The last time I flew a helicopter in Melbourne was the first time I'd ever flown a helicopter. That is to say that I did my first (yes I've done more than one) "trial introductory flight" (TIF) at Moorabbin about 8 years ago, and it was this flight which allowed me to realise exactly what I wanted to do with my life. So to return to the so-called launching pad to continue my flying adventure was but a milestone.
A helicopter company won't just look at my commercial helicopter licence and allow me to fly their machine, no it's never that easy with aviation. Understandably they want to see that I can navigate my way around the local airport, fly their machine safely and put the thing on the ground in the case of an emergency (e.g. engine failure). In the aviation world it is illegal to practice emergencies such as engine failures without an instructor (unless of course you're an instructor yourself), so since I haven't flown with an instructor since my flight test in October 2015, I also haven't practised this event since then. As a commercial pilot, I have to undergo a biannual flight review to brush up on my emergencies and ensure my flying is sitting at the standard it needs to be at. So, although it hadn't yet been the two years since I received my licence, when I booked in some flying with a company at Moorabbin recently they said that I may as well just do my biannual flight review with them and that will kill two birds with one stone - getting ticked off for another two years and showing them I can fly which in-turn allows me to hire their machines. Throw in the mix that I hadn't flown at all for two months, I was feeling pretty nervous about this flight.
Charlie Uniform November, my Melbourne ride... |
It was a typical Melbourne day of weather with stream showers blowing in with the fresh southwesterly post-frontal airmass. Nevertheless the winds were steady, albeit strong, and most of the shower activity stayed just southeast of the aerodrome. After doing the daily check of the new machine, an R44 (pictured), and filling her up, I jumped in next to my instructor and slowly started going through the start procedure. In Perth I had got to the stage where I didn't need to refer to the start card, but time rusts skills like this.
Once airborne I went through the motions of doing a basic circuit. Then we practised doing a limited power landing. Next it was time to jump into the emergencies: tail rotor failure in the hover, engine failure in the hover, engine failure whilst taxiing, engine failure at height and jammed controls. These are all things that I worked on over and over again whilst doing my licence, and generally only one or two per lesson, and here I was doing each of them one after the other without much time to think about them. I also showed my instructor spot turns, slope landings, crosswind, tailwind and headwind landings and finished the flight off with a governor-off circuit back to the landing pad. It was an intense check ride of 1.2 hours, and certainly not the best flying I've ever done, but it went well enough and I was granted the right to hire their machine - an awesome relief :)
How do you think a man who has dreamed about flying his whole life celebrates such an achievement? Yeah, that's right, he hits the skies again! So the following weekend I'm preparing for my maiden voyage around the Mornington Peninsula, my childhood and adolescent grounds, in a helicopter. In the days leading up to it I'd pored over the local maps, planned the route, looked up the appropriate sections of documentation to ensure I was allowed to fly over certain areas, then viewed the route in Google Earth (GE). GE is here to stay and is such a valuable navigation tool to look at before a pilot leaves the deck. By checking map to GE you can already get the image in your head of what you'll see at different sections of the flight.
The heavens shined on us this time. The skies were relatively clear, but a strong northwesterly was gusting over Victoria ahead of the next weather system moving in from the west later that afternoon. I prepped the helicopter, and welcomed aboard my two brothers and mum for their first flight (second for mum) in a chopper, and my first solo chopper flight in Vic. So much had had to come to fruition for this moment. With everyone strapped in we embarked on our slightly bumpy ride, given the 30 knots of northwesterly flow over the local terrain, around the Peninsula. The oceanic stretch of coastline between Point Nepean at the Port Phillip Bay heads and Cape Shank, the southern most tip of the Peninsula, was one of the most beautiful coastlines I've flown to date. I'll say no more about the flight as words don't do it justice, but perhaps this video may.
:) |