I finally fulfilled one of my all time dreams, to fly a helicopter. I was given the flight as a birthday & Christmas present and is a one-off flight. I had looked at the excellent site by Paul Cantrell at http://www.copters.com/ to help prepare me but I don't think anything could have prepared me for flying for the first time.
My flight was from Blackbushe airport in Surrey (UK) in a Cabair
Robinson R22, callsign G-BOXX. My first impressions were of sheer
terror, especially when my instructor gave me control. I found the
cyclic (the 'joystick' which sits in front of the pilot) to be very
delicate, the slightest touch seemed to send me hurtling across the
sky....at least thats what it felt like at times. One problem was
that there was a mild to strong wind so I don't know how much of the
bouncing around was me or the wind. It was also hazy so we stayed at
around 1500 feet due to the low cloud.
After a while I gradually got the hang of it, though I had a
tendancy to fly at an angle to the right. The autorotation was
interesting as I expected a far shallower angle of descent rather
than the nearly straight down approach, but obviously when the engine
fails you don't want to be hanging around in the air. Shortly after
we did a confined area landing which again was interesting to see.
This is where the pilot lands in a small garden or in a pub car park,
there is a book known as Pooleys which lists all the pubs,
restaurants and hotels which have landing sites for helicopters, as
well as their opening times and other details.
It was an incredible sensation to control a helicopter, as well as a scary one. My instructor suggested coming back in the summer when the winds are calmer.
The pictures of my flight were taken by my brother using my video
camera and show some low level flying around Blackbushe at the start
and end of my flight.
