Whirly?
Only £12,000 worth of damage from your Governor adventures, I can top that one! A couple of years ago one of our students had just reached the solo stage. He was a very rich man, with lots of cars who would have gone on to do at least a 206 conversion and doubtless bought himself a machine. We all liked him very much! He was also very elegant sartorially, always turning up to fly in nice expensive clothes. And a lovely pair of yellow kid leather gloves. But I digress.
Come the day of the solo, the instructor took him round a couple of times, and decided he was happy with his performance. Gave him his final brief, told him to enjoy it, and the student was off around the circuit. The circuit looked good, but he came in a bit too fast, and the tail wobbled a bit as he pulled the power in. However, he caught it, and the R22 stabilised for a moment before descending, drifting sideways, catching the skid and rolling over. Oops.
Happily the student was OK, but the R22 was a complete write-off. There then followed the amusing sight of three (yes 3) ambulances turning up, as the airfield was on the corner of three different ambulance areas, and they all wanted the business. The instructor wisely found out which hospitals the ambulances would be going to before choosing the one which would drop them both off closest to home-base! (not the DIY suprstore)
So, where does the governor come in? Remember the gloves? And the cars? Well they weren't flying gloves, but very expensive driving gloves. And they had a shiny little "D"-ring on one glove, and a shiny little spring clip on the other so you could clip them together when not in use. As the student pushed the carb heat in at the end of the approach and then transferred his hand to the collective, the clip caught the governor and turned it off. The governor light illuminated, and the student was so distracted by wondering what the hell this light was doing on, that he forgot to fly the heli.
So, a few years on, and what are they doing now?
The helicopter. The only good thing to come out of this was that we now have a real R22 in the briefing room which we plonk the punters in whilst giving the trial lesson briefings. (We actually describe it as a "static simulator", which has a more customer-friendly ring than "crashed helicopter")
The student went straight back into the air, but about 5 hours later decided he wasn't enjoying it and packed in, taking all his lovely money with him. Sad.
The instructor is now flying holiday planks.
I'm still here, watching, listening and (hopefully) learning.
ST