Split from the "Yeah Us" thread. This was just to good to let it get lost without an appropriate topic title... -Z
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Speedbump,
Should anyone offer you a ride in a helicopter, run like hell! Unlike lightening, AIDS can strike numerous times.

CAB wrote:Speedbump,
Should anyone offer you a ride in a helicopter, run like hell! Unlike lightening, AIDS can strike numerous times.

Huh?

zane wrote:

CAB wrote:Speedbump,
Should anyone offer you a ride in a helicopter, run like hell! Unlike lightening, AIDS can strike numerous times.

Huh?

I was wonering if I was the only one. What's wrong with a helicopter? I've got a couple of hours in one and still miss it.

a64...don't get me wrong. I fear helicopters like a hunting trip with Cheney, I just didn't understand what the hell CAB meant. AIDS? Lightning? Huh?

I foresee a topic split coming on.

I think he meant I'd like them too much.
Other than learning a new skill, which I'm all for, I think they'd be boring.
I mean come on, how do you tell who the winner of a short landing contest is if everyone is flying helicopters? I've never seen a helicopter hydroplane across a river to stop on a sand bar. They just hover down and land, ho hum, get out the fishin' poles. They are worse than chairlifts, at least you still get to ski after a chairlift ride.
Helicopters were invented solely to get movie stars places limos couldn't drive. That's why there aren't many two seat helicopters, movie stars need their entourage.
Then there's the subject of Military helicopters. The Pentagon loves them; thousands of complex moving parts, gas guzzling turbine engines, everybody get's rich. Think of how much more stuff a souped up Cub could blow up if the military spent half as much money developing it. VTOL? I've seen a few military helicopter bases, they're huge, anybody could land a Porter or a helio-courier at one easily.
The last thing I want to point out is the sound. I've seen grown men get misty eyed at the sound of a P-51, or an F-16 flying by. It reminds them of victory. What does a helicopter sound like? Like a Honda Civic with a 2000 Watt Sub woofer playing something from Notorious B.I.G. makes you get misty eyed for an entirely different reason.

I'M TOTALLY KIDDING WITH ALL OF THIS
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I could be wrong, but I believe the AIDS that CAB is refering to is "Aviation Induced Divorce Syndrome."

My first post here, but I've been reading for a while, it's a really great site with some nice people. I have the pleasure of living in McCall, ID, and flying this great backcountry of ours for a living - what a job!!

John

Low&Slow wrote:I could be wrong, but I believe the AIDS that CAB is refering to is "Aviation Induced Divorce Syndrome."

Ahhhhhhh!! Well now that makes sense. Some of us are slower than others.

Welcome to the site Low&Slow!

I have some time in a Bell 47. I was able to hover and keep it inside of the State of Nevada. The maintainance $$$ is incredible. They don't fly-they beat the air into submission.

Choppers make great chairlifts. Aside from that I don't get in them unless I absolutely have to - a machine that complex is destined for a catastrophic ending. That said I have seen them do some incredible things, like getting dropped off by a blackhawk on a pinnacle of rock (only room for the mains) at 12k' in Afghanistan. And cruising at 13k' MSL/200' AGL with a bunch of guys in the back of a 53. So they are nice to have around, but I'll stick with fixed-wing thanks.

A couple years ago I was sort of at the crossroads of my career - I had a single engine commercial ticket, and I thought it would be cool to be the guy that drops skiers off on the peaks in Alaska by chopper. I went to Hilsborrough (sp?) in Oregon, and discovered it would cost me about $40,000 in instruction and rentals to get to where I could get my first helicopter job, instructing for $7 an hour. That ended that dream pretty damn quick!!

Yup, Low&slow, you nailed it. Aviation Induced Divorce Syndrome.

Choppers are my first love. Bushplanes are just the closest thing I can afford.

You guys know why helicopters fly right?


They're so ugly, the earth rejects them!

My IA flies Cranes and 61's as well as others. Has some great stories about logging and fire fighting. But still, they're gonna come apart sometime.

AIDS = Apache Induced Divorce Syndrome or so I thought.
I have about 18 yrs. and about 4,000 hours or so in AH-64 A&D's
I'd bet there are thousands and thousands of people that could tell you what helicopters are good for. Most recently the people in New Orleans dangling from a winch could. Igor was supposedly most proud of the fact that his aircraft were life saving machines, all other accomplishments were secondary to that.
All of that being said in military aircraft there are two types of helicopters; Guns and targets, what do you want to fly?

CAB:

I got my PPL in a PA-18-150 Super Cub on February 2, 2002. I now own a Hughes 269C and have about 75 hours in a Schweizer 300CB out of Helicopter Adventures in Concord, CA. Still haven't gotten the rating, mainly because it is hard to consistently get to the lessons (damn work keeps getting in the way). When the weather is good, though, it is fun flying the Cub to Concord, flying the helicopter and then flying the Cub back to Santa Rosa.

Since I actually was dumb enough to purchase a 269C, and have Hillsboro Aviation completely rebuild it (it is a 1981) and since I have been taking lessons for about three years, I do have some observations.

First, the helicopters are damned expensive. Even the tiniest part is generally wildly expensive. I really don't know yet, but I think the regular maintenance will be relatively OK.

Second, they are really fun to fly and lots of altitude restrictions that apply to fixed wing don't apply to helicopters. You can safely do things and go places that I wouldn't even dream of in the Cub.

Third, flying the helicopter (at least after the initial shock of how sensitive the controls are and how every input varies the other inputs) is relatively easy. The emergency maneuvers, however, consume most of your training and are the real five ticket rides. Everyone ought to go out at least once and rent a helicopter and a good instructer and go through an autorotation. Helicopters do have lots more aerodynamic things that can sneak up on you than in airplanes: settling with power, dynamic roll over, retreating blade stall, etc., etc.

Fourth, you don't ever really get to rest in a helicopter. You have to fly it all the time. Turning on carb heat (in the non-fuel injected models) means you have to let go of something important, the collective. Actually doing anything like changing radio frequencies means you have to momentarily let go of the collective. Reading a chart? Forget it. I flew a Schweizer from Reno/Stead (4SD) to Santa Rosa (KSTS) last year via Truckee and Auburn, about 160 NM, and after the 4.6 hour flight, fun as it was, you were done for the day.

Fifth, the helicopter training forces you do be a much better pilot. You absolutely have to be more aware of what's going on all the time. Doing an autorotation downwind would be really, really bad. You constantly have to remind yourself where the wind is in the event of an engine failure.

Sixth, insurance for a helicopter is much, much more than for a fixed wing (unless your fixed wing happens to be on floats) if you insure the hull. The reason is actually pretty simple (like for the float plane). Most helicopter incidents or accidents don't seem to result in fatalities (although the obvious exceptions are wire strikes and failures over water), but almost all helicopter accidents generally involve a hard landing (unless you did the autorotation perfectly and for the private rating they don't even let you do full down autorotations). With a hard landing the main rotor blades flex down and chop of the tail boom. So you just lost the main rotor blades, the tail boom, the tail rotor, the main transmission and the engine. Bummer.

Kinda just rambling here, but I thought I would put some thoughts out there for anyone thinking about helicopters from someone who hasn't really been there but is trying to go there. The little piston helicopters are of pretty limited utility because you just can't put a whole lot of stuff in them and there aren't that many places to put things. But they are way fun and unless you get about 500 hours in a piston, no one will ever insure you to fly a turbine. Weird because the turbine is way more reliable and way easier to fly. I have a little time in a Hughes 500. Now you have a real machine that you can do something with. Substantially more money, but I can still dream.

Oh, yeah, one other thing: wives seem to hate helicopters a lot more than airplanes.


John:

I grew up in Grangeville and still try to get home once or twice a year. Flew in to McCall last July for a family reunion. Do you work at McCall Aviation?

375handh

Well if you guys ever feel like doing some mountain flying, I'm up for being dropped off on a mountaintop.

375,

Sorry, I'm a transplant here in CO. Could'nt even find Grangeville on a map. Makes it a cool place! I'm an electrician, nothing to do with McCall.

Crewed Chinooks in the Army (80's), yup, I know how expensive and tricky they can be! That level of concetration and those rotors beating the heck out of ya will wear ya out ina hurry! We flew over the Gulf from N'awlinz to Belize- 12 hrs. Us enlisted guys had to spell the pilots a couple of times on that one.

There are some old, bold pilots- they're flying choppers!

Heli's in general don't do too well up here,

A fellow in my EAA chapter has a Gazelle. Ex- British military model makes it experimental. I call it the triple threat: an aerobatic, experimental helicopter- neat! His insurance (minimums) is $25k/yr.

Once you've tried rotory wings, you'll never be the same. A freind and I went on a 20-min. ride in an R-44. She still can't complete a sentence when she talks about it! [/b]

I would love to have a Hughes 269, although I know of them as th-55 or more often as LOB's, little orange, well you know. I loved them, much more responsive than anything made by Bell. Always thought Hughes made aircraft for the pilot and Bell for the person in back. Just remember if you really push the airspeed on a 269 you have to have someone in there with you to hold their foot on the windshield to keep it from caving in on you

http://www.dynamicflight.com/misc/lf.shtml

CAB:

Grangeville is about 100 miles north of McCall, Idaho on 95.

375HandH

I had an Enstrom for a few years. I'd have to say it is just about the most fun you can have, and if I get rich there could be another one in my future, but the thing about killed me financially. Oh yea it about killed me too, the only catastrophic engine failure I've had in an aircraft. I can vouch that autorotations work ok. The oil pressure went to zero about a mile off shore, made the beach but it was high tide so had to land in about 18 inches of water. Now there in a cub in my hangar. I belive I could run 3 or 4 cubs for what that Enstrom cost to operate...............Ron

375handh wrote:John:

I grew up in Grangeville and still try to get home once or twice a year. Flew in to McCall last July for a family reunion. Do you work at McCall Aviation?

375handh

I do work for McCall Air - during flying season (summer and fall). I get the occasional trip during the winter. I work for the city pushing snow at the airport right now. We've been busy, over 11' of snow so far this season. I made it to Grangeville a couple times last season, moving Forest Service folks around. Nice place. I just moved here from Boulder, CO, last May for the job. (flying, not driving a snow plow!)

John