chully Posted June 26, 2011 Report Share Posted June 26, 2011 Hi everyone, first post so be gentle with me. I'm a fixed wing pilot with about 175 hours of Cessna 150/172 time. I settled for that when, back in my youth, a rotary license seemed financially out of the question. I shouldn't have, but I digress. I've decided that I'm going to get rotary CFI/I and do what I love; I'd like some perspective on how well (or mediocre) I did on a recent R22 flight. Prior to this 0.7, I had no stick time in a helicopter of any kind. Lots of PC gaming, Microsoft Flight Sim X, etc but no real time. Around 23 minutes in I start practicing take-off, hover, drift 20 feet, land. The instructor couldn't believe I had no time but I'm slightly worried he just tells that to every prospective student hehe. Thanks, appreciate the input, video is here: 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lelebebbel Posted June 28, 2011 Report Share Posted June 28, 2011 It is fairly unusual for students with 0 time to be able to hold a half decent hover, let alone take off or land on their first flight. I've seen it a few times, both with former fixed wing pilots and with people starting from scratch, but it is certainly not normal. At least if the instructor wasn't "helping" you on the controls. So he is probably honestly surprised. This is a pretty good sign and will *possibly* save you a few hours of training time if you decide to get a (H) license. Be aware though that it is impossible to predict how quickly you will learn after just a trial flight. Some people take 10 hours before they can hover, but fly through the rest of the syllabus. Others can hover immediately, then take forever to learn approaches or autorotations and so on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chully Posted June 28, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 28, 2011 I don't think he was helping me; in the first twenty minutes the aircraft got away from me 4-5 times and he'd step in and get me corrected. We flew a single pattern with him performing the take-off and climb, I flew the cross, downwind and base without losing more than 50 feet. He also commented that I was adding collective (instinctively) correctly during turns, but that comes from fixed wing flight I think more than anything. I handled the approach speed, maintained a 200-300 fpm descent and deceleration to hover and landed. Anyway, thanks for the input.. I guess it helps me feel better about trusting this guy. Thanks again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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