Keep your airspeed!!

Goooood morning everyone! I finally have a moment to breathe, and decided I'd write a post. So in the Privates license, there are 3 stages at my school. I am on Lesson 5, going on lesson 6, and there are 7 lessons in the first stage. So I am almost through one milestone! (It's always important to note here that every time a lesson is done, it's a milestone. Every flight even!)
Lesson 5 has been all about Emergency Procedures, memorizing all of them and other information we need to know as pilots.
Today I started autorotations.
Autorotation - A state of descending flight.
Why do we practice them? They are practicing engine failures in a helicopter. I suppose they do them in a plane, too.
We began starting out with doing an intro into an auto, instead of me trying to learn everything all at once, we are going step by step. Which is great! So far the intro is basically just : Do your checks (Three in the green, engine rotor, no warning lights, carb out of yellow, gas, trim down) Then you can begin your autorotation!
You announce, "Auto in 3-2-1" and then goes as follows: Lower collective Right pedal Aft cyclic Off throttle, Catch RPM. This should be done in the time it takes to say, "Autorotation" out loud.
Need to keep your Rotor RPM in the green arc (101-104% on the tachometer) and then when the RPM goes down, you lower collective a little to keep it in the green. If it goes up, raise collective a little to keep it in the green arc.
Then you do more checks, which include: RPM, Airspeed, Trim strings, Landing zone. Then you keep an eye on that for a while, as you are correcting each thing.
Then as you come down, at approx 40 feet AGL (above ground level), you roll on throttle and accelerate out of it and climb. IN AN INTRO AUTO.

In a full autorotation practice, the POH has power failure above 500 feet (this is on page 3-2).
1. Lower collective immediately to maintain RPM and enter normal autorotation.
2. Establish a steady glide at approx. 65 kts.
3. Adjust collective to keep RPM in green arc or apply full down collective if light weight prevents attaining above 97% RPM.
4. Select landing spot and, if altitude permits, maneuver so landing will be into the wind.
5. A restart may be attempted at pilot's discretion if sufficient time is available (see air restart procedure)
6. If unable to restart, turn off unnecessary switches and shut off fuel.
7. At about 40 feet AGL, begin cyclic flare to reduce rate of descent and forward speed.
8. At about 8 feet AGL, apply forward cyclic to level ship and raise collective just before touchdown to cushion landing. Touch down in level attitude with nose straight ahead.

Along with a million other things, this is one thing you have to memorize and know by heart. Doesn't seem hard, you say? Well, you aren't in school to be a pilot, eh? :)

I decided that I wanted to get a sticker for my car that says something along the lines of "i'm a student pilot, I don't speed." lol because as a pilot knows, a speeding ticket on your record is something that your bosses will look at.. (what else will you do to break the rules while you are flying a helicopter for their company?).

A few weeks ago, I was invited to go with the base manager of my school to fly over our river and drop off ping pong balls to the public in a public duck race event. I was super excited because it was my first "commercial" type of experience!
Alright, I'm going to go relax on one of my first days to relax in months!

This is one of the helis that is at our school! I just googled this photo so I shouldn't get in trouble, and the school will remain unnamed :) I have actually flown in this exact heli before :) So proud!

This video is what a full down autorotation looks like. every auto (except hovering autos) looks like this except for the touchdown. So, yes, I will be learning that. :D YAY! Doesn't look too hard. What I think might be a little difficult will be the hovering autorotations.
The hovering autos video is right below:

While we're at it, lets do a dynamic rollover video DONT TRY THIS AT HOME lol:

Dynamic rollover is a powered roll that happens at a 15 degree tilt. The heli goes over that 15 degree tilt or pivot point, and you cannot recover.
Alright, that's all I've got for y'all today.

A lovely day..a lovely flight

So as time goes by so fast, I know that eventually, I am going to take a look one day and realize I've been in school for 6 months and that I'm about to solo in the helicopter by myself. I am super excited about this! James's next flight is three days from now and he will be soloing. He has been in school since about February. As for now, I've learned that when you are in school for such a dynamic and complicated field..that there is so much I don't know! I'm excited to learn, but a little overwhelmed.

The first thing I would tell a potential student about learning how to fly a helicopter would be:

 1. It's going to be hard. Really hard. Probably one of the most difficult things that you will have to surpass.
2.It will test your patience, and your willpower. You definitely do need 4-5 hours a day studying.
3. The faster you go, the further you'll soar. What I mean by this is that the more time you put at home studying, the faster your classes will go, and the sooner you can get going with your new adventure of piloting. Also, it saves you money on student loans :)
4. TRUST your instructor. Your instructor is obviously your key to success while you are learning. They will be the ones to help you along your way if you have a million questions and a good CFI (certified flight instructor) will be patient and supportive.
5. Feel the fear, and do it anyway. The only way that you are going to succeed past the fear roadblock is to ignore it. Fear means that you are out of your comfort zone. This is good. If you don't have any fear, something is off or your instructor isn't pushing you far enough.
6. Positive thinking. You MUST think positive. Even if you have a crappy day at school, you've got to find a place in your mind where you come to agreements with yourself and find the attitude that you want to be in. Ultimately, it's you who decides how hard it is going to be to YOU.
 7. Willpower. Definitely the most important. You are going to be making decisions as a pilot whether to fly or not, or be in situations where you really do need to have all of the knowlege you were taught in school, even if you haven't practiced it since school. This is where the willpower comes in. Even when you are out of school and past being a CFI and are in the job market, you need to have the willpower to study study study everything and persevere through anything that comes to you to be the best pilot that you can be.

"To master a skill, you must input at least 10,000 hours"
- Unknown

This may not make much sense to someone who hasn't been introduced to this field, but it is completely different than memorizing some answers and knowing how to do a calculus problem and reading a book and doing a book report on it for English. This tests WHO YOU ARE.
Anyway, if I didn't have any confidence in myself as a person, it would be a million times harder to do what I and many others are trying to do. So take it as it comes, keep a positive attitude, and fulfill your best potential. It also helps SO much if you have someone who absolutely believes that you can do it. When you feel down, talk to them and listen to what they have to say about your successes.

Onto lighter subjects,  I HOVERED today! Also, I passed my first and second lesson test. Now the next lesson I will get is pattern-work and more intense aerodynamics. Very excited. I am in a great mood with school and I got a great result out of persevering for my first two weeks of school. I'm not sure how fast other people learn to hover, and I know it is different for each person and there isn't really a time limit to how fast because you go at your own pace, but on my second hour of hovering I picked it up. I am definitely not finished learning hovering because it is something that every pilot still has to work on, but I am proud of myself and it makes me want to move forward! Or..aft cyclic? :p

[Enter picture of me hovering here. :( aww, I don't have one!]

All was glorious — a cloudless sky above, a most delicious view around. . . . How great is our good fortune! I care not what may be the condition of the earth; it is the sky that is for me now. — Prof. Jacques Alexandre Cesare Charles

Good day, all!
I've been in school about a week now. I've had 4 flights. I am currently working on hovering! I started hovering on my second flight. The best way that I can explain hovering is sitting cross-legged on a yoga ball with fans rotating around you, trying to balance. That's my favorite to tell people :) I've got so much to study and I have my first test on my next class day. Since I've studied with James so much  the last few months, I do know a lot. Currently my homework includes the following:
1st Lesson - definitions for blade flapping, feathering, lead & lag. The 3 types of main and tail rotor systems and what they do. PLENTY of things about the R22, which, gladly, I knew a lot of it already, its just a lot of fine tuning! All about the powerplant of the R22, assembly of the swash plate and main rotor hub. The main and tail rotor gear boxes, all about the drive train, electrical system, all of the aircraft lights, fuses, fuel system, oil system, different fuel types which to use and what colors, all about the pitot static system, VSI, ASI, and ALT how they work and their errors, Magnetic compass and its errors. That is just my notes that i've written down. I also have things highlighted in the POH (Pilots Operating Handbook). I know I will have that thing memorized! I've gotten a few YouTube videos that my teacher has showed me and I'll add them at the end of the post.
2nd Lesson - AERODYNAMICS YAY! It's actually not as bad as it sounds. If I haven't bored you already, let me talk about science! Air Foils, four forces of lift, the 3 different types of drag, the equation of lift, which I'll just show you! L=(CL)(1/2 P)(S)(V2). YEP. I'm not going to go into explaining all of it at the moment because I'm not sure how much will be incredibly boring to someone who isn't interested and I need to study, but YEAH. The different vibrations and what can shake the helicopter apart (kinda cool, very dangerous).
My instructor has also recently taught me how to calculate the DA (Density Altitude or, how dense the atmosphere is. Determines the performance of the helicopter at that altitude and temperature.) It's a fun math equation. I go to aviationweather.gov/adds click on TAF, then type in your airports location and then metars and tafs. That is the same codes that I have used in one of my last recent posts.
The next thing that I am learning is pattern-work. I am learning all about the upwind leg, downwing leg, base leg, and final and the knots and altitude that you should be at while in each of these turns.

I need to catch up on my blogging, this is why my post is so long, so bear with me! The next one shouldn't be as long. The youtube videos I have gotten from my instructor are these:
For lesson 1 - Youtube search this: s-61 sea king rotor head animation - This will give the student an animation that shows more realistically what the rotor head is doing as it moves up and down and around. This helped me to understand the actual movement when I move the controls as I am flying.
For lesson 2 - Youtube - how wings work smoke - This video is from Cambridge University where they used an airfoil to explain bernoullis principal and stall of a blade.

I found a great website that made me laugh about hovering and this is a quote from it:

"Why is Hovering so Difficult?

Hovering is commonly described as being like trying to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time. While this analogy is vastly over-used, it is not inaccurate. The helicopter has three highly sensitive controls, all of which operate differently and all of which affect each other. To further complicate matters, there is a lag between operating each control and the helicopter responding. And to really confuse the new student, there is a different amount of lag for each control."

You can read more at Suite101: Helicopter Flying Lessons - Hovering

Basically, no one can TEACH hovering. The instructors just have to sit there and save their lil bums from crashing while the student figures out how. Meh, I'll figure it out. Right? lol.

Alright, here's a picture from lesson 2 of my studies, basic aerodynamics. This is the drag velocity ratio, meaning all of the drags put together on a chart to show when they are affected by flight. This picture was found on Google :)

The only difference on what I have learned is that Profile Drag is not in this picture, and the Stall is called LDMax, meaning the most amount of lift for the least amount of drag. In the helicopter, this is 53 knots which makes it easier for the helicopter to climb!

Alright that's enough for todays "lesson" kids!

See you very soon!

-Tiffycakes!

Preparing for the beginning..

Hello All,
I accepted my student loan and finished getting everything ready for school, yay! I am just waiting for the check. I am scheduled to start classes on the 27th. Lots is going on lately, James and I are trying to hurry and move so that we can get settled in before I start school. Once I get my check, though, I can start flying! Very excited.
I'll update when something new happens!

-Tiff

Aviation Language

ADDS (Aviation Digital Data Service)

KIDA  271653Z  24017G25KT  10SM  BKN041  09/M01  A2993  RMK  A02  PK  WND  22027/1642 SLP127

TAF
KIDA  271135Z  2712/2812  21015KT  P6SM  SCT090
            FM271500 22026G36KT  P6SM  VCSH  SCT040  BKN060CB
            FM280300 22016G26KT  P6SM  VCSH  SCT060  BKN100
           FM280800  2101KT  P6SM  BKN100

Do you understand?! This is one of many languages in aviation. There's many different things to use when you are planning a flight. This is only one. It talks about weather and visibility. The breakdown is as follows:

KIDA is the name of the airspace by the airport in my town.
271653Z is the date and time. 27 (the 27th) and 16:53 is the time. It's not military time. It's Zulu Time. It's the standard international time. In this case, 16:53 is 12:53 PM. (Zulu time is calculated by taking the 1653 and subtracting 16 from it. Then it's just military time from there.)
The wind is at 17 knots, in 240 degrees on your compass, which is about southwest. The gusts are at about 25 knots. As a student pilot, our school doesn't allow us to fly past 25 knots so this is discretionary.
There is 10 square miles of visibility.
The clouds are broken at 04,100 feet up.
The temperature is at 9 degrees celsius, and the dew point is minus 01 (to calculate if you need carb heat or not, these two numbers need to be within 11 points of each other. Today we will need carb heat in our helicopter to fly safely :D)
A2993 is the setting that you set your altimeter at in your helicopter, which is a device used to measure barometric pressure, and it's used to tell pilots how far up they can fly. You set your altimeter at 2992 which is the national average of the US. Then, it will give you the elevation that you are at. Then the altimeter will change off of the pressure of the day.
RMK and A02 are just the descriptions of the machine that was used to find the information for ADDS.

The TAF is basically the guestimates they have for the weather in the next few hours time.

Hm. Sounds like a lot to learn. And that's just the beginning of finding out your limitations for that flight you're about to go on. There's so much more!
Weather maps, Sierra, which is information for IFR conditions and mountain obscuration (so if a pilot can't see out the windows and are using only their instruments to fly, this will tell someone where the obstacles are...like big buildings in a big city? Yes! Is it scary to fly when you can't see and only rely on a machine to tell you if you're going to hit a skyscraper? Probably, but, FLY IT LIKE YOU STOLE IT :)), Tango (which helps pilots learn about any turbulance that may be occuring), Zulu Airmet (for info about icing in the air), and Pirep which is several pilots own accounts of the weather out there that machines didn't capture. The pilots report to the Air Traffic Control tower, and they record the information. These are only a few more things that pilots use to guide them in flight!

Currently, James is learning about weather. I read somewhere that when you study to be a pilot, students shouldn't just say, "I'm learning how to fly!". What would be more accurate would be to say, "I'm learning how to fly and I'm going to be a weather expert!!", because there is so much more to learn besides flying. Obviously as you can imagine, the weather is one of the biggest - If not THE biggest - factors in flying. Especially for helicopters as a small rotorcraft.

The strength of the turbulence is directly proportional to the temperature of your coffee.

— Gunter's Second Law of Air Travel

The beginning!

The idea to start this blog came from three ideas.
1. To show friends, family, and anyone else who wanders upon it what I've been through, and my experiences and life.
2. To put out into the webspace a rare find about pilot school and beyond.
I've been searching to find a blog to show the experiences one goes through as they learn and grow as a pilot in school and as a professional working in the field. I did find one once, and then it disappeared. Disappointing!
3. And lastly, to see my progress as I grow as a person and to inspire myself by seeing what I have accomplished so that I have confidence to progress when things get hard!

Sounds all important, doesn't it? Meh, it should be fun.

To start, I'll begin by telling all zero readers I have right now, about myself. I am a 20 year old typical american girl. By no means am I perfect, OR innocent ;) I aspire to learn, I aspire to grow as a person, and I am very strong-willed. I am divorced, I've been through hard times, and I know what it takes to succeed in every aspect of my life. I love helping people and teaching people and feeling that gratitude with it. I am a genuinely happy person, and I am very honest and sometimes a little too outspoken. Oh, and stubborn. Yes, I am :)

I didn't wake up when I was 5 one day and decide that I was going to be a helicopter pilot. I struggled with finding what I wanted to do with my life since then, though. First it was a veterinarian, then an interior designer, then a web designer and computer programmer. Now, it's an entrepreneur, and also - you guessed it!
I struggled with finding happiness from about 18 to just recently. I couldn't fathom how I was going to get from my current place in reality, to the life that I want, doing the job that I was doing, and with no direction to go. I'd been married for two years and things just weren't what they were supposed to be. By no means does this mean that I gave up on anything easy, but my husband and I decided it would be best for us to get a divorce. This obviously as you can imagine, changed my life drastically. Then, I met this wonderful person who changed my life even more.
He shows me every day the best things about myself, and lets me realize on my own my true potential. He also introduced me to Helicopters as a career.

If I had gone back in time and told myself a year ago, that I was going to pull a massive student loan (two, actually) and go fly helicopters, I'd seriously tell myself to get the heck out! Even not knowing everything that it entails! And yes, I know there's more coming :)
I believe that anyone who wants to pull a student loan this big or even bigger (for the surgeons out there) is NUTS! But that's what I think it takes to make it. It takes considerable risk. But you must put yourself in a position where you MUST follow through, because sometimes that's what it will take to persevere through the massive undertaking.

That kid that I mentioned earlier? Yeah, his name is James. He's becoming a pilot, too, and I've been with him every step of the way (well, except the flight time) and I've learned so much. I definitely have an advantage over every student who is walking into that school for their first day of class. Unless Daddy taught them and they just want the certification. No, i'm doing it the old fashioned way, and I'll be a better pilot because I am going through all the schooling.
I am currently enrolled at Utah Valley University (UVU) and I start classes in a month, June 27th. My major is Aviation Science and I'm going for a Bachelors Degree.
My first classes are Aviation Law, and Air Transport Management.

Well, I'm ready for this ride--Or should I say flight. Are you??