KAVU- learning to fly

Helicopter Edition - By: Marshall Miller

By KAVU

December 3^rd, 2019

I’ve been hanging around helicopters for a long time........

i like to fly

I like to fly anything and everything. I’m fascinated by all aspects of flight. Look at the varying airframes we see flying around the world...... it’s awesome!

Compare a sail plane (glider), which has a glide ratio of 60:1 (this means that it can glide forward for 60 feet and only lose 1 foot of vehicle altitude) to the human body w a glide ratio of roughly 1:1.

Boeing 747 = 17:1, Cessna 172 = 10:1, Paraglider = 9:1, helicopter 4:1, etc...

It's all fascinating and captivates me.....

There’s an aircraft that’s not like the others though.......

... the helicopter.

How is that airframe even meant to fly?

It’s got a rotor system that allows it to take off and land vertically?

Perfect!

The helicopter is the perfect adventure mobile. You can load it up with friends and a bunch of gear and fly to a destination ready to go. It has a range of roughly 350 miles and one of the most beautiful things about a helicopter is that you really only need a 10x10 landing area without the requirement to "glide in". The designated landing spot can be surrounded by trees, on top of a pinnacle........ it can literally almost be anywhere!

follow your dreams

So, I set off on a journey to learn how to fly these machines. I’ve always been interested in trying new forms of aviation but, this one seemed like a proper challenge.

There were a few things that stood in my way though.......

real life challenges

It’s expensive
It takes lots of time
It’s not easy
It’s super regulated
It’s a massive commitment !!

The big question for lot of aspiring pilots is: what aircraft will I be able to fly?

What I found to be true was, if you have the amazing opportunity to pursue any type of flying, you must look at the long term, the future of your flying and how accessible an aircraft might be to you.

I had a goal to start helicopter school in January 2019 and I wanted to finish it within 6 months. I started to tell some friends (mostly other heli pilots) of my intentions to learn and on January 31st, I took my first introduction lesson.

I started with a training school - Universal Helicopters out of Provo, Utah.

My instructors name was Josh Judd. Dude’s a stud. Her has over 4000 hours instructing and is very good at his craft.

On my first intro lesson , we went for a 30 min flight around the Provo airport. Flying straight and level at speed felt pretty good. It made sense..... maybe I was a natural.

During my second flight I was introduced to hovering and I completely sucked at it, like really bad! I diligently kept trying to sort out the basics of hovering. At the 8 hour mark (10-15 lessons later), I wondered of flying helicopters was a reality for me. For the first 10 hours I honestly felt like I would’ve crashed the helicopter on every flight. My instructor had to grab the controls and straighten us out on many occasions.

This was very frustrating to say the least.

one flight at a time

In order to graduate from heli school, one must also complete 40 hours of flight time (at $450 per hour). After about 12-13 hours, something clicked and I felt like I could maybe do this without crashing.

I could see that my progress was showing results.

milestones

After 20 hours, I was meant to solo (by myself and without my instructor). This was a as huge moment for me. There are many emergency procedures and protocols one must memorize and be handy with in order to be ready and feel semi-comfortable.

This was huge. It went great and was also the biggest confidence booster to date.

Then came the FAA written test. I haven’t studied this hard since my time at the university. I was studying 2-3 hours every day and putting in some solid effort to do this well. I passed my exam with a 82% and felt good about my knowledge.

There is always room for improvement, though.

After many hours of solo time, study time, and general knowledge, I was finally ready to complete my final check ride exam. This is a 4-5 hour exam where an FAA examiner tests your skills. I met a gentleman named Huish (Hewy) Hewlett. We meet in his office on July 17th and I gave him the obligatory $600 to start the test.

For almost two hours he asked me questions and had me explain anything he could think of. It went well and I felt knowledgeable. If I didn’t know the answer to certain Qs, I knew where I could find them.

Next was the ground school exam. We walked around the aircraft and talked about everything relative to the helicopter..... what things are, and how they work. This was difficult. I don’t know a lot about engines and the functionality of specific parts but, I managed to explain things well enough to get through this portion of the exam.

Finally, the actual check ride -

... we took off for a test flight that lasted a couple of hours. He told me to get ready to fly to a destination approx. 2 hours away, file a flight plan, get fuel, check weight and balance, etc. We picked up in the helicopter and started towards our first destination. As we were on our way, he said "one of your engine lights came on, what are you going to do? Next he yelled, "engine fire!” I needed to handle these scenarios in stride with the proper emergency procedures. He then pointed to a pinnacle landing and told me to land there, pinnacle landings take a crazy amount of patience and skill, I have a new respect for heli pilots who can stomp these landings so easily. It took two tries but I set down on a slopped small landing area on top of a pinnacle.

We picked back up and on the way home my instructor said.....

"You passed"

This was a huge moment of accomplishment, relief, Joy, etc.

My biggest goal in helicopter training is to be able to confidently take off and land a helicopter with precious cargo. This means to confidently take my family or friends on a flight knowing that I could do it safely. While there is still so much to learn, I’ll forever be a student and I’m happy to say that I can take you for a helicopter ride anytime you’d like;-)

Over the past few months, I’ve been enjoying every minute of this new flying discipline. I’m loving the learning process, I love being the new guy at something, I love the process of challenging myself to be better.

This new helicopter pilot is now over 100 hours of flight time, has shared the dream of flight with many people, landed and had lunch at some amazing locations and has dropped skydivers out the heli over some beautiful country ; )