Anyway, the other day on the way to see Tool, me and the hubby stopped in so I could do an hour, and my instructor asked if hubby wanted to go (duh, he's a pilot, but not practicing anymore, and had never been in a chopper...so yeah, he came along.) and if it was ok for another student (Turkish military license conversion guy with a billion hours...eeks, how's that for pressure??) to come too.
I thought it was a great idea. If I had only known in advance (read: use my stupid brain) how much different that would be. We also had a good load of fuel, so we were HEAVY. And off to practice some 'very challenging confined areas' (words of my instructor...AFTER the flight...LOL. I think I like it that way, if he said it first I'd probably stress out. ;) ). Yep, it was quite different!
Not that I'm complaining, not at all. In fact, I am so very glad I have gotten to experience this now, and not in the field. I want to do more hot and heavy work, because it is very demanding, holy cow.
So getting close to my flight test for the Commercial, and then it's just time building, well not just time building of course, I want to LEARN all sorts of stuff. Which I am doing now. Landing a turbine in a swamp? Yep. heheh. Sorry, it's hard to stop smiling sometimes.
Here's some pics taken from the back for me. :)
2 comments:
Awesome!
I'm impressed that not only will they hand over the turbine solo, but the places you are allowed to take it! ( I'm assuming you were allowed to go there...haha )
I guess I always assumed that they would have you doing "confined " practices over behind the hangar and a further "simulated " obstacle.
So, does the turbine machine lag when power is applied, compared to the piston equipped one? I imagine it would, but that must be tricky as all hell, considering it seems like you guys need to be making slight power adjustments all the time? or is it a steady power setting?
Anyhow, congrats, looks like things are progressing nicely. Nice shots too by the way.
Thanks for popping by Josh. :)
And yeah, I'm still kinda shocked that I get to take that machine out on my own, to say I'm grinning ear to ear most of the time would be an understatement. LOL.
And actually, that flight was with my instructor, else I could not have taken any pax, cause I still have to get my stupid ride out of the way. ;) But I'll post some more from a solo trip I did..mind you they aren't that great cause I thought my camera was broken, and was just clicking away hoping for something to show up. ;)
The confined areas are pretty cool. Being up here in yyb there are lots of areas to choose from. And while it's not mountain experience, it sure is some sort of experience. ;) I was pretty shocked the first time I started doing those things. Like looking down at the skids submerged in a swamp...cool beans.
Now for the turbine. I guess you could call it lag. But I think having most of my 5000 hours fixed wing on turbines has make me more familiar with them than the piston. (speaking of which, had to take that up for a spin yesterday...hadn't flown the R22 in 3 weeks.....was interesting..LOL) So I do hear all those that have not flown a turbine saying that there is 'soooooooooo much lag'..heh. But for me, not really. I don't really notice any kind of terrible lag, and flying choppers you have to be like a million steps ahead of it at all times anyway, and anticipate the future, even if that future is a few seconds away. And it's so smooth. Being back in the R22 yesterday and I kept worrying about all the shaking and vibrating...heh. But that's just normal on those little guys, and I was just spoiled by my 3 weeks on the jet ranger. It's in the shop atm, so hopefully back on that next week.
Have to renew my MIFR in the next few weeks, so that will be the first time back on a fixed wing since I started the chopper flying, cant' wait to see what that is like...I'm thinking it will be pretty easy. ;)
Post a Comment