Happy Heliween Wooo

Things you can do for Halloween that involve helicopters:

Bake heli-cookies for all of your visitors

After that you should make a heli-costume so that you, too, can have delectable treats, such as this one:

 

If you get bored waiting for it to get dark, you could actually make a helicopter into a pumpkin. Just be sure to be home before midnight!

Wait, if you're already a pumpkin, what happens after midnight? Do you get vaporized like this guy?

Or if you are too busy finding your glass slipper, maybe you lost it in the corn maze.. so just hop in the heli and look for it! 

 

 Or, I guess, you could just make a pumpkin with a heli on it. But that's just boring, right??

 

The Time Has Come..

So my dear friends, the time has come for my check ride. It is literally right around the corner! Rule of thumb for our school: If you pass your stage 3 test (the test with the main instructor at your school) then your check ride will be just as good, if not better. I am not very nervous at this point, just more looking to learn something from a pilot with thousands of hours in many aircraft.

I wanted to mention something for my future: I don't currently have the funding to continue my education at this point. I will do whatever it takes to finish my training, but at this point my check ride will be the last flight I take until I figure something out.
I will have to borrow money from my fiance in order to pay for my check ride, what a saint he is. 

When it comes to loans, I have them deferred until I get my bachelors degree as long as I am taking classes as a full time student. Once I stop flying, that is no longer the case and I will have to sort things out another way.
Because of my past (and we all know how divorces go) my credit is no longer the gleaming picture it once was to no fault of my own. I will be unable to get a loan without a co-signer (none available to me) until that is fixed and currently it is out of my hands legally. Trust me, if I could have done something about it by now, I would have. So that whole option is out of the question.

My next option is scholarships, grants, and federal aid. The past two years I have been unable to receive federal aid and do not qualify for any grants and I have no idea why. I can get small loans through my college which only help to pay my tuition each semester and is not enough for flight school.
After I receive my license my next goal will be to find and apply for any scholarship that I am eligible for.

The options after that are extremely limited. I've heard of people who have paid for their education (although this is somewhat about 25 years ago) strictly with cash, working two full time jobs to get the money needed for EACH flight. If that is what it takes, that's what I'll do.

Meanwhile, I plan on attempting to self-educate myself about the other certificates I want to get whenever possible, hopefully somewhat minimizing the amount of education I will have to pay for.

If anyone has any other ideas that could help students pay for education, I am begging you to let me know!
Thanks guys, I'll let you know how the check ride goes.

P.S. I plan on editing a video as soon as I have enough footage to edit :)

A helicopter in flight..

So this morning I went on one of my last solo cross-country flights. I ran into (well, not literally) one of my instructors who is getting his fixed wing license while I was transitioning from one town to the other. We had a short chat over the radio and I was on my way. 
Upon my return and landing on runway 35, I looked to my left and saw three blackhawk choppers flying in formation off the runway heading into the distance. It was perhaps the most beautiful sight I've encountered yet! I'm kicking myself for not being able to take a picture or having a camera attached to my head to film it from my perspective.

Which brings me to my point. I've seen many a Youtube video where people have used the GoPro camera. Although I enjoy the idea and I could potentially learn a lot, I don't relish the idea of spending so much money on a camera if it doesn't turn out as practical as I'd like. However, my sporty father who likes to sled has used cameras on his helmets before and they have worked out well.
I'm going to start figuring out how to work his spare camera and using it to film my lessons. Credit to my dad for letting me use his expensive equipment! The next step is trying to figure out how to edit the footage and shape it from a horror movie in slow motion to an action movie with exciting music.

If all goes well, you will be able to learn along with me to the tune of happy music.  Unfortunately, I don't get to listen to the music while I learn so consider yourself lucky :(
I have to find a cable that will attach without being too costly and finding a way to hold the bigger part of the system without being in the way of controls while I fly. It isn't a GoPro, but another competitor close to it, and it should work just as well, if not better! I'm hoping while in flight you will be able to read the gauges along with being able to see clearly outside.

In my head, I don't know if it would be very interesting to watch a lot of videos of someone sitting in a metal ball floating around the sky under a giant fan staring at the ground, but I have to remind myself that not everyone gets to sit in aircraft (helicopters especially) even during their lifetime while I get to sit in them more than a couple times a week.

So I will ask my readers this:

Would you like to see something like that?

 Would it be interesting for someone to watch? 

And what other things could I do to improve and make videos that are entertaining? 

“Why not go out on a limb? That's where the fruit is.” ― Will Rogers

This morning I woke up early like I usually do for work, 5:30 am. This time though, I wasn't going to work. I grabbed my headset bag, my flight plan, sectional, and sunglasses, and headed to the airport.
With the feeling of fall in the air, I tried to huddle up in my hoodie and do my preflight quickly! You can definitely tell that fall is on the way! I set my sunglasses on the empty seat next to me in the helicopter for when the sun came up. Flipping my nav lights on and rolling up the throttle, I lifted off the ground and took to the crisp morning air. The exhilarating feeling of looking to the person next to you and seeing the empty seat instead is a bit of a chilly feeling at first if you are nervous.

"Gggosh! Is that Pottsburg or is that Panstown?"

After a few minutes in the air my mind and body calmed itself and settled into its routine, practiced muscle movements, and training took over. Going into the pattern, calling anyone out there in the world who is listening, and letting them know my intentions was eerie without the sound of other traffic around me or the reply of the ATC tower.

A check ride shouldn't be an extremely hard or daunting task to complete. After all, if you fail, you aren't condemning yourself to never getting your license. You are only postponing it. One fact that I like about check rides is that if you botch something up, it doesn't mean you fail completely! It only means that he will come back at a later date and redo that part of the check ride with you. Unless, of course, there are a lot of things that need work and then you'll get the pink slip.

My home airport on a sectional

My first destination has a golf course right next to it. Usually you get people who stare at the aircraft, watching as we wave back to them while in a hover on the runway. Today, it was the usual golfers who are not phased by a bright orange helicopter flying only a short distance away from them. They were probably more cranky about the fact that the wind from the helicopter was messing up their shot than seeing something out of their ordinary everyday lives.
After that pattern and taking off again, away from that airfield I went. Heading northeast towards the foothills I changed my gps and radio, checked my carburetor heat and looked for my next checkpoint. Curving around the Delta airspace in which I feel at home in, I glanced at my surroundings and tried to block the rising sun from my view by using the windshield.
Winding around towers, watching for crop-dusters and my next airport, it started creeping into my mind the thought of doing a check ride. Although I'm not too worried to do my check ride, it's a little different to think about when you are on the ground, sitting in a warm office with your instructors whom you trust and allow your worries to spill out. It is a completely different matter to think about a check ride when you are alone in the aircraft with the sound of the engine roaring in your ears while you try to summon the courage to realize you are doing it by yourself. No tips from the instructor can echo through your headset now!

 One pointer that I have heard is that if you blow the DPE away on your ground work, then he'll be more likely to make excuses for you on the check ride. Perhaps a wind gust did it? People don't enjoy having their judgement tested. He will be thinking "I really had this one pegged. This one really knows what their talking about!" 


Finally, I came upon the second destination in my flight. Even though I've been to this one several times, I still always have a bit of a hard time spotting that airport. It always seems to pop up on me a couple miles away as I am arriving. Although it was a bit windier, and definitely over the 10 knot report from my home airport only 10 miles away, there is no reporting station there so I could get away with it.
For those who don't know, solo student pilots have a 10 knot limit on flying.
Why not get in the extra practice? I quickly did that pattern and was off onto my next leg of my flight plan, where I had decided to go around one airport which is usually busier and stop off on my last destination. I knew I would be a little late getting back to the airport, but my ground speed was showing 70 with indicated airspeed at 85. I had a headwind.

 If you go into your appointment with a point to learn something, you will come away better on every check ride than before. If you fail, you will know exactly why you failed and it'll be obvious what to do better next time. It also would help you calm your nerves before or during the check ride to try to learn something. After all, he really is just a CFI with another certificate.

In the same sequence if you have too high confidence or too low confidence, it might not look good to your DPE, so keeping that in mind will benefit you either way.

Historic building that my school is in.
Those are our helicopters.

On my way home and knowing another student was waiting for the heli I knew it was no reason to rush. He can sit and wait patiently for me! But one thing that I could do was attempt to efficiently use the wind to push my ground speed faster. I came in for landing on the runway, taxied to my school and set the heli down smoothly.
You never know whether it'll be a good day or bad, and on the other hand if it'll be just another flight in your logbook, or one of your most memorable yet.
Overall, the check ride is nothing to be scared of, just remember that even though it may be nerve-wracking to show them what you can do! You've already done all the hard work. It may be a bad flight in your opinion but if he gives you a handshake and hands you your temporary certificate (remember, it's good for 120 days!) that it'll also be your most memorable to date!

10 Tips to Help You Study for Your License...and other enticing ideas..

I have tried many ways to find ways to keep my mind excited about studying. There are several things I've done, but overall I will explain the main tips that I have used to study throughout the majority of my license.
Here are a few tips that could help you along your journey to get that license.

 I color coordinate my planner for ease-of-use
and to make it exciting for my mind to look at.

1. Get a Planner.
I say this because it is easy to get caught up in other classes, work, relationships, any anything else that your mind will use to try to distract you from studying.
If you have strong enough will-power, you can use the planner to your advantage down to 15-minute increments of study time depending on the type of planner you buy. This gives your mind a goal to get to. Our mind likes goals and likes to complete things.
It's easy to justify if you convince yourself to study for half an hour, give yourself a break, and then study for another half hour and be done for the day.
Whatever timing that works for you, always make sure that you give yourself a break in increments of time. A tired mind is like a fussy 6 year old.

 2. Make Lists
Lists help to organize the mind and free it from cluttering thoughts that might confuse other information that is more important to remember.
I frequently will make a Goal List on the side of my planner explaining what I would like to accomplish in the MINIMUM that week or sometimes I will break it down into days. 
In the rotorcraft private pilot license, there seems to be so much information that could be broken up into parts, yet seemingly it all falls together! This makes it hard to organize studying sometimes because if you break it into lessons, then you are only on one subject. To be effective and increase the minds reaction time to find and remember the answer, I mix subjects together.
On one day I might schedule to study Emergency Procedures. Another day I might be
scheduled to do the Pitot/Static System or the different types of turbulence. These "side tasks" I add every day along with the current flash cards I have scheduled to study.

These are separated per subject.

3. Flash Cards
These have to be the most obvious and frequent way to study.
In order to make it easy to organize my flashcards, I have color coded them with a dot in the upper right-hand corner in each category it pertains to with crayon.
I have more than 300+ flash cards in my Tupperware. Staring at that massive pile sometimes stresses me out! I split them into piles of 25 cards and put a small clip on them. The cards are shuffled randomly. 

How I Study Them:

These are thrown in for random selection

 Since my cards are in piles, I make it my goal each day to study one pile of them by the end of the day.
If I get a card correct, I put a check mark in pencil in the left corner and put it back in the pile. Once a card gets 3 check marks, I can take it out of the pile and continue on until the pile is done.
Once the pile is done for the day, I put it back in the Tupperware separately from the piles I haven't done. That way the next day I can go over that days pile, and two other piles that have already been checked off 3 times.
Daily, I do about 50-75 flash cards each day on top of the random subject I have chosen to study as well as any particular activities my instructor has assigned.

4. Use Acronyms
Using silly words for things put an image into your mind, making it easier to conjure up that image when being asked later about the same subject.
For example, we must memorize the certifications of categories and classes of airmen and aircraft. These words really don't have an easy way to remember them, so I made up some silly words to use:
Aircraft Categories goes like this:
Air (aircraft) Cats (categories) are Normally (normal) Utilized (utility) Aerobatically (aerobatic).
On the notecard, it looks like Aircraft Categories: Normal, Utility, Aerobatic. 
That sentence is quite simple, but I sometimes get even sillier with my words and created this one for the Aircraft Classes:
Aircats (aircraft) are Classy (class) around Rotating (rotocraft) Gerbils (glider) with Balloons (balloon).
This gives the picture of a cat who likes to watch gerbils being nice (classy!) around gerbils (who run or rotate in wheels) with balloons tied to them!
On the notecard it looks like Aircraft Class: Rotorcraft, Glider, Balloon.

5. Quizzes
One way to test yourself to be sure that you have actually soaked up the information instead of somehow finding a way to cheat (permanent marker on cards, anyone?) is by using quizzes! At least these aren't done with a teacher breathing down your neck. If possible, get a few copies of each quiz that you intend to use. That way you can do them over and over if you miss any, or use to test yourself later.
Also, even though it is time-consuming, I will go through my notes and make my own quizzes.
Some would say this is contradictory because as you ask the questions, you already know the answers. In either case, you are still looking at the material and it is still considered to be studying.

6. Keep Yourself Motivated
After months of studying the same thing, the mind starts getting bored. You start noticing that as you go through your flashcards you skip some of them because "Meh, I already know it." This is obviously the boredness kicking in! It's never good to slack, either. You may think you know that one card, but the mind will eventually forget the little things, which may be vital to your checkride.

 3 Ways that I use to keep myself motivated to keep studying
1. Set a goal (everyone knew this one was coming). Overall, the goal is to get your private pilots license. This is great, except, how long from now will that be? That is too broad of a goal to base each day off of.
Successful people write out spider-graphs. You know, those graphs that include the big idea in the middle, surrounded by smaller ideas, and even smaller ideas on those ones? If you create a bunch of short term goals, it lessens the work that your mind thinks you have to do, making it easier in your head to complete. 

Eventually, stepping over those small pebbles, you will turn back and realize you've crossed a mountain.

2. Give yourself a treat at the end of a big goal. Whether it be a new video game, a book, or an expensive night out with my hubby, I choose whatever it is that will make me happy and give me something to look forward to.
If you don’t reward yourself, you are going to put pedal to the metal and push yourself to a breaking point where you just don’t want to do anything!

3. Let someone else know your goals.
In this respect, if you tell someone about your goals, they are more apt to ask you about them. To avoid embarrassment or feeling guilty, you will try harder to keep to the tasks so that when that person asks, you can say that you are doing well! Have the person you choose be a trustworthy and supporting friend or family member. Ask if they are willing to help you hold up to your goals. 

7. Learn Your Learning System

There are many different ways that people learn. You can also be a mix of learning styles, but overall, the more you know, the easier it will be to learn or memorize material. The benefits of knowing how you learn can be exponential in helping your studies go smoothly and at a good pace.
This Learning Quiz is a quiz that will show you  your learning technique. This website shows a lot of different styles of learning, and you can click on each of them for tips on how to incorporate into your studying.

8. Chair Flying

Chair flying sounds like a weird situation where you would close your eyes, listen to music while pretending to clear your mind and honing your soul into nature in some strange meditation type situation. In no way am I going to claim that you will magically know how to fly if you imagine things going correctly every time you chair fly! Although, wouldn’t that be awesome?
Chair flying isn’t that strange and many instructors will tell you to go home and do this as your homework assignment. While it is still fresh in your mind, sit down and imagine your flight that day. Usually if you slow it down and pay attention to each detail, you can “fix” the problems that you faced that day.

The goal for this is to get the neurons in that part of your brain to connect solidly between the reactions that each control provides when you make an input. Basically, we’re building muscle memory.
Eventually, you will be so natural at it that you can so much as “think” of what you want to do and it’ll already be happening in the helicopter because you’ve already made the inputs without knowing it.

ASA Prepware

9. Use a Study Aid Program, Even After Your Knowledge Test

I use ASA’s Prepware to keep my skills up on questions that may be in the check ride that might not necessarily  be asked specifically in my flash cards or lessons to study. Such as the FAR/AIM or scenario-based questions. I used this program to practice for my knowledge test. Our school requires us to get 3 tests with 90% scores before we can go take the official test.

10. Study in a Group

The results of a group study.

If you can befriend anyone at your flight school and get together to study with them, it’s a great way to challenge yourself and improve both of your skills. Sometimes there are things that they don’t think to ask of that you do, vice versa. Also they might have additional studying tips that helped them memorize things in some way.

So overall, hopefully I've provided some tips for any student and not just aviation students! Although it was lengthy, those are a few tips that I mainly use to help keep myself on task and making sure that I am progressing at home more than I am at school (in ground lessons), just to save myself some money. 

A lot of the lessons that you pay for "reviewing" ground can be money in your pocket if you do more at home, where it's free to sit on your own couch and do the same thing you'd be doing at school. 

It also might help to study in strange positions, like upside down on the couch!

 

Flying an aeroplane with only a single propeller to keep you in the air. Can you imagine that? — Captain Picard, 'Star Trek: The Next Gen'

Flying is something that you can't imagine until you do it. When you do get to fly, and not just as the passenger, it feels wonderful. Only a few steps away until I can fly this bird on my own!
My first couple of flights to get back up to par have been pretty good. The first flight went amazing. I impressed my instructor and myself by not having too much rust built up and I remembered how to fly more than I expected.

turbine windmill farm. the clouds show the turbulence.

The second flight we did we went to the bottom of a hill where there are the giant turbine windmills on top. It was fun trying to do 360's and ascending and descending turns with turbulence while your instructor tries to distract you :p that's their job! I'm still having a bit of a hard time with approaches, but that will come in time. I can do it, just not as perfectly as I would like.

One thing a student should remember is that they are not looking for perfection when you are first starting out. I'm told I am very hard on myself and that I am usually doing better than I actually think.
My third flight went pretty well. We did pirouettes (I know its a dance term but we like to think we are light and smooth on the pedals like dancers are with their feet :) and I did very well at those. We hovered around a painted object on the runway at about the same altitude and distance away in a circle in a little bit of wind.

Collective control. Throttle twist

We practiced governor off work for my first time, which is interesting and requires more concentration than usual. For those who don't know, in layman's terms the governor essentially adjusts your throttle to what power you need to pull from your engine at any given time. If you turn it off, you need to watch your RPM's very carefully and keep it in a very small point on the tachometer to fly. This means you are always adjusting. This is important to learn because governors fail occasionally and if it does you don't want your blades to slow down passed a certain point, or you will crash and die. Okay okay, you might not die, but its possible. Or your governor could speed the engine up and you could cause severe engine damage and damage to other components.

I thus far need to work on trying to understand the radio talk a little more and to be more outside of the cockpit (which I should have learned long ago) and using a little bit more situational awareness.  I plan on using liveatc.net to help me understand the radio a bit more. I understand the lingo for the most part, its actually understanding what they are saying. Just practice is all.

At the end of the flight my instructor told me good job good job, maybe one more flight and we will send you off to do emergency procedures with the instructors that are qualified. When I looked at my schedule for the week I noticed that I am scheduled with those instructors that will get me through to soloing. I suppose it's about time although I am still nervous.
 I've had a mock test where they sit down for two hours and ask you question by question about anything you have learned. They try to trick you! I've been fooled a couple of times and I was nervous enough to get a few things wrong, but overall he said I would definitely pass a private pilot (only counting the lessons we were reviewing) and I even had a lot of commercial pilot information that impressed him. Confidence booster! They will ask if you are sure if that is the answer or they will ask if B is the answer instead of what you said which was A.
 Stick to your guns! I sometimes have a hard time or I get nervous and second guess myself. Over time though I am learning to trust my first instinct.

ON THE AGENDA:
 - practice regular and hovering autorotations until they say I would survive a crash if one were to happen when I solo
 - oral test about lessons 1 through 6.
 - SOLO!! (stage 1 of 3 complete)

After soloing:

ok, my night flights wont look AS awesome..but still!

 - start studying lessons 7-14 which I have already acquired (stage 2 of 3 complete). It's been a while so that might take some time.
 - Start learning lessons 15-18 (the last lessons of private pilot and stage 3)
 - start doing cross-country, night flights, and cross-country solo flights
 - there's a flight in there somewhere where the tower and my instructor will devise an evil plan to confuse and elude me. I will be sent all over and around the airport in a crazy fashion following radio calls and dealing with traffic under pressure. That one will be greaaaat.

Really I don't have all that much left to go. A LOT of flying is coming up!

And, of course, more studying. :)
Sorry for such the long post!
Until next time!

It is possible to fly without motors, but not without knowledge and skill. — Wilbur Wright

Wow, it's been a good - oh, 6 months since I've blogged. But for good reason, my dear ones!

If you don't have your medical certificate and you have any reason as to why it would be delayed to the FAA, let me just foremost you in this:

GO GET IT LIKE, YESTERDAY.

In my humble experience with this situation, just take heed and do it like right meow. It took me from October until February for them to process my registration with them and give me my certificate. That doesn't mean I couldn't fly (obviously because I didn't have it before), but it does mean that it would have been a waste of time and money for me to fly during that time.

Alas, I begin flying next week. Today is Sunday and I fly Tuesday and Thursday. I better get used to it again!

To recover from my slightly off-kilter situation, I thought I'd retain some pride and let you all know I have not just been sitting on my bum! I did get through the next stage in my training (aside from flight-planning but that is next).

The goal thus far is to knock all of the rust off my flying, and solo as soon as possible, so I can start flying to surrounding cities alone and to get my hours built up. Without supervision. Just me and the chopchopchop of the blades...one of the most monumental things about being a flight student is that first solo flight.



How much further would I have been if I hadn't had to wait? My goal for having my private license was February and here it is...come and gone. I could have been doing instrument flight training with the foggles right now :( Ahh, soon young padowan!
On the other hand, I really just can't wait to start flying and doing my autorotations again!! I have my new kneeboard to use as well!

Anyways, definitely more updates coming soon.

- Ready, Fire, Aim!