| Hi Phil!
"I've never actually been airborne in a real heli, so have no idea what is actually like - noisy I suspect!"
Earphones are mandatory :-) In a fixed wing you can get away with not wearing them (in Germany I was flying fixed wing and they don't tend to wear them - well, not in the Cessnas I was flying).
However, you're right: helicopters are very noisy. I've lifted my earphones a couple of times - the difference is remarkable!
But I had seen people try to have a telephone conversation on the mobile whilst in a heli :-) (my examiner for example !!!)
" So if it is leaning sideways then leaving the rotor angle alone and letting the weight of the main part of the heli pull it level is a lot more sensible."
Yeah. As long as the disk is roughly level, then that's OK. But if it's at a significant angle (whatever significant is!!) then there'll be enough horizontal component in the thrust to pull the heli over to the side - trip the skids if you like.
Sloping ground landings: Agh! They were the one thing that had my palms going sweaty. You have to *slowly* lower the helicopter towards the ground (and you really do need a rock solid hover) until one of the skids touched - then it was a balancing act because you're now hinging around that one skid. Then slowly lower the collective....and you're leaning over !! But all the whilst you have to keep the disk level (using progressively more and more sideways cyclic). Eventually the other skid will touch, but it seems like a bottomless pit...
10degrees slope. And because helicopters hover/land with one skid low (tail rotor blowing so you're leaning into that) then doing sloping ground landings change depending on what side you do them on. I had to do 30 minutes constant of them whilst my instructor stood outside and watched. Boy were my palms sweating!
Just another anecdote: Another teacher (who eventually examined me) asked me to recite "Mary Had A Little Lamb" whilst doing a sloping ground landing! You know what? I just couldn't recite that damned rhyme!
I'm waffling again.
Hey, you manage to get into Hinckley? Midland Helis? Cool! I like them. They fixed up my Shuttle back in 1999 and it hasn't needed anything done to it since. Have you seen that gas turbine machine? Apparently they've now begun to sell it in kit form, but it's something like ?8000 :-/ (I was raised in Hinckley, and my mum and sister now live close by).  |