Tag Archives: flight training

Helicopters 101: Ground School

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An excerpt from my upcoming book about my first ten years as a helicopter pilot.

Articles in the Helicopters 101 series:
– Flight Planning
– CG
– Weight
– Hover Charts
– Ground School

At least five years ago, I began writing a memoir about my first ten years as a helicopter pilot. I put it aside for various reasons, picked it up, put it aside again, and have now picked it up again. At the rate I’m going, it could probably cover my first twenty years.

Since I’m trying to spend more time working on that book than writing blog posts, I figured I could excerpt some of the book’s text as blog posts. (That kind of makes sense since a lot of the book will come from existing blog posts.) This is an example from my chapter about ground school during my primary training in the late 1990s. I think it provides a good overview of what helicopter pilots learn in ground school. It also provides some very useful links for free learning resources.

A side note here…like any other blog post that will appear in my book, this one is likely to be removed from the blog once the book is published. When that time comes, the content of this post will be replaced with a link to buy the book. A girl’s gotta make a living, no?

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My flight training days nearly always included up to two hours of ground school sandwiched between two blocks of flight time. Ground school is required to learn the multitude of things a pilot needs to know to be safe and legal in the eyes of the FAA⁠, such as:

  • Pilot requirements and responsibilities. What a pilot needs to legally fly in the United States and what her responsibilities are as pilot in command.
  • Helicopter aerodynamics. How helicopters fly. (Spoiler alert: they do not “beat the air into submission.”) This includes such concepts as lift, translating tendency, Coriolis effect, gyroscopic precession, translational lift, and more.
  • Helicopter components and flight controls. Helicopter rotor systems, power plant, transmission, cyclic, collective, throttle, and anti-torque pedals.
  • Basic, advanced, and emergency maneuvers and procedures. All of the procedures and skills a helicopter pilot needs to have to fly safely in normal and emergency conditions.
  • Airspace and air traffic control (ATC). The different types of airspace and a pilot’s responsibilities for operating in each of them, as well as the basics of communicating and complying with air traffic controllers.
  • Navigation. The basics of getting from Point A to Point B safely, without getting lost or wandering into restricted airspace. This includes all kinds of tools for navigation, from paper charts and plotters to radio navigation aids to GPS.
  • Weather. Any kind of weather that can affect flight—which is pretty much any kind of weather.
  • Aeronautical decision making (ADM) and pilot preparedness. Cockpit resource management and a pilot’s physical and mental condition to fly.
  • Aircraft specific information. The specific details about the aircraft the pilot will fly, such as mechanical components, performance, limitations, emergency procedures, and weight and balance.

This is only some of the information a pilot needs to know to pass written, oral, and practical tests and get a pilot certificate.

Just about all of this information can be found in four different government-published resources that are available online for free at the FAA’s website1:

  • Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs)2 are the actual laws governing flight in the United States. Written in a form of legalese, they can be frustratingly difficult to understand and often refer back and forth to each other to form a web of confusion. Occasionally, someone puts out a book purporting to translate FARs into plain English, but these don’t usually cover all topics and can contain outdated information when the FARs are updated—which can be several times a year.
  • Aeronautical Information Manual (AIM, formerly the Airman’s Information Manual) is a much easier to read and understand guide that covers most of what a pilot needs to know. Like the FARs, however, it’s geared toward airplane pilots, so there’s a lot of information a helicopter pilot doesn’t really need to know.
  • Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge (FAA-H-8083-25B) is a textbook-like guide that covers all the basics of flying airplanes in an illustrated format that’s easy to read. Note that I said “airplanes” here—that’s because this book goes into a lot of detail about airplane aerodynamics, design, and controls, most of which helicopter pilots don’t need to know. But it also covers airspace, weather, airport operations, and other topics all pilots need to know.
  • Helicopter Flying HandbookHelicopter Flying Handbook (FAA-H-8083-21A) is another textbook-like guide that covers all of the basics of flying helicopters. This is the book I recommend to anyone interested in helicopter flight. The illustrations and examples do an excellent job of teaching complex aerodynamic concepts specific to helicopters. This book does not, however, cover airspace, weather, or other non-helicopter specific topics that helicopter pilots still need to know.

Aircraft-specific information can be found in the pilot operating handbook (POH) that comes with and must be on board every aircraft. Those are often available online from the aircraft manufacturer.⁠3

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Footnotes:
1 There’s a wealth of information for pilots at www.faa.gov. You can also buy print versions of these resources from various publishers.
2 I should mention here that what most people refer to as the FARs is actually called the “Code of Federal Regulations Title 14 Aeronautics and Space” or just “CFR Title 14.”
3 If you’re interested in seeing the pilot operating handbook for the helicopter I learned to fly in, a Robinson R22, visit http://robinsonheli.com/r22_poh.html.

Want to Learn How to Hover?

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Practice.

Sheesh. This is the kind of email I get:

Maria, I just recently found you when I was researching the R44.
I am a new helicopter student, roughly three hours, and hovering or the cyclic in general, is kicking my butt! I have a good grasp of the movements and how you push in the opposite direction and so on, but I tend to move it too much or over-compensate. Would you have any pearls of wisdom you could pass on about how you were able to lick this difficulty? Was there anything you practiced on at home or did you try visualization techniques? Anything would help.
Thanks a lot in advance.

Okay, so this guy thinks that any 3-hour student pilot should be able to hover. That’s there’s some magic trick I can teach him that will make him a whiz at this. Or that he can “visualize” something and it’ll just work.

Sheesh.

The answer is easy: practice.

Seriously: practice makes perfect. Ever hear that one? It’s true.

Learn to Fly HereIt takes, on average, 5 to 10 hours for a student pilot to learn how to hover. To hover, you need a feel for the controls. You can’t get a feel for the controls without actually manipulating the controls. The more you manipulate the controls, the better you learn how they feel.

In other words, practice makes perfect.

This guy is new and naive and somehow thinks he’s dropping the ball on this. He’s not. He’s floundering the way every single one of us did.

I blame his CFI for not explaining to him that hovering isn’t easy. I’m wondering if his CFI is one of those cocky know-it-alls who is just doing time as a CFI, hating every minute of it and taking it out on his students. The kind of CFI who’ll likely die in an accident on his first or second job — if he isn’t lucky enough to get fired first — because his crappy attitude causes him to cut corners or let complacency take him by surprise. Or he attempts one too many “watch this” moments.

We all know the type. You can read about some of them in the NTSB reports.

In fact, hovering is probably the hardest thing a helicopter pilot learns to do — and we have to learn to do it first. You can’t fly a helicopter unless you know how to hover.

So my answer to him and any other new helicopter pilot who is struggling to learn this basic skill is simple: practice.

And one day soon, you’ll just be able to do it. It’s as simple as that.

A Suggestion for an In-Flight GPS Data Logger

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Foreflight on an iPad is all you need.

The other day, I got an email from a blog visitor who’d apparently read my 2009 post titled “My Geotagging Workflow.” This post discusses the rather convoluted process I used to add GPS coordinates to photos using a GPS data logger and some software on my Mac. (That was six years ago; I have a different process now.)

But the email I got the other day wasn’t about photography. It was about in-flight GPS logging:

Hey. I came across your post on data loggers.

What have you found in your search. I am looking for a great option as well– but something that does alt. Speed. Position. Specifically downloadable in 3D in google earth through kml. I am looking for something that we can use for training stabalized approaches. Set it up to record during flight. And then download and make points or a line that showed speed and altitude. Showing later students speed and altitude errors that they might now have noticed during actuall approaches distracted by actual flight.

Have you came across anything like this?

My answer: Yeah. Foreflight.

Foreflight is my application of choice for flight planning and navigation. I run it on an iPad Air and have it mounted securely beside the instrument panel in my helicopter. Not only has the FAA approved my mounting of this device, but it has also approved Foreflight as an electronic flight bag (EFB). Indeed, it has been added to my Part 135 OpSpecs and it is not legal for me to conduct a Part 135 flight without it onboard.

I cannot say enough positive things about Foreflight. Not only does it do everything I need it to do — and more — for the VFR flights I’m limited to, but it has a wealth of features designed for IFR flights, including the instrument approaches the reader is referring to. With the right subscription, it can even place a marker for an aircraft in flight on an instrument procedure chart. Who could ask for more?

As far as GPS data logging is concerned, Foreflight has him covered, too. You can set up Foreflight to create a track log of any flight. Once saved, you can access it on the Foreflight website, where you can view it on a map and download it in KML, GPX, and CSV formats. That’s exactly what the reader is looking for.

Example Track Log on a Map
I remember this pleasure flight. I’d gone up the Columbia and Methow to check out the fire damage and then came straight back.

Frankly, I’m surprised that this CFI hadn’t thought of Foreflight. In this day and age, I’m surprised that any professional pilot doesn’t have Foreflight or a competing product on a tablet in the cockpit. For a relatively low investment — $500 or so for the tablet (which can be used for a host of other things and will last at least 5 years) plus $75/year for Foreflight Basic, it’s a must-have tool for any professional pilot who is serious about his career.

Do you fly? Are you using Foreflight or a competitor? Either way, how about sharing some of your experiences in the comments on this post? I’m sure other pilots can learn from them.

Flying with a Student Pilot

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Dealing with questions about the R44 Raven I vs. Raven II and weight and balance, and instruction from a non-pilot.

Note to Visitors from Helicopter Forums:

I’ve been blasted on Facebook by a number of “readers” who obviously didn’t read this entire post before sharing their inane comments on Facebook and elsewhere. If you can’t be bothered to read something, you have no right to comment about it.

And here’s a special tip for the folks who like to read between the lines and find fault in what they’ve “read”: if you read and comprehend the actual words instead of your angry and cynical interpretation, you might just learn something.

Just saying.

The other day, I flew with a client who has been taking helicopter flight lessons for about a year. We’ll call him Don. I’m not a CFI, so I can’t train him. He’s flown with at least one CFI in R22s and R44s and, more recently, with an experienced ENG pilot now flying an R44 Raven I for other work.

Observations and Instructions

Don was the first of my two passengers to arrive for the flight. He climbed into the seat beside me as I was shutting down. For the first time, he really seemed to study the R44’s simple panel. He began pointing out the differences in what he saw: no carb heat control or gauge, mixture in a different place, Hobbs meter in a different place, etc. I attempted to explain that it wasn’t just the absence of carb heat that made the R44 Raven II different. The performance charts were also different. But not having the Raven I charts handy, I couldn’t really explain.

When the second passenger arrived, Don passenger insisted on putting him in the seat behind me — despite the fact that I always put the two men on the left side of the aircraft. They each weigh in at under 200 pounds, so balance is not an issue. But Don had learned that the larger fuel tank is on the left side of the aircraft, thus making that side naturally heavier. Someone had apparently “taught” him that it was better to put a second passenger behind the pilot to better balance the aircraft. For the record, it didn’t really matter to me — I’ve flown my helicopter in all kinds of balance situations. I admit that I was amused when he tried to justify his decision on takeoff by observing that it seemed more balanced when I lifted into a hover. I honestly didn’t notice a difference.

During the flight, Don made quite a few observations about the wind and weather conditions. None of them really affected the flight, although the wind did kick up and storm clouds moved in a little later on. (I had been monitoring the weather on radar while we were on the ground and they were in meetings.) But what kind of bugged me is when Don began telling me how to land in the off-airport landing zones that I’d landed in before. He explained that that’s how he’d done it when he was with the Raven I pilot he’d been flying with recently.

While I listened to his input, I did it my way, which, in some cases, was the same as he advised. After all, I am the pilot in command and I don’t blindly follow the instruction of non-pilots.

What his nearly constant string of advice told me, however, was that he trusted the other pilot’s judgement and guidance more than mine, despite the fact that I’d been doing charter flights for his company for two years and had obviously gained the trust of his boss, who happened to be the other man on board.

I held my tongue — after all, this was a client — but I admit that it really got under my skin after a while. Not only had he overridden my usual loading setup, but he was telling me how to fly. I ended the mission hours later with a bad taste in my mouth from the experience.

Setting Him Straight

Since I had already promised to send him my R44 weight and balance spreadsheet that would clearly show him how it was next to impossible to load an R44 out of CG laterally, I figured I’d address all of his concerns with one instructional email. The following is drawn from that email with names changed, of course, to protect my clients’ privacy. I think it might be helpful for student pilots trying to understand how what they’re learning applies in the real world — and why not all pilots do things the same way.

—

Don,

I just wanted to follow up on our discussion regarding R44 Raven I and R44 Raven II performance, as well as weight and balance.

I’ve attached the performance charts for IGE and OGE hover ceiling for both models of R44 helicopter. As you can see, performance for the Raven II is far superior to that of a Raven II, especially out of ground effect. Frank Robinson designed the Raven II for better performance in high density altitudes, and that’s why I paid the extra $40K to buy one. In Arizona, I routinely operated at elevations above 5,000 feet and temperatures over 90°F. I recall one particular flight when I was able to take off from Grand Canyon Airport, elevation 6609, on a 86°F day at max gross weight. Another time, I was able to depart with 3 adults and some luggage on board — at an estimated weight of 2300 pounds — from Bryce Canyon Airport on a day when the AWOS reported density altitude over 10,000 feet. Both of those flights would have been impossible in a Raven I.

R44 I IGE Hover Chart R44 I OGE Hover
The hover ceiling charts for an R44 Raven I.

R44 II IGE Hover R44 II OGE Hover
The hover ceiling charts for an R44 Raven II.

Some of the kinds of flying I do for your company would be very difficult in a Raven I — particularly the confined space landings and departures with 2 or 3 passengers on board. As you know, a maximum performance takeoff makes a “ground run” impossible, putting the pilot on the left side of the power curve until clear of obstacles. On a day when carb ice is possible, additional power is robbed by carb heat in a Raven I. It would take a lot of pilot skill to avoid a low rotor horn (or worse) on a departure like that in a Raven I.

The Raven II also has an extra 100 pounds of payload. That’s what makes it possible for me to take you, Alex, and Walt together, since we often depart the airport at max gross weight for those flights.

So the difference between the two aircraft is considerable. While a Raven I is great for cherry drying, photo work (with one photographer on board), and other low-payload missions, I think the Raven II is more flexible and reliable for charter operations.

We also talked a little about weight and balance. I almost always put both of my passengers on the same side of the aircraft and I do so for a reason: so they both have the same view. I’ve witnessed the frustration of passengers on one side of the aircraft talking about something that they see that’s impossible for the person behind me to see. To avoid that frustration, I seat people together. This is especially helpful in hot loading situations where it’s impossible for me to keep an eye on both sides of the aircraft at once.

While it is true that the larger fuel tank is on the left side of the aircraft, making that side heavier, that additional 80 pounds of fuel weight does not make a significant difference when loading the aircraft. This can be confirmed with the W&B spreadsheet I created and use for my flights. You can play “what if” with it all day long and find that it’s extremely difficult to load an R44 out of CG laterally. I’ve attached the spreadsheet for your reference; I pre-entered the information for Wednesday’s flight with Walt sitting behind you. Putting him behind me simply shifted the weight to my side — in either case, the weight was about 1-inch off center. Now if you were both 230 pounds, things would have been different! Play with the spreadsheet and see for yourself.

Weight and Balance Example

I’m glad to see that you’re enthusiastically learning all you can about flying helicopters. It’s also great that you’ve had an opportunity to fly with so many pilots. You can learn from all of us, especially since we all have different backgrounds and experience. I hope you keep in mind the fact that I’ve put more than 1700 hours on my Raven II (and more than 1400 hours on other helicopters before it) and have a pretty good handle on how to load and operate it. I know how it will react in just about any circumstance. I hope you’ll continue to quiz me as you work toward your private pilot certificate. It’s my pleasure to help you learn!

Maria

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What do you think? Did I get my point across without getting rude?

—

April 27, 2014 Update

Less than an hour after I sent the above email message to Don, I got an email back from him that was followed up by a phone call before I’d even read the email.

Don thanked me enthusiastically for sharing the information, including the spreadsheet. He told me that he’s flown with 6 different instructors in R22, R44 Raven I, and R44 Raven II helicopters over the past year. He’s so early into the training process that he hasn’t even practiced any autorotations yet. He confirmed from his own experience what he’s noticed about the power differences between R44 I and R44 II helicopters. He believes that working with so many instructors has been a good learning experience.

My point is, he took my message in the spirit in which it was intended: as a tool for learning. So I guess I did okay.

Learning to Fly Gyros

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Tricky, but ultimately not as tough as I expected.

Angry Bird
George’s angry bird, a Magni M-16 gyroplane.

Earlier this month, I learned to fly a gyroplane.

It actually came about quite suddenly. My friend George owns a Magni M-16 gyroplane. It’s a funky little plane with an Angry Birds themed paint job. (In George’s defense, he bought it that way.)

I met George when he was at the airport where I was living for my frost contract in the Sacramento area. He was teaching another pilot, Jason, how to fly his angry bird. George took me for a ride that demonstrated the full range of the aircraft: low flight, slow flight, power-off flight, long landings, short landings, etc. It was a lot of fun.

Angry Bird
Who paints this on a plane? Too fun!

And a hell of a lot cheaper to fly than my R44 helicopter.

George is a CFI with multiple ratings: gyro, airplane, and helicopter. When I voiced some interest in learning to fly the gyro — hell, I didn’t have any real work to do during the day — we cut a deal to swap a certain amount of gyro time for a certain amount of helicopter time.

Then George went to Alaska to teach a 17-year-old kid how to fly a Piper Cub. He didn’t provide a return date. And when a week had passed and my California departure date appeared on the current calendar page, I figured I’d missed my opportunity.

Until I got a text message from George with an arrival time at Sacramento Airport and a request for a pickup. I met him on Sunday and brought him to the airport where I was living to fetch his car. Flight training began the next day.

Understand that I’m a helicopter pilot. I have about 3,100 hours of flight time as I type this. Just about all of my time is in R44, R22, and B206L helicopters. I don’t fly airplanes.

Although my wasband had a plane and offered me the controls on more than one occasion, I had absolutely no interest in flying it. It was a get-there plane — a plane designed to get from point A to point B. That’s not the kind of flying I like to do. I like to fly low and slow and see the world around me. If he had a Cub or a Citabria, especially if it had big tires for off-airport landings, things might have been different. But it was a Grumman Tiger, a pampered hangar queen that likely never saw a gravel runway or cruised just above stall speed through a canyon.

To me, getting there was not the point of flying. The journey mattered more than the destination. That’s why I became a helicopter pilot.

Autogyro vs. Gyroplane vs. Gyrocopter

I learned to fly an autogyro or gyroplane. These terms are pretty much interchangeable. Gyrocopter, however, is a trademark of the Bensen Aircraft company. Gyro is a good general use term that, for some reason, doesn’t sound as antiquated as autogyro.

Like helicopters, gyros are categorized by the FAA as rotorcraft. After all, they do have those big rotor blades on top that provide lift. But unlike helicopters, those rotor blades are not driven by the engine. Sure, you use a clutch to get the blades spinning prior to takeoff. But then you disengage the clutch and the blades are kept spinning by the forward motion of the aircraft, which is propelled, in the case of the Magni, by a pusher engine. You can learn more about how gyros fly on Wikipedia.

First Lesson

George started by getting me into the pilot seat, explaining how everything worked, climbing into the passenger seat behind me (which has controls but no instruments), and taxiing out to the runway. The weather that Monday morning was perfect — clear blue skies and no wind — perfect for learning to fly any aircraft. There was no traffic in the pattern. I couldn’t ask for better learning conditions.

At the end of the runway, he explained how to engage the clutch to get the blades spinning. At 100 RPM, I moved the cyclic stick into a neutral position. As the blades spun up, I added power. At about 170 RPM, I released the parking break, and we entered the runway.

“Full throttle!” George’s voice yelled into my headset.

I pushed the throttle forward and we gained speed as George aimed us down the runway.

“Release the clutch at 220!”

I consulted the digital tachometer and I released the clutch on cue. The blades kept gaining speed.

“Cyclic back!”

This was completely opposite to taking off with a helicopter, which requires you to push forward to get through ETL. I pulled it back a bit.

“All the way back!” George yelled.

I obeyed and the nose lifted off. Then we were airborne, wiggling a bit from side to side.

“Hold it at 60!” I did my best to adjust our pitch with the cyclic to climb out at 60 miles per hour. We climbed upwind.

“Turn!”

Downwind
Flying the downwind leg at Watts-Woodland Airport.

Right cyclic put me into a tight bank to the right. I came all the way around into a close downwind.

“Level off at 500 feet!”

I leveled the nose abeam midfield. We gained speed.

“Throttle back!”

I pulled the throttle back a bit.

“Twenty-nine inches!” George advised.

I adjusted the throttle to 29 inches of manifold pressure. The speed leveled off at about 85 miles per hour. By then, we were abeam the end of the runway and it was time to descend. I reduced the throttle and started my descent, slowing down as I did so. After all, that’s how helicopters descend.

“Stick forward, stick forward!” George yelled.

I pushed the nose forward into what seemed like a dive.

“Reduce throttle!”

I pulled back the throttle to about 25 inches. I pushed the cyclic right to turn base and line up with the runway for final, pulling back the stick again to slow down.

“Nose down, nose down!” George screamed.

I felt him push the stick forward. We were speeding toward the runway in what seemed to me like a nosedive.

“Cut throttle!” he yelled.

Before I could do it, he’d throttled all the way back to the lowest power setting. We were diving for the runway with no power. We crossed the road only 50 feet above passing cars.

“Line up with the centerline!”

I tried to line us up with the centerline, using the cyclic stick.

“Left pedal! Right cyclic! Nose down!

I was overwhelmed. The runway was rushing up toward us. Once again, I tried to flare.

“Not yet!” George yelled, pushing the stick forward again. “Five feet!”

I felt his firm grip on the controls as we continued to dive, now over the threshold. Right when I thought it was too late, he pulled the stick back gently, bringing the gyro into level flight over the numbers.

“Let it settle!” he yelled.

We drifted down toward the ground, still moving at at least 60 miles per hour.

“Okay, now flare!”

He pulled the stick back some more, bringing the nose up so we’d touch down on the main gear. Then the nose wheel touched and we were on the ground.

“Full throttle, full throttle!”

I didn’t get a chance to enjoy that landing before we were speeding down the runway again.

So this was the “touch and go” that airplane pilots practiced all the time. Despite the rotors spinning over my head, this was all new to me.

Training Continues

Each traffic pattern we did went pretty much the same. We were turning them in about two minutes. This video from the afternoon of the second day gives you a (shaky) idea of the process.

My two biggest problems were pulling the cyclic back on takeoff and pushing it forward on landing. Both were completely opposite to what I do in a helicopter. What I’d been doing for 3,100 hours of flight time. It wouldn’t be easy to break those muscle memory habits.

Penny and Maria
Penny and I relaxing at George’s hangar between flights. That’s George’s Mooney behind us.

My landings proved to be the biggest problem. You see, gyros can’t hover. (Well, they can hover if they’re in a strong enough headwind, but then again, so can an airplane.) They require forward speed to take off and land. And that’s where I was having the most trouble — landing while I was still moving. Remember, I’m a helicopter pilot and I’m generally not moving in any direction when I touch down on the ground. I wanted to flare, I wanted to bring the aircraft into a hover or at least slow down that forward movement before touching the ground. And I simply couldn’t stop myself from pulling the stick back.

We did a thorough preflight before the second flight on Monday. I learned what everything was, what it does, and how to check it for airworthiness.

We flew 2 hours on Monday, 2 hours on Tuesday, and 1.6 hours on Wednesday. The weather cooperated perfectly.

We took the helicopter to lunch on Monday to Nut Tree Airport and Wednesday to Sacramento Executive Airport. George flew. I even let him sit in the right seat. He was a good pilot and, even though I had the duals in, I felt no inclination to touch the controls. It was great to be a passenger in my own helicopter with a skilled, confident pilot at the controls.

Frustration and Breakthrough

Cache Creek Flyby
Cache Creek Flyby
Cache Creek Flyby
Cache Creek Flyby
Cache Creek Flyby
Some random still images from our gyro flight up Cache Creek. These are not cropped or retouched other than being resized for the web; it really was that green. I repeated the flight on Friday with my helicopter and got some stunning video.

Wednesday morning, we took a break from traffic patterns and did a low-level flight up Cache Creek with the GoPro connected. The video is as shaky as above, but still shots from the flight came out pretty good. Then it was back to the airport for more pattern work.

Wednesday is also when we made the breakthrough. I was flying like shit that afternoon and George was at peak frustration. I just couldn’t get the landings right, mostly because he kept yelling so many instructions at me during the last 15 seconds of each flight: left cyclic, right pedal, nose down, watch your airspeed, right cyclic, left pedal, watch the centerline, nose down. The rapid fire commands were overwhelming me and my brain was shutting down.

After one particularly rough landing, George called it quits for the day. As we taxied back to the hangars, letting the rotor blades spin down, he suggested that maybe I just wasn’t going to get it.

Later, over dinner, I asked him whether I was the first helicopter-only pilot he’d trained. When he realized that I was, that all of his other students had been airplane pilots, he started to understand my problem. Gyros landed like airplanes and I simply didn’t know how to land an airplane.

I asked him to stop yelling so many commands at landing. I told him my main problem was knowing when to flare and asked him to concentrate on instruction for that.

The next day, he had some things to attend to in the morning and then had lunch with another pilot. When we taxied out to the runway in the gyro, I reminded him about what I needed. We took off and started pattern work again.

It was different that afternoon. George stayed mostly quiet, letting me do everything and occasionally commenting on my speed or power setting or other aspect of the pattern flight. He even threw out a few words of praise when I made a descent he liked or set the power just right. He focused his instruction on the proper time and amount to flare for landing — rather than also bugging me about the centerline and staying in trim. There was no yelling.

I relaxed. I got us lined up with the centerline. I kept us in trim. And I was able to make one decent landing after another. I had gotten over the hump. I was proving that I got it by demonstrating that I could do it on my own.

We flew for an hour. George was pleased. Later, at dinner, as he was updating my log book, he debated whether he should sign me off for solo flight. But I think he wanted me to solo in his aircraft with a few more takeoffs and landings right before the solo flight. So he held back on the endorsement.

The next day, Friday, I had business in San Francisco. I was visiting a friend that I’d met seven years before online and had never met in person. We were going for a dim sum lunch just off Market Street. I planned to fly the helicopter to Concord by way of Napa Valley and walk to the BART station, dropping Penny off for grooming and doggie day care along the way. A quick train ride into San Francisco, time spent with an old new friend, some shopping, and then a return to Woodland. The day went off as planned, but I didn’t get in until after 5 PM and I was exhausted after walking more than 5 miles on city streets.

George and I had dinner together when I got in. He came back to the mobile mansion to watch the video I’d shot with my GoPro’s nose mount. We tried to figure out why that video was rock solid while the video from the same camera mounted on his gyro’s mast was so shaky.

Solo Flight

Saturday morning, we headed out for another lesson. George was pretty quiet. I flew. When I made my third landing and began to throttle up, he pulled the throttle back.

“I’m going to get out,” he said.

I realized that solo time had come. “One more,” I begged. I pushed the throttle forward and I made yet another good takeoff, pattern, and landing. There was no excuse to put it off any longer. I taxied off the runway to the intersection and let the blades spin to a stop. George got out.

“Are you going to watch?” I asked.

“I’ll probably head back to the hangar,” he replied.

I taxied away, trying to remember everything I needed to know to spin up the blades, take off, do a pattern, and land. I was expected to do three patterns.

I made my radio call and launched down the runway. The gyro responded quite differently with just one person onboard, shooting into the sky quicker and easier than I thought possible. It wasn’t until the second pattern that I figured out how to set the power properly for solo flight.

I was high and hot when it came time for the first landing. I really did dive for the runway, cutting power to just above idle when I was over the road. Down, down, down — I caught myself pulling back on the stick and pushed forward again. I could see George still standing where I’d left him, watching me as I touched down remarkably smoothly. Then full throttle to take off for the second trip around the pattern.

The second landing was a bit rougher, but certainly acceptable. I’ll do better on the next, I told myself. And I did. I touched down lightly, right in the middle of the runway, at what seemed like a jogging pace. So slow, in fact, that I was able to exit the runway at the first turn.

I taxied toward where George was still waiting and he snapped a photo.

Solo Flight
George snapped this photo of me as I taxied off the runway after my first solo flight.

I’d soloed in a gyro after just 7 hours of training.

Ready for Rating

Because the gyro is a light sport aircraft and because I already have a rating for another aircraft in the same category (rotorcraft category, helicopter class), George says I can get a sport pilot rating for the gyro by taking a check ride with another gyro CFI. The trick is to find one of those. In the meantime, since George flew the helicopter down to San Carlos and back with me later that day, he owes me another 2 hours (or so) in the gyro. So I’ll need to come back to California to collect on that debt — if not in May, then perhaps in August or September. (With luck, I’ll overfly it and owe him some more helicopter time so he’ll have to come up and visit me to even things out.)

In general, George was a great instructor. Why? Because he barely touched the controls at all. He yelled instructions and I followed them to the best of my ability. He’d let me get in trouble and then yell commands for me to follow to get out of trouble. The only time I ever felt his hands on the controls was when I was in trouble so deep that I needed help getting out of it. And that was rare after our first two hours of training.

As for my outlook on fixed wing aircraft — well, that’s changed a bit. Now that I know how to land while I’m still moving, airplanes are a tiny bit more interesting to me. But what’s really interesting is this little bird. Maybe I’ll add a seaplane rating someday soon.