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Old February 25th 04, 11:24 PM
Richard Lamb
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Badwater Bill wrote:

I wrote this on May 8,2002 and posted it on the rotorcraft group. I
just got an email this morning from a helicopter pilot who thinks he
wrote it. It was changed a bit, but essentially the same. Here it
is.

BWB

I think I'm about to retire from flying helicopters. It was fun for
the last 30 years but I'm lucky to be here. This is what I've learned
from two thousand hours in Hueys, a few hundred in Robies and about 50
in other things like MD-500's, Rangers and a Mini-500. It is how a
truly feel:

Anything that screws it's way into the sky flies according to
unspiritual principles.

You never want to sneak up behind an old high-time helicopter pilot
and clap your hands. He will instantly dive for cover and most likely
whimper...then get up and kick your butt.

There are no old helicopters laying around airports like you see old
airplanes. There is a reason for this. Come to think of it, there
are no old high-time helicopter pilots hanging around airports either
so don't worry about the above.

You can always tell a helicopter pilot in anything moving, a train, an
airplane, a car or a boat. They never smile, they are always
listening to the machine and they always hear something they think is
not right.

Helicopter pilots fly in a mode of intensity, actually more like
"spring loaded", while waiting for pieces of their ship to depart.

Flying a helicopter at any altitude over 500 feet is considered an act
of boldness and should be avoided.

Flying a helicopter at any altitude or condition that precludes a
landing in less than 20 seconds is considered a cavalier and unsafe
practice.

Remember in a Robinson you have about 1 second to lower the collective
in an engine failure before it becomes unrecoverable. Once you've
failed this maneuver the machine flies about as well as a Lycoming
strapped to your back.

When your wings are leading, lagging, flapping, precessing and moving
faster than your fuselage there's something unnatural going on. You
should not attempt to fly.

While hovering a Robinson, if you start to sink a bit, you pull up on
the collective while twisting the throttle, push with your left foot
(more torque) and move the stick left (more translating tendency) to
hold your spot. If you now need to stop rising, you do the opposite
in that order. Sometimes in wind you do this many times each second.
Don't you think that's a strange way to fly?

I commonly call an autorotation my "Anvil-One" approach. If all is
optimized you get a glide about like an anvil in freefall.

180 degree autorotations are a violent and aerobatic maneuver in my
opinion and should be avoided.

For Huey's and Robinsons: You never want to feel a sinking feeling in
your gut (low "g" pushover) while flying a two bladed under slung
teetering rotor system. You are about to do a snap-roll to the right
and crash.

If everything is working fine on your helicopter consider yourself
temporarily lucky. Something is about to break.

----Badwater Bill


Yep, that about covers helicopters!

Thanks for the reminder, Bill.

Richard