Helicopter pilots ~ Do not read
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Helicopter pilots ~ Do not read
Envision a world where there are no private driver licenses. In fact, there are no private cars. The only vehicular means of personal transportation are by taxicab and mass transit. There are only commercial licenses. Everybody must be chauffeured. The passenger cannot be the driver and the driver cannot be the passenger.
Mass transit entails one driver conveying a lager numbers of people, between set locations. The taxicabs entail one driver conveying one or a few people, between an unlimited number of locations.
In this hypothetical world; the means, the volume and the cost of transportation would be very different from that which exists in the current world.
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This hypothetical world is not hypothetical. It exists right now. It exists above our heads, and the vehicles are called airplanes and helicopters. The airplane is analogous to mass transport and the helicopter is analogous to the taxicab.
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IMHO, the only means for the rotorcraft industry to reverse the current trend and proliferate is for it to produce a craft that is extremely easy to fly. A craft where the passenger can be the driver.
Mass transit entails one driver conveying a lager numbers of people, between set locations. The taxicabs entail one driver conveying one or a few people, between an unlimited number of locations.
In this hypothetical world; the means, the volume and the cost of transportation would be very different from that which exists in the current world.
_________________________
This hypothetical world is not hypothetical. It exists right now. It exists above our heads, and the vehicles are called airplanes and helicopters. The airplane is analogous to mass transport and the helicopter is analogous to the taxicab.
_________________________
IMHO, the only means for the rotorcraft industry to reverse the current trend and proliferate is for it to produce a craft that is extremely easy to fly. A craft where the passenger can be the driver.
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Folly!
but then I didn't read it . . . .
Before crash-diving the average common sense of drivers while multiplying their numbers by billions, we need first to improve the gene pool.
You've heard of the Darwin Awards? (And the matching website?)
Somehow we need to set up a few hurdles to survival (plague? pestilence? Congress? Osama?) so that the vast numbers of human beings not smart enough to come in out of the rain (McDonald's employees, for instance; or lottery players) expire (painlessly) while standing in mid-freeway wondering which direction to go.
THEN we can begin to put controls on the passenger side. Maybe. But even the pilots haven't set any records for sensible behavior . . .
Before crash-diving the average common sense of drivers while multiplying their numbers by billions, we need first to improve the gene pool.
You've heard of the Darwin Awards? (And the matching website?)
Somehow we need to set up a few hurdles to survival (plague? pestilence? Congress? Osama?) so that the vast numbers of human beings not smart enough to come in out of the rain (McDonald's employees, for instance; or lottery players) expire (painlessly) while standing in mid-freeway wondering which direction to go.
THEN we can begin to put controls on the passenger side. Maybe. But even the pilots haven't set any records for sensible behavior . . .
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Hi Dave
On not wishing to be rude but is your post trying to put sanity in this insane world becouse you have lost me.
I think I know where you are coming from but ?
I dont wish to bring an on slought of problems from PPrunes but what answer are you looking for
regards ( andy with tin helmet on waiting for incoming)
Bravo 99 (AJB)
On not wishing to be rude but is your post trying to put sanity in this insane world becouse you have lost me.
I think I know where you are coming from but ?
I dont wish to bring an on slought of problems from PPrunes but what answer are you looking for
regards ( andy with tin helmet on waiting for incoming)
Bravo 99 (AJB)
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Envision a world where to get a pilot's permit you had to take a 20 - question test. Once you had that, you could fly any light aircraft as long as there was someone with a Private license in the other seat.
As soon as you felt ready (and were over 16), you could borrow a plane and take a test for the full Private license. The test would consist of taxiing, taking off, flying the pattern, making a normal landing, taxiing and parking the airplane in a designated spot.
With this accomplished, you would be free to fly as far as you wanted in any airplane (single or twin) up to around 20,000 lb MGW. You could carry up to six paying passengers with no additional requirements for training, aircraft equipment, or maintenance. You would never have to train again, never be checked for proficiency, only a vision check every four years.
If you wanted to get a helicopter license, find a friend with a helicopter, practice until you felt ready (no formal training required), then the test: pick up to a hover, hover around a box pattern, air taxi from point a to point b, set down on a designated spot. Now you can do everything in a helicopter too!
So you could be a paying-passenger pilot, fixed and rotorcraft, without any formal training, any navigational skills, any clue how the equipment functions, any ability to forecast or interpret weather, any knowlege on how to deal with emergency situations (unless perhaps your friend, or mom, or whoever you drove with with your learner's permit perhaps told you the aviation equivalent of "steer into the skid".
Whew
I am only speaking for myself, but after the 200-odd hours it took me to attain my CFII(H), I felt barely prepared to safely fly the aircraft, let alone instruct.
Perhaps we should be looking at revamping the world of driving instead...
As soon as you felt ready (and were over 16), you could borrow a plane and take a test for the full Private license. The test would consist of taxiing, taking off, flying the pattern, making a normal landing, taxiing and parking the airplane in a designated spot.
With this accomplished, you would be free to fly as far as you wanted in any airplane (single or twin) up to around 20,000 lb MGW. You could carry up to six paying passengers with no additional requirements for training, aircraft equipment, or maintenance. You would never have to train again, never be checked for proficiency, only a vision check every four years.
If you wanted to get a helicopter license, find a friend with a helicopter, practice until you felt ready (no formal training required), then the test: pick up to a hover, hover around a box pattern, air taxi from point a to point b, set down on a designated spot. Now you can do everything in a helicopter too!
So you could be a paying-passenger pilot, fixed and rotorcraft, without any formal training, any navigational skills, any clue how the equipment functions, any ability to forecast or interpret weather, any knowlege on how to deal with emergency situations (unless perhaps your friend, or mom, or whoever you drove with with your learner's permit perhaps told you the aviation equivalent of "steer into the skid".
Whew
I am only speaking for myself, but after the 200-odd hours it took me to attain my CFII(H), I felt barely prepared to safely fly the aircraft, let alone instruct.
Perhaps we should be looking at revamping the world of driving instead...
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Bravo 99 (AJB)
The devil made me do it.
Flingwing207
Envision that all flying had to be in VFR conditions and outside of controlled airspace. Most importantly and most difficult to achieve, envision that this VTOL craft was easier and safer to fly than an airplane.
If this craft was equipped with an automatic collision avoidance device, I would feel safer flying it than whizzing around in the traffic on an Autobahn.
The devil made me do it. Flingwing207
Envision that all flying had to be in VFR conditions and outside of controlled airspace. Most importantly and most difficult to achieve, envision that this VTOL craft was easier and safer to fly than an airplane.
If this craft was equipped with an automatic collision avoidance device, I would feel safer flying it than whizzing around in the traffic on an Autobahn.
This sounds like a lead-up to an advertisement for a Moller Skycar. You know, the one with eight (!) engines and an autopilot that will take you from your driveway to K-Mart and the bottle shop and home again.
All without hitting another Skycar, helicopter, tree, powerline or black dog.
Dream on, Dave.
And about the title to this thread: "Helicopter pilots do not read." Is this like the road sign saying "Falling rocks do not stop"?
All without hitting another Skycar, helicopter, tree, powerline or black dog.
Dream on, Dave.
And about the title to this thread: "Helicopter pilots do not read." Is this like the road sign saying "Falling rocks do not stop"?
if the got a bit warm. 
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aw c'mon guys
Dave's kinda funny.
Of course, if a means of transportation is to proliferate, it must be easy to control the vehicle.... Hence the proliferation of automobiles.... So Dave is right, but the real question is the possibility of making a rotorcraft easy to fly. That might be impossible....
Now, a simple analysis of that problem recognizes that the rotorcraft has mobility in three dimensions, whereas the automobile is limited to two (and it doesn't have full mobility in the second dimension because it can't move side to side).
Therefore, the automobile is naturally easier to control.
IMHO, fuel efficiency is another equally serious obstacle, for the same reason that ease of control is an obstacle.
Now in all seriousness I really appreciate your posts, because you make the rest of us think....
Z
Dave's kinda funny.
Of course, if a means of transportation is to proliferate, it must be easy to control the vehicle.... Hence the proliferation of automobiles.... So Dave is right, but the real question is the possibility of making a rotorcraft easy to fly. That might be impossible....
Now, a simple analysis of that problem recognizes that the rotorcraft has mobility in three dimensions, whereas the automobile is limited to two (and it doesn't have full mobility in the second dimension because it can't move side to side).
Therefore, the automobile is naturally easier to control.
IMHO, fuel efficiency is another equally serious obstacle, for the same reason that ease of control is an obstacle.
Now in all seriousness I really appreciate your posts, because you make the rest of us think....
Z
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PPL Pilots don't generally get killed because of the complexity of the aircraft but because of the unforgiving environment. It takes some special sort of designer to change THAT 
