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Old 11th Jul 2017, 01:29
  #120 (permalink)  
n5296s
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: LFMD
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Yes, sir, 5 whole hours for a CPL-H in the USA.
Interesting question what useful purpose is this meant to serve... as many people have said, if that's ALL the hood/IMC experience you have, it's not going to get you very far (about your current altitude, downwards). I enjoyed doing my 5 hours (don't have a CPL-H but I was well on the way to one). But I do have a fixed wing IR and a reasonable amount of experience both in actual and under the hood, so the basic idea of doing what the instruments say is already ingrained.

So there are two possible outcomes from the 5 hours: (a) s**t, that was scary, for sure I'm never going to try and do that (b) cool, that's pretty easy, clouds here we come, nobody will know about it. (a) is evidently preferable to (b) but not certain.

The one surprising thing for me in the R44 was how you have to watch the AI like a hawk, really doing the textbook AI-X-AI-Y-AI-Z-... scan. In my 182 you can pretty much forget about the AI, the instructor I used to fly with for instrument currency would "fail" it in the first 15 minutes of every flight so I got used to flying without it. Doesn't work in the heli (at least not the R44).

Before someone jumps down my throat (again), no, I don't plan on flying the heli into IMC, still less publishing the result on youtube. But I do still think that someone with plenty of heli IMC experience, including hand flying, AND some R44 hood time, ought to be able to (hand) fly an R44 in IMC. I also think that such a person would have enough good sense not to try it. I would be very happy to try it in a faithful R44 sim though, if such a thing exists.
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