Caco's trial helicopter flight.....

[fin]

Let me add my congrats to the others on your experience. I am attaching a photo of my one R-44 ride (the other ride, just to the left, just brought me thru the Panama Canal). My 'lessons' were on an R-22 and my very modest goal was to hover in ground effect with skids lifted and door removed for photo.

Maybe some here can confirm or deny that the extra axis of motion on Robinsons' cyclic make it harder to hover than ones without. I any event, a thoroughly humbling experience.

Did not know they even MADE an R-66 till we drove past one in Colorado and took a ride over Royal Gorge.

[Cacophonix]

Let me add my congrats to the others on your experience. I am attaching a photo of my one R-44 ride (the other ride, just to the left, just brought me thru the Panama Canal). My 'lessons' were on an R-22 and my very modest goal was to hover in ground effect with skids lifted and door removed for photo.

Maybe some here can confirm or deny that the extra axis of motion on Robinsons' cyclic make it harder to hover than ones without. I any event, a thoroughly humbling experience.

Did not know they even MADE an R-66 till we drove past one in Colorado and took a ride over Royal Gorge.

Cheers fin. They certainly are very twitchy aren't they? Although the instructor yesterday said that the R22 is the most twitchy of the Robinson types.

Sailing through the Gaillard/Culebra Cut in that vessel must have been quite an experience too!

Caco

[fin]

And a little South Africa connection as well. The Pit Boss in the ship casino was South African and we had become so friendly that, when he was unable to get off work to go watch us thru the lakes and locks, he loaned me his movie and still cameras to go up and take pix for him to enjoy when he got off work.

The following year, that ship became HQ for Katrina workers doing cleanup. Never heard whether the casino was open for that chore, but they are popular in South Mississippi!

[Cacophonix]

And a little South Africa connection as well. The Pit Boss in the ship casino was South African and we had become so friendly that, when he was unable to get off work to go watch us thru the lakes and locks, he loaned me his movie and still cameras to go up and take pix for him to enjoy when he got off work.

The following year, that ship became HQ for Katrina workers doing cleanup. Never heard whether the casino was open for that chore, but they are popular in South Mississippi!

We get Saffers get around fin as you clearly well know.

Years ago I worked for Chase based in New York and my Greek American NY boss, what a character he was (go well wherever you are Nick), sent me off to Dallas to manage some IT project in Chase's takeover of Texas Commerce Bank with the injunction, "not to go native", as he put it, because he knew that the countryside might make me homesick for parts of the Transvaal, which he also knew as well. It was my first trip to that part of the world and Nick was right, the countryside was very familiar but the first person I spoke to in Dallas was the South African hotel receptionist who handed me over to the bellhop who was also South African!

You can't escape us, we are like the measles!

Anyway I digress, just about as badly as I did while "hovering" in the R44.

Caco

[fin]

Do NOT want to hijack thread, but as we are in rotary, just a couple of my more memorable flights as a passenger:

First ever off the ground, age 15...Sikorsky H-19 LaGuardia to Idlewilde
Passenger in flight of 11 for a funeral flyover
Ice patrol
Long Distance triangle course for student pilot
And most memorable, recovering an officer from Fresh Kills, Staten Island in Sept 2001 who had spent 12 hours sifting wreckage recovering body parts.

[Cacophonix]

Do NOT want to hijack thread, but as we are in rotary, just a couple of my more memorable flights as a passenger:

First ever off the ground, age 15...Sikorsky H-19 LaGuardia to Idlewilde
Passenger in flight of 11 for a funeral flyover
Ice patrol
Long Distance triangle course for student pilot
And most memorable, recovering an officer from Fresh Kills, Staten Island in Sept 2001 who had spent 12 hours sifting wreckage recovering body parts.

I take it you were in the US Coast Guard fin?

Caco

[Cacophonix]

The video kicks off about halfway through the flight and picks up after having done basic control instruction, checks and take off and some general handling and just after I handed back control to take a few photos of a landmark known to me and continues from there...

For those who have +- 23.29 minutes to waste.

I have left my real name on the YouTube video (misspelled as it is) as I don't care who knows who I really am, having posted here on ops-normal.org under my real name in the past anyway.

All constructive criticism and laughter would be welcomed!



Caco

[CharlieOneSix]

Well done Caco! A little bit of pilot induced oscillation in roll in the cruise but to be expected on your first trip - and I don't think it's helped by the horrible pivoting cyclic control arrangement on Robinsons. The hovering using cyclic only for a first attempt was much better than I've seen many folk do. Now all you've got to do is add the pedals for heading control and collective for height control. That's when the fun really starts when you have to mix all three controls in the hover ! Incidentally I think you've got yourself a good instructor there.

Maybe you could get yourself a Go-Pro to record your subsequent trips.......if you ask T nicely and if Thurston would permit it to replace their own.

[Cacophonix]

You are right CharlieOneSix I was over controlling like mad. As you say Phil the instructor gave me an easy time in the hover and I still managed to make a hash of it. He seems like a really good instructor and I took an immediate liking to him. I will do my best to become a good helicopter pilot and it won't be his fault if I don't.

Any tips from the pro's like you and FD2 will be gratefully accepted and, hopefully absorbed, by me. I will ask them about the Go Pro and will make my request to your kind self in person this weekend.

Caco

[CharlieOneSix]

Looking forward to meeting up with you, Caco! I don't mind contributing generalities about helicopter flying but the definitive way to do things ought to come from Phil, especially as I've never flown an R44. I'd hate to step on his toes and say something he disagrees with - the resultant conflicting advice wouldn't help you at all!

[Cacophonix]

Looking forward to meeting up with you, Caco! I don't mind contributing generalities about helicopter flying but the definitive way to do things ought to come from Phil, especially as I've never flown an R44. I'd hate to step on his toes and say something he disagrees with - the resultant conflicting advice wouldn't help you at all!

That seems fair enough CharlieOneSix!

I still like the Go Pro idea, not least because I can see how I am flying or not as the case may be and one can go back after a debrief and look and think about the sortie and try and do better next time.

Caco

[fin]

If this works, it'll make you (and Phil) feel pretty good.....

[Cacophonix]

Poor bloke! I shouldn't laugh but think of the hubris or ignorance that made him think he could head off without a by your leave or a qualified instructor next to him.

I will endeavour not to do this!

Caco

[FD2]

Good job Caco! Echo what C16 says about not second guessing what your instructor tells you. It will get easier quickly as you learn to respond more appropriately to excursions in the four axes. We all over-controlled to start with.

[CharlieOneSix]

An extreme example of overcontrolling for you, Caco.....

A CH-53E Sea Stallion attempting to refuel from a KC135 tanker...

[Cacophonix]

An extreme example of overcontrolling for you, Caco.....

A CH-53E Sea Stallion attempting to refuel from a KC135 tanker...

Yikes, I assume that they make those refuelling probes frangible in order to stop the probes taking the rotors off in cases like this...?

Caco

[Boac]

I'll never forget the advice I was given at RAF Shawbury on my pre-Harrier Whirlwind course: At the stage of 'spot-hovering' and 360 turns in the hover ('spot' in my case being about 1 acre... ). Totally over-hyped-up was I and over-controlling like a madman, and the QHI quoth

"Make your arse-hole smile"

Magic tuition!! It worked.'

[CharlieOneSix]

Yikes, I assume that they make those refuelling probes frangible in order to stop the probes taking the rotors off in cases like this...?

Caco - that theory of helicopter aerodynamics book you have with all the maths formulas, I'm sure there will be one where you can deduce the tip speed in mph if you know the rotor diameter and the rotor speed in rpm. I don't know those figures for a CH53 incidentally. From the depths of my grey cells I think around 350-400mph for an average helicopter main rotor tip speed isn't going to be far out. Frangible or not, I don't think a refuelling probe is going to resist that!

The helicopter would maybe need an inspection of gearboxes and drive trains when it got back to base because effectively they will have suffered a sudden stop - even though that will have been for microseconds.

[Cacophonix]

Yikes, I assume that they make those refuelling probes frangible in order to stop the probes taking the rotors off in cases like this...?

Caco - that theory of helicopter aerodynamics book you have with all the maths formulas, I'm sure there will be one where you can deduce the tip speed in mph if you know the rotor diameter and the rotor speed in rpm. I don't know those figures for a CH53 incidentally. From the depths of my grey cells I think around 350-400mph for an average helicopter main rotor tip speed isn't going to be far out. Frangible or not, I don't think a refuelling probe is going to resist that!

The helicopter would maybe need an inspection of gearboxes and drive trains when it got back to base because effectively they will have suffered a sudden stop - even though that will have been for microseconds.

I don't know the average rotor RPM for the Sea Stallion @ refuelling cruise speed but the maths goes like this (I think)...

https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/h-53.htm

Caco corrected cack.JPG (29.38 KiB) Viewed 540 times

Multiply by 0.0372 to get speed in miles per hour.


Caco

[Cacophonix]

Yikes, I assume that they make those refuelling probes frangible in order to stop the probes taking the rotors off in cases like this...?

Caco - that theory of helicopter aerodynamics book you have with all the maths formulas, I'm sure there will be one where you can deduce the tip speed in mph if you know the rotor diameter and the rotor speed in rpm. I don't know those figures for a CH53 incidentally. From the depths of my grey cells I think around 350-400mph for an average helicopter main rotor tip speed isn't going to be far out. Frangible or not, I don't think a refuelling probe is going to resist that!

The helicopter would maybe need an inspection of gearboxes and drive trains when it got back to base because effectively they will have suffered a sudden stop - even though that will have been for microseconds.

I don't know the average rotor RPM for the Sea Stallion @ refuelling cruise speed but the maths goes like this (I think)...

https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/h-53.htm


See Excel spreadsheet screenshot above...


Multiply by 0.0372 to get speed in miles per hour.


Caco

So let's assume (CharleOneSix does that seem reasonable for a big heavy bird like the CH53?) a blade tip rotational speed of, say, between 150 revolutions at the low and 200 revolutions the high end, using that calculation above, gives a tip speed range of betweeen +- 461 and +- 615 miles an hour!

The formula for calculating the Mach number is:

Mach Number :
M = v/a

Object Speed :
v = M*a
Speed of Sound :
a = v/M

Where,
M = Mach Number,

v = Object Speed,
a = Speed of Sound.

So assuming an ISA standard atmosphere at sea level (for a gross approximation) then the speed of sound will be +- 761 miles per hour so (assuming 200 revolutions per minute at the high end) that is 615/761 which is +- Mach 0.8!

Plenty fast enough.

Of course if I am wrong and the CH53's blade is whirling around at the high end at say 250 revolutions per minute then you get 768/761 which is +-Mach 1.009 and those blade tips have gone supersonic.

With thanks to:

Basic Helicopter Aerodynamics.JPG (33.27 KiB) Viewed 530 times

Caco