I have around 8 hours of flight time now. Got my medical and student pilot's license, and I'm working hard on landings. Private pilot training can be tough, that's for sure, but I'm having fun.
We were working on slips today. That took some getting used to, especially since I didn't feel especially hot with my regular landings. But my instructor did something I really liked.
When we went up, we stayed in the pattern and immediately went in for a landing, but at a much steeper altitude. We were about 200 feet higher than normal. That meant a much steeper approach. Much MUCH steeper in fact. I didn't think it would work. How could we land like that?
He demonstrated the slip (which is really need to watch...albeit a bit scary looking) and then we went up again and I did a few myself.
Let's just say they weren't perfect. But he's a patient instructor.
But here's the part I liked. After we did a few of those we went back to normal landings and guess what? They were a piece of cake! (or at least much easier)
I landed much more confident and did a pretty good job too.
So we got on the subject of helicopter pilot training (my instructor was a helicopter pilot in a recent war) and he told me he actuall recieved ALL his training in a helicopter (initially). In other words, not helicopter flight schools, no Cessna 150 to learn the basics, just straight helicopter flying lessons and away he goes.
Now, you can't really appreciate that unless you have started to learn to fly yourself, in a plane. I could only imagine all the other aspects making it incredibly difficult to start on in a chopper.
Once I get my private pilot certificate, I might go ahead and add the rotary wing endorsement, just because I like the way helicopters look and have fond memorys as a child of watching Magnum P.I. and seeing T.C. buzz the beach.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Thursday, September 3, 2009
The First Helicopter
Aeronautical experts gathered to see if one of the strangest of flying machines would take the air. The inventor of this helicopter, Raul Pescara, a Spanish engineer, climbed into the narrow cockpit of the bar metal tubing. Above him, two giant “windmills” of eight blades each began to flail the air, while an ordinary airplane propeller at the front idled slowly. Then the craft rose bodily into the air, slowly and deliberately, as if its great weight had vanished. It dipped, and skimmed across the flying field. The helicopter was a success.
Its ability to rise straight up distinguishes a helicopter from any other type of flying machine, such as the autogiro. Because a helicopter could use a roof top or a back yard as a landing field, instead of requiring an extended area, inventors have long dreamed of perfecting a vertical-flying craft. Only after a series of heart-breaking failures was the successful Pescara craft evolved, the indomitable inventor building one craft after another.
The first Pescara helicopter, could not rise because it could only lift three fourths its own weight. A second got off the ground but was unable to balance itself in the air. Another, when flown out the hangar door, tipped over and injured its pilot.
Obviously, at this time, there wasn't anywhere to get helicopter flying lessons.
Keeping the machine upright was the problem that dogged the inventor, and he fashioned ingenious outriggers and attached them to the axles of his next craft’s landing wheels. These short poles were tipped with shock absorbing “footballs.” Pescara practiced piloting the craft until he learned to skim over the earth at the height of a foot or two, bouncing the poles off the ground with acroabatic skill whenever the craft started to tip. He held the world’s helicopter distance record of 2,414 feed made in 1924.
Recognition of Raoul Pescara’s work came in 1927 when the British government commissioned him and an associate to build a helicopter. The present machine is the result of his latest studies.
Learning to fly a helicopter can be tricky. You need to attend an aviation school that offers helicopter flying lessons.
Some of the best flight schools can be found online and hopefully there is one in your area.
If you're interested in flying a modern day helicopter, you'll need helicopter flying lessons. You can find a helicopter flight school near you, online. A helicopter flight school will help you with helicopter flying lessons, obviously.
Its ability to rise straight up distinguishes a helicopter from any other type of flying machine, such as the autogiro. Because a helicopter could use a roof top or a back yard as a landing field, instead of requiring an extended area, inventors have long dreamed of perfecting a vertical-flying craft. Only after a series of heart-breaking failures was the successful Pescara craft evolved, the indomitable inventor building one craft after another.
The first Pescara helicopter, could not rise because it could only lift three fourths its own weight. A second got off the ground but was unable to balance itself in the air. Another, when flown out the hangar door, tipped over and injured its pilot.
Obviously, at this time, there wasn't anywhere to get helicopter flying lessons.
Keeping the machine upright was the problem that dogged the inventor, and he fashioned ingenious outriggers and attached them to the axles of his next craft’s landing wheels. These short poles were tipped with shock absorbing “footballs.” Pescara practiced piloting the craft until he learned to skim over the earth at the height of a foot or two, bouncing the poles off the ground with acroabatic skill whenever the craft started to tip. He held the world’s helicopter distance record of 2,414 feed made in 1924.
Recognition of Raoul Pescara’s work came in 1927 when the British government commissioned him and an associate to build a helicopter. The present machine is the result of his latest studies.
Learning to fly a helicopter can be tricky. You need to attend an aviation school that offers helicopter flying lessons.
Some of the best flight schools can be found online and hopefully there is one in your area.
If you're interested in flying a modern day helicopter, you'll need helicopter flying lessons. You can find a helicopter flight school near you, online. A helicopter flight school will help you with helicopter flying lessons, obviously.
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