If Cary is farm grown, there is nothing unusual about learning to hover quickly. Power and collective are the only coordinated controls, but it is just a machine and the controls work efficiently. I learned to hover during my first lesson as well. Other than enabling, I guarantee backhoe operators you can hover quickly.

You start with dynamic proactive anti-torque pedals. Next dynamic proactive collective with more power (pistol grip on collective) and left pedal (coordinated) but otherwise independent of pedals and cyclic. Finally cyclic. Just handle it like you would balancing a broom on your hand. It has only to do with a level tip path plane and nothing to do with alignment of the longitudinal axis or altitude.

All that is in hover. With transitional lift (tip path plane becomes a big round wing) the awkward helicopter becomes an aircraft and flies like an airplane.

Over simplification in aviation tends to be dangerous and irresponsible in my opinion. I see absolutely no similarity in anyway during any type of flying a helicopter is the “Same” as a fix wing. In fact fix wing pilots tend to require more attention as they progress in helicopter flight training. The FAA and helicopter manufacturers agree.

The over emphasis of coordination in all control movement, common among fixed wing pilots, should be overcome in the first two seconds of attempting to keep the nose straight at hover. With relative wind over the big circular wing, prior art of flying experience is helpful.

Some things are similar, some are different. But controls make desirable things happen. Experience with various equipment is helpful, not harmful.

A common problem in aviation is a higher than thou, right stuff, limited capability orientation. We (pilots) are more alike than different.

Have fun and don't sweat the small stuff.

The “Small stuff” can kill you. Never let your guard down.

The small stuff has sure tried. Murphy was always on my tail. Kept my expectations high. Just didn't have the good sense to sweat it.

contactflying wrote:The small stuff has sure tried. Murphy was always on my tail. Kept my expectations high. Just didn't have the good sense to sweat it.

The amounts of anxiety (which translates into sweat, especially for me here in the SouthWest, Summer!) is directly proportional to my situational awareness. If I physically feel (or perceive mentally) an unknown circumstance or group of circumstances my emotions distract possibly from the confrontation and ability to preclude the emotional disturbance. I literally was “Sweating bullets” the first two or three flights, my cloths were soaked! As my understanding of the environment became clearer, my natural defenses (which could be counter intuitive) i.e. sweat and anxiety became less.

I see your point and I may have read your statement incorrectly. But, may I say this, the less you will “Sweat” is definitely linked to the quality of training and your own ability to perceive and mitigate a dangerous situation.

Thank you for the discussion. Glad to have you onboard this thread, regardless if we disagreed.

Looks like fun.

A helicopter instructor just opened shop one hanger over. I thought about taking a lesson to see how it was, but am a bit afraid I'll get addicted .

MountainFlyerN22 wrote:Looks like fun.

A helicopter instructor just opened shop one hanger over. I thought about taking a lesson to see how it was, but am a bit afraid I'll get addicted .

Myself, I caught the fascination of rotorwing flying many years ago. But, there wasn’t enough resources to fly another ship. My wife and I agreed to only owning one aircraft. Delimma, couldn’t let go of my seaplane!! The Scout and I are staying together! Helicopter training was indefinitely on hold.

Back in Hawaii, neighbor owned an R22 and he would let me hover it occasionally but that was free. Loved the ship. And I knew one day I would return to helos.

Torrance is the civilian helicopter capital of the World and I happened to be here temporarily. I called Mary (Wife) and asked if I could take a couple of lessons, she said go for the add on! So now it’s full time helo training while here at KTOA. Interesting where life takes us. I mentioned to Mary that an R22 has the same engine as the Scout which makes servicing both easier. And it may fit in the same hangar. One step at a time...

MountainFlyerN22 wrote:Looks like fun.

A helicopter instructor just opened shop one hanger over. I thought about taking a lesson to see how it was, but am a bit afraid I'll get addicted .

Run away Run away!

(3.0) hours today in R22. Pattern work, hovers mostly at Long Beach International. Noticed Hawaiian Airlines has a flight departing KLGB. Nice alternative to KLAX for the Islands.

Not sweating profusely anymore, thank God! My anxiety level has decreased! This whole idea of flying helos is making sense. The power of human rationality is working and everything is totally cool. I’m at peace. Tomorrow we start at 0800...

KTOA ramp noonday Sun:

Made a very hard decision to suspend helo training temporarily. Several days of painful thinking about other responsibilities brought me to the fact that I have to pack up and return home.

I called several flight schools/dealers in Oregon and the future looks good to continue.

God willing this will not be the end!

No way I could afford a Heli, and if I could I would want to skip past the R22 and get at least an R44 for safety/usefulness reasons.

Because of this, and because I love engineering and anything hard/complex, I picked up flying RC heli's. I have one that has a 5ft rotor and is around 6hp electric. It will do 100mph in a dive and is very very fast on the controls. When I spool it up, most people ask if they should be standing behind something. It's pretty obvious that it's dangerous.

A while after I started that, I got a chance to fly an R22, but only for a few minutes. It was at the state fair, and they had 3 minute heli lessons for $25, and if you could keep the heli inside of a 40 ft circle for 1:30 your name is entered into a drawing for heli lessons. I got to 1 minute before I couldn't control the pilot induced oscillation and asked the instructor to recover. The issue was that I didn't have any idea how much stick movement corresponded to heli movement. Add that to the honest 1/2 second delay between stick movement and heli changing directions, and I just needed more time to get a feel for how much stick I needed to control it well.

That all said, I know for sure if I had 20 minutes I could have been hovering it all day. The guy asked if I had flown before, and I just told him little ones, and he didn't believe me, but then he probably wasn't picturing a 12lb RC heli flying inverted either.

Anyway, some of the little ones are really interesting in how they don't appear to obey the laws of physics. Here is a good video that shows how good some people are:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17lmeOfpxVU

Notice how the head mass to weight ratio allows for an inverted auto at the end, and enough left to flip it right side up at the end. Also notice the flips while pirouetting.

So hopefully I'll get to fly big ones one day, but for now this certainly scratches the hard/complex itch.....

akschu wrote:No way I could afford a Heli, and if I could I would want to skip past the R22 and get at least an R44 for safety/usefulness reasons.

Because of this, and because I love engineering and anything hard/complex, I picked up flying RC heli's. I have one that has a 5ft rotor and is around 6hp electric. It will do 100mph in a dive and is very very fast on the controls. When I spool it up, most people ask if they should be standing behind something. It's pretty obvious that it's dangerous.

A while after I started that, I got a chance to fly an R22, but only for a few minutes. It was at the state fair, and they had 3 minute heli lessons for $25, and if you could keep the heli inside of a 40 ft circle for 1:30 your name is entered into a drawing for heli lessons. I got to 1 minute before I couldn't control the pilot induced oscillation and asked the instructor to recover. The issue was that I didn't have any idea how much stick movement corresponded to heli movement. Add that to the honest 1/2 second delay between stick movement and heli changing directions, and I just needed more time to get a feel for how much stick I needed to control it well.

That all said, I know for sure if I had 20 minutes I could have been hovering it all day. The guy asked if I had flown before, and I just told him little ones, and he didn't believe me, but then he probably wasn't picturing a 12lb RC heli flying inverted either.

Anyway, some of the little ones are really interesting in how they don't appear to obey the laws of physics. Here is a good video that shows how good some people are:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17lmeOfpxVU

Notice how the head mass to weight ratio allows for an inverted auto at the end, and enough left to flip it right side up at the end. Also notice the flips while pirouetting.

So hopefully I'll get to fly big ones one day, but for now this certainly scratches the hard/complex itch.....

That video is mind blowing!! Thank you for the link!

I really like the R22 but, everybody I talk with says get the R44. Robinson has the R44 Cadet which is a two seat R44. That may be a comprise. But, I’m not sure, because of hangar space and operating costs.

Hopefully, I can engage this thread again with more information regarding my findings...

Akschu, you mentioned a common conception about control movement. By chasing the issue of how much control movement to aircraft movement, we get the common pilot induced oscillation. Some controls get fast reaction like Hughes, some slow like the paddles on a Hiller. Dynamic proactive control movement effectively deals with either, or a Cub for that matter. With slow response we just have to move the control a greater distance each way at first. Still dynamic proactive. With fast response, big control movement wobbles the aircraft a lot. Doesn't really matter, we are still in dynamic proactive control.

The small stuff is how much for a particular machine. Don't sweat the small stuff. You can read about that in a book. The trick is dynamic proactive control movement and not being afraid to move the controls. Saves a huge amount of training time.

As Ronnie Westmoreland used to say, "move the controls! How else are you going to know what they do?"

While you’re ruminating on it, think Bell OH58 for fun or Jet Ranger and come up and put it to work. We can make room for that too[emoji1]. Kerosene is cheaper than 100LL, and there’s an old Army helo mechanic here that knows those things. Why f$&@ around with those toy Robinson’s. Hahahahaha!!!!!

gbflyer wrote:While you’re ruminating on it, think Bell OH58 for fun or Jet Ranger and come up and put it to work. We can make room for that too[emoji1]. Kerosene is cheaper than 100LL, and there’s an old Army helo mechanic here that knows those things. Why f$&@ around with those toy Robinson’s. Hahahahaha!!!!!

12-14 gallons/hour is all I can afford. Also, may be able to do annual inspections, overhauls etc, if trained. Not looking to conquer commercial aviation. Too many bottom feeders would try to tax (or steal from) me. Remember?

Stay low key Justin.

8GCBC wrote:

gbflyer wrote:While you’re ruminating on it, think Bell OH58 for fun or Jet Ranger and come up and put it to work. We can make room for that too[emoji1]. Kerosene is cheaper than 100LL, and there’s an old Army helo mechanic here that knows those things. Why f$&@ around with those toy Robinson’s. Hahahahaha!!!!!

12-14 gallons/hour is all I can afford. Also, may be able to do annual inspections, overhauls etc, if trained. Not looking to conquer commercial aviation. Too many bottom feeders would try to tax (or steal from) me. Remember?

Stay low key Justin.

NW helos has a nice OH58 for $275K. E-AB. I could come up with the 5. Hahahaha. $4 kerosene at 28gph or $8 AVGAS at 14. Same thing. Hang around me, I can justify anything eventually. [emoji1]

gbflyer wrote:

8GCBC wrote:

gbflyer wrote:While you’re ruminating on it, think Bell OH58 for fun or Jet Ranger and come up and put it to work. We can make room for that too[emoji1]. Kerosene is cheaper than 100LL, and there’s an old Army helo mechanic here that knows those things. Why f$&@ around with those toy Robinson’s. Hahahahaha!!!!!

12-14 gallons/hour is all I can afford. Also, may be able to do annual inspections, overhauls etc, if trained. Not looking to conquer commercial aviation. Too many bottom feeders would try to tax (or steal from) me. Remember?

Stay low key Justin.

NW helos has a nice OH58 for $275K. E-AB. I could come up with the 5. Hahahaha. $4 kerosene at 28gph or $8 AVGAS at 14. Same thing. Hang around me, I can justify anything eventually. [emoji1]

And I bet the logs books are perfect too!

http://nwhelicopters.com/site2/wp-conte ... N243KP.pdf

I lied. $295K. Only pennies more[emoji1]

gbflyer wrote:http://nwhelicopters.com/site2/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/N243KP.pdf

I lied. $295K. Only pennies more[emoji1]

TT 8576 should be for free. Ha ha!