LONG LINE TRAINING ! DANGEROUS OR NOT!
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Australia
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Mate if you are learning to operate in the below 500 foot area and first have not covered off low level emergencies including engine failure, then find an instructor who will.
Start at 500 feet zero airspeed, get that lever down, cyclic forward and right pedal right in. First - sit back and watch the instructor- and just study the reactions of the AC while your instructor demonstrates a few.
Watch your RRPM it shouldn't go below the bottom red line, learn when to fairly quickly check back your attitude, I.E. 60 knots please sir not six hundred, watch the airspeed increase, (note you will still have a quite nose low attitude therefore when flaring there is much more angular displacement), the RRPM can thus be regathered quickly, study the initial height drop before you are again in normal auto flight. That will give you your dead mans limitation, make sure if you like your line is longer than that height.
Airspeed always takes the P out of pain. as long as there is a spot in front always, but always go for a bit of airspeed.
With practice you will be able to initiate lower although no need in training to go below 200 feet with a bit of headwind.
It is a matter of practising the technique and always looking for a spot, get an appreciation what sort of brush you can go through with your blades and what you can't. At the end of the day the aircraft is replaceable, always try to keep the airframe headed for an area where it will stay upright..
Practice dropping your line each time, if you can't think that quick you shouldn't be there.
Do all that on an open field.
all the best tet.
Start at 500 feet zero airspeed, get that lever down, cyclic forward and right pedal right in. First - sit back and watch the instructor- and just study the reactions of the AC while your instructor demonstrates a few.
Watch your RRPM it shouldn't go below the bottom red line, learn when to fairly quickly check back your attitude, I.E. 60 knots please sir not six hundred, watch the airspeed increase, (note you will still have a quite nose low attitude therefore when flaring there is much more angular displacement), the RRPM can thus be regathered quickly, study the initial height drop before you are again in normal auto flight. That will give you your dead mans limitation, make sure if you like your line is longer than that height.
Airspeed always takes the P out of pain. as long as there is a spot in front always, but always go for a bit of airspeed.
With practice you will be able to initiate lower although no need in training to go below 200 feet with a bit of headwind.
It is a matter of practising the technique and always looking for a spot, get an appreciation what sort of brush you can go through with your blades and what you can't. At the end of the day the aircraft is replaceable, always try to keep the airframe headed for an area where it will stay upright..
Practice dropping your line each time, if you can't think that quick you shouldn't be there.
Do all that on an open field.
all the best tet.
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Australia
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Its called being in the Money curve
Your jobs will often be to lift cargo in inaccessible terrain in usually difficult ambient conditions, otherwise they would get an aeroplane or a truck to do the same job, so you have to be as efficient as possible.
If you are going to lift the biggest loads with the minimum power in fairly quick turn arounds (that is what you have to do to beat the opposition) then you must be super smooth.
We had in our company years ago many such pilots, but one stood well above the rest. I reckon I could challenge anyone to see if he actually lifted the collective or moved the cyclic on initial lift and translate, but dammit, there he was flying away without, it seemed, any visible effort or movement or even a change in engine tone. He went on to work elsewhere and I think is now with McDermott.
All it takes is conscious thought about wind direction (to use to assist directional control) I.E. lead it along a bit with anti torque pedal, at the same time as doing that to reduce power input with the anti torque pedal apply the power just right to get an effect of flying off a slight pressure build up under the disc and timing it all to just get the beginning of translation before RRPM bleed off, assuming full power usage and don't move any of the controls any more than the fraction of movement required to get it to go.
After practice I will allow you only half an inch of MAP in the R44 to do this.
Your load only needs to lift an inch off the ground and usually cannot be dragged, learn to judge that precisely. Don't jerk it up as you will only fall down again under full load / full power limitations..
By experimentation work out out how much weight you can carry at your Airspeed for minimum power with that power at Max continuous, as long as that is at or below below max all up weight of course. That will be your load weight each time and how you calculate your contracted compliance.
First of all of course, make sure your machine is as smooth as glass in all respects as per your strobex kit, your blades proper clean and polished and nil surplus weight.
It's all good enjoyment and probably the most usual reason for helicopter operations in any developing country.
cheers tet
