flight lessons

A place to have your say and ask your questions on anything in the Helicopter learning environment.
Gasket18
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flight lessons

Postby Gasket18 » Fri Oct 1 2021, 09:57

Well it's finally happened. I'm starting to fly. 2 lessons so far this week. 1 was effects of control and today was good ol change of altitude, speed and doing them together without altering the other. All going quite well. Apart from the famous 15 mins at end of each lesson having a crack at hovering. Such respect for CFI's cos I get all sorts of out of shape and boom brings it back. Hopefully one day it'll click. Training in the cabri g2 then I'll be doing R44 towards the end. How good is it :D
Gunga Din
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Re: flight lessons

Postby Gunga Din » Fri Oct 1 2021, 10:49

Good onya Gasket, flying a chopper is a hoot.

Your instructor will drill into you the following:

Power + Attitude + Balance = Performance

Set a known power, set a known attitude, stay in balance, and you will get the desired performance. If the performance isn't right, then one of the three on the left is not correct.

Attitude = airspeed
Power = rate of descent (or, if enough power is used, you get level flight, or if more power is used, a climb.)

In the hover, the priorities are:
Make it POINT (pedals)
Keep attitude FLAT (cyclic)
Lastly, Fix the height. (collective) Doesn't matter if you get a bit high, you can't hit the ground up there. And when you get REALLY close to the ground, you will jerk the lever up and whistle up to flight levels.

The most important in the hover is the use of the pedals to make it point where you want it. If you allow the nose to wander, you will get the secondary effects changing the hover attitude. In the initial stages of learning to hover, staying over one spot is not important. Setting the attitude to control the speed will fix things - you will soon learn to slow down the movement over the ground and finally stop it, but only after you have learned to make it point and keep the attitude flat.

Have fun!
Arm, arm, I Gunga Din, the door slockt.
Gasket18
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Re: flight lessons

Postby Gasket18 » Sat Oct 23 2021, 10:34

Cheers Gunga. Well I'm up to about 9 hours now. Just did transitions last lesson. Sadly my hovering isn't that flash. I am to stiff on controls and having lots of troubles with the pedals. Think I might be jamming left foot on there a bit which causes the pedals to feel stuck. I try and be gentle on them but during hover it usually means I've let the nose move to far. I'm kind of managing to stay in a relatively small area hovering. It's ablast just wish I'd relax and that it would all of a sudden come to me. One day I guess
:lol:
Gunga Din
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Re: flight lessons

Postby Gunga Din » Sat Oct 23 2021, 23:47

Good to see the hours building. The key to pedals is toe pressure. Keep your heels on the floor, just squeeze with toes.

Get your instructor to operate the cyclic and collective, and you are just on the pedals. Make it point, then move to a different target on the horizon, keep it between your toes. Rinse and repeat. Then, starting into wind, S-l-o-w-l-y turn through 360. You will be fighting the wind for the first 90, then it will get easier to turn - but control the rate, keep it constant. As you get to the 180 position, it will want to whip around - to keep the turn constant you will probably be using the opposite pedal, but that's fine.

Once you can control the rate around a 360, keep the nose pointed at some object while the instructor moves the aircraft sideways, backwards, up and down, all inducing secondary effects that you must control with the pedals. Get him to slowly land it and pick it up again, over and over. With time, it will become natural, you want to nose to move, it will move. You want it to stop, it will stop.

Then take control of pedals and collective, with instructor holding position with cyclic. Do the turns, do the landings and pickups.

Then cyclic only, learning to look way out front at the attitude - not down at your toes at that blade of grass.

Solo will come somewhere after 20 hours, with your confidence and abilities much improved over what you feel now.
Arm, arm, I Gunga Din, the door slockt.
godfather007
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Re: flight lessons

Postby godfather007 » Sun Oct 24 2021, 09:28

All great advice.
Own it.
Be the boss.
BTW, well done!!
There is always an option.
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Chang739
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Re: flight lessons

Postby Chang739 » Mon Oct 25 2021, 04:38

For cyclic practice, balance a pool cue or golf club in the middle of your up-facing palm. Will help teach gentle micro-movements with your big arm muscles. Should only be using wrist and fingers for cyclic anyway, but it doesn't hurt to teach the rest of the arm how to be gentle :wink:
Gunga Din
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Re: flight lessons

Postby Gunga Din » Mon Oct 25 2021, 21:01

Welll...actually your arm should be resting on your right leg, and only wrist and fingers to move cyclic. Your instructor should be able to demonstrate flying the cyclic with just one fingertip.

However, the pool cue analogy does have one good point - when it is balanced on your palm, and you are looking at your hand, the cue will whack you on the head. Look at the tip and keep it steady - this is your hover attitude, and if it moves - FIX IT - before the machine has time to follow. The bad bit about the pool cue thing is that your palm will make BIG movements to keep the tip steady, which is not what you do with the cyclic.

Attitude is instant. Performance takes time.
Arm, arm, I Gunga Din, the door slockt.
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skypig
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Re: flight lessons

Postby skypig » Mon Oct 25 2021, 22:45

The only thing better than seeing the “change” in attitude early, so you can respond to it, is anticipating the change.
This is especially important with power changes and the corresponding yaw.

“Dry practice” - Sitting in a chair and moving your collective arm and pedal feet in unison is often time well spent. (Small, realistic and co-ordinated moves.)
Later in your career this can also be helpful practicing ME “profiles”. “Nose down to 12 degrees, 25kts GS - nose up to 5 degrees…..”
spcrewie
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Re: flight lessons

Postby spcrewie » Wed Oct 27 2021, 20:45

Congratulations mate on making the jump into training. Seems like a lifetime ago now that I did my training (even a lifetime ago since I was instructing) but I can still remember that feeling of excitement well. I can't add much more than the good advice that's been posted already but I always found if I noticed I was getting stiff on the controls (which everyone does! You're not alone there) I would wiggle my fingers and toes which helps your arms and legs relax a bit. It eventually becomes a habit and I think I still do it without thinking about it to this day. It's just something that takes time and patience but one day it will just click all of a sudden. One of my instructing tools I used to use if a student was stiff on the controls and struggling to hover was to ask them some questions that they had to think a lot about whilst hovering. As soon as they got to thinking about something else, the hover would become much steadier.
Keep at it and enjoy every moment.
If you haven't already, get into the theory and exams. It's very easy to get sucked in by the flying and before you know it, you're ready for your test but still have exams to do!

Have fun!
Gasket18
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Re: flight lessons

Postby Gasket18 » Sat Oct 30 2021, 20:42

Cheers all very cool things in there. Exams, well I did all my exams first. I figured best way was to go thru in order due to my age and being dyslexic. So if I sadly failed something wouldn't be 10s of thousands into flying already. So I did my physical, then asic then self studied and now flying. So doing my KDR's whilst flying now. With regards to stiffness, I do constantly move my fingers and it turns out I'm now like rolling my feet. Think I was focusing on not pushing the pedals, but think its left me taking toes off opposite pedal I'm pushing which then lets my foot slide up. (well think this is the issue so still working on it) So the pedals cause me all my issues. I do rest my arm on leg and try to only use wrist on cyclic but still feel it tensing up, it is getting better tho. Cyclic is to far away from me to be able to reference my fingers on anything, I've just worked out last couple of lessons that If I jam my elbow into my side I have better chance of feeling the slight movement in the collective. flying the G2 for training and it has a big tendancy for collective to go down, which until I scan instruments I wasn't noticing, It is all slowly coming together now tho. I can wobble in a relatively small area now. My lift offs are good, my touchdowns are a bit iffy those last say 300mm I start getting a bit all over the place. Can get a bit quick on collective att aht point. It is getting better like everything else tho. Had my first auto lesson last week, that was so much fun. Tho chickened out at the bottom a bit and pulled collective a touch to early.
Gasket18
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Re: flight lessons

Postby Gasket18 » Sat Oct 30 2021, 20:47

Oh and on dry practice. Yeah one instructor gave me a good bit of advice for finals which was think of a piece of string around your neck attached to cyclic and collective, so when I lower collective, cyclic comes aft and when raise collective cyclic forwards. And power pedal in G2 is right. So I do practice raising collective putting right pedal tho I dont really do any cyclic prac. Had my first go in simulator the other day, I couldn't even do a thing in that, no resistance or bum feeling so just threw me off
Gunga Din
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Re: flight lessons

Postby Gunga Din » Sat Oct 30 2021, 23:39

Dry practice builds up muscle memory, fly circuits in your mind, perched on a chair.

Get your instructor to have a GoPro mounted in the cockpit, so you can replay the outside visuals on the big screen TV as you chair-fly the circuit.

We used to carry a little voice-activated cassette recorder, with the microphone in the headset earpiece, so the student could listen to the intercom. Being voice-activated, he didn't have to hear the long periods of silence, just the wise words which were spoken by the cool instructor, and the quieter responses from the student. They were alway amazed by the number of times they heard "Balance. Balance. Balance" during the flight, their brain didn't register as their visual part was overpowering the audio.

That was why I would always have some hand signal in their eyeline to help them get on top of things.
Arm, arm, I Gunga Din, the door slockt.
Gasket18
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Re: flight lessons

Postby Gasket18 » Sun Oct 31 2021, 06:50

yeah I keep meaning to put a camera in there to watch back and see if I can pick extra things up myself. Will see if they can hook one in or let me.
2nd auto lesson tomorrow. Looking forward to actually trying to bring the bad boy in this time
Wannabe60Driver
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Re: flight lessons

Postby Wannabe60Driver » Tue Nov 2 2021, 00:42

My two cents is to not over-egg the custard. Nothing beats time in the air and about the only things I know of that will maximise the learning in each flight lesson are:

1. Download your school’s lesson plans. Print if possible so you can not only read them before each flight, but take notes during briefings. If you’re not getting proper pre and post-flight briefings, you’re probably at the wrong school.

2. If a YouTube video exists on the topic, watch it. What happens on Pilot Yellow or Critical Angle etc may not be how your school teaches it but it may give you some ideas before your lesson. Watch again following your lesson to cement learning.

3. Download these as you’ll get an idea what you’re about to do wrong and maybe get ahead of the game

https://www.casa.gov.au/standard-page/f ... helicopter

https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policie ... 8083-4.pdf

4. Once you get to navigation, spend plenty of time on Google Earth Pro ‘flying’ the route. If your school has a sim, use it. It’ll save time and drama in the air.
Gasket18
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Re: flight lessons

Postby Gasket18 » Tue Nov 2 2021, 08:56

Cheers wannabe. They do have a sim, I won't go into that on here lol. I'm very proficient at barrel rolling it . They do really good pre and post briefings. The instructors have been very good at noticing some of the things as I do mention how I'm feeling and what I think I'm doing limb wise. I do read the pre briefings they do in our flight school computer system. Which I read and watch that then we have the actual pre flight briefing. My last lesson quite a few things all of a sudden came together. doing Autos obviously still working on transitions etc Discovered the main foot issue, again now I just have to figure out how to correct it. As everything ach lesson also gets more involved ie now doing all the lift offs, taxi, transitions etc and all the radio calls now. So as you get comfortable in one bit you get more thrown at you, which is good. Hopefully the nervousness at low level like hovering transitions will ease soon, then I think that part will get a lot better. I'm a lot more relaxed once I switch to ballanced flight. Its all amazing and great learning tho, even tho stressing out of my brain whilst doing it. I've done quite a few hours now, bit behind the level I expected to be but all I can do is my best and hope it all clicks. Keep asking question, listening to advice and taking on what I can and or which things I think will help me.
Wannabe60Driver
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Re: flight lessons

Postby Wannabe60Driver » Tue Nov 2 2021, 09:48

All I ever try to do is suck a little less than the last flight. That motto served me well through nav and night training when things started ramping up fast. Every day’s a school day and I’m looking forward to training for my instrument rating.

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