A tight wee spot...

Confined space is a term that refers to an area whose enclosed conditions and limited access make it dangerous.


Sunday 24.07.11


So that is what was in the mix for the day. Initially it was planned, with the good weather, to finally get my first solo flight done. But alas as is the way of the world that was not meant to be. No chief Instructor on site as he was off on a charter so once again my hopes were dashed. I've only been waiting 15 hours of flying to get this done. Thanks to the crappy UK weather this has not been possible on so many lessons. Still it can't be helped. My time will come.
 with the good weather, good visibility, good cloud base, good humidity and all round goodness to the day, my instructor Carl decided I was more than ready to have a go at confined space landings and take offs. 

Going by the definition above, I was naturally a bit concerned with the ever present danger of Vortex ring and falling out the sky like a lump of lead.  Having said that as long as I remember that I can only ever get into Vortex ring state by having low forward speed, large rate of decent and large power demands on the collective. 

After a thorough pre flight briefing and a cuppa, then another 'scrappy' take off we headed out into the circuit then off to a near by location for confined space maneuvers. Sadly when we got to the planned location, due to a public footpath going right through the wooded are, we had to abort till it was totally clear in all directions. If we had continued there would have been a few startled Horses with riders and a couple dogs running wild. It was decided to try a different area, option B, which looked a lot shorter than the original zone. This is because it was. About half the length but a bit wider. 
It has to be said at this point the what is classed as confined space is, in the grand scheme of day to day life, not that confined however the afore mentioned statement does correctly say it is an area whose enclosed conditions and limited access make it dangerous. with an area about the size of a football pitch you would think it would be totally safe. but with trees all round and random air flows as a result of the high trees, there is a high risk of altered induced airflow. Incidentally I discovered today that if you master the understanding of induced air flow, you can understand and prevent most things that can go wrong mid flight. A comforting but also sobering thought. 
By the grace of God alone my first approach was spotless. I would like to say it was all by skill but I'm not arrogant enough to make that assumption. However I can confirm there was a lot of thought and fine motor skills (muscle movements, twitchy and often) to get us in. I have to remind my self when doing tight maneuvering and fine motor skills , to relax my legs and do all the work with my feet. I have found myself bracing with both my legs to try and get fine control but this only means each leg has to fight the other even harder to move the pedals. Wooossahhh! Relax!  I'll get into the groove soon enough I hope. 

After a good start we headed back to the original location only to find a load more walkers ambling through the woods. So we took option C - >>
After this tight spot we managed to get into the original location. (Below)

 Some walkers had made there way through the woods as we were making for our exit  but they kindly waited to watch us leave. It was a bit daunting at first the concept of confined space but it proved to be a lot easier than i had hoped. Not to get complacent though as it does have the risks already identified. 
That was the total for the day with a couple more approaches and then back home for tea and medals. Very enjoyable but a little frustrated at not getting to solo again. Such is life, and what is for me wont go past me. Until now I've not had the ability to edit the videos as Microsoft Movie Maker refuses to download. However, enter stage left - Pinnacle Studio 15 HD Ultimate Collection! A bit pricey but a must. Videos should start re appearing in the next posts 
until the next flight!


Safe flying

Behold, the Oracle...

Oracles were thought to be portals through which the gods spoke directly to man. In this sense they were different from seers who interpreted signs sent by the gods through bird signs, animal entrails, and other various methods.

Right so maybe no animal entrails but certainly lots of info. All in the form of Oxford Aviation Academy (OAA) PPL Training DVDs. 9 in total covering all aspects of the theoretical side to the PPL. I have had it on good authority and high recommendation that these training DVDs are very very good. So i've scrimped, saved and busked and managed to get myself the complete set.  

The training books that i got as part of the training package are by Pooleys which, I have no doubt, are respected publications. However the style in which the information is delivered, I have personally found hard to follow. The joys of being dyslexic. So the video based teaching is more suited to my learning. In the absence of time to do more ground school sessions this is the next best thing. I'll let you know how they go. 

Air sgiath a' seoladh nan neoil

Air sgiath a' seoladh nan neoil
'S an domhain liath
Mar dhealbh a' tighinn beo tro na sgothan
'S mi a' tilleadh gu tir

Translation

This flight is sailing through the clouds
And the blue heavens
The homeland appears like a developing photograph
Through the mists as I return to land                                        - Runrig - ALBA

Sunday 3rd July - 

Todays flight saw some changes to the field. a new instructor has descended on Bournemouth Helicopters in the form of a Carl Boyd. Today was my first flight with Carl and was important as he will be my lead instructor for the rest of my PPL training. Not an easy job for him to get to know where I'm at in a short period of time without eating into my flying/training time. After on of my better take offs and a taxi over to the HTA, we set about seeing what I could do. Fortunately i had the flight last week to refresh me after a long spell away from flying. After a few spotless spot turns (spotless as in no problems not spotless as in no spot achieved), we moved onto sloped landings and then into the circuit for a few rounds and approaches.

 - Nose High  

- To the right

When on the HTA it was incredibly hot with both doors on and only 4 knots of wind with ZERO cloud. once we got flying in the circuit it made things a lot more bearable. I should note at this point how much your attention can be strained when you're really really warm, sweating profusely and flying with someone you've never flown with before. 

With the last weekend flight there was the issue of the relay having a fault and causing cancellation of the second flight. At the end of this flight there was a fault on one of the doors as we left the aircraft. Not a problem as we could fly with Carl's door off.  This would have been ok had it not been for the fantastical speed at which the maintenance team threw resources at it to get it fully functional again. This did however mean we had to fly with the door on. Toasty for the second flight. The second flight had us taking a trip off site and out of 'The Zone' (twilight?). We headed up towards Compton Abbas and just before reaching the airfield at 1800 feet, we headed down to Fordingbridge ready for some other skills. Steep turns and Abnormal attitude recovery being the flavour of the day along with a chance to fly 'by the seat of my pants'. Yes i flew with my eyes shut relying purely on my sensations and instincts. Very Trippy! I did a 180 degree turn and climbed 100 feet while fluctuating my air speed from 70 to 35 to 60 to 40 back to 70 knots. A very valuable experience and lesson in trusting my instruments should I find myself in a restricted/zero vis situation. this should not happen though if i am a good pilot flying within my license and abilities, but there may be a once in a blue moon moment where it might.

So for a first flight with Carl it went well. As with all the Instructors at bournemouth helicopters, they bring a whole different mixing pot of experience and skills to the 'table' which makes for interesting learning and flying when I get to fly with a few of them. I look forward to future flying with him and have no doubt I will have masses to learn as I have already from Richard, Gary, Dave and Mike.

So as they say, onwards and upwards. TTFN

p.s - More random quotes to start the blogs to come. They might get more random as I go along

..40.000 rivets flying in close formation...

...That pretty much sums up most aircraft.

Sunday 26.06.2011

I had, after an epic time of withdrawal symptoms (cold sweats, shakes, restless nights and hallucinations), a flight in the beloved G-TSLC. Yes thats right, no flying since the 21st April. Partly because of an ear infection, which for obvious reasons, but also because of the wonderful temperate climate that 'Good Old Blighty' is located within. Rain Rain Rin, wind, wind, TOO MUCH WIND, some more rain, Glorious sunshine and no wind (at work!)... and so it went on.  This left, apart from a pang of 'separation', a worry that I had forgotten all the finer abilities I had become accustom to with the regular flights. I had two flights booked on the 26th and come hell or high water I was going to do them both. Well, almost.

The first flight with with Instructor Dave (see earlier posts), which was good to catch up with him having not flown together since about march time. We took to the HTA for some gentle 'get back in the saddle' skills. By the power of Grey Skull (note - sited form He-man Comics incase anyone gets funny over copy-write) I hadn't forgotten as much as I had thought. The finer details of some maneuvers and terminology had slipped a bit but I successfully managed to do all tasks set to the satisfaction of my Instructor. After a few circuits and auto rotations to power on recoveries, we came back for lunch before the next flight. While we waited for the next flight, two regulars at Bournemouth Helicopters were in the process of doing pre flight checks before taking G-TSLC for a spin. They came off the apron and reported the battery was flat. Not possible in such a short time. After a quick visit from an engineer and a failed cable change, it was concluded the relay had given up the ghost. So no more flying that day.
Here's hoping all is well with the aircraft and the weather for next weekends flight.
I can't get Windows movie maker to load and can't edit my videos meaning no vids for a wee while. Any suggestions for programs that can handle HD would be welcomed
Two other blogs of a similar vein that i have started to follow , and I would recommend them to anyone interested in all things PPL.
http://www.canadianpplexam.com/  and   http://dontdreamitjustdoit.blogspot.com/

Right thats all for this post. Till the next one

A picture Paints a Thousand Words....

But just in case, the picture has words with it for those who ... erm ...can't see pictures, or something... I'll let the picture do the talking from now on....

Story was published in the July 1977 issue of The MAC Flyer

Even better than the X-Factor!..

That would have to be Human Factors and Pilot Performance Exam. Ok so not exactly something I would normally shout and dance about having spent my academic life in an exam capability black hole. However this is slightly different as I passed it today. I dropped in on the hoof and had an impromptu exam to try and get it over and done with. 20 questions and 30 mins to sit it. I had answered all questions in the first 5 minutes but spent the next 15 minutes checking three times that I was happy with my answers. RTFQ and RTFA. I won't explain if you don't know it already.
When it came to marking I got 95%. Only one wrong answer. First time in all my life I've got such a high percentage. Hope this carries forward to the next exam too!

Don't blame God...

An old ethiopian proverb says "Don't blame God for the lion. Thank God for not giving it wings".

On another note, I had my second attempt at the Aviation Law exam today. to set the scene, I had fallen asleep last night with the laptop on, headphones in and aviation law study cd merrily churning through the subject. I woke and got little sleep with a constant flow of QNH's and flight levels and CofA's and Cof R's and other stuff going through my head.
When I got into Bournemouth Helicopters at lunch time I wasn't feeling too confident. I was to be honest close to canceling the next four booked flights and waiting till i had passed the exam. I did find out though that I could sit it three times so though it was worth the gamble to see if I did actually know what i thought I knew. Having failed yesterday I have been feeling very despondent about the thought of re-sitting.
After using the whole hour and checking my answers twice, I submitted the papers and awaited the results.....
87.5% and the pass mark was 75%. 5 wrong and they were mostly silly mistakes through not understanding the question. That would have meant my first solo flight but the weather, as clear and as 25 degrees as it still is, the wind is blowing 13 knots so a solo was out of the question. We had a spin round though looking at limited power take offs and some run on landings which served the time well. Next flight is 17 days away so in that time I'll have to try and get my Human Performance exam done and out of the way.  Onwards and Upwards!