Newtons Laws - holding hands with mother nature

01.10.2011
Newton's Law states that what goes up, must come down. Our Company Commander's Law states that what goes up and comes down had damn well better be able to go back up again.

— sign in the Operations Office of the 187th Assault Helicopter Company, Tay Ninh, Viet Nam, 1971

This was probably the best day I’ve seen yet for flying, with no clouds (although some for/smog/haze first thing) 22 degrees of stunning sunshine and all morning booked for flights. Yes that’s right 22 degrees on the first of October in the UK...un believable!

 After spending the first hour and a bit doing some ground school on Nav it was time to go flying and head off to the north west to have another play at Advanced autos – PFL’s (Practiced Forced Landings).

Sadly I had tried to get my Nav exam done yesterday but missed it by two marks because I made some very very (kicking myself while I type this) very silly school boy errors. Simple things like forgetting to change the wind strength and direction on the second leg of the exam route. I teach navigation to maritime students and there is a large list of similarities however there are also a lot of differences. The first being pretty high and not able to stop and say ‘hey I’m not sure where I am I’ll stop here and do a three point fix and check my nav legs’. You do that in a helicopter the results are self explanatory. The next is VOR’s and NDB’s and other acronyms that are similar and confusing. Needless to say I had a few wrong with those questions. The worst part being that I had missed a pass by two marks. If I had got my ‘Ducks in a row’ and got my wind correct I would have passed. Bugger!

Start of 306

Anyhew, today saw some good study with my Instructor Dave, then off we went. I have done a few Advanced autos to date now and they are getting to be almost second nature, that was until Dave introduced some more things to do like making MAYDAY calls, trying to re engage the engine and if that fails shutting off the mags, fuel  and master power after making your mayday call then calling “Brace! Brace! Brace!” for my passengers to let them know that we were making an emergency landing (because shouting “shit shit shit shit shit shit “ wouldn’t be enough). See the article a few below titled ‘Helicopter pilots are different’. It sums up the expectations to crash at any moment so in reality you would be very calm in such an event as you would be expecting it from the moment you take to the skies.

Almost at bottom of 360

We had an additional thing to think about during all of this as Bournemouth RADAR were having issues with their RADAR system and could only give us a very limited service, so our eyes were even more peeled than normal. It was fairly busy up there due to the weather but we had no issues and everyone stayed out of everyone’s way.

After about five autos involving left and right turns, 180 turns and 360 turns we made our way back to Bournemouth airport.

A very enjoyable and informative day. A pleasure to fly with Dave as always and what a fantastic day for it. Here’s hoping tomorrows flights get the same weather and steady(not mad) traffic.

Back at EGHH

Looking forward to see what Carl has in store for me.

You’ll notice I have put a few posts in today. I have been a bit behind with them with work taking up a lot of time but I’m back up to date now. All I have to try and do now is try and get a good video editor to get the videos up as Pinnacle 15 is pants!

Videos to follow