Our first one broke outside the wire, with student and 'structor on board -- immediately after an in-flight Q&A about the myriad fling-wing engine malfunctions and their associated emergency procedures, the engine malfunctioned, in a manner reminiscent of FuzzyBear Lioness commenting on one of my squid-snarks.
Pthbbbbbppppt.
The appropriate emergency procedure was appropriately performed, and sometime after the (successful) autorotational landing and immediately prior to exiting the aircraft, the student poked the 'structor and pointed outside at the group of AK-armed individuals approaching, saying, "We have an audience."
A *friendly* audience, fortunately, and their backup began rolling into sight even before they got to the aircraft.
Army guys.
*Iraqi* Army guys. They'd been on patrol, saw the helicopter go down and come over to see who'd dropped in. Should've seen their faces when they found out one of the pilots was Iraqi. Instant collective confidence boost. Iraqi flags popped up on the vehicles and the troops spread out to secure the area until the cavalry -- in the form of one of our mechanics -- arrived. Then they all got together for a debrief. *We* taught them about the importance of a debrief -- what went right, what went wrong, what can be done differently or better.
US troops usually debrief back at The House. These guys did it on the spot.
Oh, yeah, the student pilot soloed yesterday. The last two in the class soloed this afternoon, and now the real work starts.
Scratch that. The real work was started a couple years ago -- we're already in the continuation phase...
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