Helicopter Flying Lessons

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.