The Beginning

Wow is the the word that comes to mind after today. This morning started out again bright and early with the screaming children next door. I have a feeling I'm not going to need an alarm clock and should schedule my training lessons for the morning!

I arrived at Quantum where I met my instructor, Joel Nelsen. Joel is probably my age or a year or two older born and raised here in Arizona. He's a new flight instructor and I actually remember when I was here finding a place to stay he passed his CFI check-ride that day I visited. I'm kind of glad that he's a new instructor because he's very understanding of new pilots and he does a great job at teaching according to his student's learning ability. He's very personable and made me feel comfortable from the moment I met him. This is very important because it allows me to concentrate on learning rather than feeling stupid if I make a mistake or if I ask an obvious question.

We first went over the orientation stuff which entailed all my books, syllabus, and a general orientation. After that, we quickly moved onto the basics of helicopters and their components. Some of the components we covered today were the main rotor systems, anti-torque systems, landing gear, and powerplant. We delved into each component but I'll spare you the details.

After the two hour ground training session we finally moved onto the flight training. It all starts with an extremely thorough pre-flight inspection which I couldn't even begin to describe. Once the pre-flight is complete we move inside the aircraft and continue the pre-flight/engine warm-up. Once we're up to temperature and have clearance from the tower we're off. We start out by establishing a pitch attitude for straight and level flight at 75 knots. Once we've done this we practice straight and level flight which is one of my better performances since it's slightly similar to an airplane. From here we move on to turns while maintaining our desired pitch attitude. After practicing this for a while we then moved on to turns. Once I got a feel for that we moved on the constant speed descents and ascents. Basically all of the maneuvers require you to maintain your pitch attitude by focusing on a point inside the cockpit and lining it up with the horizon. From here we did some pattern work which simply put is a normal landing on a taxiway. All very exciting and skillful maneuvers that will take much more practice! It may sound easy as you read but believe me, it's very difficult and takes very minute movements in the controls. This is very different from airplanes because the controls in a plane aren't as sensitive and take a considerable amount of movement in the controls.

To give you an idea of how difficult and tense the experience is, I'll give you an analogy that you may be able to relate to. Have you ever been on a dark back road in the dead of night concentrating on the road looking for deer and maybe fighting the snow? You know how your body becomes tense and you feel muscles in your body that you didn't even know you had? Well if so, take that feeling and multiply it by 10 and that's how I felt for 1.2 hours today! Of course this will ease up as I become more comfortable with the controls and the general operations of a helicopter.

Well I guess that will do it for tonight as I need to get studying for tomorrow's training and flight. Tomorrow I learn and practice hovering which is said to be the hardest maneuver in a helicopter. Based on my limited experience, I must agree because it is extremely sensitive to movements in the controls and takes a very steady hand to hover.

Another beautiful day in sunny PHX today with a temperature around 75. I must admit though, this summer is going to be difficult for me because I was already sweating pretty good in the ship today. There is not air conditioning and only a small vent in the door. Luckily in the summer we fly with the doors off so hopefully that will help tremendously!


G'Day