I'm a newish and part time rotary FI(R) at a large and quite crowded airfield, usually at weekends. I mainly do trial lessons/air experience flights, which is fine by me; I get more experience myself, get paid to fly, and enjoy putting a huge smile on people's faces.
But.....
If they book with the school, they do half an hour or an hour, which is fine. But some of them book through Red Letter Days, and it's 25 minutes. I even had one yesterday from some similar outfit that was 20 minutes!
Now, the problem I have is trying to give them enough in such a short time that they don't feel shortchanged. Bear in mind the time is from start up to shut down, and helicopters take a few minutes to start up and shut down. ATC expect us to taxi out to the "H" and takeoff and re-join in the circuit along with the f/w traffic; we can't just lift and go at this airfield. It's quite a long way to hover-taxi, and sometimes we have to hold for other traffic etc. Once we depart, Tower passes me to Approach and back again, all in double quick time.
Between all this I try to let the student have a go, at least at flying straight and level...no way we can even attempt to try hovering in such a short time. But the 20 minute one ended up being one wide circuit; in fact, I told the tower when I booked out that I'd be doing that, as there seemed no other way to fit it in.
What I usually do is give them a briefing; then if they seem interested talk all through the start-up, telling them what's happening etc, then let them follow me through right from lifting into the hover. That way, even if they don't get to do much flying, hopefully they feel as though they've had more hands-on experience than they actually have. I play it by ear; if they look like they just want to look at the view and take it all in, I try to leave them to it. But sometimes I wonder if I'm talking too much, and maybe I should let the flight speak for itself; it is an Air Experience Flight after all. They seem happy - all but one who was terrified and we had to go back
- but who knows.
Anyone have any other good ideas?