For you Medevac helicopter pilots I have a question.

I_Money said:
I think Mike would rather be saving people, than shaking the President's hand on CNN.
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I am sure that is the case as well and didn't mean to suggest that he would. I just always think/wish that when they make these worthless quickie pr pit stops, they would just bring the troops some goodies. Forget the speeches. Bring stuff. Not like they don't have the space on AF One to do so. Of course the ultimate gift would just be bringing them home.
 
A Life Aloft said:
It's no wonder I have never worked up the courage (much to the amusement of my friends) to even ride in one yet, let alone take a lesson on one. lmao I rather enjoy the flying along part better. As I have said before, circumnavigating typhoons at night across the Pacific, no biggie. Trying to even comprehend the controls of a helicopter, not so much. lol
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As an EMS helicopter pilot i'm working with over here in Mike's part of the world said... "this fixed wing flying is scary, the wing just sits there and does nothing! How are you supposed to know it's working? That's why when I'm done here, I'm going home back to flying helicopters."
 
I don't fly helicopters, but I worked at Air Force rescue and the helicopter pilots were trained to also do a one-wheel-hover (sorry I couldn't find an MH-60 doing it, but you get the point)
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I am also not a helicopter pilot (not that brave), but I'm regularly mistaken for one when I stop for a pack of smokes on the way home, thanks to the sauna suit. From what I can tell from talking to those dudes rather a lot, though, the things they worry about on scene flights are generally things that are a lot less obvious than giant buildings. Sounds to me like it's the little, hard to see stuff (road signs, power lines, etc) that keep them up late at night. For my part, I just say "better you than me, buddy".
 
You know its funny hearing everyones take on helicopter flying. Although I am flying FW now and haven't been in a helicopter in a while I still feel "safer" in a helicopter. I guess its because thats what I learned to fly in. A helicopter feels rock solid to me and it does what I tell it to exactly when I want it to (aslong as everything is working right). I have to say that I even enjoy flying instruments in helicopters more than airplanes. I know my feelings will slowly change and I will get very comfortable flying FW but a rotor will always have my heart:D
 
I would also imagine that the transition from only being and having learned on a fixed wing aircraft over to a helicopter would be rather difficult and I am guessing e would take longer until you could even solo. Different physics, controls, different input on those controls (seems like it's constant work and lighter touches, especially the peddles (which are anti torque - right there I am lost lol) and I imagine trying not to over control the ship is not easy to master?). I know it's still lift, thrust, weight, drag, but the whole cyclic thing.....way different from what I can barely gleam. I also believe (someone correct me if I am wrong) that the "thinking" when flying is different in a helicopter and the spatial skills needed. A helicopter seems more sensitive, difficult to handle and way less forgiving if you screw up and just so much more challenging to fly. There is no gliding in one. lol I also imagine that it's damn fun and very rewarding to become proficient at though. I especially enjoy watching for example, the crews on Coast Guard Alaska tv show and how they accomplish all the different types of maneuvers and rescues and in the wx and conditions from hell. Bigger brass than I own, certainly. Night ops would just be terrifying. Then the type of flying done in military helicopters and and the ops, even more incredible, at least to me. My hat's off to all the chopper pilots.
 
I_Money said:
Another good picture

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8363820@N02/503887070/
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That's impressive. From what I read in the comments they were rescuing a guy who crashed on a snowmobile. I remember hearing something years ago from a friend who was in sales at the time for Sikorsky, that they had some type of yearly award for pilots and their teams who fly their helicopters and that there had been millions of recuses performed over several decades just on their machines alone. Must be incredibly rewarding work.
 
I confess that I've considered trying to jump the line, because (let's be honest), flying in to an LZ and saving someone's life is way cooler than driving the bus. But here's the thing. I have a healthy respect for my own life. Plus when I say "EMS Pilot", everyone already thinks I fly a helicopter anyway. Win/Win. Yeah, I think I've pretty much got this thing figured out. Thank me later.
 
Boris Badenov said:
I am also not a helicopter pilot (not that brave), but I'm regularly mistaken for one when I stop for a pack of smokes on the way home, thanks to the sauna suit. From what I can tell from talking to those dudes rather a lot, though, the things they worry about on scene flights are generally things that are a lot less obvious than giant buildings. Sounds to me like it's the little, hard to see stuff (road signs, power lines, etc) that keep them up late at night. For my part, I just say "better you than me, buddy".
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It's the little things that will get you. Remote work (off-airport landings for you fixed-wing flyers) is one of the hardest things to learn IMO. When I was learning to fly helos at Ft Rucker, I thought my instructors were the most anal and queepy people there were...to the point that it made it seem like there was no enjoyment in flying the helicopter. But that "anal queepy-ness" (sounds like a side-effect from one of those drug commercials) is what keeps you alive when landing in non-airport environments.

Example: At Ft Rucker, I was preparing to land in a "hover hole" which is basically an opening in the forest slightly larger than the helicopter surrounded by 75-100' trees. I had landed there before and had run through the standard site survey and briefed the IP on the plan. He says, "Sounds good, I'll be ready to take the controls right around 50 feet." I missed the fact that it was fall and the small clearing was covered in about a foot or so of leaves. Right around 50 feet I was flying in a tornado of leaves and couldn't see a thing. IP took the controls and flew us out. I had a lesson learned.

That said, helo flying is still the best flying there is!
 
A Life Aloft said:
I also believe (someone correct me if I am wrong) that the "thinking" when flying is different in a helicopter and the spatial skills needed. A helicopter seems more sensitive, difficult to handle and way less forgiving if you screw up and just so much more challenging to fly. There is no gliding in one.
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The "thinking" is the same as in an airplane, just much more in depth in every dimension, IMO. In an airplane, the focus is on what's out there in front of you. In a helicopter, you're capable of flying in any direction, so you have to have a much better picture of the whole 360 degrees. I actually find that it's easier to maintain that picture in a helicopter since we tend to operate much slower and closer to the ground than most airplanes and are able to get much better detail.

Helicopters are definitely more sensitive. Any given input in a helicopter would probably have to be magnified 3x to have an effect in an airplane. This is where the "thinking" is different. You need only to think of where you want the helicopter to go and it'll be headed that direction. Any more than that and you'll really start over-controlling the aircraft. As my instructors said in training, "If you can see the cyclic moving, you're moving it too much."

Also, helicopters do glide! They're just horrible at it. From altitude (500'AGL and up), you actually have a lot of maneuverability. But you had better do whatever maneuver you need to do quickly, because you're looking at ~2500FPM descent rate. From low altitude, whatever you see around 1/4 mile in front of you is where you're going to land. Where helicopters have planes beat in engine failure situations is that they can crash land in very small spaces, whereas an airplane needs some amount of roll out surface and room.
 
The Fez said:
Where helicopters have planes beat in engine failure situations is that they can crash land in very small spaces, whereas an airplane needs some amount of roll out surface and room.
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Not is the airplane pilot puts the plane into a spin before crashing......then they're relatively the same. :D
 
A Life Aloft said:
I especially enjoy watching for example, the crews on Coast Guard Alaska tv show and how they accomplish all the different types of maneuvers and rescues and in the wx and conditions from hell. Bigger brass than I own, certainly. Night ops would just be terrifying. Then the type of flying done in military helicopters and and the ops, even more incredible, at least to me. My hat's off to all the chopper pilots.
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Consider this too, Gerry, that makes life easy: Instrument-wise, in helicopters, I could care less about VDPs on a non-precision instrument approach. I can drive in at MDA all the way to the MAP (where in a plane, you are past the VDP and any reasonable glidepath to landing), and continue down if I see the runway there.

Too, I care less about circling approaches; as Im not necessarily landing on a runway, so upon breakout I just go to my landing point. However in a heavier helicopter where a runway landing is necessary, upon breakout, I can continue descending to the runway, and at 50 AGL or lower, make an in-place turn over the runway, and land into the wind in any direction.
 
I'll never forget one late afternoon when we flew out a kid who go hit by a car. The fire chief on the ground said we could land, but it's going to be very narrow. The girl I was flying with that day said very narrow was good enough. We flew over the top, did our normal overhead observation of the LZ, then came back around to put her down. I have a picture somewhere that the fire chief took of the rotors with no more then a few feet of clearance all around. It was come little county road with nothing but trees all around.

Later that day we flew out a tractor-trailer driver who rolled his rig and was pinned. We landed and shut down waiting on them to extricate him out. They warned us the guy was a big boy. I didn't believe it. Long story short, we ended up having to leave a flight medic behind to get out of there.
 
MikeD said:
Consider this too, Gerry, that makes life easy: Instrument-wise, in helicopters, I could care less about VDPs on a non-precision instrument approach. I can drive in at MDA all the way to the MAP (where in a plane, you are past the VDP and any reasonable glidepath to landing), and continue down if I see the runway there.
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Just did that yesterday. Twice saw the threshold at the MAP on non precisions... Threw out the anchor and made it down no problem. I commented to my PI that we couldn't have done that in an airplane.
 
Meh, land on some rocks, the beach, the dirt, a wall, pavement, perching, landing on uneven surfaces, slopes, hell almost any surface, BFD! lmao (jk) Helicopters are amazing machines and the versatility of them, just endless, really. When you are competent at flying them, it must be a more (okay this will sound weird) sensual feeling, of being one with the machine in some ways and working with it. But it's constant work too and rather intense, it seems to me. Your hands and feet have to be going all the while, I am guessing. (again wtf do I know) And I think the lift off in itself and the "feel" you need to have for instance, to not roll her over is interesting in itself. Then there is that whole vortex ring state thing. That seems pretty ugly and I am still reading a bit about that. I haven't even figured out some of the terms yet that I have been trying to read about in regards to helicopter flying like translation lift, recirculation (which is something that can occur in low hovering in ground effects...I think?), retreating blade stalls and much more. It's difficult somewhat, because I am trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together from what I am picking up here and there to understand this type of flying better.

I am also trying to work up to going for a ride in one, at some point if I can find my cojones because I do find choppers so interesting and have watched them for so many decades at static displays and flying at various airshows and on certain tv shows. (like Alaska Coast Guard and shows about bush pilots and shows on the military channel, etc.) I can get in just about any kind of fixed wing aircraft and have the confidence and skills to fly just about any fixed wing plane, or learn to in a relatively short amount of time and I understand them inside and out, so I need to overcome my hesitance regarding choppers. I think it's that whole loss of control, (as a pax and I would be worthless, actually deadly lmao, in trying to fly one) and if anything happens, I am toast thingy. lol

I really like this thread though and I greatly appreciate all the pilots here who fly these machines, coming on here to educated the rest of us. The flying is just so different than anything I have ever done and it's fun to try and learn more about it and it's very interesting for me anyways. I can go on all day about radial engines for example, but helicopters....baby in the woods just trying to understand them better and the skills and physics involved in flying them.

I enjoyed this quote in an article I had read recently regarding flying choppers: "This is why being a helicopter pilot is so different from being an airplane pilot, and why in generality, airplane pilots are open, clear-eyed, buoyant extroverts and helicopter pilots are brooding introspective anticipators of trouble. They know if something bad has not happened it is about to."
 
A Life Aloft said:
It's difficult somewhat, because I am trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together from what I am picking up here and there to understand this type of flying better.
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I don't recommend you delve any further into anything helo-wise. You don't want to taint yourself! :)

I am also trying to work up to going for a ride in one, at some point if I can find my cojones because I do find choppers so interesting
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See above.
 
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