (was that pull up on the collective as you are settling?) and you begin to think you can do this.

 

Most CFIs must be basket cases by the end of the day. My guy lets me finish the lesson with success and a smile, but he must get worn out through all the little unexpected things that seem to come up.

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Wannabe1,

I was just sitting here ready your post and laughing! It brought back memories of all the things you think about when first learing! Man there's a lot of stuff to do!

 

What's funny, is later in your career, someone will ask how you did something, and it will take you several seconds to come up with the sequence of events. I all becomes muscle memory.

 

Have fun and keep it up!

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Well, wind was 210 at 15 G19 1sm and 1900'. A storm in northern WI not scheduled to arrive until 5 or 6 hours from lesson time. We used R/W 26 for left closed traffic.

 

I am now convinced that the Microsoft Flight Sim X has helped me a bunch. I have about 20 minutes of hover time since starting (I'm just over 5 hrs now), maybe 15-20 minutes of taxi time and maybe 15-20 minutes now of hovering while getting set for a take off or some such. I did have trouble getting 180 degree turns (to look behind me for traffic) done today with the gusty winds, but basic hovering and flying the pattern just is not that tough. The boss let me run the radio today and we start on high approaches tomorrow. I am to practice them on the flight sim tonight and we both expect that to make the next lesson considerably easier than it would without the FS.

 

BTW... wind sure helps the hover taxi into the wind, but with the wind sure keeps you busy. Someone on the forum had said that the wind is your friend. I saw what he/she meant today coming in on normal approaches and running down the taxiway into the wind (although you can keep the gusts!).

Edited by Wannabe1
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I can't help it, I really enjoy going up in a helicopter! Had another lesson today; 320 degrees at 9kts, 10 miles, 1200' but cold!

 

The boss let me plan headings and time to a very distant (8 miles) airport and then taught me how to use the Garmin 150 to get there. Once there, we did some high box landings {read steep} and pattern work, then he showed me how to air taxi, quick stops and performance take offs. Can't say I did real well on the new things, but with a steady wind today, they weren't too bad. Hovering is way easier in real life than on the Sim in the R22. Right hand pattern so I got to see everything happening instead of having to look through the boss. On the way back, he demostrated an auto and power recovery. Doesn't seem to bad, certainly not as scary as I was expecting. Landing from 300' and 400' is getting pretty easy, just keep you eyes outside and stay just ahead of the shudder; pick your spot and sure enough you land on the numbers!

 

Hover (umpteen 180 degree clearing turns today, a LOT easier than in gusty winds!) back to the hanger and leave. Now up to 6 plus hours! Boss said to practice the three new things on the sim even though the pedals won't work quite the same, I was pulling collective a bit before dropping collective for the quick stops. Not every time, but the sim should break this habit.

 

Those of you holding off starting training, don't put it off. The boss said it gets busier over the summer and helicopter time is a bit harder to schedule, especially late summer.

 

I am hoping those newbes to the helicopter world (like me) find the sequence of my guys lesson plans help them get an idea of what to expect once they start.

Edited by Wannabe1
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It's funny...

 

You begin to think you are getting it, you can hover, no problem, land, pattern, straight and level, air taxi, radio stuff, quick stops etc. Then the boss says today we are going to go to 2000' and deal with settling with power and autos. Makes you feel like you know nothing again. Dang! Turns out not to be as bad as they sound, but the idea of them made me pretty nervous. The settling with power was no problem because at 2000' it is hard to get too worked up and the save is pretty easy. For autos, he doesn't make you do it all the first time, infact you pick up a pc each time down and think about it all the way back up (all the while practicing maintaining max climb speed on the way back up). So, now I'm at 9.6 hours and still look forward to flying after starting the day being tense.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I HAVE to report in on a couple of the steps in the process of getting my ticket. Wednesday of this week I went on my 3.8 hours of cross country. My first stop was a Class D airport, then a Class C, then back to non-towerer airports totaling 182 N miles. I thought that was pretty exciting. My first exposure to towers and ground control... flying into a Class C and having the tower tell me to land right on the apron in front of a restaurant in amongst the Lears and Citations (where we had a Great lunch!), taking off right from the apron again.

 

BUT, it was NOT as exciting as on Friday when, after a few straight in autos, the boss gets out, has me do a little hovering; sideways hovering, a 360 in place, backward hovering and then lets me go fly the pattern SOLO! (only got to go take off and land twice as a guy was waiting for his turn in the R22 and he has/had his checkride coming up yesterday so was pretty anxious to go) My CFI warned me that the little R22 would rock back a bit and the cyclic will not be in the same position, but you really don't realize how different the helicopter is going to feel until you go up alone. I felt tense for the first 30 seconds until I realized where the cyclic should be centered and then I discovered that it is actually easier to fly without the 210# instructor in the left seat. Now when I land I can come down and feel the back of the skids touch and then can lower a little more collective and slide the cyclic forward and I get a very smooth landing where skids level with two heavy people sometimes means a bump at touch down.

 

Now I get to fly about SOLO for the next 8 hours to various airports within a 25 mile radius this week, then we are to do 3 hours of night (full moon coming later in March, perfect!) and another shorter cross country and an identical solo cross country. I've done some interesting things over my 57 years, but this is the most interesting thing I have ever done!

 

EDIT: The guy waiting for me to get back DID pass his checkride that Saturday and is now a Private Pilot! There is hope for us all...

Edited by Wannabe1
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Congrats on the SOLO :D Your enthusiasm really shows and is enjoyable to read. Keep up the good work. It's amazing how the little R22 goes from slugish to sports car mode when the left seat is empty (at least at 7000' DA it seems that way)

Edited by Privateer
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When I used to instruct I would never let a student near the controls when we were close to the ground. I would only take a first lesson up on a really nice day and introduce them to the cyclic and let them get the feel of that first.

 

A discovery flight would have been my last flight with you. We wouldn't have even gotten to a first lesson. If I had a CFI give me nothing but cyclic, and only at altitude, in a discovery flight more less a first lesson, I'd assume at least one of the following: you lack the skill and confidence to handle students near the ground; you're more interested in your own flying than teaching someone else to fly; or you're trying to limit how much progress a students makes in each lesson so they pay for more hours.

 

Every hover, taxi, departure, approach, etc that YOU fly deprives your students the experience of doing it themselves. Your students didn't take lessons to watch YOU fly.

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Wow, bad weather, actually great weather considering Wisconsin in February !!

 

Congratulations from an old cheesehead (Beloit).

 

Goldy

 

 

Hey Goldy -

 

I have been to the Dells quite a few times. As a kid growing up lived for a few years in Belvidere, Il and we had a little place on Lake Wisconsin we would go visit on the weekends. Merrimac I think was the actual town. Wow...what memories!

 

 

Someday I will visit again !!

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HeloJunkie...

 

I live just across the river from Merrimac and a tad West nearer Prairie du Sac. My X-crountry came up from Janesville to Madison to Prairie du Sac to Baraboo to Watertown to East Troy. The Baraboo Bluffs and the WI River (Lake Wisconsin) were the best to fly over!

 

 

Hey Goldy -

 

I have been to the Dells quite a few times. As a kid growing up lived for a few years in Belvidere, Il and we had a little place on Lake Wisconsin we would go visit on the weekends. Merrimac I think was the actual town. Wow...what memories!

 

 

Someday I will visit again !!

Edited by Wannabe1
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Thank you Privateer!

 

I get kidded a bit about the R22 being an old two cycle motorcycle sitting next to a 1000cc sport bike or cruiser (insert big bike of your choice here) complete with the ringadingding sounds, but I'll tell you what, I could not have been more proud than I was when I got out of the R22 on the ramp in Madison in amoungst the big boys (remember that the air guard fly jets and big helos out the other end of Dane County Regional so my ride probably appeared especially small to the folks in the GA building and restaurant) and when I got back to the hanger at the little airport I train at, after my SOLO in the R22. As the boss said when we got to the ramp in Madison, "you can leave the keys in it if you want because I doubt there is anyone here who could steal it and fly it out of here" (I took the keys anyway). The R22 sure feels like a sports car to me. When I mention how different it was without a large passenger, non flyers seem to get a bit nervous about the whole idea of flying around in the little contraption.

 

Tom

 

 

Congrats on the SOLO :D Your enthusiasm really shows and is enjoyable to read. Keep up the good work. It's amazing how the little R22 goes from slugish to sports car mode when the left seat is empty (at least at 7000' DA it seems that way)
Edited by Wannabe1
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I think I rode in the same or very similar 47 in the Dells years ago as well! The Baraboo/Dells airport has one R44 running tours over the Dells now, but the turbine and the 47 helicopters that used to fly off the "strip" in the Dells were kicked out. I heard that the ground attractions complained too much about noise etc. Sure is a pretty area to fly over though.

 

Bill, you will REALLY like doing this! I think I even walk a little bit different now...(yukyuk) kinda a bowlegged swagger with a knowing smile don't ya know.

 

Best Regards,

Tom

 

Took my first helicopter ride in the Dells when I was a teenager in a Bell 47 and will soon pursue a career as a helicopter Pilot at the age of 44...better late then never ! Its great to read your experiences and is encouraging. Keep up the good work and keep posting.
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