I’m over-simplifying. If you bank, then your lift vector is no longer perpendicular to the ground. To maintain altitude you need to increase power (pull collective), so your torque increases and you have to adjust with the pedals. But in practice, out chopping holes in the sky, for a gentle turn you don’t pull collective, and you leave the pedals where they are. As I said, I slewed all over the place when I tried to make an airplane-style coordinated turn in a helicopter.
There are couple of ways to have a Bad Day. Pitching over in a semi-rigid helicopter can chop off the tail boom. It can also cause ‘mast bumping’. Severe mast-bumping can cause the main rotor to depart the aircraft. Again, this is considered sub-optimal.
Low rotor RPM can cause blow-back, which can chop the tail boom. The Robinson R22 POH actually uses the word ‘doomed’.
Hovering is the hardest thing to learn in helicopters. It’s also the first thing you need to learn. If you can’t hover, you can’t take off or land. Data Point #1 for helicopters is that they are inherently unstable. Most GA airplanes will return to equilibrium when disturbed. Helicopters don’t. You need to apply constant, minute control inputs to keep it stable. I like to say that flying a helicopter is very Zen; you fly it by not flying it. That is, if you think about what you’re doing, you’ll always be behind the machine. You need to become ‘One with the Machine’. In other words, develop muscle memory so that your body applies the appropriate inputs faster than your conscious mind can.
Here’s how it went for me: The instructor gave me the pedals, and he worked everything else. My job was to keep the nose pointed straight ahead at a target. It took several tries until my pedal inputs were subtle enough to do it. Next he gave me the pedals and cyclic. My task was to keep the nose pointed at the target, and to keep the helicopter over our hover position. Again, I was all over the place. Then he gave me everything. At the end of an hour I was able to keep the machine more-or-less over the spot and pointed in the right direction and at the right height. At least, it was acceptable for a first lesson. Subsequent lessons included more hovering practice; and starting with the second lesson I started learning how to pivot over a point, and turning a given number of degrees. Each lesson started with hovering practice, followed by turning practice, until I could lift the helicopter off of the ground and bring it into a stable hover. Once you have hovering down, everything else is easy.
Well, I’ve managed to take off and land without it, but I’m sure it’s not the recommended way! Takeoff is a bit wild: jump and get to forward flight asap. Landing is almost plane-like, as slow as possible, with a flare at the end. My game silly was to see if I could survive the pilot croaking mid-flight, without being one myself (rather than really learning how to fly one).
So, you probably won’t want to take a ride with me in the left seat. That would probably be sub-optimal.
Thanks – that makes perfect sense. I get the sense that flying a chopper is more like riding a bike than driving a car: your muscles need to know how to do it, moreso than your brain. Learning one control at a time makes perfect sense.
so what’s the approach speed of most jets if there are no flaps deployed? As a student pilot I remember pacing a jet on a parallel runway and it was a 140 knot approach.
wow, that would make for an exciting landing in my scenario. I think I’d have to try to get the flaps out. It was a bitch getting a Cherokee 140 down when crossing the threshold at 140K. the tower folks had to be laughing or scratching there heads watching me. Engine to idle, flaps deployed and cross controlling it down the center line until It slowed enough to touch down. My student pilot days were a lot of fun.
Helicopters tend to be flown from the right seat. (At least the ones I’ve flown.) Why? Tradition! Dunnnnh-tradition! TRADITION…! Oh, sorry. Where was I? I haven’t looked it up, but small helis need the pilot to hold onto the cyclic at all times. When using a stick, pilots tend to like to hold it with their right hand. Flying from the right seat allows the pilot to reach the console with his left hand, while being able to keep the machine under control with his right hand. That’s my hypothesis, anyway.
It can be traced to one particular training helicopter according to this article.
These days it seems to be a mixture of personal preference and what the job demands. The only flight I’ve had in the front of a helicopter, I sat in the right with the pilot in the left. This footage of live deer capture* shows Morgan Saxton flying from the left as well as the right. He probably prefers the right when by himself (witness him carrying a sling-load on his own early in the clip) but maybe the shooter prefers the right as well, so when he’s carrying a shooter he sits in the left.
*Clip mainly included because I thought JohnnyLA would like to see what the crazy Kiwi pilots get up to. Note that the deer are captured for the purpose of stocking local deer farms and therefore you can assume they are not physically harmed by the process.
In my current airplane these speeds can quickly get into sporty territory. The MD-11 has a very efficient wing, but it likes speed.
Normal, 35-flap approach speed (Vref+5) at a normal landing weight (call it 440K lbs) is 159 knots.
If for some reason you can’t get the flaps down and have only the slats out, Vref is now 170, but Vapp is now Vref+15, so you are crossing the fence at 185.
If you can get flaps but no slats you are in even worse shape. Flaps 25/Slats retracted Vref is 190, but Vapp goes back to Vref+5, so only 195 across the fence.
Clean wing - no slats, no flaps? Vref is 209, so 214 Vapp. And this is for a normal landing weight, after burning off a lot of fuel.
It’s more difficult–I’m purposely not making a pun with OP header–when you’re having sex in the cockpit. NSFW:
[spoiler]
It may not suitable for home also, in that it is a picture of (amateur, I think) consensual sex.[spoiler]
http: //ivoyer.tumblr.com/image/ 46367084887