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!