Turbine day!

Heading to the big city...

To see a punk rock show. Pennywise and the Offspring.

Sulako showed me this pic he took of a jet this morning (hope you dont' mind me using it!!!), and I checked it out, and it's actually flown BY the singer for the Offspring. You go Dexter.

Should be fun, I'm looking forward to the show. :)

And then they came back.

And I was more prepared, and in a much better position for taking some pics. :)












The last one is funny, because that is the end of my street. So yep, right in the neighbourhood. The one with the house is when I was standing in my driveway.

Thanks for the show!!!!!

//and if you click on the first one, and look at the tower, you can see the guy hanging off it!

Best seat in the house.

So today I hear the sound of a chopper outside. At first I thought it was the medevac one, because it flies directly over my house all day long. Maybe why that's how I ended up suggesting the chopper training...LOL. Of course it is. ;)

Anyway, I find this. I'm waiting for round two, looks like they have a few sets of lines to string up.

Oh, and sorry so many, I got a bit excited. LOL. Actually, I'm shocked there were any not blurry, my hands were shaking with excitement. :)

just some pics.

I kinda panicked when I had to actually attempt to explain anything helicopter related, so for the time being, that isn't going to be what I do. I don't even have 30 hours yet, so I really know fuck all about anything. However, if anyone wants to discuss MU2 operating techniques, or IFR ops, I'd be more than happy. ;)

So for today, just some pics I took while on the ground at various landing pads.



















And a couple of F18's were in, so of course I HAD to get a few pics of that. ;)

I almost feel like....

A REAL chopper pilot today.

First, I wore my flight suit. hehehe. But it was MUCH more comfortable than jeans...and the added bonus was when I looked at my feet it looked like a real helicopter pilots feet down there. ;)

But the main reason...

I spent the entire flight off the airport. Started on semi confined areas...well, real ones actually, they are just more known..hence not having to inspect every time.

Anyway, I had to approach into this 'little' area...(I'm sure I'll see much smaller in the near future), follow the 'path' between some trees...down to the log pad. Land... Take off again. Then turn, fly sideways into my departure point..turn into wind again..and then cyclic forward to acheive translation and try to get out of there between the trees.

It was freaking awesome. I had so much fun I can't even verbalize it just yet.

My instructor took me up first, just to show me where I was going, and see if I was a moron or not. From all the 'awesome's' and 'good girl's' I heard...think I'm doing ok. ;) So then I just headed to the field, dropped him off, and away I went to practice it on my own.

Oh, and I was worried I wasn't 'practicing' things enough on my solo flights, but that is now gone. According to J, 'whatever you have been doing, keep doing it, I'm REALLY happy about what I see'. *insert big smile here*

So yeah, off I went. Down to the pad. Back up. cyclic forward, hit translation, start to get out of there. He wanted me to pull as little power as possible so I would get used to the fact I'll never be lightly loaded when I'm working in the future. So I kept it at about 20" (needed 24" with him on board). A little scary at first, but I got the hang of it.

Tomorrow I will hit the other spot...it's a much steeper approach, and then to leave you have to follow a path over and old bus..then turn into wind as you get to the tree tops....I was a bit chicken today. ;) But after all I did I'm feeling MUCH more confidant now.

I'll try to remember to bring my camera along tomorrow so when I'm sitting on the log pad I can snap a few shots of exactly where I am...you know, the place with all the trees, shrubs, ravens and a swamp. :D

Flight suit day.

So I finally made my way to the Army Surplus store to see if they had any small flight suits in. The other girl at my school cleaned them out a week or two ago, so I had waited for them to restock. ;)

I managed to get a green one, not the blue I wanted, but I'll live. Hopefully they will get a small blue one in one day and I'll be lucky enough to be by there that day.

Have a feeling that I will be just as hot in this, but at least I have pockets for pens and crap.

Today was more solo practice due to the fact it is just too hot to do any dual. As of right now it's 30C, and that's pushing the limits of these little machines, at least with two in it. I usually pull about 18"mp to hover while alone...but today it was over 20". Max for today's temp was 23.2", so add 200lbs of instructor..and well yeah.

Going to head out earlier tomorrow so I can take advantage of the less scorching temps...but I won't hold my breath. On my drive this am it was nice and cool in my car for about 10 min...them it started to heat up outside..and by the time I got there I was roasting. I won't even mention the drive home. YUCK. It made me nauseous.

Oh, and major discovery regarding the death grip hand. First, I got some gloves so my hands would not get all sweaty in the heat making it hard to grip the cyclic...I think leading me to the death grip. Second, I iced my poor hand before I went up. Third, I used 'Sandy', the bag of sand that you can strap in beside you. I'm close to the min weight for the R22 solo anyway, so adding sandy up front really eased the amount of forward cyclic I needed to keep level.

And lastly. I had totally and completely forgotten that I actually broke all the fingers on my right hand at the knuckles when I was in high school. I haven't had to use it ever in this capacity, so I guess now I am just learning about the lasting damage of that little whoops. ;)

Then I iced it again when I was down. It is feeling MUCH better. Also, I think wearing the black gloves forced me to THINK about what I was doing...cause my hand looked different, leading me to assess the grip I was using, and relax it.

Spent a lot of time practicing hovering with a loosened grip, and take off's and landings.

So progress was made!

Oh, and I even braved the scary log landing pad 4 times today. Much better than last time when it scared me off after 2 tries. ;)

Pad landings and xwind practice.

Today my instructor and myself went to practice landing on this log pad for about .5 . I still suck at that. Not sure why, but at least in my mind I do. But he seemed to think I was fine, and after that he had me drop him off to go and tackle it myself for an hour.

Oh, a backtrack. It was rather funny. I was commenting on my deathgrip again, and he said..."you know, you are good at this, and you have a good mind for flying, and you fly good...so there is NO reason you should be stressed out!". Funny. But in all honesty...I don't FEEL stressed...only my hand does. And tomorrow I shall try out the tip from T ...the one with the pen in a strategic spot between fingers...I can feel the pain on my middle finger already. But if that doesn't cure me of this stupid issue, nothing will!

So then off I went.

And of course, the wind picked up. Not a ton (in my fixed wing life, hardly any wind!), but way more than I have done by myself in a chopper. So I tried a few on the log pad...and kinda got a bit nervous with the gusty winds swirling around and kicking my ass, so I chickened out after a bit and headed to the taxiway to practice xwinds on the line there. That was much better.

So all went well, and slowly but surely I am getting the hang of this thing. Actually, today was the first solo where I felt like a pilot again, not a nervous student. And I much prefer that feeling!

Back tomorrow, hopefully the sling hook is fixed so I can get back at that. I can only imagine at this point what it's like to do circuits with something hanging off the bottom of you. ;)

Oh, and I have no clue who has any solo pics of me, so that's why I haven't posted any. Maybe one day.....LOL

Death grip.

So I have a problem, and I need some help. Though really, I guess no one can really help, it's up to me to fix it.

But it hurts!

I have a nasty habit of clamping my hand down around that cyclic like my life depends on it. It mostly happened in the beginning, when I really didn't know what I was doing, and as I recall from fixed wing flying, it does happen on occasion, especially when you are new on a piece of equipment.

But now that I am solo, well it's back. And very painful the next day. So painful in fact that I am taking today off because I really don't think I can safely grip the cyclic today. Pretty pathetic.

I try to remind myself to loosen up, and sometimes I do actually relax...but a lot of the time....well, you should see my poor hand when I come back down.

I wont' even bother to mention that my feet also get pins and needles because I am keeping them in some sort of strange 'ready for action' pose...also not good.

So really, I guess all anyone can say is that I should try to relax, and that it will get better with experience and confidence. But it's a drag it's cutting into my training a bit.

Speaking of training.

Yesterday I did another hour or solo circuits, immediately followed by an hour of intro to slinging. Had a short line, and a 100lb engine block on the end, and learned hooking up, lifting off, and the reverse. It was pretty warm and there was basically NO wind..and the poor little machine was really struggling. But I got to practice many, many hookups, so that's good. I now completely understand why the wind is my friend. ;) After that I did a bit of practice landing on the 12'X 12' pad. I wont' say I'm great at that yet...that's for sure. But it's fun, and I can't wait to become competent...LOL

I guess today we were going to try slinging circuits, but it's a no wind day again today anyway, and t-storms forecast for most of the day, so maybe it's just saving my time by taking today off.

Oh, and I probably never mentioned that I actually have to drive almost 2 hours to get to training everyday, and same drive home. So for every few hours in the chopper I have to drive for almost 4 hours. Starting to tire me out a bit, I must admit. Plus, the air conditioning in my car is u/s...so it's so freaking hot on the way home. I'm tempted to buy a new car...but really..I'm just too cheap. Is it wrong that I'm happy enough with my shitty 1998 Dodge Neon? Cause I am. Guess I'm just not a fancy car kind of chick. Probably because I've been a poor pilot all these years. ;) Good thing it doesn't bother me to drive a shit box.\

Tomorrow I am also going to go to the second hand flight suit store and try to pick a few up. Flying in jeans in the little glass bubble is freaking HOT, and at least with a flight suit I can just wear a tank top and undies under it. I'm hoping to find a blue one and a green one. Not a big fan of the sand coloured ones....probably because beige is just NOT a slimming colour. LOL

And also, following that I have decided to get a helmet. It's actually a regulation of the school I'm going to..not sure why I'm allowed to get away with my plain old headset, but maybe I'm just special. ;) But since the government is going to pay, I figured I might as well. Plus, want ANR, my ears are getting worse by the day. I wish I was kidding. Anyway, this is the one I'm looking at. Alpha Eagle 900 And as much as I'd like it, no, I won't be getting the NVG assembly. ;) So any comments by owners or former owners on that one? Pros? Cons?

So very sorry!

Ugh, I'm a horrible slacker here.

Anyway, went solo today!

Funny, I was 'supposed' to go a few days ago, but another student that had been having problems was going, and I didn't want to rain on his parade, so I bowed out until the next day.

So, today I went up with instructor, and we did rapid decelerations..which are freaking awesome! I loved the ones where you come to a air stop then bank it over and pull power.....YEEHAWWWWWWWWWw! Good hands and feet practice in those...heh. Fortunately I have semi decent hands and feet. ;)

So after we did that, he says back to the ramp to gas up and then I can just take it for an hour. Usually people drop off the instructor and take it from the grass area for 2 circuits, but apparently not me! So we filled it up, and I hopped in, and fired it up.

Ready to go.

Raise collective.

Holy cow, getting light on the skids very early here!

Ok, now tail wants to go down, so cyclic forward. WAY more forward than usual. Guess that's what happens when 200lbs of instructor gets out. LOL.

So then I hover taxied to the field and got the feel for a few take off's and landings...and then into the circuit for an hour or so.

I must admit I had the death grip back on the cyclic...my right hand still is sore...LOL. But all in all it went really well, and I feel much more confident than I did this morning.

Choppers rule.

Can't wait for Monday, then I can work on fine tuning everything.

Oh, and they dump water on your head, as per usual. I got 3 full buckets...LMAO

Some pictures were taken, so if they are deemed acceptable by me I'll post them when I get them.

But yeah, that was uber fun. :D