Flew a little helicopter today!

[Ian_J]

Its my last day in Florida today and having finished up my MEI the other day, I thought I'd treat myself to a flight in a helicopter. Went down to Air Orlando and flew a Scweizer 300CBI. Lots of fun, and guess what? I still know how to fly one of those little tail-rotor mosquito-looking things! The manual throttle took a little getting used to, but otherwise I felt very comfortable in it.

Did some hover work, autos, hovering autos, slope landings, and "fast stops" (we call them NOE decels). Man, helicopters are fun.

Oh yeah... brought my old helo logbook with me and as I was logging the flight I discovered I hadn't flown a helicopter in 2 years!

 

[I_WANNA_BE_ATP]

Looks like you had some fun!!!

 

[SeatClutcher]

I still think it looks more like a dragonfly.

Ooh - it would be really fun to see that thing next to a Chinook.

 

[scottyboy75]

Did you have a hard time not flying a traffic pattern?

 

[Ian_J]

Naw... we flew sort of a modified low altitude pattern "away from the flow of fixed-wing traffic." What was hard to get used to was that it took effort to get it up to 60 knots!

 

[scottyboy75]

Milking it for all the power it has got. I felt that flying the 300 was almost like driving a tractor.
Shane