She's Baaaaaack!

[AkAr]

You just see it that way, toots. It's because you chicks are toxically defensive these days. Everything anyone says is offensive or sexist. You know how much I respect women? I don't even hold doors open for them anymore. I used to, but one called me a dirty name (something about my mother, rest her soul) and threatened to sue me if I didn't treat her as an equal.

 

Oh, and about being ign'ant: Sweetie, I learned to fly back in the 1970's, prior to the invention of the magical R-22 in which pilots now had to become familiar with terms like "flapback" and "over-pitching"...before we became so paranoid of LTE/VRS/SWP etc that we could barely take-off without a session with a grief counselor first. In my day, men learned to fly manly helicopters like the Bell 47. Women were tolerated, but few were taken seriously because none seemed to have the dedication to the craft. Or something. What do I look like, a psychologist? Plus, they'd start off as a copilot somewhere and within three weeks they'd be Chief Pilot - not because of their stellar flying or managerial skills, but because of their, well...you know...other attributes.

So much compensation for so many insecurities 😂🤣

[flylow]

I actually watched one of her videos yesterday, before reading this thread today. I too noticed the lack of checklist and no power check, and her improper radio calls at the airport drove me nuts. I give her credit for going to get some training though, before her 135 ride.

[Nearly Retired]

Flylow:

"I give her credit for going to get some training though, before her 135 ride."

 

 

Yeah, but... Without nitpicking that video to death, I do have a comment or two. In it, she seemed awfully nervous about doing 180 autos for some reason. Her bearded, man-bunned instructor (whom she hired to dry cherries with her and so had a vested interest in not pissing her off) kept kissing her butt, telling her how great her autos were, even though *none* of them even came close to hitting the spot - not even the straight-ins. Well...maybe the last one did, at which point she quit while she was ahead instead of doing another just to see if that one was a fluke. In the words of John Wayne, "Nobody likes a quitter, son,"...words that kept echoing in my mind when I was trying to stop smoking last year. But anyway...

 

Also, she seemed obsessively focused inside on the airspeed and tach when her eyes should have been outside the cockpit. I don't think she turned her head to look over her shoulder at her spot even once. I'll have to go back and watch it to verify that. But in any event, you can't be looking out thisaway when the spot you want to land on is back thataway, behind you.

 

It just reinforces my belief that when faced with an actual emergency, most helicopter pilots will just land straight ahead - that's their default. If they are consciously or sub-consciously anxious about 180's, then they won't do one when the poop hits the advancing blade no matter where the wind is coming from.

 

In the video, she kept overshooting the turn-to-final and flying out over the runway instead of lining up on the parallel taxiway. Hey, here's a hint: If you see that happen once, next time don't fly your downwind so close to the taxiway you're shooting for. Move out a bit...get some more airspeed...give yourself some time.

 

Now, look. It may seem awfully critical to be doing this, but I give this pilot a lot of credit for putting her videos up. That takes guts. Because you just KNOW that some smartass like me is going to sharpshoot the things to death. Hey, I wouldn't want a camera in my cockpit, recording every little thing I do wrong.

 

But we can use these videos, not just to make fun of another pilot, but as learning experiences. Because at the end of the day, we all just want to be the best pilot we can be, right? None of us is perfect. No, not even me. There was only one perfect person ever on this earth, and that was a guy called Jesus H. Christ, a name that was often invoked by my poor, long-suffering CFI's when I was learning how to fly. As in (after my feeble attempt at a normal approach), "JESUS H. CHRIST, Bob! That was awful! Don't you have some sort of musical talent or woodworking skills that you could exploit and make a career of? Do you HAVE to be a helicopter pilot? Because I'm just not feeling it."

 

Sadly, I can barely bang out three chords on a guitar, and I just about sawed my hand off trying to replace a doorknob in my house the other day. (Who knew you don't need a saw for that job!) So I persevered anyway with this flying thing.

 

I keep coming back to this: If you're going to put up a video of yourself flying on YouTube, don't give the FAA anything with which to violate you. I bet most FSDO inspectors are so bored that they spend their days at their desks watching YouTube videos.

 

Here's a good example: There's a kid named Matt Guthmiller. He's gotten to do some awesome flights that he's documented on his YouTube channel. He did the Atlantic crossing portion of a 'round-the-world flight two guys named JP and Louis did in a Cessna 210. Anyway, Matt happens to be friends with another guy who recently put a Beechcraft Bonanza down in Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco in California after an engine failure. (Matt kept calling it a "new" Bonanza but it turns out that it was a 1979 model - hardly new.)

 

Matt interviewed the pilot and recorded it for YouTube. In the video, the pilot admits that during preflight he got some contamination in his fuel and he had to sump the tanks *five times* before getting a clear sample. Five times?! Water is one thing, but if you've got particle contamination and it takes *five* attempts to get a "good enough" sample, I think I'd be looking for the source of the particles before proceeding any further. I mean, what's deteriorating?

 

So you know the FAA is going to be looking closely at the cause of the engine failure, with particular (get the pun?) attention to the pilot's statement that he got some fuel contamination on preflight. Me, personally? I wouldn't have said jack-squat about my fuel samples. Why even risk that something like that could be turned around on you?

 

FAA Inspector: "Soooooo...we saw a YouTube video in which you say that you suspect that you may have gotten some contaminated fuel, and you got solid particles in five successive fuel samples, but you took off anyway? Do you really think that was prudent?"

 

Me (doing my best Jackie Gleason impersonation): "Ahhhhh...hommina-hommina…"

 

This is why I'll never have a YouTube channel ;-)

[flylow]

Sure, as a CFII I could nit-pick that flight all over the place also, but I see it all the time. The only time many pilots do any auto or other emergency training is when they come for their flight review. So at least she's getting some refresher (which is necessary if she's to pass the 135 ride). And yes, after a half dozen or so shown autos, she thought (as do many others) she was good enough, even though none of them were all that great. That's on her/them. If its good enough to pass the ride and hopefully walk away safely in case of a real auto, then "good enough" may indeed be good enough. But yeah... use and comply with a checklist, do a power check, do proper radio calls, get regular adequate training...

[r22butters]

You wanna stay decent at autos without actually doing them regularly? Just practice in your living room,...and not that armchair crap, I mean actually pacing it out, turning left, turning right, moving your hands as if on the controls and visualizing the maneuvering.

 

I do it every so often. Paid off a few days ago when I was doing forced landings in the 22 for the first time in almost two years. Didn't do any straight-ins though,...sorry:(

 

As for the elusive hover check? No one on youtube does those. It makes me want to make my own youtube video just to show the internet that we're not all lazy schmucks, but I guess I waited too long:(

 

,...I miss flying to Half Moon Bay:(

[Nearly Retired]

Butters, you and 'flylow' are exactly right: It's good to practice EP's periodically and not wait until the day before a checkride before doing some autos. Plus, autos shouldn't be as scary as the possibility of a second term for President Trump. If you fly a single-engine helicopter, you better be comfortable with them.

 

As for hover checks... None, and I mean *NONE* of my (mostly ex-Army) instructors would ever have let me initiate a takeoff from a hover without first checking to see what the hover power was. Out in the GOM, you got really good at checking that hover power *before* committing to going over the side of the oil platform.

 

It does not take long - or it shouldn't take long to do the check. A second..maybe two, tops. You¹ -can- hover a helicopter without it taking 110% of your available concentration, right? You know where the power gauge (torque or MP) is, right? And your eye can go right to it without a lot of searching, right? So you lift to a stabilized hover, glance at the MP and maybe over at the oil pressure one last time, and then initiate the departure process. Once it becomes a habit it takes no time or effort at all.

 

It is truly astonishing to me to see how few pilots do this... And how many pilots pay so little attention to their environment during the takeoff. And I've flown with a lot of pilots in my time! Some are scarcely cognizant of where the wind is coming from. Some don't even start checking the power being pulled until well into the climb-out when the limits become critical. ...Unless they're really heavy, of course. Only then do they start worrying about the power ahead of time. At other times they just don't care, as if it doesn't matter.

 

Looking back on my (mostly uneventful) career, I have had some butt-clenching experiences. And I'm not talking about the time I had Richard Simmons as a charter passenger, either. And it is from those experiences we learn and thus keep on living. So practice thy autos...check thy hover power...and for God's sake don't fly low over people's houses.

 

1. We're using the colloquial term "you" here, meaning helicopter pilots in general, not specifically *you*, butters.

Edited August 23, 2019 by Nearly Retired

[Chewberta]

I agree with the nearly retired gentleman whos got more hours in the air than Im old, some videos are sanctionable if intended to be instructive. My belief is that YT helicopter videos are merely entertainment and have, do not have and should not have any instructional purposes. We understand and see the flaws because we are pilots, enthusiasts or generally interested in rotor-flight. The vast majority of viewers have no idea what they are looking at and do not care. These are at best demonstrative examples of what helicopter flight looks like not what it should be. To be clear if any PILOT worth their certificates draws any educational resource from YouTube flight videos, they should warn others as to allow us to stay clear from their flight path.

[mudkow60]

To be clear if any PILOT worth their certificates draws any educational resource from YouTube flight videos, they should warn others as to allow us to stay clear from their flight path.

I call BS on the above post. Bell came and did autos in our Huey's with us. They pointed to some old YouTube videos about auto-rotations that had lots of useful and informative facts and tips.

 

Just because it is on the internet, and YouTube does not make it false, not helpful, or whatever you call them.

[Chewberta]

If you can make sense of what you tube videos make available it denotes prior training that allows you to discern value info from trash.

Your training comes from elsewhere otherwise how could you know what to listen to and what to label as BS. The meaning I give to flight videos is those that relate to the topic of this thread

[Nearly Retired]

No, no, Chewie - you have to understand that while YouTube may not actualy publish videos that are deemed "instructional," there are many such examples on the channel. But even the crappy, "not-officially-instructional" videos do provide information that may certainly be instructive.

 

I think YouTube is great!

 

My Volkswagen Jetta TDI has a cartridge-type oil filter that goes in from the top of the engine. Before performing an oil change on the car, I looked on YT to see if there was an instructional video. There were plenty of them! I saw what tools I'd need (more than you'd think!) and the proper way to do the procedure, as well as Volkswagen's extremely specific oil to use in their diesels. No, not just any diesel oil will do! So when I went to change the oil it took, like, no time at all compared to what it *would* have taken if I hadn't watched the video.

 

Friend of mine wanted to do a front brake job on his Pontiac Vibe. He'd never done anything mechanical like that in his life. What did he do? Looked up the procedure on YouTube - and don't you know there was one! He pulled it into my driveway and I handed him the tools he needed, then stood around with my hands in my pockets, which is my preferred way of working on cars/motorcycles/airplanes. True, it took my friend about four times as long as it would've taken me, but the point is that he got it done and now has a tremendous sense of pride in doing the job properly. ...From something he learned on YouTube.

 

So while YouTube might not be my first choice for searching out flight instruction videos, it doesn't mean you can't find some.

 

On the other hand... There is a guy who flies his own private business jet around. Really popular channel, and his videos are extremely well done. Well, one day he waas returning to his home base, an uncontrolled field. He was approaching from the non-pattern side, and elected to make a right-base entry to final. I called him out on it in the Comments, saying that the FAR's kind of specify that turns in the traffic pattern WILL be made to the left, not the right. He replied that since nobody else was on the radio in the pattern (at that uncontrolled field!) then he felt that the right-base entry was a safe procedure. Nevermind that there might have been someone at the field who didn't have a radio. Hmm...

 

And then! I watched a YouTube video put up by a young pilot who flies around in his own sophisticated, high-performance airplane. He often films the flights and then publishes them on his channel. They are usually pretty entertaining.

 

In one of this videos, he's on an instrument approach and - kind of - slightly messes up one portion of it. No harm/no foul, but the controller calls him out on it. Okay, we all make mistakes, right?

 

The kid's bigger mistake was leaving it in the video. Holy cow, he got hammered in the Comments section! Everyone from student pilots to airline captains piled on this kid. I mean, they ripped him a new one, calling him every name in the book, and claiming that no future airline would *ever* hire him based on this video and that he should give up flying altogether. It. Was. Brutal.

 

So yes, YouTube is primarily an entertainment channel. But that doesn't mean you can't find some nuggets of good info among the dross. Sometimes the best lesson we get from a video is how not to do something ;-)

[r22butters]

Yeah, at least 99.999% of all this whole social media fad is like angry birds.

 

,...its just something to pass the time while pooping.

[Nearly Retired]

...To your credit, you occasionally contribute useful, experience-based information, but your editorializing is absolute garbage, just like hers, and you should be embarrassed by the boarish drivel you've posted in this thread.

 

Should be...maybe...but I'm not. I stand by everything I've written - the serious stuff and the jokes. (Wait - there were jokes?) Sorry if that offends you, ma'am.

The internet fosters and promotes negativity. It encourages it! Someone makes a post - you almost never hear a bunch of people responding, "Yeah, right on, great idea, man! You're so right!" Oh no. What usually happens is a chorus of contrariness. People get called idiots and much worse by those who disagree. And EVERYONE disagrees. Same with this gal, terminal_velo. I guess she's entitled to her opinion though.

As for my editorializing being "garbage," let me tell you something, sweetie. I don't always agree with the editorial printed in my local paper. I don't always agree with the editorials I hear on the radio or see on TV or online. (I mean, the insufferable Tomi Lahren...puh-LEEEZE kill me.) But I don't go to them and tell them that their editorializing is garbage. Because you know what they'd say? "Thank you for calling! Your call is very important to us. And thank you for your input. Now please go screw yourself." Why? Because my opinion does not matter to them. And so this is what I say to you, Terminal_velo: Please go screw yourself. If you don't like my crap, don't read it. When you click on a thread started by "Nearly Retarded," you know exactly what your'e going to get.

So zip it. Your opinion matters not one bit. On a scale of importance, your opinion is worth less than the amount of Cherokee Indian ancestry that Elizabeth Warren has in her blood. Which is zero. You opinion matters as much as crazy Uncle Bernie's chances of winning the presidency in 2020. Which is, again, zero.

Or perhaps you have an opposing viewpoint? I'm open to discussion on which parts of my editorializing you think are "garbage" or "boarish drivel." But no, you probably do like all the other internet warriors and make your snide comment and then turn and flee before you get challenged by a response. You run away like a little girl, one hand holding your bonnet on, and your sundress flapping in the breeze of your rapid departure.

For what it's worth, I never claimed that this woman and I were any different. We're both "public figures" of sorts in that we both have blogs and so we're open to criticism. My blog even has my name on it in big, bold letters, not some cryptic title like "A Decrepit Mind" or whatever. (Me, I don't have a YouTube channel though, obviously.) I have not banned this woman from commenting on my blog, although she has absolutely banned me from commenting on hers. I have an appropriately thick skin. All seven layers are tough as leather. Layers one, two, and three are "pretty tough," but oh man, my fourth is super tough! Yep, I've got a really nice fourthskin, let me tell you! And the fifth, sixth, and seventh are virtually bulletproof.

 

Oh, and nice one mentioning this woman's name in the thread, by the way. Because it'll surely get your post deleted...and maybe the whole thread. Was that intentional? Was that your diabolical plan, missy? I know, I know, there were links to her videos in which her name is revealed, and it was never a big, state secret worthy of a two-year Mueller investigation as to who she is, but out of the utmost respect and admiration, most of us were pretty careful to not dox her in the text of our posts.

 

Until you came along. So thanks for that!

Edited August 25, 2019 by Nearly Retired

[mudkow60]

Flylow:

 

 

Yeah, but... Without nitpicking that video to death, I do have a comment or two. In it, she seemed awfully nervous about doing 180 autos for some reason. Her bearded, man-bunned instructor (whom she hired to dry cherries with her and so had a vested interest in not pissing her off) kept kissing her butt, telling her how great her autos were, even though *none* of them even came close to hitting the spot - not even the straight-ins. Well...maybe the last one did, at which point she quit while she was ahead instead of doing another just to see if that one was a fluke. In the words of John Wayne, "Nobody likes a quitter, son,"...words that kept echoing in my mind when I was trying to stop smoking last year. But anyway...

 

Also, she seemed obsessively focused inside on the airspeed and tach when her eyes should have been outside the cockpit. I don't think she turned her head to look over her shoulder at her spot even once. I'll have to go back and watch it to verify that. But in any event, you can't be looking out thisaway when the spot you want to land on is back thataway, behind you.

 

It just reinforces my belief that when faced with an actual emergency, most helicopter pilots will just land straight ahead - that's their default. If they are consciously or sub-consciously anxious about 180's, then they won't do one when the poop hits the advancing blade no matter where the wind is coming from.

 

I

 

 

Good stuff. Night autos on NVG's in the big Bell's were an eye opener! If you took your eyes off your intended spot, even for an instant, it was gone, and so were your chances of making it with an even marginally proficient auto.

Edited August 25, 2019 by mudkow60

[Nearly Retired]

EDIT for those of you who've inexplicably been following along:

 

In this post I mention another post, #36, which *had* been by a gal named "terminal_velo." In it, she divulged the name of the pilot this thread is about. She didn't have to. Anyway, that post was removed and now post #36 is attributed to butters, and it does not violate the TOS.

 

terminal_velo's post was snarky and fairly insulting, both to the subject of this thread and to me. I quoted a small part of it in my post #37. With that in mind...

 

 

May I elaborate on one more point? You know how much I like to hear the sound of my own written words...

 

Over on the "original" forum, some nitwit claimed that this person who is the subject of this thread had been named. Not true! Up until Nitwit #2 (terminal_velo) mentioned it the other day, we all had scrupulously avoided mentioning this person by name. Yes, there were links to some videos, but that's not the same. Here's why.

 

If you Google someone, many results are returned. If this person's name is mentioned in any of these posts, then if someone Googled this person, there's a chance that this thread might show up. A potential client or customer, in doing their research, might stumble upon this thread and go, "Holy cow!"

 

Now, I'm a lot of things, but I'm not an a-hole. I may disagree with someone as a pilot, but I don't want to hurt anyone financially. Sadly, not all helicopter pilots feel the same way. Some will gleefully stab someone else in the back to get them in trouble. (Like someone did to me a while back - which didn't work.)

 

It was hardly necessary, at this point, to mention this person by name. I'm sure that in post #36, terminal_velo knew exactly what she was doing.

Edited August 26, 2019 by Nearly Retired

[r22butters]

Is it just me,...or has the Ministry of Truth done some editing to this thread?

[Nearly Retired]

Actions have consequences.

[adam32]

I finally watched the videos...and I'm not an expert, but after analyzing them from beginning to end, I cannot say anything because as I said in the beginning, I'm not an expert.

[mudkow60]

I finally watched the videos...and I'm not an expert, but after analyzing them from beginning to end, I cannot say anything because as I said in the beginning, I'm not an expert.

 

 

You just said... er... typed something. Very insightful, too.

[r22butters]

Well I'm no expert either, but I did stay at Holiday Inn Express last night so,...

 

Do a damn hover check lady!

[SBuzzkill]

Edited.

Edited August 28, 2019 by SBuzzkill

[adam32]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y59n26JZ4EI

 

Awful excuse for flying over the top of all the RVs, especially with the clear area 100 feet to her left.

 

Seriously tho...what's with all the denim?!?!?!?!?!

[Nearly Retired]

I sincerely did not want this thread to turn into one in which everyone jumps on a bandwagon to bash and humiliate the person who's the subject of my original post. Believe it or not, I was merely trying to make the point (albeit snidely and snarkily) that if you're going to publish videos on YouTube, then you really ought to have your sh*t together and not do things that make Safety Nazis cringe. You might say that my original intent was less about "safety" and more about making a personal attack on somebody. And there's probably some truth to that. As I said, I don't like the person who puts up the videos. That is no secret.

 

I may not like her, but on the other hand I don't hate her. I could make comments on all of her videos, either here or in the YouTube Comments section. But what would that accomplish other than make look like I've got a version of TDS (MLDS)? I've got better things to do with my life.

 

Let's bring it back to basics: I don't care if you actually pull out a printed checklist when you fly. But please, at least do some sort of pre-takeoff check to make sure things are copacetic - that the aircraft is operating properly, you've got the throttle opened to the right position and you have enough fuel to do the job. Please glance at the power gauge when you lift off to a stable hover before yanking the collective up and getting outta there like you're driving the getaway copter for some ne'er-do-wells who just robbed a bank. Please, please give some thought once in a while to the wind and where it might be coming from. And please, please, please don't fly low over people's houses if you don't have to.

 

That's my point. It's really that simple.

[r22butters]

Ah' don't sweat it Bob, there's enough love in her comments section to over shadow any hate dislike from the small handful of nobody's in this obscure place,...hell, like most in the real world, she's probably never even heard of VR.

 

Anyway, you should be proud! You inspired almost 50 posts plus a visit from the Ministry of Truth, that's more action than this place has seen in a loooong time!

[MLH]

CHECKLIST

 

1) Turn off iPad.

 

Another sexist NTSB report.

 

https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/ReportGeneratorFile.ashx?EventID=20180226X31732&AKey=1&RType=HTML&IType=CA

[AkAr]

That's my point. It's really that simple.

 

 

It's too bad it gets completely lost in the woman-hating. Compare your first post in this thread to your posts about the Augusta crashing in NYC or the Hudson River LTE incident, for example. How many times do you reference the gender of the pilot? In the Augusta thread there may be one but then everywhere else it's "the pilot". In the LTE thread there are a few in an early paragraph and then it's "the 206 pilot". In your first post in this thread you reference the pilot's gender 13 times in the first paragraph alone and then continue to refer to the pilot as "this woman".

 

Why do you think you write differently about a female pilot than you do about a male pilot? The difference is objectively visible.

Edited August 28, 2019 by AkAr