Brother of the G String...

Brother of the G String...

My friend Steve is doing a major midlife career change. (The reference to the G String is an inside joke - maybe you have to play guitar to appreciate it.) This week Steve sent out a long account of how he aced his helicopter pilot's license on Tuesday. Here is an exerpt:

"Let's do a straight in autorotation to the taxiway with a power recovery." he (the examiner) said. "Oh boy, here we go!" I thought to myself. An autorotation is where you uncouple the engine from the main rotor, simulating an engine failure, and just glide to a landing spot, doing your best to hit the spot the examiner has designated. I lined up with the taxiway and counted out the maneuver and dropped the collective. The bottom fell out and we started to glide like a motorhome. I kept it lined up and held my target airspeed as the ground leapt up to meet us. At about tree top level I bled off 10 knots of airspeed and cut our rate of descent way down. As we started to settle I hauled back on the cyclic and pulled the nose into the air and we just slammed on the brakes and our bottoms grew heavy in the seats until we were nearly stopped over the ground about 20 feet in the air. Then I shoved the cyclic forward dropping the nose until we were level and I pulled the power back in and we came to a stationary hover about 5 feet above the ground. My mind was screaming "Awesome! That's the best ever! Wow!" the examiner just said "OK, let's do a 180 degree autorotation now to the same spot."

A 180 degree autorotation is the wildest maneuver we do. We start out flying with the wind about 700 feet above the ground and 200-300 feet off to the side of our intended landing spot. Since it was windy on tuesday and we were flying with the wind we were traveling over the ground pretty fast. When we were parallel with the spot he wanted me to land I counted it out and dropped the collective and the bottom fell out. We started to drop quickly and I banked the helicopter steeply over on it's side toward the designated touchdown spot. The ground is no longer under my feet but instead it's pretty much out the side window . As we came around into the wind I lined up with the taxiway and monitored my airspeed and rotor rpm. From there on down it was like the previous maneuver and I nailed it again! I just wanted to scream. I was so happy to get it right. He showed no emotion. We continued with various other maneuvers such as a slope landing and an autorotation to a full down landing from a hover about 5 feet above the ground.

When he had exhausted his arsenal of flying demands he had me fly back to the ramp in front of the General Aviation building and park it. Then he looked at me and said "Congratulations you are a helicopter pilot."

Congratulations indeed.