Anything that screws itself into the sky flies according to unnatural principles. Consequently, old high-time helicopter pilots are a bundle of tightly screwed nerves.

Never sneak up behind one and clap your hands. He will instantly dive for cover and most likely whimper … then get up and smack you.

There are no old helicopters lying around airports like you see old airplanes. There is a reason for this. Come to think of it, there are no old helicopter pilots either.

You can always tell a helicopter pilot on a train, airliner, or in a car. He is the one who never smiles because he is listening for the significant sound that tells him there is a problem with the engine.

Helicopter pilots fly in a mode of intensity, actually more like “spring loaded,” while waiting for pieces of their ships to fall off. Flying a helicopter at any altitude over 500 feet is considered reckless and should be avoided. In fact, flying at any altitude that precludes a landing in less than 20 seconds is downright foolhardy because you have about one second to lower the collective in an engine failure before it becomes unrecoverable. Once you’ve failed this maneuver, the machine flies about as well as a 20-case Coke machine. A perfectly executed autorotation only gives you a glide ratio slightly better than that of a cement building block.

When the blades of your rotor are leading, lagging, flapping, and moving faster than your fuselage, there’s something unnatural going on. While hovering, if you start to sink a bit, you pull up on the collective while twisting the throttle. Simultaneously, you push with your left foot (more torque) and move the stick left to hold your spot. If you now need to stop rising, you do the opposite in that order.

When you feel a sinking sensation in your gut (low “g” pushover), you are instantly reminded that you are flying a two-bladed, under slung, teetering rotor system, and you are about to do a snap roll to the right and crash. As a matter of fact, any aerobatic maneuver should be avoided. Don’t push your luck. It will run out soon enough anyway.

If everything is working fine on your helicopter, consider yourself temporarily lucky; something is about to break.

The thing is helicopters are different from airplanes. An airplane, by its nature, wants to fly, and if not interfered with by unusual conditions or by an incompetent pilot, it will fly. A helicopter does not want to fly. It is maintained in the air by a variety of forces and controls working in opposition to each other, and if there is any disturbance in this delicate balance, the helicopter stops flying. There is no such thing as a gliding helicopter.

This is why, in general, airplane pilots are open, clear-eyed, buoyant extroverts and helicopter pilots are brooding, introspective anticipators of trouble. They know that if something bad has not happened, it is about to. Remember the fighter pilot’s prayer: “Lord, I pray for the eyes of an eagle, the heart of a lion, and the balls of a helicopter pilot.”

from The Cam Journal
Central Arizona Modelers Inc.
Marvin Hinton, editor
Sedona AZ