Settling In

I'm settling in quite nicely here. I've managed to befriend my neighbor downstairs and do some home repairs for her. She had to kick in her bedroom door and for some reason she thought she could use a metallic putty epoxy to put it back together. Mind you this door is not metal, it's wood! Nevertheless, this is how she did it and given that it was a putty, it made for a very bumpy and rough finish. Thus I had to grind the putty down as smooth as I could and use some drywall plaster to touch it up where I then sanded it smooth. In return for my kindness I was rewarded with a Salisbury steak dinner and blueberry/peach cobbler for dessert. It was by far the best cobbler I've ever had and the dinner was delicious as well.

Last night I went out for a couple of drinks and trivia with my roommate and some of his friends. I've heard of bar trivia but I've never had the pleasure of playing and I've got to tell you, it's a lot of fun. We had approximately 15 people playing and it would get pretty intense. After that, I hung out with my neighbor and one of her friends, Chris, where we watched some stand up comedy. Friday night I'm going to watch Chris perform as well as some others at a local comedy club. It should be a good time.

As far as flying goes, well so far this week I learned some new procedures and maneuvers all while practicing much of what I've already learned. Some of the new procedures I learned were Vortex Ring State(settling with power) and low rotor RPM with blade stall. Both are fairly complicated in what they fully entail but I'll give a brief description of what they are and why they're bad. A Vortex Ring State simply put is a vertical descent into your own rotorwash where the air is 'dirty' and doesn't produce sufficient lift for you to remain at your desired altitude. This is caused by tip vortices which are a circular upward motion of air around the tip of your rotor blades. Since the air is being recirculated up around the tip and sucked back down in it cannot produce the downward thrust necessary to provide sufficient lift. This is bad because it can cause a very rapid vertical descent far above normal which can be very difficult or impossible to recover from even at maximum power. Hence why it's also called settling with power. A low rotor RPM is very bad if it is not recognized and corrected quickly. Basically it's where your main rotor RPM's drop to a speed that is not sufficient to produce the required lift. This problem compunds very quickly and if not properly corrected will most likely lead to a fatal crash. A common mistake with low rotor RPM's is trying to increase the pitch of the blades to create more lift. This is extremely bad because since the blades are already spinning at a low RPM it creates more drag instead of lift causing the problem to worsen. Once your RPM's drop below a certain speed and the blades are stalled it's virtually impossible to recover at this point and almost a certain death.

Now that I've shared only two of the many critical procedures and their possible outcomes, I'm sure you're all thinking I'm crazy for pursuing this career. I think it's only fair to say that although there are some considerable risks involved in flying, we are trained on these procedures so that we never encounter them. If for some reason we end up in one of these situations we then know how to safely recover from them.(Hopefully!)

With that said I'll let that sink in and save the other dangerous procedures for another day! On a positive note, today was an monumental day as I've managed to fill the first page of my logbook totaling 18.6 flight hours. As trivial as it sounds, to a new pilot it's pretty exciting!




Random Sidebar: It's recently been brought to my attention that something called "Feline HIV" actually exists. This is news to me but apparently it is real, and similar to Human HIV. I don't know anymore details right now but will report upon further investigation!