Helicopter Pilot's Companion E-Book

Helen Krasner

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 265

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

The Helicopter Pilot's Companion is essential reading for those who are considering training to be a helicopter pilot, those currently undertaking training and those who have recently gained their Private Pilot's Licence for helicopters. Written in a clear, no-nonsense style, it covers a whole range of subjects concerning rotary aviation including common myths about flying helicopters, choosing a flying school and an instructor, the basics of rotary aerodynamics, and all practical aspects of learning to fly helicopters. Issues are examined that are important when the new helicopter pilot has gained his, or her, licence and is able to fly alone, including flying with passengers, coping with challenging weather and dealing with emergencies. In addition, the author provides useful advice to those readers who are considering becoming professional helicopter pilots. Illustrated with 28 colour photographs.

Leseprobe

The Helicopter Pilot’s Companion

A MANUAL FOR HELICOPTER ENTHUSIASTS

Helen Krasner

First published in 2008 by Airlife Publishing, an imprint of The Crowood Press Ltd Ramsbury, Marlborough Wiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2014

© Helen Krasner 2008

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 84797 922 3

Photographs by the author unless otherwise stated.

Frontispiece: The author with a Robinson R22 helicopter.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1 SO YOU WANT TO FLY A HELICOPTER?

Helicopter Myths

Making the Most of the Trial Lesson

What Flying School; Which Instructor?

2 PRINCIPLES OF FLIGHT MADE SIMPLE

How Do Helicopters Fly?

More About How Helicopters Fly

Limits to High-Speed Flight

3 LEARNING TO FLY

Basic Rotary Flight Manoeuvres

Why is Hovering So Difficult?

Autorotations

Vortex Ring State

Low-Level Manoeuvring

Avoiding Dynamic Rollover

Helicopter Navigation

Off-Airfield Landings

Operating Out-of-Wind

Instrument Flying

Helicopter Performance and Limited-Power Operations

Airmanship

4 BEYOND THE PPL(H)

Flying in Stronger Winds

Helicopters and Marginal Weather

Winter Flying

Flying with Passengers

Flying Different Aircraft Types

Dealing with Emergencies

Mountain Flying

Dangerous Manoeuvres

5 GOING COMMERCIAL

Becoming a Professional Helicopter Pilot

The Helicopter Instructor

Hour-Building Ideas

Rotary vs Fixed-Wing: Which Way?

Glossary

Index

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

No one becomes a helicopter pilot and aviation writer without the help of a large number of people, and I would like to thank the following:

Dave and Ben, my instructors at Tiger Helicopters, for teaching me to fly helicopters – I know it wasn’t always easy.

Jon and Steve of Heliflight, for their hard work, which enabled me to fly well enough to get a CPL(H).

Alex and the staff at Bristol Ground School, for their patience in teaching me the theory for the CPL ground exams.

Kevin, Tim and Philippe in the USA, plus Victor and Sasha in Russia, for providing me with aviation experiences that I could never have obtained anywhere else.

Mike of Fast Helicopters, for turning me into an instructor.

Bob of Hields Aviation, for giving me my first instructing job.

Jeremy of Alpha Helicopters, and Andy of Staffordshire Helicopters, for employing me, and thereby providing me with experience and much of the material for this book.

The editors of the Daily Telegraph, the Croydon Advertiser, She, Mensa Magazine, Outdoor Action, Cheshire Life, and a number of other publications, for publishing my articles over the years, and thus convincing me that I was good enough to keep writing.

Mike, Fidel and Dan of Insight Research, for giving me work as a researcher and writer, and putting up with me disappearing for long periods to go and fly helicopters!

The editors of Pilot, Today’s Pilot and Flight Training News, for publishing my aviation-related ramblings.

And finally, my late mother and father, without whom none of this would have been possible in the first place.

INTRODUCTION

Helicopters fascinate people. Most individuals find these unique aircraft, which appear to be able to go almost anywhere and do practically anything, totally intriguing. This applies whether the people concerned are pilots, would like to learn to fly, or have no real intention of ever setting foot in a helicopter cockpit.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the majority of books about helicopters. This is particularly true of those books designed for the fairly new helicopter pilot or student. Indeed, many of these publications can be difficult to understand and hard work to read, even for the committed helicopter enthusiast. I suspect that a substantial number of them spend far more time sitting on their owners’ bookshelves than they do actually being read. In extreme cases their greatest advantage is that they provide an excellent cure for insomnia!

Of course, helicopter flying is not easy, and any helicopter pilot needs to absorb and learn a huge amount of information if he is to fly safely. So most helicopter textbooks set out primarily to inform rather than to entertain, and perhaps this is as it should be. Yet do these books need to be quite so dry, or their explanations quite so hard to comprehend? Surely there should be a way to improve things. It must be possible to enthral the reader as well as to inform him.

This was my chief aim a few years ago, when I began writing regular articles on rotary flying for the general aviation magazines. I wanted to grab my readers’ attention and gain their interest immediately; I planned to write something that they would enjoy reading, rather than just provide them with information. For magazine articles this was in any case a necessity. After all, reading a magazine is a leisure activity, so my articles were intended to be light-hearted, chatty, and based on personal experience – although providing useful information was obviously very important too. I wanted my articles to be informative, but also fun!

The feedback I received from readers over the years suggested that I had succeeded in doing what I intended. Everyone, from pilots to students to non-flying rotary enthusiasts, told me not only how much they learned from my articles, but also how much they enjoyed them. It was clear that I had been right in my belief that even complicated subjects could be written about in a way that was accessible to the non-technical reader.

When the idea for this book came up, I decided that it would be based on the articles that I had been writing for several years, and written in a similar style. It would try to cover as broad an area of rotary aviation as possible, from how to go about starting to learn to fly helicopters, to most of the topics needed for the Private Pilot’s Licence. It would also include useful information for the more experienced helicopter pilot, plus a section for those pilots who were considering continuing on to do a commercial flying course. In addition there would be a fairly simple explanation of principles of rotary flight, a subject that many students find almost completely incomprehensible. It seemed to me that this was crucial, particularly after one friend, a helicopter private pilot and also a Mensa member, said to me, ‘I‘m supposed to be intelligent, and I can’t understand this stuff. Please, please can you explain it in such a way that it makes sense. It must be possible.’ That is what I have done … at least, I hope I have.

This book is not intended to be a textbook for the PPL(H), or to cover every aspect of rotary flying. Also, it should in no way be considered as a substitute for a structured course and flying experience. It aims merely to complement the Private Pilot’s course, and to be more interesting than those dry-as-dust textbooks that no one actually wants to read. To this end, I have tried to provide information in an interesting and entertaining fashion, always related to my own real-life flying, and have frequently included anecdotes and examples from my own experience. I want it to be a book to be dipped into over a cup of coffee, to be read because you enjoy it and are reluctant to put it down, rather than because you feel you ought to read it. With this in mind, I have tried to explain technical concepts fairly simply, and to make the book a relatively easy read even when the subject matter is quite complex. Therefore I hope the book will also be as accessible to non-flying enthusiasts and fixed-wing pilots as to those who actually fly helicopters.

In summary, I optimistically anticipate that this book will be welcomed by anyone and everyone who has an interest in helicopter flying. So, please, read and enjoy!

1 SO YOU WANT TO FLY A HELICOPTER?

HELICOPTER MYTHS

‘I wouldn’t fly a helicopter, ever. For a start, I’d never manage it; they’re really, really difficult to fly. And they’re incredibly expensive. Besides, the small ones aren’t any good in strong winds; they’re too fragile. And helicopters are dangerous, you only have to look at the accident rates to realize that – they’re far higher than for other types of aircraft.’

While I have never actually heard quite so many mistaken assumptions about helicopters stated in so few words by one person, I might well have done. Despite the fact that many people find helicopters intriguing, they also have some pretty strange ideas about them. This applies even to some fixed-wing pilots (who, I always think, ought to know better). It seems to be the case that these ‘helicopter myths’ are repeated so often that people come to believe that they must be true. So let’s take a look at each of these ideas in turn.

Myth Number One: helicopters are really difficult to fly. No, actually, they are not. You will probably be pleased to hear that most people can learn to fly a helicopter. If you can drive a car, ride a bike, or do anything else requiring a fair degree of co-ordination, then you could probably learn to fly a rotary aircraft. PPL(H) students take about the same amount of time to get their licences as their fixed-wing counterparts. The national average is around sixty to seventy hours, although a few real ‘naturals’ manage to qualify in the legal minimum of forty-five flying hours.

It is true that some helicopter manoeuvres are quite difficult. Hovering takes many students quite a while to master and, as it is such a central part of helicopter flying, this often means they cannot move on until they have managed it. But the same type of thing applies during fixed-wing training. Many students struggle when it comes to learning to land a fixed-wing aircraft; in contrast, the approach and landing in a helicopter is comparatively easy. In company with many other helicopter pilots, I’ve always preferred being able to slow down before I land, rather than the other way round.

I’ve always preferred being able to slow down before I land.

Admittedly, navigation is more difficult in a small helicopter as you need to keep your hands on the controls all the time – you can’t trim the aircraft and then concentrate on studying your map, as you can in a small aeroplane. But this whole issue comes down to cockpit organization rather than anything else. In addition, a helicopter’s ability to slow down as much as the pilot wants it to without stalling means that you can always reduce the speed to give yourself time to think, to work out where you are, or to decide what to do. This is particularly useful when approaching an unfamiliar airfield, for example. So it is swings and roundabouts really, in respect of the relative difficulties associated with each type of flying machine. Some helicopter pilots would like everyone to think that they are quite unlike the rest of the human race, but that’s not really the case.

Myth Number Two: helicopters are incredibly expensive. It is indeed true that the training costs are about double those for fixed-wing flying, and the same is true of self-fly hire charges once you’ve got a PPL(H). Also, buying a helicopter is far more expensive than buying an aeroplane at the cheaper end of the scale. But this is by no means the whole story. In a helicopter, a lot less time is wasted. By that I mean that you can start up, take off into wind, go to your destination and land, without spending expensive time in a queue for the departure runway or doing an overhead join at your destination airfield. A few years ago, I was trying to leave a fly-in at about the same time as around a dozen other aircraft. I’ll never forget the envious glances as I called up on the radio and asked to depart directly into wind, effectively avoiding about ten minutes of queuing time … and money-burning time.

If you have a specific destination that is off-airfield, a helicopter can act as door-to-door transport, since it does not need a runway. This can save on taxi fares and, of course, is far more convenient. And if you’re just wanting to get airborne and ‘play’ rather than actually go anywhere for a reason, there’s so much more you can do in a helicopter. A flight doesn’t have to be to another airfield, and the nearest one could be maybe an hour away. Instead, you can visit friends and land in their gardens, or simply hover and have fun at low level. The feeling of boredom and sameness about local flying that can often set in after someone has had a PPL (A) for a year or so, necessitating longer and more expensive flights, doesn’t tend to happen with a helicopter licence because there is such a variety of things that you can try. It is more expensive to fly helicopters, but, once everything is taken into account, the difference is not as great as it might first appear.

Myth Number Three: small helicopters are fragile and can’t cope with strong winds. Well, it is true that helicopters do vibrate quite a lot, but they cope with weather conditions at least as well as, and often better than, fixed-wing aircraft of an equivalent size. After all, wind strength as such is rarely a problem in any aircraft, unless it gets to a point at which the machine is about to be blown apart. It is more usually the case that either the wind makes things uncomfortable for the passengers, or it makes it difficult for the pilot to fly. When it comes to passenger comfort, small helicopters actually ride the wind surprisingly well. Students in a trial lesson are often surprised at how stable a helicopter can feel in a fairly strong wind. The type of turbulence that affects the wings of an aeroplane and leads to the feeling of being flung around the sky may affect the helicopter’s rotors in a similar fashion, but this is often not transmitted to the fuselage below. When it comes to pilot handling, in many respects helicopters are easier to manage in windy conditions than aeroplanes. There is no equivalent to the fixed-wing crosswind landing, in terms of difficulty for the pilot. In a helicopter, you simply land into wind, or, if absolutely compelled to use a runway, you turn into wind at the last moment as you come to a hover. Hovering in a strong wind may be quite challenging, but, again, you can turn into wind and hover-taxi sideways if conditions warrant it.

Myth Number Four: helicopters are dangerous, and you only have to look at the accident records to prove it. Actually, if you do take a look at the accident reports you will find that very few helicopter accidents are caused by engine failure, other mechanical failure, or anything else to do with the actual machine. The primary reasons for accidents are the same as for fixed-wing aircraft. Controlled flight into terrain generally tops the list, as do other factors associated with flying in bad weather. Wire strikes figure quite frequently, since so many helicopter landings are off-airfield, and wires are a common hazard. Most other causes also seem to be associated with human error rather than anything else. When failures do happen, they are, again, similar to those in aeroplanes; for example, carburettor icing is the most common cause of engine failure. Other emergencies, such as engine fires, electrical fires, unexplained vibrations, and so on, are very rare. When they do happen, the helicopter pilot has one big advantage in that he can simply make a precautionary landing on any flat area available – and that flat area does not need to be very big. The fixed-wing pilot would probably have to divert to the nearest airfield, or at least look for a very large, flat field … from which he’d probably have great difficulty in departing again, should the aircraft turn out to be flyable after all.

I hope I’ve now proved to you that helicopters are not as difficult, expensive, impractical and dangerous as they are often portrayed, and that flying them is relatively easy, not outrageously expensive, and fairly comfortable and safe. In fact, piloting a helicopter is probably within the reach of most people, if they really want to try it.

However, before you go out and book a rotary trial lesson, I should offer a word of warning. There is a fifth helicopter myth – that rotary flying is hopelessly addictive, and that having a go just once is never enough. In this case, the ‘myth’ is true. Once you’ve tried flying a helicopter – particularly when you’ve mastered hovering, even if only for a few seconds – you probably won’t be able to stop. You will want to do more, and more, and more. Most of us did not set out to be helicopter pilots. We planned just to try it, but somehow we kept going back. The same could happen to you. You have been warned!

MAKING THE MOST OF THE TRIAL LESSON

So you’ve now decided to give it a go! You really want to fly a helicopter, and you’re ready to book a taster flight, or what is generally known as a trial lesson/air experience flight. Virtually all helicopter training schools can offer these. Most of them also sell trial lesson gift vouchers, so you might be able to persuade someone to buy you the best birthday or Christmas present you’ll probably ever have.

First, though, especially if you might be considering a gift voucher, let me offer a word of warning. You can also buy trial lesson vouchers from various organizations which act as middlemen; they are not flying schools themselves, but a large number of flying schools are affiliated to them. The advantage of this is that they sell vouchers that can be used at many different helicopter schools. Now, this may be a useful way for your aunt who lives at the other end of the country to buy you a trial lesson which you can then use in your home area. The major disadvantage is that the middlemen naturally need to make a profit, so this is a very expensive way of doing things; and, as we know, helicopter flying is not cheap anyway. So you are really better off buying a voucher, or booking a trial lesson, from the helicopter school itself.

Which flying school should you go to for this first flight? At this point, it probably doesn’t matter all that much. Unless there are definite reasons against it, just go to the one closest to your home or most convenient for you. If and when you decide to take up helicopter flying seriously, then is the time to start comparing schools, and we’ll look at that later.

Most flying schools offer trial lessons of various lengths, typically half an hour and an hour, although some will have twenty-minute and forty-minute flights too. How long you need will depend largely on what you want to do. A twenty-minute trial lesson will provide a wonderful first experience of helicopter flying, but it won’t really give you an opportunity to have a go on the controls. If you have half an hour, you should get a chance to try flying the helicopter yourself, but you are unlikely to have the time to attempt hovering, which is undoubtedly the most fun thing you can do in a helicopter, and the manoeuvre that many people really want to try. If you can manage it, and especially if you are thinking of carrying on with helicopter training, book forty minutes or an hour. It is also important to make sure you have enough time if there are a number of things that you would definitely like to do. Don’t book a twenty-minute trial lesson, then say on the day that you’d first like to take photos of your house, which is thirty miles away, then have a go on the controls, and also try some hovering. It simply will not be possible to fit it in. If necessary, the instructor or operations manager can advise you as to how long you’ll need when you phone up to book your flight.

Having booked your trial lesson, you don’t have to do anything else, but you will get the most out of it if you know as much as possible about helicopters in advance. Read up about them – read this book, and any others you happen to have – and, if you have any questions, make a note of them so that you can ask your instructor on the day of your trial lesson. However, bear in mind that helicopter schools are often busy, especially at weekends, and your instructor might not have the time to tell you everything there is to know about different helicopter types, or to give you a comprehensive lecture on rotary aerodynamics!

On the day of the trial lesson, phone the school and ask if the weather is suitable, even if they haven’t suggested that you do this – although they probably will. Once you know that you will be flying, leave early, allowing plenty of time to get to the airfield. This is especially important if you’ve never been there before. Some airfields, particularly small ones, can be incredibly hard to find. The flying school may have a full schedule, and won’t appreciate you being an hour late for your trial lesson; in some cases they may not be able to fit you in at all. Also, you don’t want to be stressed and worried before you even start; it will make your experience much more difficult, since you really need to be relaxed to fly a helicopter. However, if you are unavoidably delayed, do phone the school, as schedules can sometimes be rearranged if they know in advance.

It is often tempting, when arriving for a trial lesson, to leave the whole thing to the instructor. After all, you may reason, he or she is the expert, and has done this many times before. Surely the instructor will know what you should do, and where you ought to go during your flight. However, if you want to get the most out of the experience, this is not necessarily the best thing to do. People book trial helicopter lessons for a wide variety of reasons – it may be a one-off experience, they could be fixed-wing pilots wanting to try something new, they might be wanting to learn to fly, or even planning a new career. As a result, people expect different things from their trial lessons: some might be happy just to look at the view and take photos of their house, others can’t wait to have a go on the controls, while a few want to be shown some exciting manoeuvres that helicopters can do. All of these things are possible, but instructors are not psychic; you need to tell them what you would like to do. You also need to say if you want to see a demonstration of something specific, for instance, a simulated engine-off landing. Some people would love to know how you land a helicopter if the engine fails; to others, the idea is terrifying. If you are interested in having this kind of thing demonstrated, say so. If you really, really want to have a go at hovering, or landing in confined areas, or something else, tell the instructor. Conversely, if you’re a bit nervous and want to take things very slowly, make sure the instructor knows. An instructor does not want to scare you and will always allow you to get used to flying at your own pace.

Your trial lesson should start with a briefing, during which you can explain your desires and fears. You will also be told about the main controls of the helicopter and how they work. This may be done sitting in a classroom with the instructor possibly drawing diagrams on a board, or it could be outside next to the helicopter; it makes no difference. Listen carefully, but don’t worry too much if you can’t follow or remember everything, as your instructor will go over it all again in the air. Then you will have a short safety briefing, which should include a warning not to walk round the back of a helicopter when the rotors are turning, as you will not be able to see the rapidly spinning tail rotor.

Your trial lesson should start with a briefing.

Once you actually get into the helicopter, it is important to try to relax. For some people, the instructor/student relationship takes them back to being at school; they feel like they’re being tested, and that the instructor is going to mark their performance. Believe me, that’s not the case. My main aim, when I have trial lesson students, is to make sure that they enjoy it. For some people, that means just looking at the view, and experiencing the ‘Wow!’ factor of a first helicopter flight. For others, it involves learning as much as possible. For most people it is probably a mixture of these two. Again, your instructor isn’t a mind-reader, so it helps if you give some indication of how you feel and the pace at which you want to go.

When it’s your turn to take the controls, if you’ve opted to do so, listen carefully to what the instructor tells you, and then be ready to try it. Again, try to relax, and don’t panic if the helicopter seems to turn into some mad uncontrollable machine the moment you take over. Every helicopter has dual controls, and, although your instructor may be sitting there looking completely relaxed, he or she can have that helicopter back under control more quickly than you would believe possible. On the other hand, don’t expect to be able to fly the helicopter on your first attempt, even if you’re a fixed-wing pilot or know that you’re usually a quick learner. Helicopters are unstable, twitchy little machines, especially the Robinson R22, on which most people learn these days, and controlling them can feel impossible in the beginning. Try not to worry; you will pick it up quickly at this stage. Actually, you’ll learn better if you don’t get too concerned about it all, so don’t grit your teeth and try too hard, but just relax and have a laugh about your own attempts. That kind of alert but relaxed effort somehow seems to work best. In a way I don’t quite understand, it appears to allow you to develop new helicopter-flying connections between your hands and feet and brain, as it were. Supreme effort and iron-willed determination can actually get in the way of that process and slightly more laidback students are often the ones who make progress faster.

If you are a fixed-wing pilot, or have done any other sort of flying, you possibly won’t find flying helicopters in the air all that hard after the first few attempts. However, hovering is a different matter. Everyone finds hovering difficult in the beginning. On a trial lesson, you may not get a chance to try it at all, and if you do, it will probably only be with one of the three controls. If you do try it, resist the temptation to make a snap decision as to your rotary flying ability based on these few minutes. One fixed-wing pilot friend told me after a trial helicopter lesson, ‘I’ll never ever be able to hover; I know that.’ I’m quite sure he was wrong.

Sooner than you will believe possible, your trial lesson will be over. Time seems to go faster than usual when you’re learning to fly helicopters, and I’ve even been accused by one person of giving all my other trial lesson students longer than she had! You will probably be exhausted from the 100% concentration required, but so exhilarated that you might not realize it until you fall asleep in front of the TV later on. Your instructor will probably tell you … that you’ve done really well. It will be quite true, because managing to control a helicopter at all after only a few minutes’ instruction is pretty good. You might also be told that you’re a natural pilot, but I’d take that one with a pinch of salt. Rotary flying is an unnatural activity, but it is true that some people pick it up more quickly than others. For example, those with experience on machines that demand good co-ordination, such as JCBs and fork-lift trucks, and those who have flown radio-controlled model helicopters, seem to have a definite advantage in the beginning when it comes to hovering. In addition, generally, younger people learn a little faster than those of more mature years. But it really makes little difference in the end, so if you are thinking of continuing, but struggled initially, don’t let it bother you. After all, that was only your first lesson of many, and you now have the rest of your life in which to become a skilled helicopter pilot.

WHAT FLYING SCHOOL; WHICH INSTRUCTOR?

If you are like most people, at the end of your trial helicopter lesson you will have acquired an ear-to-ear grin that most rotary instructors recognize extremely well. You are totally hooked! You just have to do more helicopter flying.

At this point it is quite tempting simply to book more lessons with the same instructor and school, and just carry on learning to fly. After all, why not? You have had what was probably the best experience of your life, and you want to repeat it. What could possibly be wrong with that?

There are a variety of reasons why this might not be a particularly good idea. After all, you have only flown for a short period, perhaps half an hour, and you will have to spend quite a substantial amount of money to get your PPL(H). Perhaps it would be better to do some market research first, to make sure that you are really choosing the flying school and instructor that are best for you. This may mean that eventually you come back to the organization where you had your trial lesson, and there is nothing wrong with that. But if you look around first, you will be able to make an informed choice.

What are the important points to consider? First, how far will you have to travel to get to the flying school? It isn’t necessary to learn at an airfield that is on your doorstep, but it’s not a good idea to be too far away either. Helicopter flying is extremely tiring, especially in the beginning. If you have to drive for a couple of hours first, you may not be in a fit state to learn when you get to the airfield. Also, the unpredictable British weather means that your lessons may have to be cancelled at short notice. I learned to fly helicopters at an airfield around one and a half hour’s drive from my home, and I lost count of the number of times I had left home early and nearly arrived at the flying school, only to get a phone call from my instructor telling me that the weather wasn’t suitable. It wasn’t catastrophic, but it was certainly very annoying. So while it’s not essential, it’s better to be close to home if you can manage it.

Some people get over this particular problem by deciding to learn to fly on an intensive course over a few weeks, finding accommodation close to the airfield. This could be a good idea, if you have the time. Learning intensively works well for some students; you have less in the way of distractions from work and family, and you don’t have a chance to forget things in between flying lessons. But this way of learning doesn’t work for everyone. Some people find intensive courses exhausting, and that can take the fun out of it. Make sure that this way of learning suits you before you sign up.