I've had my first (trial) lesson booked for over a month now, a '60/60 Lift Offer' with someone called Lee. Had a phone call around 11am from Emma in Ops saying that Lee was ill. Great - is this a sign of things to come?! Managed to rearrange my trial lesson for the following Sunday.

Saturday 7th August 2004 (11:00-14:30)

Every couple of months CCAT (Cabair Commercial Air Training) school have an open day. I also booked to go on this around a month ago, to see what was what. Very informative, but really for people that want to do their commercial test. I want to, but one step at a time!

Sunday 8th August 2004 (14:30-16:30) G-HIPO
Exercise 3: Familiarisation & Air Experience

Went to my brothers for a BBQ last night, so had to control my drinking, as I really didn't want to turn up for my first ever helicopter lesson with a hangover!

Arrived around 12:20, after spending 10 minutes driving around the roads of Cranfield & the University looking for the office. Sorted out paperwork with Emma: ID, filling out a few forms & the dreaded payment for the trail lesson. Lee (Harris) the only helicopter instructor at Cranfield, arrived back from a lesson around 12:30 & we did the usual introductions. We went into a class room for the first hour so he could go through the basic controls of a helicopter, asking me what I was hoping to get out of the lesson, etc. Then it came time to walk out to the helicopter.

Lee gave it a quick once-over, we got in & he started doing all his pre-flight checks. He came to the end of these & time to actually start her up. Click-click, bruuuuu, nothing. Try again, click-click, bruuuuu, nothing. H'um?! Click-click, whizzz, click-click, whizzz. H'um?! Lee said "Sounds like the starter motor to me? I'll try it 5 more times".
Click-click, whizzz. "One"
Click-click, whizzz. "Two"
Click-click, whizzz. "Three"
Click-click, whizzz. "Four"
Click-click, whizzz. "Five"
Nothing - ARGH! Whilst walking back to the office, Lee said "Looks like you'll be waiting another week?!". Lee then spent ages on the phone to maintenance trying to find a solution to the problem. "Hit it with a hammer" was the reply he got! Apparently, the starter motor can get stuck, like old Bedford vans? So, off he trots on his own to try this, returning about 15 minutes later to no avail. He then phoned Patroit helicopters (next door to Cabair) & asked if he could borrow one of their helicopters? After a lot of faffing between him, Patriot & Lee's boss (authorising the expense) we got a helicopter. Walked over to the Patroit offices, Lee filled in some paperwork & finally out to the 2nd helicopter of the day!

External & pre-flight checks done, Lee crosses his fingers & starts her up - SUCCESS! We took off & flew away from the airfield. This is the first time I've ever been in a helicopter - what a buzz! He then re-explained the pedals & then let me have a go. Similar re-explaination of the collective & then I had a go at that. Finally, on to the cyclic - a re-explanation & then my turn to have a go. Oh, my god, how sensitive?! Why don't they make it so you have to move it an inch to turn, rather than what seems like 1mm? He also went through a few of the instruments, what they read, how they read, & what they shouldn't read! All too quickly the hour was up so we came back to the airfield, landed back near the Patriot hanger & he shut the helicopter down. I then helped Lee wheel the helicopter into the hanger & walked back to the Cabair office. A very quick debrief, whether I enjoyed it, whether I was interested in taking it up, etc? I'd think about it & get back to them. Received my first flight certificate & a trial lesson log card.
I knew I'd be back, but wanted to (try, at least) to be a bit sensible, & give myself some thinking time!

Flight Time: 1.0 hrs
PUT (Pilot Under Tuition): 1.0 hrs
R22B: 1.0 hrs
Total Time: 1.0 hrs

Saturday 21st August 2004 (14:30-16:30) G-BOEZ
Exercise 4: Effects of Controls

After a few days, I decided (as I knew) that I was going to 'go for it' & start to learn to fly! Emma the Ops Manager said they would allow me to have a 2nd trial lesson, but after that I would have to start paying the full price. I turned up & Lee briefed me on the effects of the different controls: Slip Ball - like the string, but works in the opposite direction. You 'kick' the ball into the centre. Manifold Air Pressure (MAP) gauge - basically like the rev counter in a car, tells you how much power your using. Correlator - a mechanical link between the throttle & the cyclic, so that as you pull the collective up the throttle opens, & vice versa. Governor - an electrically controled link between the throttle & cyclic that acts in the same way as the Correlator. Mixture control - this is only used to stop the engine by leaning out the fuel mixture. Sometimes used in altitude flying. Carburettor Air Temperature (CAT) control - this is a VERY important control that heats the carburettor to stop it icing & therefore the engine stopping! Rotor Brake - basically a loo chain that you pull to stop the rotors. Cyclic Right Trim - used when flying out of the circuit to put a right bias into the cyclic. Lee also went through how a carburettor works (with the venturi, manifold butterfly, fuel, carb heat, etc). We then went out to the helicopter, he started up & we took off. Once we were well clear of the airport, he let me fly for a bit & get used to the controls again. He then started demoing all the controls 1 at a time.

Flight Time: 0.5 hrs
PUT: 1.5 hrs
R22B: 1.5 hrs
Total Time: 1.5 hrs

Sunday 5th September 2004 (12:30-14:30) G-BOAM
Exercise 5: Attitude & Power Changes

Flight Time: 0.6 hrs
PUT: 2.1 hrs
R22B: 2.1 hrs
Total Time: 2.1 hrs

Saturday 11th September 2004 (12:30-14:30) G-BOEZ
Exercise 6: Level Flight, Climbing, Decending & Turning

Flight Time: 0.4 hrs
PUT: 2.5 hrs
R22B: 2.5 hrs
Total Time: 2.5 hrs

Saturday 25th September 2004 (12:30-14:30)
Exercise 6: Level Flight, Climbing, Decending & Turning (Ground school) & External (A) Check

The weather was OK today so I thought I'd be going up?
However, I had to do some ground schooling on exercise 6, so didn't get to go up (boo-hoo)!
Lee took me through all the different power curves, what they represented, the different ways to start & finish both gaining & loosing height. Attitude, Power, Trim for climbing (APT), Carb Heat, Power, Attitude, Trim for decending (I made up CowPAT to remind me!)

Saturday 2nd October 2004 (08:30-10:30) G-BOAM
Exercise 6: Level Flight, Climbing, Decending & Turning

Flight Time: 0.7 hrs
PUT: 3.2 hrs
R22B: 3.2 hrs
Total Time: 3.2 hrs

Friday 29th October 2004 (12:45-16:45)
CAA JAR Class 1 Medical (Gatwick)

I phoned up the CAA at Gatwick airport & booked my Class 1 medical over a month ago (23/09/04). At that time I had to pay the full (non-refundable) amount of £422.

Obviously, I'm a bit aprehensive as I've never had a medical before. Also this could be the end of a very short lived helicopter career! I wanted to arrange it for a Saturday, but typically, the CAA are only open Monday-Friday. So, had to take the day off work. I hadn't drunk any alcohol for almost 2 weeks before, so was hoping everything would be OK?! Left Northampton around 9:30am, getting the train to Watford & then changing on to the Gatwick Express. Got to Gatwick airport at 11:30am, faffing around sorting stuff out, trying to find my way, started to follow the directions sent to me from the CAA, got lost, asked a bus driver (as I knew I had to get a free bus somewhere), found where I was going, got the bus, walked to the CAA & arrived around 12:15pm. Checked in, sat down & got chatting to another guy that was also waiting for his Class 1 medical, spookily also learning to fly helicopters. He'd already done around 100 hours, got his PPL(H) & was well on the way to his CPL(H)! He told me that it was no longer a requirement to have an EEG so we would be getting an £85 refund. Shame - I was looking forward to them checking that I had a brain! That's one of the only things I've never had done before. Around 12:45pm we were both called through & hand over our completed paperwork. I hurridly ticked a few boxes, as I'd left some of the family illness one's blank, because I wanted to ask the doctor about them. Oh well. We were then asked to go through to the changing rooms, strip just the top half & don a dressing gown. Whilst we were getting changed a few other people turned up, signed in & started getting changed. We sat about in the waiting room for a few minutes before I was called through 2nd to have my chest X-ray and weight & height checked. After this, the nurse said to me, OK I'm going to pop this little jar in this cupboard, the other side is the gents toilet... if you'd like to go & give me a sample?! I then went back to the waiting room & was called by a different nurse a few minutes later to have my blood checked. This was just a finger prick sample wiped on to 2 different test papers, rather than a full blood sample. Both machines wurred away for about a minute, & there you have it. Whilst this was happening I asked what the test's were for & what the 'normal' ranges were. Apparently, for cholesterol, anything below 4 is good, 5 is boarderline, 6 you need to do something & 7+ you're in serious trouble. Haemoglobin, anything between 12 & 17 is OK. The machines finished & said that both my cholesterol & haemoglobin levels were normal (3.4 & 14.7 respectively). PHEW! Back to the waiting room again, & a few minutes later I was called to see the main doctor for my physical check. Firstly, we went through the medical declaration sheet I'd filled in. He asked me about some of the illnesses some of my relatives have, & then I was asked to strip down to just my underwear. I laid on the bed & he checked my blood pressure (normal again - approx 120/80) & then did a very thorougher physical exam (inc a check downstairs)! I then stood up & he did some more checks on my breathing, limb movement, etc & that was it. All OK but he did say "I keep telling myself this, but you could do with loosing some weight". Back to the waiting room again, & this time called back by a nurse for the ECG test. Once wired up, she started the test, & about 30 seconds later it was all over. Whilst we were waiting for the computer to process the results, I asked her why they no longer perform the EEG test. Apparently, it's too subjective & one doctor can say your 'normal' whilst another can say there's something wrong with you. Oh, well, I think I'm 'normal'... ish?! We then went into another room to do the breathing tests. Two goes at the peak flow & another 2 goes at mean flow. Both tests I thought were reading a little low, compaired to what I remember from when I used one of my friends testers (who has ashma). Then, onto the hearing test. First, she shoved some instrument into each ear, called a 'Tympanogram' but not sure what that checks for. Think it tests your ear drum pressure? Then in to a small black room about the size of a phone box for the hearing test (Audiogram). Headphones on, different pitched noises were played into each ear at lower & lower volumes. Everytime I heard something I was to raise my finger. I'm sure there was a few times I thought I heard something, so I stuck my finger up, just in case! Passed all those test, so all that was left was the eye sight check. Back to the waiting room, & a few minutes later the optitian asked me to come through. Asked me a few questions about any eye problems I've had & the glasses I currently wear, at which point I had to go back to my locker to get my glasses. I also got the perhiperal vision check printout that I had done a few weeks ago at my opticians. He seemed quite impresses with that & asked if he could keep it. Then followed a very thorough eye examination, colour blind test, some machine that blows air at you eye to check the pressure of it. All was OK, so I was told that my eyesight was good enough for flying as long as I wear my glasses & have a spare pair in the cockpit at all times. I asked about having LASIK surgery, but it was thoroughly discorraged (at the moment). He said you've only got one pair of eyes, & just the smallest thing can stop you from flying.

And that was it. Only around 1½ hours & I was told I could get dressed & leave. I'd have to wait a few days for the results of my chest X-ray & urine sample to come through, but if all was clear, then I'd receive my certificate in the post. Sure enough, only 4 days later, I received my Class 1 Medical Certificate through the post, with the only restriction that I have to wear my glasses (obviously) & carry a 2nd pair!

Sunday 31st October 2004 (12:30-14:30) G-BOEZ
Exercise 8: Hovering

Flight Time: 0.5 hrs
PUT: 3.7 hrs
R22B: 3.7 hrs
Total Time: 3.7 hrs

Sunday 14th November 2004 (14:30-16:30) G-BOEZ
Exercise 6: Level Flight, Climbing, Decending & Turning

Flight Time: 0.9 hrs
PUT: 4.6 hrs
R22B: 4.6 hrs
Total Time: 4.6 hrs

Saturday 20th November 2004 (12:30-14:30)
Exercise 7: Basic Autorotations (Ground school)

Sunday 19th December 2004 (12:30-14:30) G-BOEZ
Exercise 7: Basic Autorotations

Flight Time: 0.7 hrs
PUT: 5.3 hrs
R22B: 5.3 hrs
Total Time: 5.3 hrs

Sunday 9th January 2005 (12:30-14:30)
Internal & External (A) Checks

Saturday 22nd January 2005 (12:30-14:30) G-BOAM
Exercise 7: Basic Autorotations

Flight Time: 0.9 hrs
PUT: 6.2 hrs
R22B: 6.2 hrs
Total Time: 6.2 hrs

Sunday 30th January 2005 (12:30-14:30) G-BOEZ
Exercise 8: Hovering

Flight Time: 1.0 hrs
PUT: 7.2 hrs
R22B: 7.2 hrs
Total Time: 7.2 hrs

Saturday 12th March 2005 (12:30-14:30) G-BOAM
Exercise 17: Advanced Autorotations & Exercise 18: Practice Forced Landings

Finally, after a 5 week break due to weather (too windy), Lee being ill & the helicopter being out of hours, it seems to be a nice day?! I looked at iPilot weather info & it said there was a 16kt wind gusting to 22kts. 11am - I get a phone call from Lee saying we can't do any hovering today, as it's too windy. However he wanted me to go up as I hadn't been for sometime (you're telling me)! We were going to do some advanced autorotations (exercise 17) & practice forced landings (exercise 18). This is well ahead of where I am at the moment, but would help me with flight hours and getting used to both flying & autorotating in the wind.

Lee said he was available straight away, so I got ready & drove to Cranfield, arriving around 11:50. We went in to a class room & had a quick chat about practice forced landings & the problems with the wind today. They were using runway 36 which is usually the crossing runway, so we wanted to fly out from FATO 36. Lee said when we come in we'll have to do a right turn after final, so we're facing in to the wind & that this would be a bit tricky!

He left me to go & check the helictoper, which I did & noticed that the aft nav light was out. When he came over he said "Well, do we need it to fly?". 50/50 guess, I guessed wrong! You only need your anti-collision (strobe) light for daylight flying. I started the helicopter up, Lee made the radio calls (I really need to start doing that & Lee commented that he needs to go through it with me) & we lifted off. The customary lookout donut from Lee throw in with some backwards flying, to move is back near the main runway, so we could take off in to the wind. Clearance was given & we were off, building up speed & then turning 180º right to fly out to the south. Once up to around 500' I took over the flying... I was terrible! A 5 week break is definately not recommended. Just trying to fly straight was a challenge, & my power & attitude changes left a lot to be desired!

After a few climbs & decents, we headed out towards the M1 & found a few fields that we could aim for. Lee said if you imagine a curved line from the top of the instrument panel down to the corner of the doors, that's approximately how far you'll 'glide' in an autorotation. "Let's go for that squarish dark brown field over there" he says. Over where? Are we looking in the same direction? Oh, well, here goes nothing as Lee says "Practice autorotation, go" - collective down, loads of right pedal, Lee cuts the throttle, collective back in, try to maintain the speed around 80kts until in a stable autorotation, then reduce speed down to 60-65kts. That's the theory, anyway! I'm letting the helicopter weather vail in to the wind, sticking in far too much right pedal to start with, & then not enough at the end, so the helicopters snapping round. The low RRPM warning light comes on & the horn starts blaring away... I try to pull the collective up but there's massive resistance. That's because Lee's trying to push it down (what you're supposed to do!)

A few more autos trying to aim for a field, putting in some turns, reducing collective in the turn due to the g force loading the disc. I was really starting to enjoy this. At one point, whilst doing a 360º right turn, Lee told me to turn more. I didn't get a chance to look at the artificial horizon, but it felt like we were doing at least a 30 bank? I was almost staring straight at the grass! We only managed to do 1 PFL, & that one Lee took over from around 200' after re-engaged the engine. Around 25' he started the flare, so we came to the hover around 5' above someone's field?! He then took off again, zoomed round some trees, & once back past around 200' I took over again & flew back to Cranfield. He landed the helicopter & I shut it down.

Back in the office, I was asking about having 2 lessons per weekend & Lee responded with those dreaded words "Air Law exam"- ARGH! I really need to start revising for it then. I'll finish reading Human Factors & then go back & read Air Law again.

Flight Time: 1.3 hrs
PUT: 8.5 hrs
R22B: 8.5 hrs
Total Time: 8.5 hrs

Saturday 19th March 2005 (14:30-16:30) G-BOAM
Exercise 8: Hovering

It's been really nice weather the past few days, sunny, clear blue skies with light wind. I check iPilot around lunch time & it says that Cranfield's in IFR! I check outside & there's a very strange mist, so you can only see a few kms. but there's only around a 4-6kts wind. I try calling Cranfield but they don't answer, so I try calling Lee's mobile, but he doesn't answer as well (probably flying?)

It get's to around 2pm so I decide to risk the journey & leave. Once I get off the M1 at Junction 14 I listen to Cranfield ATIS & that says things are OKish, cloud base 2200'. I'm supposed to be hovering this afternoon, so as long as I can see 5' I should be OK?!

Zac was there wanting to do some solo time, but Lee wouldn't let him fly even in the circuit because of the visibility. He opted to go & do some practice hovering. Lee said we'll go & do a circuit & if it clears up I'll radio through & let you do some circuits.

I go out to the other helicopter at Maintenance & give it an A-Check. The aft nav lights still out (from last week) & the upper fuel drains only about 1cm long, so I end up with fuel all over my hand! Lee said it's going in for service on Monday, so those things should be fixed? I perform the pre-flight internal checks, start her up & Lee immediately cuts the engine? After a bit of um'ing & ar'ing I realise that we're round the back outside Maintenance & not in sight of the tower, therefore, we're supposed to ask for permission to start... Oops!

Lee turns the radio on, makes a quick call to start (I could have done it, but he wanted to get underway). Start approved, so I carry on. Lee performs a limited power take off & we go for a left circuit (as the winds around 060º) to check the area. We get up to around 700' & you can hardly see more than a kilometre or 2 infront, especially if you look into the sun. Lee says there's no way I'd let Zac do a circuit in this... I'm doing a short circuit, you could easily get lost!

He does an autorotation down onto the FATO & then I start some hover practice. Lee asks if I want to take all the controls at once straight away?! Er, no, I'll do one at a time to start with. I control the pedals to start with, fairly easy, although I still sometimes press the wrong pedal (Why are they backwards? I must ask Lee!) I then take control of the collective as well. We're very limited on power, pulling 24.5" MAP just to keep around a 2' hover. In fact at one time I let the collective drop as I'm trying to keep the power under Max Boost, & end up touching the ground... my first (unplanned) landing! Lee (obviously) comments on this & asks me to try to keep it off the ground - 2'-4' would be good. He then says let's go for a flight to burn off some fuel, so you'll hopefully have some more power for hovering?

We fly out towards the South for around 10 minutes. Once up to around 2000' it's a beautiful day & you can see for miles. But we have to be careful not to fly into any clouds. We get out over Lee's house whilst I was asking about the maximum rates of turns for an R22. He says you can really turn as hard as you like, but you have to reduce speed to maintain height. He demos this by turning to the left. I look at the AH & it hits 60º! Lee then takes me through using the direction beacon (Cranfield 116.50), how to set the gyro & then line up on the bearing so you are directed to the overhead. Once we arrive back at the airfield, Lee performs a 360º autorotation back onto the FATO. I then take over the cyclic & try to hover... yeah, right!

I'm slowly getting the hang of it & can sometimes keep a stable hover for at least 5-10 seconds! Then it all goes to pot, the wind pushes me one way, I react too late & over compensate, so it takes twice as long to return to a stable hover. Slowly I start to get the hang of not over compensating, but I've got too much of a delay in reacting to the very start of the move... Think I need to by psycic! I try slowly hover taxiing up & down the FATO, trying to follow one of the lines. Then hovering over a grass patch, move onto the next one, hover over that. I definately found I was more relaxed when talking to Lee whilst hovering. I was almost doing it on instinct & feeling, rather than actually thinking about it. Then I took over the pedals as well as the cyclic. This is when it all starts going pear-shaped! I'm concentrating so much on the cyclic now, that I get into my old habbit of using the wrong pedal - ARGH!

Lee calls to the tower for us to hover taxi back to Mainteance, which I try to do. After about a minute & me making it about 10m forward, Lee says you do the pedals & I'll do the cyclic, otherwise we'll never get there! We land, I shut down the helicopter, & then back to the office at which point I'm collared for more money! I've decided to take the yearly Platinum membership (which includes insurance & means I'll get every 10th lesson free) & also to pay £4000 into my account, so I get a further 5% reduction on lessons. I'm already in debt, so end up having to pay over £5,500 all in - GULP! But, the guy covering Ops today can't find the merchant number... so he has to cancel my payment. I live to see another day. Will have to pay at my next lesson, this (Good) Friday.

Flight Time: 0.8 hrs
PUT: 9.3 hrs
R22B: 9.3 hrs
Total Time: 9.3 hrs

Friday 25th March 2005 (08:30-10:30) G-JATD
Exercise 8: Hovering & Exercise 9: Take-off & Landing

Today's Good Friday & I'm off on holiday for Easter, so I decided to have a lesson at 08:30... not a particularly good time of the day for me! I arrived at Cranfield, Lee turned up a few minutes later & I went out with him to get the helicopters out. Zac was due in to do some more solo flying, so we got both the helicopters out the hanger. There was the usual G-BOAM & a new black R22 (G-JATD). Lee wanted to use G-JATD as he said it was his favourite. He went back to do some paperwork whilst I A-Checked the helicopter & the refueler came & filled both the helicopters up. Just after 09:00 Lee returned & I started her up. Lee made the radio calls again & hover taxied over to the FATO.

I then took over the cyclic in the hover, then the pedals as well & finally the collective - HOORAY! I'm hovering! All be it, not very stably. After a few minutes of this Lee said we'd try a landing. I kept the hover as still as I could & gently lowered the collective. We kept reducing height & then at the last foot I'd lower the collective too much & we'd hit the deck. He said that it's best to land on the front of the skids. You can do a run-on landing from quite a speed & it'll cope with it. However, just a slight rearwards landing on the back of the skids can cause you to roll over. I tried a few more landing & they got a bit better. One thing I did notice was that because I was concentrating on landing, I could keep a fairly stable hover & talk to Lee at the same time. So something is actually penetrating my brain?!

For a rest Lee asked for permission for us to fly a right circuit. Once he'd transitioned & got up to around 200' & 40kts he handed control to me. The idea is to pull Max Boost until 300' & then reduce to Max Continuous (-1"). We turned right onto the crosswind leg, Lee told me to fly to the right of 'that' caravan park... 'what' caravan park?! Finally, I pick up the caravan park just as he asks me to turn right again onto the downwind leg. Lee radios downwind to ATC. Once approching 1000' he asks me to select an 80kt attitude. As we're approching the base leg turn, we start decending, first always remember to engage FULL CARB HEAT. After turning right onto the base leg I reduce to approx 15" MAP. I then turn right onto final so I'm tracking parrallel to the active runway coming in to FATO H22, but missing the fuel station! Lee transitioned into the hover & I then took over for some more hover & landing practice. After another 15 minutes Lee called for another right circuit, which again I flew once transitioned until on final. Back for some move hover & landing practice and then Lee called for Disbursal. I hover taxied (wobbled) over to the disbursal area & sort-of landed. Lee then relanded the other side of the markers, so the refueler could get to it & I shut the helicopter down as usual.

Next week, hopefully a lesson in Bournemouth?

P.S. Had a phone call on Saturday requesting that I clear my account by the end of the month (as I was now £1800 in debt). So I paid it all off & also paid £4000 so I'd receive every 10th hour free. £5,828.54 - ARGH!

Flight Time: 1.1 hrs
PUT: 10.4 hrs
R22B: 10.4 hrs
Total Time: 10.4 hrs

Monday 4th April 2005 (13:00-15:00) G-RHCB
Exercise 6: Level Flight, Climbing, Decending & Turning, Exercise 7: Basic Autorotations, Exercise 8: Hovering & Exercise 9: Take-off & Landing (Bournemouth Helicopters)

I've been on holiday in Bournemouth visiting my Dad, so decided to have a lesson at Bournemouth Helicopters. When I booked the lesson, the said the didn't have any R22s, only a Schweizer 300? I thought about not having the lesson, but then reconsidered as it's just another type of helicopter & would be nice to see the difference. After a lovely weekend, Monday arrived with rain, but by the time I drove to Bournemouth International Airport, it had subsided. Spoke to my instructor (Chris Regnart) who asked how many hours I'd done so far, what I'd done, etc. We then went out & he showed me round the helicopter & the external differences. Obvious differences where that there's 3 blades, not 2 & everythings out in the open, not hidden away behind panels.

We got in & he started her up as he talked me through the differences. Three-point harness & pedal adjustment. Start up was basically the same. The clutch is semi-manual, with Disengaged, Hold & Engaged. Once the engine is started & warmed up, you engage the clutch. Then, as soon as the belts bite & the blades, start to turn, you move the clutch switch back to hold. Watch the rotor RPM & when it stops rising, you give the switch a very brief blip into engage & back to hold. Finally, when the RRPM matches the ERPM you can engage the clutch & leave it. There's no OAT or max boost to calculate - you can pull as much power as you like (within reason). Magneto check is performed at 15" MAP, so you have to pull the collective up! The helicopter seemed to go light on it's skids, but this is apparently normal? The ERPM/RRPM tacho is a dual wheel needle (like a JetRanger), rather than a cross needle. No governor, you manually have to adjust the throttle as you pull collective. Chris explained that this type of helicopter was far easier to fly & hover and you could also trim it, so it was stable. He showed me the trim hat & got us into a stable hover & then let go of the cyclic! I wouldn't want to do that in a Robinson! We got authorisation to leave the airfield & departed. Once we were clear I took over the flying, so he could see what I could (& couldn't) do. We followed a few landmarks out towards the coast in climb at around 60kts. To level out, I just increased my speed to 70kts - that was it! Chris then explained that the green bands on the RPM tacho were very 'wide' & it was almost impossible to get out of them. We entered a practice autorotation together, he lowered the collective to the floor & that was it. No tweeking of the lever at all! He showed me how, even when performing steep banking turns in an auto, the RPM didn't come out the green area. I then flew along the coast towards Southbourne to try to find my Dad flat, but couldn't - things look very different from the air! We then returned to the airfield to do some low level work. Firstly, I flew down towards the active runway with 2 747s around, already had permission to cross, so went over to the hover square. There, without even thinking, I slowed the helicopter down, & managed to transition into the hover! Just thought I'll give it a load of cyclic & that should sort it out. This is when I found out how stiff the pedals were. You had to use a lot more left pedal than in an R22. But, it was so easy to hover, so he invited me to land. I eased the cyclic down, we sank slightly, I eased it down some more, we sank again, I thought we must be close now, so I eased the cyclic down to land & (I think) we were still around 2' off the ground? Slightly heavy landing, but Chris said that wasn't a bad landing at all for your first go. Now we were down, he invited me to take off (not done this before). I slowly raised the collective, around 25" MAP the helicopter started to go light & suddenly we were up, up & away! I also didn't estimate how much left pedal to put in, so we snapped to the right about 90º, until I got it under control. We did a few more take offs & landings and then he said have you ever done an engine failure in the hover? Not 'til now... "Practice Autorotation, Go"! He pushed the collective down, kept a stable hover & we hit the deck & that was it. We then moved over to the low flying area, where I could practice some high speed, low level turns. I really enjoyed this. I was flying around at 100', 60kts pulling 60º banking turns. Chris then showed me the difference between a semi-articulated rotor head that can pull negative G. He said, if you were approaching a tree & wanted to get over it, you'd pull back to slow & so gain height, then once over push forward accelerate. This causes the negative G which the R22 can't handle because of the rotors. Now we we approaching the hour mark so had to think about going back in. Chris wanted to do a full autorotation to the ground with me, but we couldn't find the space in the airfield as then were doing some engine tests on a jumbo. So, I flew around waiting for a 737 to land before hover taxiin us back to the office. Here they'd got a concrete standing area for the helicopters, so I asked how different landing was on concreate due to the downwash? Chris replied by inviting me to land it. I don't think I did too bad a job? All in all, a very satisfying lesson & well worth a go in a different type of helicopter. Next time I think I'll have a go in either an R44 or a JetRanger?!

Flight Time: 1.0 hrs
PUT: 11.4 hrs
R22B: 10.4 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs
Total Time: 11.4 hrs

Saturday 9th April 2005 (13:00-15:00)

I stayed over in London last night so I could go to the Air Show at Earls Court today. Last night I meet up with a couple of friends, went for a beer & then we meet up with Lee & a few other student who had already been to the air show. Lee gave me a free Complimentary Pass to the air show, so that saved me £15. Many thanks! At the show there was several stands selling the usual aviation paraphinalia: books, manuals, clothes, headsets, etc. I had a look at some Sienheisser helicopter headsets but would really like to try them out first? I've been recommended the Bose X headset (as Andy bought a set yesterday). Lee said it's the only set he'd buy. Looked around all the different helicopters: several R22s, a few R44s, 1 Schweizer 300CBi & a I dribbled over a very, very nice A109E (G-ESLH)! Someone performed a demo flight with his jet-powered model helicopter - what a toy! And, that was about it... not much to look at, so left after a couple of hours.

Sunday 10th April 2005 (12:30-14:30) G-BOAM
Exercise 8: Hovering & Exercise 9: Take-off & Landing

The weather today was dry & sunny with a 16kt wind. I haven't hovered with this level of wind before, so was wondering if my lesson would be called off, but it wasn't. I went out to the helicopter, transit checked it & performed the internal pre flight checks (OAT 14C). Lee came over & I started her up, making the initial call to ATC. Lee then took off & taxiied us over to the FATO for some hover practice. First, I took over the pedals, still OK if a little slow to react, Next, the collective as well, again need to predict a rise/drop & act sooner, Finally the cyclic, so I had all 3 control. Practiced hovered for a bit & starting to get better at this, but still can't keep a stable hover! Lee then asked me to land. Lowering the collective, slowly sinking down to around 2', but the nearer & nearer I get to the ground, the more I loose the hover - ARGH! Finally I managed a landing, if somewhat hard. Lee then asked if I wanted to take off? Never done this before, but I should be able to cope? Lee first went through the pre-take off checks, 104% (RRPM), all in the green (Ts&Ps), no (warning) lights, carb heat OK (out of the yellow). I started to slowly raised the collective, got to around 20" & still nothing, then suddenly you can feel the helicopter going light. Slight yaw which I sort-of corrected, kept pulling on the collective as I got to a stage where the helicopter was just starting to lift off. It's really hard to judge where to hold the cyclic, so you lift off the right skid first, but only by 2"! Finally I broke clear of the ground & was in the (wabbly) hover again. Several more landings & take-offs before we went for a right circuit to cool down a bit. Lee called for a circuit right & transitioned into flight before passing control back to me. I turned right onto the crosswind leg & found it very bumpy to fly (think there were some thermals about?). Turned downwind as I accelerated to an 80kt cruise (I must remember to apply more right pedal when turning right). Lee said we'll keep at 1,000' & do an auto back in. Turned onto base & final & Lee initiated the autorotation with me following him on the controls. We came into a hover right next to an R44 hover practicing (I wanna go in one of them!). More hover practicing, with landings & take-offs before I hover taxied to Disbursal & landed. Lee then wanted me to shut down the helicopter from the start which involved remembering the after landing checks. I couldn't remember any of them, so Lee had to prompt me (Friction on, 104%, Governor off, 75%, landing lights off). Then I could get my check list out to run through the shut down checks. I was a bit disheartened but Lee said I did pretty well. I really should stop beating myself up about it. No-ones perfect! As Lee said to me, he's never meet someone that can hover right from the word go - practice makes perfect!

Flight Time: 0.9 hrs
PUT: 12.3 hrs
R22B: 11.3 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs
Total Time: 12.3 hrs

Friday 22nd April 2005 (17:00-17:10) N454AE

I've been on holiday in New York for the past week & tried to organise a lesson out there. Unfortunately, I could only find one school at Long Beach & they wouldn't take non-US citizens. So, my friend & I decided to take a helicopter trip around the city. We opted for the 'Big Apple' 10-12 minute trip by Liberty Helicopters ($93 ~£50) in a Eurocopter EC130.

The trip was booked for 16:15, so we turned up at the downtown heliport at 15:45 (the prescribed 1/2 hour early). Booked in & were told that only cameras were allowed on the trip. Everything else had to be put into a locker. We then waited & were finally called around 16:45. Through security & into the departures area where we were shown a safety video (how to use the seatbelts, doors, etc). We also had to wear a mini life jacket as the whole trip would take place over water. From watching some other people go up, it looked like the last two got to sit in the front. So, my friend & I made sure we were at the back of the queue. We were walked out to the active helicopter that had just dropped off some passengers, & the first 2 people were shown into the front seats! I managed to get a window seat on the left hand side behind the pilot (EC130s are flown from the left seat).

We took off, reversed & then flew down the Hudson river taking in downtown New York before heading out to Liberty Island. We circled round the front half of the island & then did a 180º so the left side of the helicopter could see. Up to Ellis Island & then up the Hudson river, passing downtown, midtown & uptown, and out towards the Yankee stadium in the Bronx. Another 180º so both sides could see, & back down the Hudson river taking in the USS Intrepid, Concorde & the Queen Mary 2 before landing back at the heliport. Unfortunately, after almost a week of glorious sunshine Friday afternoon was overcast with the occasional shower, so the view wasn't as good as it could have been. Oh, well, next time?!

Saturday 7th May 2005 (15:30-17:00)
RFT

Too windy to fly today, so we went through all the radio calls for the circuit (as I need to have a certain level of competancy before going solo). Ran through the basics of requesting start-up, passing information to ATC, asking for permission to fly a circuit, take-off clearance, calling downwind, final & landing clearance. Lee then took me up the tower where I meet one of the controllers & had a look round. So there is a face to the voice at the other end of the microphone!

Sunday 8th May 2005 (14:30-16:30) G-RSVP
Exercise 8: Hovering & Exercise 9: Take-off & Landing

Flight Time: 0.8 hrs
PUT: 13.1 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 12.1 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs
Total Time: 13.1 hrs

Saturday 14th May 2005 (08:30-10:30)

Too windy to fly again (17-22kts), so had some early morning theory. First about Take-offs & Landings (already done the practical, so just a quick bit of theory) & then the main stuff on Transitions.

Sunday 15th May 2005 (13:30-15:30) G-BOEZ
Exercise 10: Transitions

I had a bit of brain fade this morning & thought I was due in at 10:30? Turned up, sat there for a bit, talked to the guy on Ops who said Lee's running about 1/2 hour late, so won't be back until around 11am. Then Andy Kane walked in... h'um? He asked what I was doing here, when I checked the board & wasn't due in until 12:30! Andy & I went for a coffee & waited for Lee to return. When he got back, he said he'd probably not be ready until around 13:15, so I went off to Milton Keynes & looked round the shops. Returned at 13:20 & Lee finally got back around 13:30. I went out, transit checked the helicopter (that had just been refueled), did the pre-start checks & took Lee's door off (as it was starting to get hot!) Started up, made the radio call & got a funny reply after I'd passed my information? Lee told me what to say, but I couldn't work what he was saying (as my headphones were dodgy), so he said it. I took off (first time from cold), taxied over to near the FATO & did a landing. I need to remember to do the after take-off checks (104%, Ts & Ps all in the green, no lights, carb heat clear of yellow). We then went through the different parts of the take-off transition. Before you can do any take-off transitions, you need to perform a Lookout turn. You need to clearly state that you are looking one way & turning the other e.g. "Clear right, turning left". Perform a 90 spot turn (without gaining height like I always do) so you can look down the active runway & then turn back to face into wind. Then you should perform post take-off checks & also check that you are not overboosting & have approx 1.5" of MAP in reserve. And, so to the take-off transitions itself. First, Lee demonstrated loss of ground effect as you start to accelerate & then what to do to stop it (pull a tiny bit of collective). Then I had a go at it (that was quite easy). Next, Lee demonstrated flapback & inflow roll (helicopter moves up & to the right) & what to do to prevent this (just corrections with the cyclic). I then had a go at this (pretty easy). Next, Lee demonstrated transitional lift (at around 17kts the heli starts to climb) & what to do about this (loads of forward cyclic to stay close to the ground - climb at only approx 1' per knot). I had a go at this a few times, as this was quite hard to judge, where the 'lump' was when transitional effect took effect & how much cyclic to add. Finally, Lee demonstrated the 40 knot climb out (pull back on the cyclic slightly to initiate a climb) but keep accelerating to 60kts. I did a few take-off transitions & then we flew a circuit, so Lee could show me a landing transition. This is slightly easier, set yourself up at 500' & 60kts. Get the sight picture at the right point in the windscreen. For me, this is approx when the top of the FATO is at the top of the instrument panel. Then look to the side & your apparent speed should be a walking pace. Use the collective to keep the sight picture in the same place & the cyclic to reduce speed continually so your apparent speed is always the same (walking pace). At 100' use more collective to let the sight picture slip down the windscreen, otherwise you'll undershoot your landing spot. We did a few backtracks to climb back out to 500' quickly without doing a complete circuit. Finally we did 2 or 3 circuits, each time with me flying more & more of it. The final landing transition was almost perfect. The last 100' bit is quite hard to judge, but I managed to 'hit' the landing mark pretty spot on! I then taxied back to Disbursal, landed & shut the heli down. All in all, a quite successful lesson that I was pleased with. Thinking back what surprised me more was how 'easy' I found doing previous things i.e. hovering, taking off & landing. At one point I had to hover for about 2 minutes waiting for the radio to become free to ask to do a circuit. I didn't really think about hovering & was able to have a chat with Lee at the same time! Practice, practice, practice & hopefully, everything'll come like that?!

Flight Time: 1.2 hrs
PUT: 14.3 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 13.3 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs
Total Time: 14.3 hrs

Sunday 5th June 2005 (15:30-17:30) G-CBWZ
Exercise 11: Circuits (Elstree)

Lee's away in Majorca & I was in London for my mates wedding over the weekend, so decided to book a lesson at Cabair, Elstree. Unsurprisingly, I got caught in a traffic jam on the M25 & didn't get to Elstree until 15:45. Checked in & met the helicopter instructor, James Watson. We had a quick brief on circuits, both the normal circuit & the Elstree funny circuit that avoided a few houses.

A normal circuit should be:
Instrment checks, take-off, checks, spot turn & check active runway, checks, circuit radio call & transition out.
Accelerate upto 60kts, at 300' reduce from max boost to max contineous, turning crosswind at approx 500'.
When at 1000' level out & accelerate to 80kts (Elstree is 750' & 70kts).
When 45º from the end of the runway turn onto the downwind leg, perform checks (FREDAT) & call 'downwind' (not at Elstree).
Apply FULL carb heat 15-20 seconds before starting your decent.
Reduce power to around 15" MAP, speed back to 60kts & when 45º to the other end of the runway perform a decending turn onto the base leg.
Aim to turn onto final at 500' & 60kts.
Call 'final' & transition into the hover keeping the sight picture the same all the way down (apart from the last 100').
Into the hover & land.
As easy as that!

We then went out to the heli (a Beta II), I performed a transit check whilst James got the fuel.
I started the heli up, James took her into the hover & taxied over to the hovering square the other side of the active runway.
I then took over in the hover, performed a landing & take-off and a couple of spot turns (not really on the spot!)
James then flew one circuit to show me the route & everything to do.
He then landed the heli in the hover square & I took over.
I think I did about 4 or 5 circuits, each one getting better & better and I was remembering to do more & more of the stuff.
Elstree only have a FIS (Flight Information Service) so the radio calls were much easier & less of them.
I don't think I forgot anything on the last circuit (James did prompt me to make the 'final' call just as I was about to press the talk button!)
My landing transitions & actual landings aren't that good, but I'm going to put it down to a windy day (approx 15kts)?!
I think on my 3rd or 4th circuit I knew I was too long, so James said just extend your landing & readjust your sight picture forward.
I did this OK but then I had to turn round & for the first time hover taxi back to the hovering square downwind.
I couldn't believe how much back cyclic I needed. I was having to press it right into my stomach!
After the final circuit, when an R44 was joining, I did a 360º spot turn to the left & then one to the right.
Right turns are harder because you're using torque from the main rotor to push you round rather than anti-torque from the tail rotor.
I then hover taxied back to the landing area, landed the heli & shut her down.
All in all, a very successful lesson, so I booked to come back in 3 weeks time when Lee's on holiday again!

Flight Time: 1.0 hrs
PUT: 15.3 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 14.3 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs
Total Time: 15.3 hrs

Saturday 11th June 2005 (12:30-14:30) G-BOAM
Exercise 11: Circuits

ATIS reported that the wind was very light today (4-5kts). Reported to Lee what I did with James at Elstree the previous week & that he'd briefed me on the circuit.

Lee briefed me on emergencies in the circuit:
Lights
Oil - Check gauge & land ASAP.
Alt - Cycle alternator & shed load. Short circuit.
M/R Chip - Very early warning. Short circuit.
T/R Chip - Very early warning. Short circuit.
M/R Temp - Very early warning (can happen on hot day). Short circuit.
Low Fuel - 5 mins/1 gallon left, but probably a fuel leak, so land ASAP.
Warnings
Start Mesh - Short circuit. Shut down if on start up.
Rotor Brake - Short circuit.
Clutch Light - More than 5-7 seconds, pull CB & short circuit.
Governor - Cycle governor, reduce to 102% & check recovery, short circuit.
Engine failure - Autorotation to land immediately. Turn off Fuel, Mixture, Magnetos, Alternator.
Engine fire - Land immediately with power on. Turn off Fuel, Mixture, Magnetos, Alternator.

I then went out, transit checked the helicopter & performed the pre-start checks listening to the Departure ATIS. Lee came over & I started the helicopter, called ATC & passed my information. After I'd finished this requesting taxiing for circuits, ATC passes an immediate landing request to a plane on final. I didn't realise this & replied to the message! What Lee found even funnier was that my reply was correct for the plane. ATC then called & spoke to Lee asking him to give me a slap!
I taxied over to the FATO, practiced a few landings & take-offs, look-out turns & called for a circuit. The wind was light & variable, but had just about changed from Hotel 22 to Hotel 04, so Lee checked requested that we switched to left circuits. My transitions are very bad, especially landing ones. As long as I can keep the heli in balance the speed will read true, so I should find 40kts coming up a lot quicker. My flying of the actual circuit is fine, I'm starting to remember more & more of the checks, getting the turns correct. I find it very hard to increase from 60-80kts at 1000'. I always find I'm contineuing to climb & not speed up. I would put this down to looking in at the instruments too much. Reducing my height to the 500' climb in is OK, but I need to check height loss & adjust accordingly, not just stick in 15". The start of my landing transition is OK, but it all goes pear shaped around 300' after resetting the carb heat. Aparently this is due to the speed reducing & so the heli is harder to control? I hope it'll just come with practice?

Flight Time: 1.0 hrs
PUT: 16.3 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 15.3 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs
Total Time: 16.3 hrs

Sunday 12th June 2005 (12:30-14:30) G-BOEZ
Exercise 11: Circuits

Today I was terrible! The wind was slightly stronger than yesterday (10-12kts) but not that bad. We had a quick review of emergency procedures, Lee said we'll do some circuits & then I'll start to throw some emergencies in. I went out to the heli, transit checked it & went through the pre-start checks. Mananged to correctly radio ATC this time, started & taxied over to the FATO. I tried to do a look-out turn & the wind snapped me round 180º. So I said 'OK, I'll do a 360º then'. Lee was less than impressed with this. He said 'Never just settle for something, you're in control not the helicopter!' So I did a proper spot look-out turn (just the 90º) each way, but I woz still a bit freaked out. I then radioed for clearance to do a right circuit & transitioned away. My take-off transitions are getting slightly better (slowly) but I'm still too quick & not in balance. The circuits OK, but it's these landing transitions... I just can't get them right! Same as yesterday, all's OK to around 300' & then it starts going pear shaped. Especially the last 100' when I have to let the slight picture slip down the windscreen. I'm either too high or too slow.

After about 4 circuits, Lee suggested we call it a day. He said it's just not your day today! We all have them. Lee said he had an off day when he took his Instructor test. He just couldn't get anything right. Oh, well, plenty to think about for next week.

Flight Time: 0.8 hrs
PUT: 17.1 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 16.1 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs
Total Time: 17.1 hrs

Saturday 18th June 2005 (08:30-10:30) G-BOAM
Exercise 11: Circuits

Early morning lesson today as I'm off to play golf. I went out to the helicopter with my uncle & A-checked it. Quite good having someone that's never been before. It actually makes you concentrate more cause they usual ask stupid questions that you don't ask yourself, but you really have to think about to give an answer! Returned to the office & Lee had arrived after oversleeping! I said it needed fuel, which was ordered & the oil was down to 4.5 quarts. Lee gave me a litre of oil & asked me to put it in. Never done this before, but I managed it OK. Lee turned up, but the fuel still hadn't. Whilst waiting for the refueler, Lee went through a few emergency procedures with me. Governor failure & Practice Forced Landings. Once fuelled, I radioed ATC for start-up clearance & started the heli. Once ready for lift, I reported ready & at that point had to pass my information. I usually fly around 1pm which is Information Echo, but this was Information Alpha. So, out of habit I passed Information Echo! The controller said "I don't know where you got Echo from?" So I rather casually replied that I was sorry & had actually got Information Alpha. After the transmittion Lee told me off & said I should be a lot more professional on the radio. Oops! Lee lifted off & taxied us out the way of the other heli & a plane, landed & passed the controls to me. QFE was 1013 & OAT 24 C today, so we had 24.72" MAP, but because it was so hot, we were having to slightly overboost to around 25" to keep in the hover. I asked what you do in these situations. Lee said there's 3 options: 1) You don't fly 2) you overboost or 3) you hit the ground! As we were flying & clearly didn't want to hit the ground, overboosting was the only option. After a pretty shoddy take-off where Lee made me land & take-off again, I hover taxied over to the FATO. Look-out turn, radioed for a right circuit, & tried to transition as gently as I could. My take-off transitions are definately getting better... what about my landing ones? I flew the circuit OK but am still having real difficulty in getting the thing upto 80kts. Onto final & into the landing transition. These are getting slightly better, now it's just the last 100' that I muck up! I can keep the sight picture OK, but I don't reduce my speed enough. I am definately aware that I'm not checking my relative ground speed enough. A few circuits & Lee decided that he'd fly a circuit & demo a governor failure to me. Downwind call made & the governor light comes on. Check the switch hasn't been knocked off. If it has, switch it back on & check everythings OK. Check the Circuit Breaker hasn't poped. If it has, push it back in & see if it pops again. If it does, adjust the throttle to 102% & see if it recovers. If not, turn the governor switch off & fly a short circuit with the governor off. This is just a case of keeping both the RPMs in the green. If they ever start dropping, reduce collective & increase throttle. Back to the FATO & my turn. Downwind & Lee pulls the CB to simulate a governor failure. I start the checks but am not talking through them, so Lee asks me to say what I'm doing. The correlator will match engine & rotor RPM pretty well between 17"-23", so start the decent early, so you only need to select 17" MAP. Turn final, make the radio call, & transition into the hover, adjusting the throttle up as necessary. For solo student, if this happens, you only need to transition into the hover, move off the FATO & then land. An instructor will the come & assist. So, I hover taxied off the FATO & landed OK, apart from I closed the throttle for some reason? End of lesson & so back to disbursal. I felt I flew OK but my transitions still need practice. I did feel that they were getting slightly better & especially when I was doing the governor failure, I was concentrating on that so much & was (sort of) naturally flying the landing transition.

Flight Time: 1.1 hrs
PUT: 18.2 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 17.2 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs
Total Time: 18.2 hrs

Sunday 26th June 2005 (14:30-16:30) G-LHCB
Exercise 16: Engine Off Landings

Lee's on holiday again, so I decided to go to Elstree & have another lesson with James. I was booked in for a 12:30 lesson, so arrived just before then. As a point of interest, there was a very nice Ferrari in the car park. I went into the office & James explained that he'd just flown JATD (a heli I've flown before) & it was horrible. Someone had totally abused it - you could hardly hear the radio, the instructors seat & collective were wet, & it smelt! So, they decided to take it out of service, which left them with 1 heli for 2 instructors. I went to the cafe for a coffee & returned about an hour later. I was then told that James had decided to take his next student up as he was having an R44 lesson, whilst we waited for the other R22 to come back. So, I went & sat in my car for another hour, listening to the radio & waiting for James & the R22 to return. I heard the R44 coming in & requesting an autorotation, so I went & watched it. I went back to the office & explained what I'd been doing since my last lesson with him. I've not done any Practice Forced Landings (PFLs) so asked if I could do some of them? Finally, around 3pm the R22 returned, so we could go. We walked out to the R22 which was a Beta II, James refueled it whilst I transit checked it. I started up, made the radio call OK (slightly different as Elstree is just an Information service) took off & hovered out to the hovering square, crossing the active runway on the way. James said we'll do a circuit, then I'll take over for the last bit & show you an auto to the ground, but with a power recovery into the hover. I transitioned into flight, flew the circuit & James took over as we were approaching final. He entered a standard autorotation, keeping the speed around 65kts & the RPM in the green. At approximately 40' he started to flare the heli to reduce the speed & therefore arrest the decent. Just as the speeds almost all gone, level the heli & prepare for landing. At this point he sticks in a load of collective & returns to the hover. The very last bit scared me slightly as I thought we were going to hit the ground? James said we had inches to spare!? I then completed 4 circuits, each one entering into an autorotation on final. Getting into an auto's OK & so is controlling it, but I have to watch my speed as I let it reduce too much & I never seem to put enough right pedal in? It's judging when to flare & by how much that's the challenge. James said look at the ground. Above 40' it just looks like green grass, but as you get to around 40' you can start to see some detail. It's at this point when you start to flare. But, to start with, you just induce a small flare & see how the heli reacts. If it's quite windy then you'll only need a small flare, where as if there's hardy any wind, you'll need quite a big flare. I was starting to get the hang of this, but not pushing the nose forward in time to level the heli for landing. The power recovery's were OK but a bit irratic. All in all, an OK lesson? I think/hope after a few more PFLs I'll be able to walk away if I'm the unlucky one that has an engine failure on their 1st solo?!

Flight Time: 0.8 hrs
PUT: 19.0 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 18.0 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs
Total Time: 19.0 hrs

Sunday 3rd July 2005 (10:30-12:30)
Air Law exam (36/40 = 90%)

I was due to have a lesson yesterday, but Andy Kane wanted Lee to take him to the Henley Regatta in the R44, so my lesson was cancelled. Instead I was supposed to have a double lesson today, taking Andy's slot. Andy came in anyway, so I decided to finally take the plunge & sit my Air Law exam. Had 1 hour to answer the 40 questions (4 possible answers). After about 25 minutes, I'd finished! I decided to go through the whole thing again, checking each question. I marked around 4-6 questions that I wasn't sure about. After 35 minutes I'd done this so went back to reception to hand my paper in, but no-one was there? I could hear Lee in a meeting room with Andy, so went to give him my paper, just as they exited the classroom. They were just off to the cafe, so I went with them.

Sunday 3rd July 2005 (12:30-14:30) G-CBWZ
Exercise 11: Circuits

Lee asked me to go out to the helicopter & transit check it. I was sitting there for about 1/2 hour waiting for Lee to turn up. Finally he did, got in & I turn the avionics back on as I'd already done the pre-start checks. He turned them off & said he wanted me to go through it from the start?! I did this, started, called ATC, lifted off & hover-taxied over to the FATO. I flew my 1st circuit with a practice autorotation on final. As with last week at Elstree, I could instigate the flare OK, but wasn't getting the nose forward enough to level the heli. The next circuit we practiced an Engine Off Landings whilst downwind, with a power recover at around 200'. This was OK, but I tended to let the speed bleed off a bit too much when recovering. As we were landing, I think Lee got a text message as he checked his mobile? I thought he was checking the time? We did a couple more normal circuits, the 1st one with quite a good transition back to the hover, but the 2nd one was terrible! Lee backtracked up the final FATO so I could practice a transition into the hover again. He then got me to move off the FATO & practice take-offs & landings several times, each time forcing me to use the front of the skids. After what seemed to be like about 10 take-offs & landings, Lee said to me "Congratulations, you got 90% on your Air Law exam"! W'HOO! He then said that because of this he was now going to get out! He radioed ATC & told them that he wanted to send me on my 1st solo circuit & requested that I keep the same "Cabair 38" callsign. "Fly one circuit & then come back..." he said as he got out "Be good & be safe!"

Flight Time: 1.1 hrs
PUT: 20.1 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 19.1 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs
Total Time: 20.1 hrs

Sunday 3rd July 2005 (12:30-14:30) G-CBWZ
Exercise 12: Solo Circuit

There was another helicopter coming into land, so I sat there for ages waiting for it to come in. Finally, Lee gestured to me to go, so I took off into the hover, did my lookout & checked what this other heli was doing. At that point I got a major wobble on but managed to recover it. I was spending to much time looking at the other heli & not enough at what I was doing! ATC then called me & asked if I was (ever) going to fly a circuit? I moved back onto the FATO, called for a circuit right, transitioned into forward flight & away I went! Managed to perform all my checks as I went out & it was only after turning onto the downwind & calling 'Downwind' that I actually had a bit of time to look out & think "I'm flying!" I then started my decent, which needed a lot less power than normal, but I ended up over doing it & turned onto final at 400' I stayed with it, until the sight picture was OK & then started my decent. Not a bad transition, but not a great one. I forgot to reset my Carb Heat to hover setting at 300'. When I was back in the hover on the FATO, Lee gestured for me to land, which I did. He then got back in & congratulated me. One major milestone out the way. He then flew us back to disbursal & shut the helicopter down whilst I contemplated what had just happened!

Flight Time: 0.1 hrs
PUT: 20.1 hrs / PIC (Pilot In Command): 0.1 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 19.2 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs
Total Time: 20.2 hrs

Saturday 9th July 2005 (14:30-16:30) G-BOAM
Exercise 22: Navigation

I went in for my lesson at 12:30 but the weather wasn't that good. Lee wanted to send me solo again, but the cloud base was too low + it's the grand prix weekend, so no solo students are allowed. Instead Lee decided to brief me on navigation & making me spend a fortune on a flight computer, ruler & pertractor. Two different types of navigation need for the test: Heading Hold & Track Crawl. Both methods involve drawing a straight line from point A to point B. Heading Hold then involves marking half way & drawing fan lines at 5 & 10 either side. Write on the map the true heading & distance (Lee says draw a rectangle box round the distance - like a road sign). You then use the flight computer (whizz wheel) set with the wind speed & direction for the appropriate altitude (usually 2000') to work out your magnetic track to follow. Under the true heading number write the magnetic heading & (Lee suggestion) underline it, so you don't read it up-side-down! Finally from your initial speed of 80kts, the whizz wheel will give you your ground speed. Work out how long it will take you to travel the distance measured & write that on the map in a circle (like a clock). Finally, along all the lines look for features (e.g. railway lines, roads, water, forests) & mark these with timings.

There is then 2 different ways of flying these tracks. With Heading Hold you take your magnetic heading & stick rigedly to it. When you are half way see where you are & how far off course (this is where the fan lines come in). Double the error & turn in the opposite direction. Therefore you should end up at your destination?! The second method (Track Crawl) is what's usually used, when you keep picking spots out that you should be flying over & 'crawl' between them. Lee asked me to plan a route from Olney to Chelveston aerials to Kimbolton to Bedford disused & back to Olney for rejoin. First leg - heading hold, other legs - track crawl. A student was coming in for a trial lesson, but Lee asked if I could hang around we could fly the navigation I'd just planned? I had a 4pm appointment at the opticians to collect my contact lenses, but decided (obviously) I'd rather fly, so moved my appointment to next Saturday. I went off to the cafe for a coffee & to finish planning the navigation whilst Lee took the trial lesson student up. He got back & asked me to go out & check the helicopter. He said that now I've gone solo I'm allowed to start up myself, so I duly did (very exciting if a little nerve-wracking?!) Just as I was finishing the start up procedures Lee came over & got in. Pre-flight checks done, radio call made requesting slightly differently 'NavEx to the North' I took off & hovered over to the FATO. Radioed for clearance to depart ('Ready for departure') & transitioned into flight making my way to Olney. This is where it starts to get quite intense, as you have to make sure your keeping to 2000' & 80kts on the correct heading. The height doesn't matter (that much) apart from you'll hit something if you go too low! The speed & direction definately do matter as it will throw both your timings & track off. I managed to stay pretty much on true track & got half way to Chelveston aerials. I thought I was about 5 to the left (port), Lee thought more like 7-8? So I turned 15 to starboard to correct. Ended up getting to Chelveston aerials pretty much on track & time. I then track crawled to Kimbolton fairly OK, & then turned to go towards Bedford disused. This went a bit wrong & I wasn't too sure where I was (it's really hard to visualise things from 2000'!) I managed to get to Bedford disused with a little help from Lee & then started to make my way back to Olney. Again I got lost slightly, but didn't think it was too bad for my first go. Lee agreed! Another new call on the radio 'Olney for rejoin' & having to read back circuit entry, runway & QFE. Managed that OK but didn't managed to fly back to Cranfield that well. Lee got me over to the correct area to rejoin & I transitioned into the hover. I hover taxiied back to disbursal & started to shut down. Lee got out & said I was OK to shut down as well & he'd meet me back in the office. All in all, quite a satisfactory lesson - a lot done & learnt.

Flight Time: 1.0 hrs
PUT: 21.1 hrs / PIC: 0.1 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 20.2 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs
Total Time: 21.2 hrs

Saturday 16th July 2005 (14:30-16:30) G-CBWZ
Exercise 22: Navigation

Last lesson Lee asked me to plan the same route as but backwards: Olney to Bedford disused to Kimbolton to Chelveston aerials & back to Olney for rejoin. I looked on the Met Office website at the 214 spot weather in the morning for the wind & calculated that. Lee had a quick look through it & said it was OK. I went out & started the helicopter up (Lee's letting me do this on my own from now on). He came out & we got under way.

Flight Time: 0.8 hrs
PUT: 21.9 hrs / PIC: 0.1 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 21.0 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs
Total Time: 22.0 hrs

Sunday 17th July 2005 (10:30-12:30) G-CBWZ
Exercise 22: Navigation

Another navigation exercises, this time from Olney to Molesworth to Buckden railway down the railway line to St Neots to Bedford disused & back to Olney for rejoin.

Flight Time: 0.9 hrs
PUT: 22.8 hrs / PIC: 0.1 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 21.9 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs
Total Time: 22.9 hrs

Friday 29th July 2005 (12:30-14:30) G-JATD
Exercise 22: Navigation

As Lee asked, I planned the following NavEx in the morning:
Olney to Peterborough Conington for my 1st away landing.
Peterborough Conington to Northampton Sywell overhead
Sywell back to Olney for rejoin.

Turned up & Lee forgot that I was coming in 1 hour early. Unfortuately, the helictoper was (sort of) broken. Lee said that the belts were too tight & the blades started to turn as soon as you started the engine. A maintenance engineer from Patriot Helicopters was coming over to fix the problem, but taking ages! Finally, it was sorted, so I had to ring Peterborough Conington & ask if I could land (as it's a PPR aerodrome). I checked with them the circuit direction, current wind, runway in use & all was OK. So, I went out to the heli & started her up and then Lee joined me. I know that JATDs Lee's favourite heli, but I've never really got on with her. She always seems a bit rough to me?

I made the radio call, took off & went out towards Olney. I heard a radio message being said, but missed the callsign, so didn't realise it was for me. Lee made me respond to it, looking for another aeroplane & changing frequency, as during the week they operate an Approach & Tower frequency. I headed out towards Olney & started the heading hold leg of my journey to Peterborough Conington. This seemed to go OK, apart from the heli's only got a compass, which isn't that accurate, so you have to let it settle. I managed to change frequency OK although I asked Peterborough Conington for a Flight Information Service even though they're only a Radio station. I missed the half way point of the journey & was more, sort of, track crawling to Peterborough Conington. I was crossing a major road, looking for Peterborough but couldn't see it. Suddenly a very large piece of tarmac caught my eye... arr, that looks like a runway to me! I was very late so Lee made the necessary radio calls. I managed to join the left circuit & came into land on the runway threshold. My transition was OK & then Radio asked me to land behind some planes. I taxiied over, turned into wind, tried to land, but couldn't! I tried again & couldn't... so Lee took over & landed for me. He said I was probably just a bit stressed? I got out, went into the office & paid the landing fee (£10). Got back in the helicopter, that Lee had kept running & took off. Transitioned back into flight OK & track crawled to Sywell. This was going to be a first for me, even though I only live about 5 miles from Sywell, I've never been there! I changed radio frequency to Sywell Information & reported to them that I was 'Inbound'. I vaguely recognised Wellingborough & was looking for big land marks - Pitsford Reservoir & Sywell Water. Finally I noticed some runway designators & marks in a big grass field... arr, that's must be Sywell?! I reported to Sywell that I was overhead, turned back towards Cranfield & continued my flight. I was amazed that at 2000' from Northampton I could distinctively pick out eXcape (ski slope) in Milton Keynes, about 15 miles away. I knew that Cranfield was to the left of that, so headed that way. Lee kept asking me where I was as I was changing frequency back to Cranfield - I hadn't got a clue! At this point Lee grabbed my map off my lap & threw it on the floor saying "Whoops, you maps just flown out the window, get us home!" I was coming up on quite a big town. I thought it was Wellingborough again, but it was infact Olney! The radio was very, very busy. Infact Lee said he'd never heard it quite so busy. Lee finally managed to find a gap & jumped in with the radio call. We were still around Olney for rejoin & were given landing clearance because they were so busy! I joined onto right base, turned onto final & got us back down to a hover, although my transitions are still not very good.

Flight Time: 1.3 hrs
PUT: 24.1 hrs / PIC: 0.1 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 23.2 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs
Total Time: 24.2 hrs

Saturday 30th July 2005 (12:30-14:30) G-JATD
Exercise 13/14: Sideways & Backwards flying, Spot turns & Turns around the Tail

I was to plan another away landing at Leicester, but the weather wasn't that good, so Stuart (Ops Manager) called me & said that Lee said is wasn't worth planning the NavEx.
Got there & Lee said we probably wouldn't go flying, so would just do some ground school instead? We went into a classroom & talked about Exercise 13 - Sideways & Backwards flying. Not much to it really. Just making sure that you keep a good lookout. For backwards flying, always perform a lookout turn, raise hover height to around 8' & only move backwards 2 heli lengths. We then quickly taked about Exercise 14 - Spot Turns & Turns around the Tail. I've already done spot turns as part of the lookout turn, & turns around the tail didn't really need explaining. It's a lot more practice than theory.
The weather then started to brighten up, so Lee suggested that we went out & had a go. I went out to the heli, checked it over & started it up. Lee joined me & we taxied out to the Compass Ring. Started off over the 'X' that marks the middle of the ring. First, I did a few spot turns to the left & right, & then some sideways flight along a line. Went into a higher hover after performing a lookout turn & then tried to fly backwards. Lee then moved us out to the edge of the circle & demoed a turn around the tail. There's 2 ways of getting this wrong, the good way is to effectively make to big a circle. The bad way is to make to small a circle, so you are almost turning around the strobe? I then had a go... guess how I got it wrong?! It's very hard to co-ordinate the cyclic & pedal movement. But that's the whole point - co-ordination! I then tried spot turns around the right skid, then the left & then round the nose. Finally I tried to hover sideways around the circle & then hover backwards around the circle. I'd only been out there around 20 minutes & was already starting to get a bit tired. So, Lee gave me a quick demo of everything I'd just done in about 2 minutes, finishing off with his famous donuts, this time around the circle! We then taxied back to Disbursal & shut down.

Flight Time: 0.5 hrs
PUT: 24.6 hrs / PIC: 0.1 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 23.7 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs
Total Time: 24.7 hrs

Sunday 31st July 2005 (10:30-12:30) G-JATD
Exercise 15: Vortex Ring

I was supposed to be in at 12:30 today, but Stu phoned me up yesterday & asked if I would move forward to 10:30, which I agreed to? Again, typically, bad weather this morning, so no NavEx! The forcast said only 1000' cloud at Cranfield & 500' at Leicester, but it was due to brighten up during the afternoon, so my original 12:30 slot might have been OK? Oh, well! As I drove in, Cranfield ATIS reported 1800' cloud base. That means 2100' on QNH. As the weather wasn't looking that good, Lee said that we probably wouldn't fly & decided that more ground school was the order of the day. This time Exercise 15 - Vortex Ring. We went through all the theory of wings/blades through the air & the different pressures created. Lee asked why I thought there was a pressure difference (P- T- V+) on the top of the wing/blade compared to the bottom. I suggested (as I thought I'd read in some books) that the air that was divided at the front of the wing had to speed up to meet at the same point at the back. I was told in no uncertain terms that this was WRONG! Basically, the air over the top of the wing/blade is pushed up, but at some point in the atmosphere it's flat. Therefore, it's squeezed, so the pressure is reduced. This will therefore make the temperature reduce & therefore the velocity increase. All this adds up to the wing/blade giving you lift. The problem is that at the end of the wing/blade there is a pressure difference so the air wants to get as quickly as possible from the (+) side to the (-) side. This causes the vortex ring, as can be seen on most planes when they take off or land & there is a large angle of attack. Con trails are produced because of the temperature difference & the cold air is suddenly heated past it's dew point, so water vapor is created in a helix formation. Vortex ring will start when 3 scenareo's occur: Greater than 300'/min decent, Less than 17kts IAS & Power on. All the books say 30kts, but that's because the air speed indicator doesn't read accurately below this. One way to get out of a vortex ring state would be to autorotate, but this isn't the usual option as the speed is too low, so you'll hit the ground rather hard! Increasing the collective will just make the situation worse. The only 'real' way to get out of vortex ring is point the nose forward & accelerate. Once reading over 30kts IAS pull Max boost on the collective. At this point, it was starting to brighten up again, so I turned on my radio & listened to ATIS. It was still reporting 1800' (so 2100' on the QNH) & we needed around 2000' to practice vortex rings, so we decided to go flying. I went out to the heli, started her up & Lee joined me. I called for a 'local' flight & hover taxied over to the FATO. We were very low on power & I was right on the max boost MAP when I tried to transition into flight. I tried to pull the collective up some more, but could feel Lee stopping me. He said that I hadn't got any more power, so had to live with it. I made a total hash of the transition! I thought I caught the translational lift OK, but then decided to slow down as I thought we were going to hit the ground? This is where it all went pear shaped! Lee was less than impressed. Anyway, we flew out to Olney & as I passed 2000' the clouds were still way above. Lee said keep climbing so we can see how high the cloud is. As we passed through 2300' I guessed it was around 3000'? Lee said 'No way, 25-26'? It was exactly 3000'! HOORAY! I dropped back down to 2500' & Lee then demoed a full-on vortex ring. With a steady rate of decent, he brought the speed back past 30kts IAS & the heli started to shake. This is the first sign of vortex ring & when you would start to react to it. He kept going & then you start to get unwanted yaw & pitching of the heli that can quickly become uncontrollable. He the pitched the nose quite far forward, waited, waited, waited, IAS now reading more than 30kts & so pull Max boost. We then climbed up & he demoed it again, this time stopping at the onset of vortex ring when the airframe started to shudder. I then had 3 or 4 goes at this, finding it quite hard to keep from yawing. We the rejoined & I tried to transition back into the hover! It was all going swimmingly, I started decending from around 1000' on base & started to turn onto final around 600', so thought I'd level out around 500'? What actually happened was that I leveled out at around 350'! This obviously put a panic on & I thought, hold until the sight picture looks right. What I failed to do was to slow down enough. This meant that at around 100' I was coming in too steep, so had a large negative VSI (around 500'/min) & was falling below that magic 30kts! Oh, no, vortex ring. Lee said he let me do this to show what I was doing wrong?! At least I did the right thing in extending my landing. Lee was less than impressed, again, so backtracked & demoed a 'proper' transition & what to do if I had too much speed. Obvious, really - Slow down! Oh, well, back to Disbursal & shut down.

Flight Time: 0.5 hrs
PUT: 25.1 hrs / PIC: 0.1 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 24.2 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs
Total Time: 25.2 hrs

Saturday 6th August 2005 (12:30-14:30) G-CBWZ
Exercise 11/13/14: Circuits, Sideways & Backwards flying, Spot turns & Turns around the Tail

Looked at the weather & it looked 'OK' but not brilliant. I decided to plan my Nav to Leicester anyway, but the Met Office website F214 hadn't been updated. So, I went into flying for around 12:15 & by the time I got there, the Met Office website had been updated. I calculated all my timings based on the spot wind & just about finished writing them up on my map when Lee got back from his previous lesson. Lee said I had a choice today, either flying my NavEx to Leicester or doing some solo circuits? I'd been looking at the weather for the weekend & tomorrow looked a lot better, sunnier & slightly less wind, but still couldn't decide? I flipped a coin, heads for solo & it was heads! I went out to the heli, transit checked it, started it up & Lee joined me. Again, 1 of the Mags was 'sticking' slightly, but it was OK. I took off & flew a circuit which all seemed to go OK. But then came the transition into the hover... Why am I still mucking these up? I was terrible! I was getting to a point of putting the helicopter into Vortex Ring, which, obviously, is very bad! Lee told me to chose whether I was going to land or go-around? I choose to land - WRONG! I'd never done a go-around, so mucked that up as well! Attitude first, then power. Another circuit, all OK & started to enter the hover transition again. This time I started the decent a lot earlier, so I would hopefully turn final at 500'? I did, but still mucked it up slightly. I thought I was getting into Vortex Ring again as the helicopter started to shake, but Lee said that's just going through translational lift. Lee was less than impressed with my into-hover transitions, so he backtracked up the runway so I could try again. This time he flew the first half of it, telling me what I was doing wrong & how to correct it. I then flew the last half a lot better & actually finished in the hover directly above the landing point! The wind was across the FATO & even though it wasn't that strong (~8kts) it kept varing in both strength & direction. Lee said that he couldn't send me solo like this so asked what I wanted to do? I asked to do an autorotation, so I flew another circuit, this time keeping at 80kts & 1000' all the way onto final. I was letting my speed bleed off a bit, down to 70kts, in anticipation of the auto coming up, but sorted that out back upto 80kts. I entered the auto well, kept the heli level as I dumped the collective. I always tend to let the speed come off too much as the heli needs a more nose down attitude. Lee said this was going to be harder to do, as the wind was across the FATO, so we had to come in to the left & then turn into wind. We didn't have much room as we were turning towards other parked planes, so had to perform a late right turn. I really wanted to start turning, but Lee kept saying wait... wait... finally, not sure how high we were, but I'd say around 200' we turned into wind, just as Lee re-engaged the throttle. Again, I started to flare too early, so stopped, reflared at the right time, which was quite effective, so didn't need much. Then a bigger flare to kill the speed off & positive nose forward to level the heli. Just as I pulled the collective back in to enter back into a hover, I pulled the cyclic back to kill a bit more speed off. Lee said if I hadn't of done that we could have made a safe landing all the way to the ground. As it was we would have probably bounced on the back skids? Anyway, safely down & I feel OK about auto. Lee asked what else I wanted to do, & I suggested a bit of hover practice in the compass ring. I hovered over to it & Lee asked me to do a turn around the tail. I was finding it really hard to keep the heli in a circle, especially as I was moving crosswind to downwind. I tried this each way, but wasn't very good. Lee had a quick go, just to check how strong the wind was, & then I tried a spot turn around the nose. Lee then said to me turn 90 so we're cross wind & land! This was a bit buffety, but I managed it OK. Lee then asked me to turn another 90 so we were downwind & land! This was really buffety & I had to have 2 go's at landing, but finally got it on the ground OK. Lee then said, right, now turn into wind, go over to the grass & land. I did that & landed straight away really easily. He said that it's really good to practice hard landings, so the easy one's become even easier. I then taxied back to Disbursal & landed rather heavily, so did it again. This time, much better, so shut the helicopter down.

I was due to have a lesson on Sunday at 12:30. It turned out to be a really nice day & would have been great for flying my NavEx to Leicester. Unfortunately, I got a phone call at 08:30 saying that Lee had twisted his ankle playing football... GREAT!

Flight Time: 0.7 hrs
PUT: 25.8 hrs / PIC: 0.1 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 24.9 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs
Total Time: 25.9 hrs

Saturday 13th August 2005 (10:30-12:30)
Ground School - Mass & Balance calculation and Instrument Flying

The weather looks terrible for the whole weekend, so no flying today (as as it turned out tomorrow either!) Both myself & Rob (another student) are at the same point, so Lee decided to brief us both on Instrument Flying. Zac wanted to go over Mass & Balance calculations, so we all did that to start with before Zac left. Lee then took Rob & I through the Instrument Flying scenarios that we would have to cope with: Straight & Level flying Changes in attitude Changes in height Changes in direction Rate 1 turns (60kts = 6x2-1=11º or 80kts = 8x2-1=15º gives 3 p/s = 180º p/m) Unusual attitudes (Hands off, close your eyes, instructor puts the heli into an unusual attitude & then you sort it out!) Autorotations

Thursday 18th August 2005 (08:30-10:30) G-CBWZ
Exercise 27: Instrument flying

A day off today to play in a golf competition & so managed to get a lesson in first thing. Didn't plan my NavEx as the weather didn't look that good. When I got there I went out & A checked the heli whilst waiting for Lee to get in. I went back to the office & discussed with him what we were going to do. Lee asked how much visibility we should have to do the Nav? I suggested 5km? He said that 5km is only around 3 miles which really isn't that far, so we should have at least 10km. So, he decided we'd go & do some instrument flying. I went back out to the heli & started it up (requesting start up as we were round the back of the tower). Made the radio calls & Lee taxied & took off whilst I put the instrument hood on (like a big plastic peeked cap). Just after transitioning off I took over trying to hold a steady course climbing upto 2000'. We did a few rate 1 turns that should be at 11º at 60kts or 15º at 80kts. Also some speed & height changes, both up & down. Everything in instrument flying is centred around the Artificial Horizon (AH). The instrument scan sequence should be AH, one instrument, back to AH, another instrument, back to AH, etc. Lee also said that when he gives me any instructions (i.e. heading, height, speed) I should read them back like you would if ATC instructed you. By now we'd climbed upto around 4500' so Lee asked me to perform an instruments only autorotation. I, sort of, entered it OK, but tend to be far too mechanical? Not sure how else you're supposed to do it on instruments only? I managed to keep to around 60-65kts but managed to reduce collective rather than raise it when the RPM was getting too high. I then recovered out of the auto at around 2000'. We then did a couple of unusual attitude changes. Lee asked me to close my eyes, put my chin on my chest & try to fly straight & level. The main thing about lowering your head is that you tend to push the cyclic forward, so end up speeding up. There will usually be quite a massive turn rate & possibly a decent as well. Your senses will fool you alot, thinking your in a turn when infact you're flying straight, so you counteract it & put the heli into an opposite turn! After about 30 seconds Lee said open your eyes & recover. The recovery technique is called 'Bar to Bar'. This involves first getting the wings level so the AH horizontal bar is level. Then a quick check to see if you have less than 30kts air speed & a decent as you could be in a vortex ring situation. If you have then you need to increase speed to above 30kts before bringing the vertical bar level & introducing power. Finally you should return to the speed, heading & height that you started the exercise at. After that I flew us back into the circuit with Lee calling out headings & heights to me. Finally, at around 500' Lee said I could take the hood off. I then transitioned into the hover (the best one I've ever done!), landed at disbursal & shut down the heli.

Flight Time: 0.7 hrs
PUT: 26.5 hrs / PIC: 0.1 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 25.6 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs
Total Time: 26.6 hrs

Saturday 20th August 2005 (12:30-14:30) G-CBWZ
Exercise 22: Navigation

I've had a land away navigation to Leicester planned for the past few weeks, but the weather's not been good enough. Today it was, so I added the wind adjustments on & we flew it. I went out to the heli (at maintenance), transit checked it & started it up. Lee joined me & we taxied out to the FATO. I took off & flew out to Olney to start the Heading Hold leg of my journey to just below Leicester. I managed to hold the course quite well & transferred the radio over to Sywell Information OK. Didn't need to adjust my course at the heading hold was working, so just transferred over to Leicester Radio & asked what runway they were using. I instructed them that I would land on the grass triangle to the side of the active runway. Came into the transition really well, crossed the active runway & landed. Lee stayed in the heli whilst I went & paid the £10 landing fee. Got back in & took off straight away. Followed a track crawl back to Olney which is quite easy to Northampton (Sywell) because Pitsford Reservoir is a massive bit of water that you can't miss. After that it gets a little tricky & you have to really be careful not to get lost. I managed to transfer the radio to Sywell & then back to Cranfield OK, but this is where it started to get really busy. There was 3 other helicopters in the area all coming into land. We were number 3 & the 2 infront of us were taking a really wide line onto the base & final leg of the circuit. I was following them & Lee said just because they're doing it wrong, doesn't mean you have to. I mananged to transition into the hover OK, but went long as the 1st heli that landed was still quite near to the landing mark. Lee told me off for this, but when I explained why I'd done it, he said OK. (I was the 'Pilot In Command' (even though PUT) & I felt it would be dangerous to land where the other helicopter was hovering.) I taxied back to maintenance & shut down the heli. At this point Andy Kane was checking over the other heli (G-BOAM) as he was about to have a lesson. I finished shutting down my heli & went back to the office. About 10 minutes later Lee turned up & said that the heli was 'broken'?! Did I want to come over & have a look. Andy had A-checked BOAM & all was OK, but when Lee got in after start up there was a constant banging. They took off into the hover & it seemed to stop but the clutch light kept coming on & off. They landed again & the banging started, so they decided to shut the helicopter down & take a look. What they found was a mess! The right V belt had slipped completely off the pulley & then left belt had jumped onto the right groove, so it was sitting diagonally! There was rubber everywhere from the belt that had come off & was being warn away by the rotor shaft. Andy (who's an engineer) suspected what had happened was that the clutch microswitch was faulty, so it was slackening the belts, which caused one of them to jump off? A maintenace engineer is due tomorrow to service the heli I just flew (G-CBWZ) as it's now only got 0.3 hours left on it, so he would take a look that this as well.

Flight Time: 1.4 hrs
PUT: 27.9 hrs / PIC: 0.1 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 27.0 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs
Total Time: 28.0 hrs

Sunday 21st August 2005 (12:30-14:30) G-ROVY
Exercise 22: Navigation

With both helis out of service, I thought todays lesson might be cancelled. Lee managed to get down to Elstree last night & flew a different R22 up, so we had one available. Zac cancelled his 08:30 lesson, so Andy was in first thing & I went in for around 11am. I planned the Nav from Olney VRP to Peterborough Conington (landing), Peterborough Conington to Leicester (landing) & Leicester to Olney for rejoin. When I got into the office I was showing Stuart (Ops Manager) my map & he said there was a NOTAMed air show around Peterborough Conington. I checked & it said there was a no fly zone 2nm around a small airfield about 5nm to the east of Peterborough Conington, so I thought it'd be OK? I phoned them up (as the aerodrome is PPR) & they told me about the air show & that I couldn't come in & land. Possibly after 1pm? Lee came in & I told him that we couldn't land at Peterborough Conington. He decided we'd fly out towards there & turn at Sawtry (the waypoint) for Leicester. I phoned Leicester & asked for permission to land there, which was given. So, I went out to the heli, A-checked it & started it up. Lee joined me, I called ATC for clearance, taxied & took off for Olney. A fairly uneventful heading hold from Olney to Sawtry, but the wind was slightly stronger than forecast, so I was being pushed east of track. By half way I was approximately 12 off track, so turned 24 west to end up at Sawtry. Changed radio to Peterborough Conington & informed them of my intensions. It's a lot different talking to an air/ground (radio) station. They don't give you any instructions (because they can't). Lee said basically think as if you are the ATC. So if you think you would be given an order to do something, tell the radio station I intend to do this. We turned south of Sawtry for Leicester & track crawled there. I hadn't planned to talk to either of the military stations along the way, but Lee we should. He handled the radio & when he finally got through to one of them, they required us to Squark a different code. Lee said there are a lot of gliders around this area, so it's nice to have at least a Flight Information Service. As we got towards Leicester the military station requested that we change over to them, which we did. I came into Leicester and landed on the grass triangle keeping clear of the active runway. Again, Lee explained this was a radio call that I had to make, telling them my intensions, because they won't tell you! I taxied over to the parking area & shut down the helicopter. We went into the office, I paid the £10 landing fee & we went upstairs to the bar. A hot beef baguette & a coke each whilst watching a bit of the grand prix. About 45 minutes later, we went back out to the heli, I started her up again, Lee got in & I taxied back to the grass triangle. Again, I had to tell Leicester that I was going to depart, rather than asking if I could. I headed back out to Kibworth (the waypoint) & track crawled back to Cranfield via Sywell. I find it really easy to find Sywell now, as Pitsford Reservoir is right next to it. But the 2nd half of the leg, from there to Cranfield is a lot harder, as there's no major landmarks. I ended up about a mile west of track, but managed to identify Olney & rejoined the circuit. Landed OK & shut down at disbursal. Lee said that he wanted to send me on my solo Cross Country Qualifier (100nm flight with 2 land aways), but that he didn't think I was quite ready. I agreed saying that my flyings OK, but my navigation & radio needs some work. It's this whole thing of when you have to consentration on one point, you loose the others. It'll come with practice... I hope!?

Flight Time: 1.6 hrs
PUT: 29.5 hrs / PIC: 0.1 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 28.6 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs
Total Time: 29.6 hrs

Saturday 27th August 2005 (08:30-10:30) G-CBWZ
Exercise 27: Instrument flying

An early morning lesson today as I'm off to play golf for the bank holiday weekend. Spoke to Lee yesterday & decided I really didn't want to get up even earlier to plan a nav, so we decided to do some more instrument flying. I got there just after 08:30, had a bit of a chat with Stu and then went & A checked the heli. Got back to the office just after 9am & waited for Lee to turn up. A few things were wrong with the helicopter: Both port & starboard nav lights were out (not that that matters for daytime flying), One of the starter motor teeth was chipped (Lee already knew about that), But the main thing was that the V belts felt quite slack. When turning the pulley you could almost take them off! Lee said the usual wait time is 7 seconds from activating the clutch - any more than 9-10 seconds & we wouldn't fly it. On start up the main rotors took about 9 seconds to start turning, so we were just about OK, but they would need tightening. The heli is a Beta II & I still couldn't find the Aux fuel tank drain, so Lee showed me where it was. So, after start-up, I got clearance to taxi & ATC told me that Hotel 22 was in use & the wind velocity, took off & hover taxied out towards the FATO. Half way to the FATO Lee asked me to land & stupidly I hadn't got a clue what the wind velocity was & landed cross wind! For some reason I thought it was something like 120? Obviously, if they're using Hotel 22, it's going to be somewhere around 220! Hindsight is a great thing - I could have even asked ATC for a surface wind check. Lee then transitioned into flight whilst I put the instrument hood on. I then took over flying & climbed up to 2000' before practicing a few manouvers. I was keeping level, 80kts, 2000' & holding my heading OK, although I tend to turn left slightly. We then did some timed rate 1 turns, so Lee covered up the DI & I did a 1 minute rate 1 left turn from South to North. When I levelled out I was only about 5 off course - w'hoo! I then did a rate 1 right turn for a minute to turn back onto South. This time I was about 20 off course, so corrected with a 6 second turn (3 per second). Lee said they were good enough & we'd do some 30 turns. You only do these on your commercial ATPL, but Lee thought I was good enough. I managed to keep a fairly constant 30 turn with 80kts & 2000' but tend to speed up a lot. I blame some of it on a dodgy AH, as Lee also agreed that it was really slow in reacting. There wasn't really anything else to do & Lee said I was good enough, so we headed back in. I maintained 2000' which ended up nearer 2500' when we switched onto QFE. Lee called for a 360º autorotation, which I entered into before Lee took over so I could take my hood off. He flew the rest of the auto & landed at disbursal where I shut down. A very successful & enjoyable lesson!

Flight Time: 0.7 hrs
PUT: 30.2 hrs / PIC: 0.1 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 29.3 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs
Total Time: 30.3 hrs

Saturday 3rd September 2005 (12:30-14:30) G-CBWZ
Exercise 17: Advanced Autorotations

The weather didn't look that good today, so after phoning Lee & discussing things I didn't plan my nav. Instead some advanced autos, but first, some ground school. Almost all autorotations are performed with the RRPM at the top of the green (104%).

Standard auto - 65kts @ 104%
Range auto - 80kts @ 104%
Endurance auto - 53kts @ 104%
Slow auto - 35kts @ 104%
Zero speed - 0kts @ 104%
Then the max extended auto - 80kts @ 90%! (Stall = 80% + 1% for every 1000' density altitude)
Also, S turns, 180º & 360º turns.

All techniques involve varying attitude & therefore blade pitch. Next, a spot of lunch before I went out, checked & started the heli. Lee joined me & I made the usual radio call. ATC didn't know whether I said Cabair38 or 28? I had this problem once before with Sywell? Strange - 38 & 28 don't sound anything alike! Oh, well... I hovered over to the FATO, called for departure & transitioned out towards (I thought) Olney. I actually ended up flying about 30º to the right of Olney & still thought it was on my right!

The vis was only 8km & as we got up to around 2000' the cloud started to come in a bit, but 2500' was OK for autos. We picked a point to start the autos, so we could see the difference in distance travelled between the different techniques. Firstly I flew a standard auto at 65kts from 2500' to 1000' & then performed a go around. Next I performed an 80kt range auto, again from 2500' going around at 1000' & saw that we almost extended by a whole field. Lee then demoed a max range 80kt auto at 90%. This felt really horrible & obviously is really dangerous as you're close to stalling... and after all that, at 1000' go around we'd probably only gone an extra 100m or so. I then flew a 53kt auto followed by a 35kt one. Both these were a bit shorter than a standard auto, but not much. Lee then demoed a zero speed auto - infact our ground speed was negative & the VSI was off the clock (>-2000')!

Finally, we did two 360º turns - one each way & some S turns. I then called for rejoin from Olney & flew back to the airfield. Lee said we'd keep 2000' & he's demo a combo 360º & slow auto. This is used so you can complete the first 180º of the turn quickly, so you can keep you eye on the landing sight. He lowered the collective, hard banked left & reduced speed to around 35kts. We completed the 180º turn & only lost 100'! So, now we had plenty of time to view the landing sight, finish off the other 180º turn... infact we had so much height he did a couple of S turns! He power recovered into the hover & I taxied back to Disbursal to shut down.

When I called for Disbursal, ATC then asked to speak to 'Cabair38 Instructor' & asked Lee to tell me off cos whenever I say 'Cabair38' it sounds like 'Cabair28'?! H'um... think I'm gonna have to start using the stupid phonetic number 3 - TREE!

Flight Time: 0.8 hrs
PUT: 31.0 hrs / PIC: 0.1 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 30.1 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs
Total Time: 31.1 hrs

Sunday 4th September 2005 (12:30-14:30)
Exercise 18/20/21: Practice Forced Landings, Precision Transitions & Quickstops

The weather didn't look too bad today, but it's really deceving from the ground, compared to 2000'! I looked at the MetOffice website & it said, same as yesterday, only 8k vis & some cloud. I tried to phone Lee but he was out. I decided not to bother planning my nav, as the weather didn't look quite good enough. Got in & waited around for Lee to come back from a trial lesson. We discussed what to do today & he decided we'd do some ground school on PFLs (after watching the start of the Grand Prix!) We went through the various reasons why you'd perform a PFL - engine failure, engine fire, cabin fire & electrical fire/failure. All are flown as autos, but slightly differently. The main points are to enter auto, select a location you think you can make, make a MAYDAY call, perform the vital actions (turn off Fuel, Mixture, Mags, Alt), land. With an engine fire you can select a location before entering auto. With a cabin fire you try to vent the smoke first. With an electrical fire you'll need to turn off (or may loose) the Master & Alt, so everything except the RPM tacho will stop working. The main things to stop will be radio (so tell ATC), intercom (so you'll have to shout), transponder (so ATC won't know where you are), low RPM warning & governor. You don't need to perform the vital actions to kill the engine, so you can power recover into a hover, but this will be governor off, so VERY hard! We then only had about 40 minutes of the lesson left, so with checks & start up I'd only get about 20 mins flying, so it wasn't really worth it. Instead Lee decided to brief me on Precision Transitions & Quickstops, so we've got lots to do in the future. Precision Transitions are basically hover taxing at 8'-10' at 40-45kts. Not that much to them - raise hover height to 8'-10', increase speed to 40-45kts maintaining height, reduce speed at the end & return to normal hover height. Quickstops are a bit harder. Transition upto 80kts & climb to 25'. The first technique is a turn & flare, where you start a 180º turn & then flare to reduce speed. The second technique is a flare & turn, where you flare first before performing a 180º turn. This will make you turn a lot tighter than the first technique. With both techniques, you have to be aware of the 30/30 rule - never let your speed reduce below 30kts until within 30º of your turn-out. Also, as you are at 25' you could enter vortex ring, so need to be quite heavy with the power to then slowly return to hover height.

Saturday 17th September 2005 (08:30-10:30) G-BOEZ
Exercise 18: Practice Forced Landings

In early today as I'm off to Cirencester to play golf for the weekend. Unfortunately, Lee was delayed so didn't take off until 09:50. I went & transit checked the heli and found that it was a bit low on oil, so I put a litre in. Lee was a bit concerned as he thought Andy Kane put a litre in yesterday afternoon, so called him to confirm. Everything was OK, so I put the oil in, started the heli up, Lee joined me & we flew out to north of Olney. We did a couple of straight autos with go-arounds at approx 300' just to get me warmed up. Lee then said we'll use the radio as an engine failure cue. So, the next radio call made by anybody would instigate a PFL (practice forced landing). Someone made a call, I dumped the collective & entered autorotation. We did a few of these getting more & more complex, trying to track cross wind to a field, so you could turn final either early or late down the field dependant on height. Lee went through one of these to a hover power-recovery. We were tracking a line of trees along a field & I thought we were only around 100' (more like 300') when Lee turned into wind. We still ended up 2/3rds of the way down the field by the time we'd stopped & entered a hover! I taxied to the other end of the field, so we had the whole field to transition away in before the trees! Lee said you need to take off as if you're in a confined area (which I was)... but I don't know how to do that?! Ended up just transitioning into forward flight, but holding 35kts to gain maximum climb rate. We then returned to Cranfield & did a auto to a hover power-recovery into the FATO. Lee said we'll do a really short circuit to get round so we can do a few more PFLs. Ended up transitioning to 35kts max rate climb, cutting half the circuit out & got to 1000' & final really quickly, so we could enter auto. A few of these down & an hour done do I taxied back to disbursal, landed & shut down.

Flight Time: 1.0 hrs
PUT: 32.0 hrs / PIC: 0.1 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 31.1 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs
Total Time: 32.1 hrs

Friday 23rd September 2005 (14:30-16:30) EI-EXC
Blue Star Helicopters (Cork, Ireland) - R44

On a weeks golfing holiday in Cork with my 2 uncles. I decided a few months ago to try to book an hour in an R44 so I could take my 2 uncles up. When I first tried booking the helicopter company said that I couldn't take passengers whilst training (possibly due to insurance)? After a few e-mails they came back to me & said that they were now authorised to carry passenger whilst training, but we couldn't do any advanced manouvers (e.g. autos below 500', vortex ring, quickstops, etc). Also, due to our combined weight including the instructor I could only take one passenger at a time, so would have to split the lesson into 2 half hours. This was all OK with me as I just wanted to give my uncles a flight experience, so I booked in for the Thursday at 10:30. Typically, I woke up on Thursday to a torrential down pour! Had breakfast & decided to head out towards the airport incase it cleared up. Half way to the airport I received a phone call from Blue Star Helicopters saying they'd have to cancel the lesson due to weather. I said I was only on holiday for one more day, so they'd try to arrange something for Friday if they had a cancellation.

Friday morning came, I was having breakfast when I received a phone call saying they could get me in at 14:30. I checked with my 2 uncles as it basically cut the day in half & stopped us from playing golf, but due to the rain yesterday all the courses would be soaked, so they said yes. After a visit to the Jamesons Distillery I drove to Blue Star Helicopters & checked in with my instructor, Justin Gwyn-Williams.

After a quick chat & a mass & balance calculation that confirmed that we would be just over the MTWA with the 4 of us, we went out to the heli. Justin went through a transit check with me explaining that basically an R44 is 2 R22s stuck together as in everythings doubled up. Four V-belts rather than 2, 4 seats rather than 2, much larger blades, etc. The only difference with an R44 is the hydraulics for the control due to the weight of the blades (so you need to check that there's no hydraulic fluid leaking). Brian was to be the first passenger & he was to take pictures with my camera. I loaded him in & ran through the safety procedures (belt, door, exit, etc) before Justin & I got in & start up. This was basically the same as an R22 except they do Governor On starts (although we didn't do half the pre-start checks that I would expect)? At the end of the pre-vital checks when taking the cyclic friction off, you then switch the hydraulics off & check the movement is restricted. Switching the hydraulics back on makes the cyclic really light (apparently someone was killed on take off because they didn't check the hydraulics & they were off!)

I left all the radio calls to Justin as we were at Cork International & using their ATC service. I lifted into the hover which I found a bit tricky & had a bit of oscillation, but managed to sort that. Once cleared I transitioned out & flew as directed by Justin out of the circuit before turning south. I flew over south Cork & out towards Kinsale & the Old Head Golf Course. I tracked the eastern edge of the golf course out to sea, then turned around the head & tracked the western edge back to the mainland. I flew west along the coast until we'd been in the air for approx 20 mins, at which point I turned back for Cork airport. I transitioned into the heli grass area, landed OK after another bit of a hover oscillation and another instructor helped Brian get out & Des get in so we didn't have to shut down.

Again, I lifted into the hover & got a bit of an oscillation, but was starting to get used to it by now. Transitioned away again out of the circuit & basically followed the same flight again out & around the Old Head Golf Course & then west along the south coast. Just before the hour was up we started our return to Cork International but were told to hold as an Airbus A320 was on final! We did a couple of orbits waiting for the A320 to land & then followed it in to the heli grass area. I transitioned into the hover, mananged to sort out the oscillation this time, moved to the hard standing area & landed rather heavily but OK.

Whilst shutting down Des tried to get out, so we had to stop him! Finished the shut down & returned to the office with 1.2 hours in an R44 under my belt. The only thing left to do was to pay, €650 (£453.54)... at least I got the 0.2 free!

Flight Time: 1.2 hrs
PUT: 33.2 hrs / PIC: 0.1 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 31.1 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs / R44R: 1.2 hrs
Total Time: 33.3 hrs

Sunday 25th September 2005 (16:30-18:30) G-BOEZ
Exercise 16/18: Engine Off Landings & Practice Forced Landings

Flight Time: 1.0 hrs
PUT: 34.2 hrs / PIC: 0.1 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 32.1 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs / R44R: 1.2 hrs
Total Time: 34.3 hrs

Sunday 2nd October 2005 (12:00-14:00) G-CBOT
Type Familiarisation (Bournemouth Helicopters - R44)

Down in Bournemouth for the weekend visiting my Dad so decided to book another R44 lesson. I checked about taking passengers up whilst training & they were fine with it.

Sunday came & the weather was actually quite good for the start of October, so we all went to Bournemouth International airport. I reported in & was going to go up with Chris Regnart who instructed me in April when I had a lesson in a Schweizer 300. After a quick chat & a look at my log book he went off & then said that another instructor was going to take me up instead, Gary Ellson. I explained that I wanted to take my Dad & Tony up first but that my Dad was scared of heights, so just wanted to do some low level work first. If he was OK, then I'd like to fly over his flat before returning after half an hour & swapping over the passengers for Ste (my brother) & Scott to do some more advanced stuff. He was fine with all that & asked me to go out to the helicopter, get my first 2 passengers in & perform a transit check. I fetched Dad and Tony, loaded them into the back, went through the emergency procedures with them & then did the transit check. When Gary came out I asked him about checking the oil. He said that you only do that as an A check at start of the day. As long as you have sufficient oil pressure & the warning light isn't on, then everythings OK. I went through the pre-start & start up, again (in an R44) with the Governor On. Gary said this was because several people have over boosted R44 engines on start up? I thought if you let the governor take over from 80% upto 104% (rather than the governor off procedure of setting 95% & then switching on) that would be more harmful? Oh, well.

Everything was fine, so I lifted into the hover & taxied over to the holding point, whilst Gary called for clearance. We taxied over to the grass hover area & I practiced a couple of landings & take offs with spot turns. I then taxied over to the low-level area & did some low-level (100') flying at 60kts with 15º-20º banks. Dad seemed fine with all this, so we decided to go out to the local area & find his flat in Southbourne. Travelling at 100kts with the wind meant we were doing around 115mph ground speed on the GPS, so we got to Southbourne within about 3 mins! We flew west along the south coast up towards Bournemouth & then after ~20 mins turned back for Bournemouth International. I transitioned into the hover, taxied back to the heli hard stand & landed where one of the other instructors helped my Dad & Tony out and Ste & Scott in.

I took off back into the hover, taxied to the holding point whilst Gary called for a local flight. Clearance was given, so we transitioned out & headed straight back to Southbourne & the south coast. Over my Dads flat in Southbourne I did 2 orbits so Scott could take some photos. I then flew west along the south coast over Bournemouth & out towards Swanage where Tony lives. One orbit of his flat so Scott could take some more photos & we then headed back towards the airfield. As we were coming in I asked if we could do an auto in (as we hadn't done any advanced manouvers yet)? Gary said that was fine, but we'd power recover into the hover. Scott heard me talking to Gary & said 'Hold on!' I entered the auto OK, cut the throttle & came down pretty well. Around 200' I was trying to reopen the throttle to join the needles but Gary was holding the throttle closed? I flared for the landing & started to raise the collective but Gary was pushing it down? We ended up doing a complete auto to the ground, although I flared twice as there's a lot of inertia in R44 blades! Gary said you have to be really gentle when raising the collective because there's so much energy in R44 blades you could take off again! Gary asked what I wanted to do & I asked if we could go & do some more low-level work? I taxied over to the low-level area & did some even lower level flying - 50' at 80kts with 20º-30º banks! Gary then showed me the 'chicken run' - an area of trees that you weave in & out of... that was brilliant!

Anyway, that was 1.2 hours done, so taxied back to the heli hard stand, landed & shut down.

Flight Time: 1.2 hrs
PUT: 35.4 hrs / PIC: 0.1 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 32.1 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs / R44R: 2.4 hrs
Total Time: 35.5 hrs

Saturday 15th October 2005 (14:30-16:30) G-ROVY
Exercise 11: Solo Circuits (Elstree)

Booked in at Cabair, Elstree as Lee's still in America doing his FAA IR. Arrived just before 14:30 & waited for James to come back. He was having some lunch whilst looking through my log book, decided what I should do.

Flight Time: 1.8 hrs
PUT: 35.7 hrs / PIC: 1.6 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 33.9 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs / R44R: 2.4 hrs
Total Time: 37.3 hrs

Saturday 22nd October 2005 (12:30-14:30) G-ODHG
Exercises 9/11/17/21: Autorotations, Circuits, Advanced Autorotations & Quickstops (Sloane Helicopters (Sywell, Northampton) - R44)

As I've taken all my other relatives up, I thought it was about time to take my Mum (& her husband, Derek) up... she said she should have been the first up! So, I booked an hour in an R44 at Sloane Helicopters, Sywell - only about 3 miles from my house. I planned to have the first 1/2 hour with passengers flying over Northampton & then the second 1/2 hour on my own doing some advanced manouvers. I went round to my Mum's house & took her & Derek over to Sloane for around 12:20. The instructor I was going to have, Willis Hanekom welcomed us & got us a coffee. Whilst he was doing that I could see down into the maintenance bay where they had a couple of very nice A109E's... dribble! When Will returned with the coffee's we went into a briefing room for a quick chat about what I wanted to do & he had a look through my log book. He suggested that I went on my own first & then had passengers the second 1/2 hour, but I'd already done 2.4 hours in R44s so was used to them, in a 'normal' flying way. Someone else was out in the R44 so we had a little wait for them to get back.

We went out to the grass area where they park the heli's & I transit checked the heli whilst Will checked the fuel. We easily had enough for well over an hours flight, but he filled the main tank anyway, just to make sure. I loaded my Mum & Derek into the back & went through all the safety & emergency procedures with them. Will & I then got in & I started her up (again a Governor On start). Again, I asked why you do Governor On starts in R44s? Will explained that it was basically so that if someone started the engine with the throttle open (which they shouldn't do!) the Governor should (hopefully) save the engine. There have been quite a few engines over revved & blown due to this problem. Will said they also start R22s with the Governor On now. All the pre-start, start & pre-vitals were the same with the exception of the freewheel and idle check & the hydraulic check. Will said in both R44s & R22s they cut the throttle & let the rotors slow fully down to idle (around 58%). I'm not sure that you should do that in an R22 due to the yellow avoid band below 70%? I'll have to ask Lee when he's back. The hydraulic checks were the same (Off makes the controls stiff, On makes then loose), but Will showed that if you turn them off & pull the circuit breaker, they become loose again... so you must check the CBs in. All was OK, I did the radio call, got the Airfield Information, Will asked if we could taxi out & I took off. We flew out easterly & then turned south and flew down to the A45 & Crow Lane (where the tip & sewage works are) before tracking the A45 west. Mum hadn't got a clue where we were so as we flew over places, I pointed them out: Riverside, Barns Meadow roundabout/flyover, Brackmills. On the right we could see the Swallow Hotel & there 'H' landing pad. Will told me that you can land there for free, as long as you go in for a drink. I'll definately be doing that sometime! We carried on over Wootton & Collingtree on our right, Grange Park & to the M1 junction 15. I then tracked the M1 north just past junction 16 pointing out Flore, Weedon & Daventry before turning back east for Pitsford & Sywell. Will said the road that goes through the middle of Pitsford Reservoir is the line to get back into the aerodrome, if that's what I wanted to do? My Mum was in charge of my camera & we hadn't managed to fly over my house, Ste's (my brothers) or Brian's (her brothers), so I asked Will if we could track back to the A45, which we did. I overshot Riverside & ended up doing a 180º over the tip so I could fly up the A43. The problem with this is that there's not many 'land clear' areas, so you have to be very careful. Will kept pressing me on, making sure I kept at 100kts, so if we did have an engine failure, we'd at least have some chance if making it into a field. We then headed back to Sywell & landed so Mum & Derek could get out. When we landed I notice the heli ambulance had come in. A beautiful A109E Power (G-WNAA).

Now was the time for some fun! Will & I took off and headed out to the north west of Sywell so I could practice some PFLs. We did a straight in one to start with, with a go-around at about 300'. Will then tried to catch me out as I was still climbing by starting another one. I managed to do it fairly well, but whilst doing the pre-vital shut offs Will asked why I was doing that? He said if you're engine's gone then the priority (after flying) is to tell someone about it i.e. make the Mayday call. We did a couple more PFLs before returning to Sywell to do some to a hover. A few right-hand circuits with autos to a hover & Will said that I'd done an hour, but the helicopter was mine for the afternoon, so I could carry on for as long as I liked. I asked if we could do some quick stops? Will said he loves quick stops, so was more than happy to do them. I taxied over to the far north corner of the airfield & Will went through the first turn & flare Quick Stop with me. I had 3 or 4 goes at that, getting better each time. Will asked me to do a couple of landings as I seemed to get a bit of a wabble on as I was getting near the ground. He seemed really impressed with my take offs saying they were almost commercial level already! I wish I could say the same about my landings? They're are definitely my achilles heel.

Will then suggested we do some run-on landings. I'd never done those before, but they weren't that difficult? Just a lot of work with your feet making sure you keep straight. He then got me to do a limited power take-off (which was sort-of the reverse of a run-on landing). And that was it. I taxied back to grass area outside Sloane crossing the active runway. Will called for a cross clearance & once across I radioed that the active was clear. Will seemed impressed with my radio & said that's really good, it makes sure people know what you're doing. I managed to land fairly OK & shut the heli down. We returned to the office & the receptionist (who was the only one that could operate the credit card machine) had given someone (who just returned an A109) a lift home. Will had a look down at the maintenance bay & said they'd got a brand new A109E Grand in for painting & did I want to go & have a look? I didn't need asking twice! They had an older A109C in the hanger as well as an A109E Power. But this A109E Grand was stunning... even in yello primer! A massive sliding rear door with 3 forward & 3 rear facing seats - all leather (of course) & gold buckles. Another 2 seats in the front for the pilot(s) & a mass of LCD screens. But at ~£3m you'd expect the best! I'd really like to have an hour in one of those. I might (financies dependant) when & if I pass my CPL(H)? Sloane's current price is £1390+VAT=£1633.25 per hour! I'd just blown over £500 on 1.3 hours in an R44, so I wasn't feeling that flush! When I win the lottery...

Flight Time: 1.3 hrs
PUT: 37.0 hrs / PIC: 1.6 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 33.9 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs / R44R: 3.7 hrs
Total Time: 38.6 hrs

Friday 4th November 2005 (10:30-14:30) G-RSVP
Exercises 22: Navigation

Lee returned from America on Wednesday with his FAA IR under his belt. It was a beautiful day, so I rang Lee & asked if he had any space available? He said he didn't have anybody in until 13:30 but had to goto Biggin Hill to collect a helicopter for the weekend, so did I want to come? Obviously, I jumped at the chance, so drove down to Cranfield & waited for Nick to come in (a PPL ops guy from Elstree that was going to fly us down there in a 4-seater plane). Whilst we waited for Nick, I sort-of planned the nav. Lee said do you want to go over London or around it? He said that the radio is quite hard & a lot of work, but (even though Stu said go around) I was up for the challenge! So, I planned to fly from Biggin Hill up to the Isle of Dogs, around the Thames, up the Lea valley to the M25, track straight for Luton airport, over the top of that & into Cranfield. Nick finally turned up around 11:30 & went out to A-check the plane (G-RATE, an AA-5 Cheetah). Lee & I went out and got in. Although Nick has around 100 hours he wasn't that confident about going over Luton & especially London. Lee said he'd do the radio for him over Luton & they'd see if they could go over London when we got down there. Just over 1 hours flight time saw us get to Biggin Hill. We managed to route over Luton Airports threshold, but had to go around the London City zone. A quick stop at Cabair, Biggin Hill to collect the log book & keys for the heli & out we went. Lee A-checked the heli to save a bit of time & I then started her up. Lee said when you first use a heli that's not been used for a few days you should give it quite a big freewheel & idle. Throttle it up to around 90%, split the needles & let it come right down to the yellow band before rejoining the needles. The wind was pretty strong today (35kts at 2000') so Lee said he'd do the take off & get us going. Once we'd transitioned away I took over & we headed north for the Isle of Dogs. As we were entering south London Lee changed to London City ATC & asked if I wanted to have a go at the radio? I said I'd let him do it this time & I'd have a go over Luton. We were told to hold south of the Isle of Dogs, so we kept orbiting around Greenwich Park. Finally, after about 10 minutes, we were cleared to transit their zone. We flew up the centre of the Thames & then tracked a canal up the Lea valley. Once we were clear of London City's zone we headed over the M25 & straight for Luton overhead. When we changed frequency I had ran through a couple of practice calls with Lee before talking to Luton ATC. Things would be basically the same, you just had to ask for a 'Zone Transit via their overhead' & they'd probably give you a swark code on initial contact. So, I called Luton Radar, they gave me a swark code & asked me to pass my message. I read back the swark code & passed the message (all was going well). They started giving me some information - QNH, level not to exceed, where to cross, etc. They then kept going with the information & my brain went into meltdown! Lee said he could see me almost nodding as the first few bits of information came over the radio & then my eyes glazed over. So he did the return call. We had to slow slightly so a 737 (Easyjet I think) could land & then we crossed the threshold behind him. Once clear of Luton airspace they contacted us, said we could recycle our swark to 7000 & go to Cranfield ATC. I did this & contacted Cranfield. How much easier was the radio there after all that chatter! We came in via Millbrook for a low level rejoin & had to hold on the south side of the airfield before crossing the active runway. Once across I taxied & landed at disbursal where I shut the heli down.

Flight Time: 1.3 hrs
PUT: 38.3 hrs / PIC: 1.6 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 35.2 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs / R44R: 3.7 hrs
Total Time: 39.9 hrs

Saturday 5th November 2005 (12:30-14:30) G-RSVP
Exercises 20/21: Precision Transitions & Quick Stops

Lee called me around 11:15 asking if I could come in a bit early, as his 11:30 trial lesson had forgotten his voucher, so I did. I was in the middle of planning my nav to Peterborough & Leicester when he phoned & wasn't too sure about the weather. Lee confirmed that it didn't look that good, but the wind was straight down the runway, so it'd be perfect to do Precision Transitions & Quick Stops. I got in just before 12:00 & Lee gave me a quick reminder brief on both the exercises before I headed out to the heli to start her up. I completed the transit check, got in, flicked through my check list & saw I'd forgotten to check the oil dip stick! I'd checked both the main & tail rotor oil levels, but not the engine for some reason? I try to run through the check list from memory & then punish myself by getting in before looking. That way, if I have forgotten anything I have to get out again, put my hi-vis vest back on & go and check it. Hopefully that will make me remember? Just as I was getting out to check the oil level Lee came over, so we both got in & I started her up. I called for clearance to taxi out for Quick Stops practice, lifted off & started to hover taxi towards the far end of the grass next to the runway.

Lee took over & precision transitioned us to the end of the grass (so we got there a bit quicker). Zac was on his test & coming in to do a few engine off circuits, as well as a couple of Patriot helis. So, we waited for the 3 helis to clear out the way before Lee went through a Quick Stop with me. Basically you perform a normal transition, but at 40kts only allow the heli to climb to 25'. From there you continue to gain speed upto a maximum of 80kts (area dependant) & level out before initiating the Quick Stop. You have to give a verbal warning of 'Quick Stop, Quick Stop, Go' before starting it. At this point you raise the nose & start a flare (a bit like the end of an auto). As you are flaring the heli wants to climb, so you have to lower the collective almost to the floor to stop this & maintain 25'. As the speed starts to wear off, so does the effectivness of the flare, so you have to develop it more. When you are almost stopped you have to reintroduce a lot of collective to keep you height but maintain the flare. Finally when all the speed has worn off, level the heli into a 25' hover. Then slowly move forward & down to a standard hover height. Easy, eh?!

When we turned downwind Lee wanted me to perform a precision transition. Raise the hover height to 8' & note the backdrop picture, start a very gentle transition keeping the height via the backdrop. Keep the gentle transition going up to 40kts & 8' before leveling. When you want to slow down start a very gentle flare (lowering the collective) & keep flaring until you stop at an 8' hover. Then, again, slowly move forward & down to a standard hover height. I did 4 or 5 quick stops & precision transitions before returning to disbursal & shutting down the heli.

Flight Time: 0.7 hrs
PUT: 39.0 hrs / PIC: 1.6 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 35.9 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs / R44R: 3.7 hrs
Total Time: 40.6 hrs

Monday 7th November 2005 (11:30-14:30) G-RSVP
Exercise 22: Navigation

Another really nice day after yesterday's lesson was cancelled due to rain! Lee phoned me up around 09:00 & said he was free all day, so if I could come in, I could do my planned nav. I re-planned the nav from Cranfield (Olney) to Peterborough Conington (Sawtry) to Leicester (Kibworth) & back to Cranfield (Olney) with todays winds. Got in to Cranfield around 10:45, had a quick chat with Lee about my planned route and then phoned the 2 aerodromes to book a landing. I booked my landing at Peterborough Conington for an hours time (approx 12:00), but when I phoned Leicester they you don't need to book a landing, just said ask over radio?!

I went out & A-checked the helicopter when Lee came over & got in. I did the pre-start, almost started the engine when Lee reminded me that we were at maintenance (out of view of tower) so needed to ask permission to start. After quite a long wait (as the radio was quite busy) I finally got start approval, so started the heli & got ready for lift. Again, quite a long wait to get my radio call in to lift, but once I got clearance, I taxied to the FATO & was cleared to depart for a land away at Peterborough Conington.

I flew out to Olney changing frequency from tower to approach (only used during the week) & then started a heading hold towards Sawtry. By half way I was approximately 10º west of track, so took 20º off my heading & tried to track that the rest of the way. Unfortunately, I saw the A1M junction that I thought I was heading for, so flew towards it without checking my map. I then realised that I would fly north of Sawtry rather than south, which made it harder to join the circuit at Peterborough Conington. I managed to join the circuit & make all the radio calls OK, but not perfect. I ended up not having enough time to do everything (as Lee had predicted) so was rushing. I managed to transition into a hover, parked up & paid the landing fee whilst Lee keeping the heli running. I got in, hovered back out to the active runway and transitioned away towards Leicester.

I didn't however return to Sawtry, so that mucked up my heading, that had rubbed off my map by my sweaty palm! I changed over to Cottesmore 'Zone' & received a swark code, which I forgot after I'd passed my message! The wind was blowing me northwards & I had to be really careful not to enter the MATZ. I managed to get over Corby & then really wasn't sure which direction to fly. I ended up selecting Market Harborough as the town I was after (Kibworth)! This is where Lee corrected me slightly. Changed radio to Leicester, managed to enter their circuit when Lee suggested we just did a missed approach & carried on back to Cranfield.

I performed the go-around & flew back to Kibworth before heading for Sywell & Cranfield. My track crawl went slightly array, but I managed to find Pitsford Reservoir & Sywell. When I changed over to Sywell Information no-one answered my radio call. After the 2nd attempt another aircraft said that Sywell Information was shut on a Monday, & only traffic information was offered (basically just blind broadcasts to the other people in the air). I made a couple of position calls & once over the A45 changed back to Cranfield Approach. Again, I was looking too close on my map (trying to find out where I was overhead) & almost missed Olney. Managed to rejoin at Olney OK, entered the circuit, transitioned in, performed a precision transition back to maintenance, landed & shut down.

Flight Time: 2.0 hrs
PUT: 41.0 hrs / PIC: 1.6 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 37.9 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs / R44R: 3.7 hrs
Total Time: 42.6 hrs

Saturday 12th November 2005 (12:30-14:30) G-BOAM
Exercise 22: Solo Navigation

Lee phoned me up around 09:30 & said the weather looked quite good, so asked me to plan a small nav exercise to do solo. Basically, fly out to Olney VRP, fly to Poddington, onto the Salcey Forest/M1, back to Olney & into Cranfield. I planned the nav with todays winds & then went in to Cranfield about 10 minutes early, as they'd had a cancellation. Lee was happy for me to go straight away on my own, so after reviewing the weather, any NOTAMs around Poddington & filling out the tech log, I went out to the heli. I asked Lee what callsign to use, as his is 'Cabair 38'. For solo student you usually put a '7' infront of the number, so I thought it would be 'Cabair 738'? He said officially it's 'Cabair Heli 738' - they're trying to make it as long as possible! Transit check & pre start done, I started up & engaged the clutch. The blades took about 10-11 seconds to start (should take 7 max)... Great! I shut down & tried to phone Lee but he wasn't answering his mobile. So I walked back to the office & told him. He said they were alright this morning, so came out with me to restart again. This time when I started they started to turn around 7-8 seconds. Lee said that was OK + the heli's due a service in 20 hours so the belts do slightly slacken over a service interval. Start-up & pre-vitals complete, I put in a radio call using 'Cabair Heli 738' requesting a 'NavEx to the North'. ATC replied & called me 'Cabair 738'! So I used that callsign. Took off, flew out towards Olney & set my first heading for Poddington. This was only 6nm away, & I could already see it, so it was a fairly easy leg. I still made sure that I was over the couple of roads at the times I had calculated, which I was. Overhead Poddington I turned onto my 2nd heading (into wind) & started to track towards Salcey Forest/M1. I seemed to have all the time in the world, everything was very relaxed, I was keeping to 2000' & 80kts almost all the time. Every timing mark I'd put on my map I was hitting, but it was taking a little longer, therefore the wind had picked up a bit. I ended up over the M1 at the north corner of Salcey Forest 1 minute late (should have taken 8.5 mins to do the 10nm). I turned onto my final heading to track back to Olney for rejoin. I could see Olney already as it was only 6nm away, but I didn't believe it, as I got there in 3 mins, rather than the 4 mins that I calculated. The usual errors then start to happen - you get a bit flustered, so your height & speed is all over the shop. I turned onto my first heading & could see Poddington, so I was obviously overhead Olney. So a quick 360º got me back on track. Half way to Salcey Forest I headed the controller change over but thought nothing of it. I radioed for rejoin using the callsign 'Cabair 738' & was corrected to 'Cabair Heli 738'... Typical! After almost heading in the wrong direction for the airfield, I picked it up & managed to rejoin the circuit. I radioed that I was 'downwind' but managed to correct myself to 'right base'. Transitioned in & hover taxied over to disbursal. This is where the fun started. Lee asked me to park within the letters of 'CRANFIELD' painted into the grass (if I could). I decided to park betweek the 'F' & 'I' & to line the right skid up just above the middle bar. My 1st landing I aborted as I'd drifted forwards slightly, but managed to get it down on my 2nd. I wondered why the heli dipped forwards slightly, but it stablized when I lowered the collective. Shut down & all was fine. Went round to check the fuel level & noticed that the front half of the left skid was IN the dip where the middle bar of the 'F' was painted! I returned to the office to complete the tech log, wondering if the heli should be moved back slightly? I told Lee about it but he said it should be OK?

Flight Time: 0.8 hrs
PUT: 41.0 hrs / PIC: 2.4 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 38.7 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs / R44R: 3.7 hrs
Total Time: 43.4 hrs

Sunday 13th November 2005 (12:30-14:30) G-BOAM
Exercise 22: Solo Navigation

Didn't get in until quite late last night & woke around 9am when Lee called me asking to plan another nav. So I'd only had around 5 1/2 hours sleep! Planned my nav from Cranfield out to Olney VRP - Bedford disused - Sywell overhead - Hanslope (other side of the M1 to Salcey Forest) & back to Olney VRP for rejoin. Just as I was getting into Cranfield Lee phoned me & said he was about to go up with Andy, so if I was OK with my plan, I was allowed to go up straight away.

After checking the weather & NOTAMs I went out to the heli & transit checked it. I found that the oil level was only 4.5 so decided to add a litre. This is when the fun started! I wandered back to the office & asked Stuart (the ops manager) for some oil. He asked me what sort & pulled out 2 different types '100 Non-Dispersant' & 'EE100 Dispersant'? I hadn't got a clue but had never seen the EE100 stuff before, so took the 100 Non-Dispersant. Nobody was in maintenance, so I wandered over to Patriot Helicopters to ask them. After quite a long chat with Patriot they said check the placard on the heli - d'oh, obvious! Wandered back to the heli & it said '20W 50'! So had to go back to the office again & finally got the right oil. Put that in & finally started up. It was obviously me, but I just didn't feel comfortable after that? When starting up the oil pressure was in the green, but right at the top. I was thinking what if I have high oil pressure & the engine blows up whilst flying? I was basically listening to every little thing the heli was doing & not liking it!

Anyway, pre-vitals & radio done, I took off into the hover... & couldn't! I was all over the shop. Yes, there was a cross-wind, but only around 9kts. This didn't bode well. I entered the FATO & asked for departure clearance. Whilst I was hovering I noticed the IAS was reading 30kts already? There definitely wasn't a 30kts headwind, so that also didn't do my confidence any good.

Clearance was given & I transitioned out & set off for Olney. Once I'd got a bit of speed up I was fine. Over Olney I set my first heading for Bedford disused. I then had some time to think & started getting quite concerned about what would happen if the engine cut! Would I be able to auto it OK? Everytime I hit a bit of a thermal & the blades made a bit of a noise I thought "What's that noise?"!

I managed to get to Bedford, turned onto my 2nd heading for Sywell overhead & then actually started to relax a bit & enjoy myself. Managed to change to Sywell Information without a hitch, reported overhead & then changed back to Cranfield ATC when I left the area. On my 3rd leg I was tracking towards Salcey Forest when I noticed a black cloud ahead. I thought I'd steer south of the cloud just in case. Unfortunately, I didn't steer northward enough after passing the cloud, so ended up flying over the M1 but couldn't see Salcey Forest. I tracked the M1 south trying to find out where I was? I thought I was too far south & after confirming with my map, I found was almost overhead Newport Pagnell & Milton Keynes! A quick 180º & I could see Salcey Forest! Because of the way I'd tracked in, Salcey Forest had been over my right shoulder so I couldn't see it originally. Oh well, back to Salcey Forest & over the M1 to Hanslope.

Turned onto my final heading & could see Olney in the distance, so that leg was easy. Arrived at Olney, called for rejoin, entered the left circuit & transitioned into the hover. This is where it all went pear-shaped again!

I was facing cross-wind & was really struggling to hover (I knew I was over-controlling but couldn't stop myself). I hovered back to Disbursal but because I was so eratic, I climbed to 25' (really bad)! I turned downwind & managed to enter a really stable hover whilst waiting for the radio to clear so I could ask to land. Finally got a gap, requested Disbursal, did a 180º to turn into wind & try to land. Facing into wind should be easy, but I couldn't hover for toffee. I took a deep breath & kept saying to myself 'RELAX'! I slowly lowered the collective to land but was looking far too close, so was yawing all over the place. I finally managed to land, if you can call it that? It was really, really bad. I would easily say my worst landing ever!

What made it even worse was that Lee was watching me hover in & land. To say I got a right-royal telling off would be an understatement! Lee said you're not going solo anymore until you've done some take-off & landing practice! Lee flew us round to Maintenance & shut the heli down. I was talking to him about my flight & all the nav & radio went fine. It was just that hover & landing. He said he could see that I was anxious & over controlling the heli. We all have our off-days & that was definitely one of mine... 3/10 must try harder!

Flight Time: 1.2 hrs
PUT: 41.0 hrs / PIC: 3.6 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 39.9 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs / R44R: 3.7 hrs
Total Time: 44.6 hrs

Tuesday 15th November 2005 (10:30-12:30) G-BOAM
Exercises 9/23: Take-off & Landings and Out of Wind Manouevres

Because of my terrible & down-right dangerous landing last time out, Lee said 'Next time you're in, we'll do some take-off & landing practice!'. Managed to get a free slot this morning & the weather was OK, so went in for around 11am. Lee said we'd do some take-off's & landings and possibly some more advanced stuff? We walked out to the helicopter, Lee checked the fuel & the went back to the office to order some more. He asked me to A-check it, come in the office (so we could go though what I was doing wrong) before moving it. I miss-heard him & thought he meant for me to start up & wait for him to hover it out the way of the other heli (that was really far too close).

Lee hovered us out of the way of the other heli & Out towards the FATO. He set us down on the grass & then discussed what I was doing wrong, specifically with my landings. Basically he said he thinks that I'm trying to get my hover too perfect, so will abort a perfectly fine landing attempt, which could be dangerous? The idea of a landing is to fly the heli into the ground. Hovering 2" above the ground should be now different to hovering 5' above the ground. The only thing is when the skids make contact with the ground, you do have to lower the collective progressively but fairly quickly, otherwise you could roll over. I also know that I'm looking far too close & should use the horizon more as my level focus point. He also showed me the big problem when I was hover taxiing in at 25' last time. He raised the hover up to that height & said if we have an engine failure now, you're probably going to break your back!

I did several into wind take-offs & landings. My take-offs are fine, it's just the landings that are a little eratic. I then turned 90º right so I had a left-hand cross-wind. Several more take-offs & landings, before turning another 90º so I was facing downwind. Lee showed me what I was doing wrong. He was trying to hover-wabble the heli & said if you actually look, you're only moving a few inches in each direction. Basically the heli is flat & so landing now would be perfectly fine. What I need to do is take that as good as I can do at the moment & land. I can then build on that to get the hover perfect. Several downwind take-offs & landings before we turned cross-wind again, this time from the right. This was really tricky as I was facing directly into the sun. But I managed a few of these before we went over to the concrete 'H' the other side of the FATO. This 'H' was only about 5'x5' & Lee said the skid fit perfectly on the 'H'. He landed it right in the middle of the 'H' & then asked me to take-off & land back on the 'H'. The first couple of go's weren't too good as I was letting the wind push me forward & right. On the 3rd attempt I managed to get back onto the 'H' & then managed to take-off & land back on the 'H' again.

I then started to hover taxi back to disbursal when Lee asked if I'd done any engine failures in the hover? I hadn't, so he demoed a couple of these, rolling the throttle off as we were taxiing forward. Stick in some right pedal & raise the collective to cusion the run-on landing. The big thing here is to keep the speed going & not to flare in any way. If you do you're liable to chop the tail off when you hit the ground! I did a few of these before returning to disbursal & shutting down.

Flight Time: 0.8 hrs
PUT: 41.8 hrs / PIC: 3.6 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 40.7 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs / R44R: 3.7 hrs
Total Time: 45.4 hrs

Thursday 17th November 2005

A tragic day. I've just found out that my next door neighbours son (Paul Hanley) was killed in a light aircraft accident today. He was flying out of Cranfield & crashed around Northampton. My condolences go to all his family.

Saturday 19th November 2005 (12:30-14:30) G-BOAM
Exercise 25: Limited Power Operations

Another cold but sunny wintery morning. Got in for 12:30 & was briefed on Limited Power Operations - 2 types of take-offs & 2 types of landings. (There are 2 other types of take-offs & 3 other landings, but these will be covered at a later date.) Running & cusion creap take-offs and run on & zero speed landings. To see which type of take-off you should do, lift into the hover & see how much power (MAP) you are using. Take this figure from your max boost calculation to get the remainder. Less than 1/2" you should perform a running take-off, less than 1" you should perform a cusion creap take-off.

Running take-off
Pull maximum power available for running take-off. This will make you light on the skids, but not enter the hover. Move the cyclic forward very gently to start running along the ground. As you accelerate through translational lift (17 kts) the heli will start to lift off. Keep the power setting at maximum & accelerate to 40 kts at which point you climb out & reduce to 35 kts. Keep a 35 kt climb out until around 200'-300' when you are clear of obsticals. You can then increase speed to a standard climb out - 60 kts at max contineous.

Cusion creap take-off
Pull maximum power available for cusion creap take-off. You should enter a 6" hover. Move the cyclic forward to perform a VERY gentle transition. As you go through translational lift (17 kts) the heli will start to lift off. Same as running take-off from here - 35 kts climb out until clear & then 60 kts.

Whilst in the circuit perform a power check. Fly straight and level at 500' & 53 kts. Note how much power you are using (MAP). The difference between level power & max boost will determine the type of landing to perform. 3" = run on landing, 4" = zero speed landing.

Run on landing
Enter final with a lower than normal height (300') so you have a shallower run in. Reduce speed quicker than a normal transition but hold speed above 30 kts to start with. As you near the ground (100') continue to reduce speed down to translational lift speed (17 kts). Start to introduce power as you contunue to reduce speed. There will come a point when you are pulling max available power & still moving forward. If you slow down any more you will hit the ground. Continue to move forward until you decide to land (pointing into wind). Reduce speed slowly to induce a sink rate until you start to run along the ground. Keep the cyclic slightly forward & start to reduce collective & apply right pedal to keep straight.

Zero speed landing
Enter final with a slightly lower than normal height (400') so you have a slightly shallower run in. Perform a similar transition to a run on landing. As you get close to the ground pulling max power, you should be able to reduce speed to 'almost' zero, before the heli starts to sink. Allow the heli to land, keeping the cyclic pitched forward slightly, reduce collective & apply right pedal to keep straight.

After the briefing, I went out to the heli, transit checked it, started & waited for Lee to get in. I hover taxied over to the FATO & Lee showed me a running take-off & the very end of a running landing before I practiced a couple of take-offs. The 3rd time I did a full circuit & came in to do a run on landing (with Lee following me through). A couple more circuits with running take-offs & run on landings. Lee then showed me a cusion creap take-off & the end of a zero speed landing before I practiced a couple of take-offs. We then did a few more circuits this time with cusion creap take-offs & zero speed landings. Each one got slightly better each time, so just more practice.

I then started to hover taxi back to disbursal, when Lee rolled off the throttle to simulate a hover taxi engine failure! We did a couple of these, as I keep pulling back on the cyclic. You need to make sure you push forward, so you effectively perform a run on landing. This also makes sure you land on the front of the skids & not the back (very bad!) I finally taxied all the way back to disbursal & was lining up to land when Lee cut the throttle again, this time to simulate a engine failure in the hover. I instinctively stuck a load of right pedal in & pulled up on the collective to cusion the fall. There will be a yaw to the left, you can't stop that (unless you can see into the future?!) We were down anyway, so I shut down the heli.

Flight Time: 1.1 hrs
PUT: 42.9 hrs / PIC: 3.6 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 41.8 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs / R44R: 3.7 hrs
Total Time: 46.5 hrs

Sunday 20th November 2005 (12:30-14:30) G-BOAM
Exercises 8/9/24: Hovering, Take-off & Landings and Sloping Ground Landings

Lee phoned me around 10am as the weather wasn't that good for flying but fine for doing airfield work, so he wanted me to come in early. I got in for around 11am & went out to heli (still in the hanger) to A-checked it as much as possible. I returned to the office & Lee briefed me on Sloping Ground Landings. Not much theory to them, a lot more practical.

Basically, reccy the ground, slope angle, etc. There is no maximum slope angle for the R22, but the general recommendation is no more than 7º. Then decide which way round to land. Right skid high is best, then forward, then left skid - never backwards! Enter a normal hover & very gently sink until your high skid makes contact. As you start to lower the collective, more right pedal will be required & move the cyclic so the rotor disc is pointing up hill. Once you have fully landed, lower the collective to the floor & return the cyclic to the central position.

To take off, basically do the reverse of a landing. Move the cyclic so the rotor disc is pointing up hill approximately how much you think is required. Start to raise the collective whilst controlling the yaw with left pedal. As the lower skid starts to lift off the floor, start moving the cyclic back to the centre. You should be in a level hover with the higher skid still in contact with the ground. From there you can perform a normal take off into the hover.

Around midday we decided it was about time to actually go flying, so we walked over to the hanger & pulled the heli out. As we were walking over I asked Lee if he was going to do any night flying? He said that he hadn't got any students that wanted to do any, but he'd like Andy (who's just passed) to do some. He said I could do some if I wanted. It would go in my log book as night flying, although it wouldn't count towards my night rating. For that you need to have at least 100 hours PIC. Think I'll try at least 1 hour during this winter?

I completed the A-check & started up. When we were ready for lift, I asked if we could taxi over to the sloping ground & they came back saying that the sloping ground was closed until further notice... great! So we taxied over to the FATO & Lee said we'll just use the dig out of the FATO markings (approx a 6" deep trench). Lee demoed a landing with the right skid high first. I then did a few before doing a 180º. Lee demoing a left skid high landing before I practice a few landings.

After that we hovered over to the concrete 'H' to practice some 'normal' landings. I really need to concentrate on my pedal movement & control the yaw more. Especially at the point of landing, I tend to not introduce enough right pedal, so I end up pointing slightly left. Generally, there's nothing wrong with my take-offs. It's the landings that are the problem! Lee said just try to treat a 'normal' landing as a sloping ground landing, as with 2 people in the heli, the left skid will hang 2" lower.

We then moved back onto the grass to practice some normal landings before Lee transitioned us back to the maintenance hanger. I shut down & Stuart (the ops manager) helped me push the heli back into the hanger. Just as we'd locked up Lee returned saying that his only other student for the day had come in, so he needed the heli out again!

Flight Time: 0.9 hrs
PUT: 43.8 hrs / PIC: 3.6 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 42.7 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs / R44R: 3.7 hrs
Total Time: 47.4 hrs

Sunday 18th December 2005 (12:30-14:30) G-BOEZ
Exercises 20/21: Precision Transitions & Quick Stops

Flight Time: 0.9 hrs
PUT: 44.7 hrs / PIC: 3.6 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 43.6 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs / R44R: 3.7 hrs
Total Time: 48.3 hrs

Monday 16th January 2006 (14:30-16:30) G-BOEZ
Exercise 24: Sloping Ground Landings

I was in Manchester all day for a meeting, but managed to get away early, so could go flying. After a miserable weekends weather when I didn't get to go flying at all (& as I haven't flown for almost a month) I wanted to get some in.

I arrived at Cranfield around 15:50, had a quick chat with Lee & then walked to the helicopter with him. It was back in the hanger at maintenance as he hadn't flown all day. We got it out & Lee A-checked it as he's a lot quicker than me. Sunset was at 16:23 so official night started at 16:53.

After getting refueled, we were finally read to lift off around 16:15. Lee handed me the controls after he'd started the engine for me to do the rest of the pre-flight. I could definitely tell it'd been a while since I'd flown as I kept forgetting the order of the checks (as I try to do it all from memory now).

I taxied across the runway to the sloping ground area (basically a big hill with trees around it). Firstly, I did a right skid up hill upwind landing. I thought that was pretty easy. I then turned round 180 so I could do a left skid up hill downwind landing. This was really hard & I kept creaping forward. Lee took over & demoed a landing to me. Once back in the hover I took over & finally managed to do one. Back in to the hovel & I did another one.

Lee then took over & demoed a forwards landing. This really freaks you out as you think the helicopters going to start sliding backwards. I wouldn't have believed how far back it tips & how much you have to push the cyclic forward! My turn & I managed to do it pretty easily.

And that was it. Only about 10 minutes until official sunset, so we had to land. I taxied back across the active runway with a precision transition & then hover taxied back to maintenance. Landed a bit heavily, but OK & shut the helicopter down.

Flight Time: 0.5 hrs
PUT: 45.2 hrs / PIC: 3.6 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 44.1 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs / R44R: 3.7 hrs
Total Time: 48.8 hrs

Saturday 21st January 2006 (12:30-14:30) G-BOEZ
Exercises 9/18/19: Take Offs & Landings, Practice Forced Landings & Steep Turns

Lee phoned me around 09:15 this morning to say that we couldn't do any night flying tonight as Elstree's only open on Wednesdays & Thursdays until 9pm. I also can't do any night flying at Cranfield as the heli FATO lights are broken, & Cabair management won't buy new ones!
But, he did have space for me around 1pm, so I went in for around 12:50.

After a quick discussion on what to do, with the wind across the runway Lee decided to brief me on Steep Turns. After that we'd go out & do some as well as a few PFLs.

There's not much to steep turns. They're usually done from 2000'-2500'. Perform a HASEL check but set the carb heat to normal (clear of yellow). Also make sure you have a good lookout both left and right, as you generally do a 360 turn. Fly at a steady 80kts & turn until the AH reads a 30 angle of bank. This will, of course, require more collective to keep the height. Fix the horizon so you keep both the angle & your speed constant. Small variations in speed can be fixed (~5kts) but if you get above 10kts variation it's best to reduce the turn, adjust your speed & then re-enter the turn. For a pilot in the right-hand seat, left turns are easier as you can look into the turn & at the instrument panel at the same time.

Maximum rate turns are performed at 45 angle of bank. Again, enter from a steady cruise at 80kts, but to keep the height & angle you will have to slowly reduce speed to around 65kts. If you manage to perform a steep turn well you should come back into your own wake, which will feel like hitting a small pocket of air.

That was it for the briefing, so after Lee had ordered some fuel, I went out to the heli, transit checked it & started it up. Lee joined me, I made the necessary radio calls, took off & hovered over to the FATO. Here Lee got me to do a quick practice landing & take off. My landings are finally getting a lot better now. I then called for departure & transitioned out. Not a very good transition as I let the translational lift take me up instead of forwards. Also Lee pulled the collective up slightly as he said before reaching translational lift my left skid was only about 6" off the ground!

I flew out towards Olney, finally remembered to perform a FREDAT check & levelled out at 2000'. Lee demoed a left steep turn & then I had a go. Not bad, but I lost about 200'. So I did another one.

Lee the demoed a right steep turn & then I had a go. Much better.

Lee then demoed a left max rate turn & managed to hit his own wake (1-0). I then had a go. Not too difficult, but need to make sure I keep the height a bit more accurate & sacrifice speed. Finally, Lee demoed a right max rate turn & again managed to hit his own wake (2-0). I had a go & also managed to hit my own wake (2-1)... not bad as he's an instructor & I'd never done them before?!

I then headed back towards Olney & Lee said at some point you might experience an engine failure whilst flying in... About 30 seconds later, he yanks the carb heat on full, closes the throttle & says "Practice Engine Failure, GO!" I managed to enter autorotation OK & flew the heli down to around 200' when I performed a go-around. The mayday call was non-existant & pre-vital actions weren't done, but I flew well which is the main thing, turning the heli into wind & picking a suitable field. I climbed back up to around 1300' when Lee sprung another PFL on me. Again, I manahged to enter autorotation OK, sort of got a half-garbled mayday call out & did the pre-vitals by pointing & saying "That off, that off, that off, that off"!

It was now time to start heading back so I finally got a free second on the radio so I could make a rejoin call. Came into right base, again the radio was very busy, so managed to call as I was turning Final. My transition into the hover was slightly irratic, but generally OK. I taxied back to disbursal, made the necessary radio call, landed & shut down the heli. Lee said my take offs & landings are definitely getting a lot better!

Flight Time: 0.8 hrs
PUT: 46.0 hrs / PIC: 3.6 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 44.9 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs / R44R: 3.7 hrs
Total Time: 49.6 hrs

Friday 10th February 2006 (14:30-16:30) G-JATD
Exercise 22: Navigation

Flight Time: 1.4 hrs
PUT: 47.4 hrs / PIC: 3.6 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 46.3 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs / R44R: 3.7 hrs
Total Time: 51.0 hrs

Saturday 11th February 2006 (14:30-16:30) G-JATD
Exercises 25/26: Limited Power & Confined Areas

Flight Time: 1.0 hrs
PUT: 48.4 hrs / PIC: 3.6 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 47.3 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs / R44R: 3.7 hrs
Total Time: 52.0 hrs

Saturday 4th March 2006 (16:30-18:30) G-BOAM
Exercise 25: Limited Power

Flight Time: 0.8 hrs
PUT: 49.2 hrs / PIC: 3.6 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 48.1 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs / R44R: 3.7 hrs
Total Time: 52.8 hrs

Sunday 5th March 2006 (10:30-12:30) G-BOAM
Exercises 9/25: Take off & Landings and Limited Power

Flight Time: 1.2 hrs
PUT: 50.4 hrs / PIC: 3.6 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 49.3 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs / R44R: 3.7 hrs
Total Time: 54.0 hrs

Sunday 19th March 2006 (14:30-16:30) G-BOAM
Exercises 14/16/20/21/24/25: Landings and Limited Power

Flight Time: 1.0 hrs
PUT: 51.4 hrs / PIC: 3.6 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 50.3 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs / R44R: 3.7 hrs
Total Time: 55.0 hrs

Saturday 25th March 2006 (13:30-15:30) G-CBWZ
Exercises 16/22: Engine Off Landings & Navigation

Flight Time: 0.9 hrs
PUT: 52.3 hrs / PIC: 3.6 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 51.2 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs / R44R: 3.7 hrs
Total Time: 55.9 hrs

Monday 1st May 2006 (15:30-17:30) G-REDY
Exercise 26: Confined Areas

Flight Time: 0.6 hrs
PUT: 52.9 hrs / PIC: 3.6 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 51.8 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs / R44R: 3.7 hrs
Total Time: 56.5 hrs

Friday 12th May 2006 (18:30-20:30) G-OONA
Exercise 22: Navigation

Flight Time: 0.4 hrs
PUT: 53.3 hrs / PIC: 3.6 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 51.8 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs / R44R/R44CII: 4.1 hrs
Total Time: 56.9 hrs

Sunday 30th July 2006 (12:30-14:30) G-ROVY
Exercises:

Flight Time: 1.2 hrs
PUT: 54.5 hrs / PIC: 3.6 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 53.0 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs / R44R/R44CII: 4.1 hrs
Total Time: 58.1 hrs

Saturday 5th August 2006 (13:30-15:30) G-ROVY
Exercise 22: Navigation

Flight Time: 1.3 hrs
PUT: 55.8 hrs / PIC: 3.6 hrs
R22B/R22BII: 54.3 hrs / H269: 1.0 hrs / R44R/R44CII: 4.1 hrs
Total Time: 59.4 hrs