FuzzyBee Commenter and frequent Castle Visitor Pogue dropped me an e-gram to update me on his quest to attain man’s oldest dream – mastery of rotary-winged flight.
Ummmm – okay, actually that’s man’s *second*-oldest dream…
Heh – and I used to *complain* that you guys only remember the scary stuff I write…
Ummmm – okay, actually that’s man’s *second*-oldest dream…
Hi Bill!
Latest update - I'm about 3 weeks from finishing up [OPSEC], and amazingly enough the other sergeant from my unit here and I came to the conclusion that being deployed is better than being at a TRADOC base. Whoda thunk it...
Anyways, I was reminded of your Cobra hydraulic failure TINS this weekend while flying an R-22 [note: a Robinson training helicopter] at [local airport redacted]. I've been going out there Saturdays to regain my sanity and keep what little proficiency I have intact for when I restart my CFI training on my return home. I love doing running landings in the R22 if for no other reason than is seems so wrong to intentionally go sliding along on skids. Usually I aim for the numbers when doing them just because I like having a specific aiming point for touch down. For some reason my instructor suggested aiming for the intersection of runways 28 and 20. No problem - I do a shallow approach, aim for the near side of the intersection and touch down right where I aimed at about 35 knots. (In the R22 we try to touch down just at or above ETL [note: Effective Translational Lift – the airspeed at which the helicopter is actually flying rather than hovering] unless its a loss of tail rotor thrust kind of situation).
So I'm very pleased with myself as I'm lowering the collective for some braking action and putting in left cyclic and pedal to keep on center line and the pointy end forward. You know how once you touch down you need to use a _lot_ of cyclic and pedal, right? [note: Do I ever…] Well, about this time I notice there's a crown on the intersection favoring 20 - of course, I'm on 28... Interestingly enough the physics of the situation appears to be remarkably similar whether you're in a Bad A$$ Cobra or a wimpy R22. You go flying again rather suddenly. Now, I didn't have a psychotic cavitating hydraulic pump attempting to kill me, but I did have a whole lot of left cyclic and pedal in. Which became much more effective as the skids left the ground. Yep, lots of left yaw. I will admit that while one of my remaining brain cells was thinking about catching a skid at 30 knots or so sideways and the likely results, the other one did recall your TINS.
The similarity ends there of course, with no hydraulic system to fail and everything operating normally recovery was simply to pull a little pitch and straighten it out - nothing like your adventures. But I did get a better feel for at least one of them!
Stay safe!
[Pogue]
Heh – and I used to *complain* that you guys only remember the scary stuff I write…
