Progress

I decided to give blogging a break for a few days since I was posting quite frequently before. I've also been somewhat busy with school and studying. I've also had to finish up some things from home and get settled in a bit more.

Anyway, my flying is progressing pretty well. I can actually hover and taxi all on my own. It's not a flawless maneuver but it's much more controlled and the instructor doesn't even hold the controls anymore. Two parts of it that I still struggle with a bit are pedal turns and set downs. Pedal turns are where you keep the aircraft in one spot but turn 360 degrees to check for traffic and other things. Set downs are where you transition from a 3 foot hover to setting the aircraft on the ground. These are hard because your hover movements have to be very small and precise so you set the aircraft down level without moving in any direction.

Recently I've been practicing a lot of autorotations and pattern approaches. An autorotation is an emergency procedure where if you lose engine power you use your altitude and forward airspeed to keep the blades spinning and creating lift so you descend to the ground in a quick but controlled way. Basically so you don't fall out of the sky since you don't have wings like a plane. These aren't terribly difficult but they take a lot of practice to get the correct feeling of how much input to put into each of the controls to keep the aircraft steady and under control. This entire process happens very very quickly and there are steps that have to be followed exactly or you could end up in a fatal accident. So, I've got it down but I just need to continue to practice them so that my control inputs are more automatic and precise.

Other than that, I've pretty much just been practicing everything else and learning the radio communications. You wouldn't think that radio communications would be difficult but they can be, especially when you're trying to concentrate so much on flying the aircraft at the same time. It's a whole new language and the air traffic controllers talk so quickly it's sometimes hard to understand them. Much of the learning process is just learning the maneuver and then practice, practice, practice! Today we flew to an uncontrolled airport where we practiced our pattern work and autorations as to not interfere with other traffic at the busier airport. It's just a little easier to learn this way because it allows you to focus on other things more than constant radio communication and other traffic. In due time this will be no problem at all and should be second nature but during this large learning curve it's easier this way.

I guess that's it for now. I've got to do some grocery shopping and pay some other bills. Then I get to study and watch Burn Notice. If you don't know what that is, I'd recommend checking it out. I don't watch a lot of TV and I don't know many shows but this is one of, if not my favorite show. The season premier is tonight 10/9C. Check out the website: http://www.usanetwork.com/series/burnnotice/

Early day tomorrow. Ground training at 7 and a flight at 9. At least I won't be woken up by the children next door!!!


G'Day