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Sep. 8th, 2014 11:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynHad another flight school session yesterday. Wasn't planning on it this weekend, as Saturday's weather forecast was horrific for flying, but Sunday was cool and clear and low on wind, and my instructor texted me to ask if I was interested in coming in. I figured why not. Turns out that my hovering is vastly improved by working through the process of direct pick-ups and set-downs- that is, straight vertical takeoffs and landings or near-landings. Which is good, because I was really having trouble with that. We're gonna be practicing that way for a while until I get the whole process more nailed down, but my instructor was happy enough with what I was doing to move on to more material. Mostly that meant radio work and landing practice, and getting me to make my turns shallower, since I have a tendency to try and turn more sharply than I need to. (You'd think it'd be the opposite, considering that we usually fly in an R22 with the doors off.) Some of it involved doing turns based on commands from the tower, as there were a lot of small planes in the area yesterday. Since we basically fly the slowest thing in the sky, planes get given priority for landing approaches and positions in the pattern around the airport; if a Cessna or small jet shows up wanting to land there's a good chance of getting told to turn for the base leg of my pattern early, or to-
Oh, right. Pattern terminology. Taking off from the airport to fly in the area usually involves joining a rectangular or semi-rectangular flight path, and usually they send helicopter traffic to turn in one direction and planes in another, because like I said, we're slow. (Cessna 172s, which are a pretty common small airplane, have a cruising speed of around 122 knots (for purposes of this post, a knot is 'a mile an hour plus a bit'). Robinson R22 helicopters, which are the two-person model in this icon, usually fly at around 65-70 knots. They will in fact stall at 102 knots- this is the official VNE, or 'Don't Go Faster Than This Speed'.) The part of the pattern where you take off is the departure leg or the initial leg and is generally done into the wind where possible. the first ninety degree turn you make puts you on the crosswind leg; the next ninety degree turn is onto the downwind leg, and often the tower will ask you to 'report mid-field', which is 'when you see that you are roughly even with the runway that goes across the airfield please call in and get clearance for whatever you plan on doing next'. Turn again and you're on the base leg, and your next turn puts you on the final leg. Depending on what the tower told you is okay, you may get to land or you may get the option of 'land if you want, touch and go if you want, do a practice run of 'NOPE NOPE NOPE CAN'T ACTUALLY LAND TAKING OFF AGAIN NOW' if you want'.
*cough* Anyway. We did most of the usual practice stuff yesterday, and the pickups and set-downs, and those were good. And on one of our last approaches the instructor said he was gonna show me what's involved in an autorotation, since we'd covered the fundamentals of that in ground class. An autorotation is the helicopter equivalent of a glide. You have to know how to do it in order to recover from emergencies. In a fixed-wing aircraft it may be a little less nerve-wracking, I don't know, but in a helicopter it's the kind of thing that results in an instantaneous "Jesus, Mary, and Buddha!" from me. Remember a few weeks ago when I showed you guys the freewheeling unit and said it was the part that makes you not die? Autorotations are what that part is for. The engine RPMs plummet like a brick, and you have to take the next second and a half to make sure that you, personally, do not do the same.
It was an interesting experience. I have that part marked in my notebook as 'This Is The Chapter We Don't Tell Mom About'.
Oh, right. Pattern terminology. Taking off from the airport to fly in the area usually involves joining a rectangular or semi-rectangular flight path, and usually they send helicopter traffic to turn in one direction and planes in another, because like I said, we're slow. (Cessna 172s, which are a pretty common small airplane, have a cruising speed of around 122 knots (for purposes of this post, a knot is 'a mile an hour plus a bit'). Robinson R22 helicopters, which are the two-person model in this icon, usually fly at around 65-70 knots. They will in fact stall at 102 knots- this is the official VNE, or 'Don't Go Faster Than This Speed'.) The part of the pattern where you take off is the departure leg or the initial leg and is generally done into the wind where possible. the first ninety degree turn you make puts you on the crosswind leg; the next ninety degree turn is onto the downwind leg, and often the tower will ask you to 'report mid-field', which is 'when you see that you are roughly even with the runway that goes across the airfield please call in and get clearance for whatever you plan on doing next'. Turn again and you're on the base leg, and your next turn puts you on the final leg. Depending on what the tower told you is okay, you may get to land or you may get the option of 'land if you want, touch and go if you want, do a practice run of 'NOPE NOPE NOPE CAN'T ACTUALLY LAND TAKING OFF AGAIN NOW' if you want'.
*cough* Anyway. We did most of the usual practice stuff yesterday, and the pickups and set-downs, and those were good. And on one of our last approaches the instructor said he was gonna show me what's involved in an autorotation, since we'd covered the fundamentals of that in ground class. An autorotation is the helicopter equivalent of a glide. You have to know how to do it in order to recover from emergencies. In a fixed-wing aircraft it may be a little less nerve-wracking, I don't know, but in a helicopter it's the kind of thing that results in an instantaneous "Jesus, Mary, and Buddha!" from me. Remember a few weeks ago when I showed you guys the freewheeling unit and said it was the part that makes you not die? Autorotations are what that part is for. The engine RPMs plummet like a brick, and you have to take the next second and a half to make sure that you, personally, do not do the same.
It was an interesting experience. I have that part marked in my notebook as 'This Is The Chapter We Don't Tell Mom About'.
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Date: 2014-09-08 04:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-09-08 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-09-08 11:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-09-09 01:11 pm (UTC)It's a four-cylinder engine so it's not like it's all that complicated, but it's still a little humbling to realize that the R22 is basically an engine that would not be entirely out of place in a Toyota, a couple of extra long bits, and a hell of a lot of rebar.
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Date: 2014-09-09 10:28 pm (UTC)Yes, I noticed that.
Crap in the gas is certainly bad. If my lawnmower stalls I just curse it and restart it. I don't think that approach is advisable for the R22.
no subject
Date: 2014-09-09 10:32 pm (UTC)