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Day in life of helicopter instructor

I’ve only been on one helicopter ride and that was in Hawaii in 09. Flew from one island to another and checked out the tall waterfalls and mountain landscapes. Never had the desire to fly one tho not sure why.
 
AKnate said:
Funny how if I drive around with loud exhaust ill get a ticket.

A plane runs open headers and "that's ok"
Some of them shits that fly over my land are stupid loud. To the point I've had to wear ear pro while working outside cause I get tired of my ears being raped.
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That sound you are most likely hearing are the prop tips breaking the sound barrier and not the engine exhaust.
 
WaterH said:
They say a parachute comes down 900’ per minute. So 1500- 1800 is not that bad, but if you hit the ground at that, you have crashed. I flared before landing, so the actual touchdown wasn’t much harder than normal. In fact, students land harder than that many times.
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What’s a flare? You had no juice? Right.


Second question: Do experienced pilots short cut the class taught check lists? Kinda like school is thorough and unnecessarily cautious but with experience you just check the actual important things? I always wondered if it’s common for the real experienced pilots to go quick and less by the book. For example my car manual says to check all fluids before operating..:lmao:
 
Poke said:
What’s a flare? You had no juice? Right.


Second question: Do experienced pilots short cut the class taught check lists? Kinda like school is thorough and unnecessarily cautious but with experience you just check the actual important things? I always wondered if it’s common for the real experienced pilots to go quick and less by the book. For example my car manual says to check all fluids before operating..:lmao:
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On a helicopter you have two engine off “helps”.
First, you’re going down about 1500-1800 feet per minute. It really doesn’t matter if you go down at 60 mph or 5 mph as far as your descent speed. If you go 60-65, and you suddenly pull back on the stick, the machine will both slow down forward speed and vertical speed to nearly zero. (Momentarily)

The second “help” is pulling the collective. This gives you a momentary boost of lift while the rotor slows down. You can actually do this at anytime, but once the rotors slow down you are going to drop like a rock.

So ideally, you glide down at 65 mph, flare into the wind and end up at zero ground speed two feet off the ground. Then you have that one collective pull to set it down gently. Of course if you get scared and flare early, at say, ten feet, you are going to have a hell of a time setting it down gently because the collective pull doesn’t last that long. If you flare late, you might be two feet off the ground, but are doing 30 mph. It gets very harry trying to set it down at 30.

The answer to your second question is of course, some pilots cut short checklists. (Experienced or not) One of the problems (in my mind) is checklists are written by lawyers and insurance people. So they can be ridiculous long with all kinds of non sense in them. Pilots will often make excuses like “I just landed for ten minutes, I’ll skip it this time. I like to make my own checklist of only important things and follow it religiously. If it is short, you are more likly to follow it.
 
Say……is it common to stumble across a helicopter parked in the woods with the keys left in it? Maybe on a couple thousand acres that are being clear cut or something? Heard about that happening to a guy. Heard he said he could make it get “light” and maybe could have took off but scared he couldnt land it.
 
AKnate said:
Funny how if I drive around with loud exhaust ill get a ticket.

A plane runs open headers and "that's ok"
Some of them shits that fly over my land are stupid loud. To the point I've had to wear ear pro while working outside cause I get tired of my ears being raped.
Click to expand...
you are saying that in the time a plane flies over, you have time to find and put on ear pro on before it is gone?:laughing:
you have never started a thread asking how to use ear pro, so I am skeptical
 
Animalmother said:
Say……is it common to stumble across a helicopter parked in the woods with the keys left in it? Maybe on a couple thousand acres that are being clear cut or something? Heard about that happening to a guy. Heard he said he could make it get “light” and maybe could have took off but scared he couldnt land it.
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With zero training, he'd crash on take off.
 
While I don’t have stick time I do have surprisingly many hours as a “passenger” CH136 (OH58) CH135 (UH1N) CH147 (CH47F) .

The OH58 is best rollercoaster money can buy, period. I had the privilege of night time NOE and while it was all I could do not to puke, it was unreal, the manoeuvres were… I have no words. Combat takeoff, turns, landings (the mega flare). The navigator calling out shit that was in the way, like power lines, radio tower, without lights, etc.

I would pay a great deal of money to do that again.

First time in a chinook was around 1977 it’s amazing something that big can maneuver that well. Slinging a load on one is a trip.
 
Animalmother said:
Say……is it common to stumble across a helicopter parked in the woods with the keys left in it? Maybe on a couple thousand acres that are being clear cut or something? Heard about that happening to a guy. Heard he said he could make it get “light” and maybe could have took off but scared he couldnt land it.
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Gonna call BS on that - even if he had fixed wing experience

I had about 400 fixed wing hours including combat time before I took instruction in a chopper. It was all I could do to control a single plane of flight - say rudder only, or stick only; with the instructor on the other controls. Was probably 5 hours or more before I felt remotely comfortable as pilot. At the time, guys were going solo between 12 -15 hours, and most had 300 to 500 hours fixed wing hours prior to chopper course.
 
XtremeJ said:
Gonna call BS on that - even if he had fixed wing experience

I had about 400 fixed wing hours including combat time before I took instruction in a chopper. It was all I could do to control a single plane of flight - say rudder only, or stick only; with the instructor on the other controls. Was probably 5 hours or more before I felt remotely comfortable as pilot. At the time, guys were going solo between 12 -15 hours, and most had 300 to 500 hours fixed wing hours prior to chopper course.
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Alrighty then
 
XtremeJ said:
Well you sure don’t want to know about them spewing leaded fuel exhaust all over you at the same time.
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Bullshit, every time a group of Karen’s tries to get an airport closed this comes up and every time they spend a shitload of money on a study that proves the lead falling on the nearby orphanage is a big fat nothing-burger. It’s happening right now at BJC in Broomfield. Is their lead falling? Sure. Does it matter? Fuck no. It’s hilarious they spent all that money and then won’t release the results. Fucking ****s.
 
XtremeJ said:
Early turbo Motorsports engines had similar issues with cooking the oil until it coked. Synthetic oil technology and better oil cooling mostly solved those issues. I recall the early Audi turbo rally cars running a circulating pump for the oil post shut down so the oil did not sit in the turbo and cook off. Resulted in killing the turbo bearings usually.
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All the 18 wheelers used to be the same way .

If you were running hard and stopped , you were supposed to let it idle for a few minutes to cool the turbo charger down .

If you were in a hard pull like going up a mountain. And pulled over at the top , you didn’t cut the engine off .

The wife’s 2010 mini cooper turbo has a water pump just for the turbo , it runs after you shut down the engine .
 
roundhouse said:
All the 18 wheelers used to be the same way .

If you were running hard and stopped , you were supposed to let it idle for a few minutes to cool the turbo charger down .

If you were in a hard pull like going up a mountain. And pulled over at the top , you didn’t cut the engine off .

The wife’s 2010 mini cooper turbo has a water pump just for the turbo , it runs after you shut down the engine .
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Friend had a turbo diesel hilux surf 10 or 15 years ago, had a shut down timer on the dash. Set it for 5 minutes, shut the key off and walk away, would cool down then shut off. Idea was to avoid coking the teeny turbo.
 
My old 05 STI had one, aftermarket I'd say. I think it ran for like 3 mins. Was tied into the e brake so with the key off, you drop the e brake it would die for theft reasons.
 
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Squamch said:
Friend had a turbo diesel hilux surf 10 or 15 years ago, had a shut down timer on the dash. Set it for 5 minutes, shut the key off and walk away, would cool down then shut off. Idea was to avoid coking the teeny turbo.
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I had a hilux diesel engine that I transplanted into my 4 runner

1KZT with the mechanical injector
 
The MD 500 motor does not actually completely un-power the rotor when turned to idle. The result is it’s easier to do the auto in practice. This is not a good thing. I read of one incident where they were practicing autos for an hour. Then the engine quit for real. You would think that the best time for an engine failure is right after practicing. They crashed.


But, I love that helicopter.
 
WaterH said:
The MD 500 motor does not actually completely un-power the rotor when turned to idle. The result is it’s easier to do the auto in practice. This is not a good thing. I read of one incident where they were practicing autos for an hour. Then the engine quit for real. You would think that the best time for an engine failure is right after practicing. They crashed.


But, I love that helicopter.
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Out of curiosity, what airframes are you certified to fly and/ or instruct?
 
Dubya1 said:
Out of curiosity, what airframes are you certified to fly and/ or instruct?
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This question is tricky. Any helicopter that is over a certain weight or carry’s so many passengers requires a “type ratting”. (I want to say 14,500 lbs. and 20 passengers.) I do not have a type ratting in any of these, so instructing in them is not allowed. Beyond them I can instruct in any helicopter that I have 5 hours of flight time in BUT Robinson helicopters. Those helicopters have a unique regulation that is completely stupid*. I do have more than 5 hours in R22s and R44s, but there are some additional hoops I have to jump through to instruct in them.

As far as your question, I probably have 5 hours or more in a dozen helicopters.




* A CA politicians’s son was killed in a R22. The NTSB determined it was pilot error. Then they changed that ruling to unknown reason. This has never occurred before or since. That ruling allowed the politician to sue Robinson. And forced the stupid regulations on them.
 
Do you jerk to the military helo's landing on sketchy shit? Sides of hills, arab rooftops, camp david?

:flipoff2:
 
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