Monday, 10 April 2017

A home run

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.

:)

Tuesday, 5 July 2016

The rhythm of the rotor


Since I've been in Perth I've been continuing my percussion journey; learning the Djembe, Duns and Marimba. The rad group of people I get to play music with each week have listened to me talk about my dream of becoming a pilot and watched me get there. It was therefore a pretty special flight to take up Alastair, Deb and Warren around the city of Perth. Alastair was playing the thumb piano and praying to a god he doesn't believe in during the taxiing of the aircraft, but once airborne his fears fell away! 


The next flight could almost be viewed as my first flying job! Rotorvation asked if I'd like to ferry the chopper down to an event where they were doing scenic flights in Manjimup. It was the most southern location I've flown to in WA and the longest flight I've done in the R44. There and back for the weekend was 3.3 hours(!), and all at a very reduced rate compared with what I'm normally charged to fly the R44. The "Manjimup 15000" is a dirt motorbike racing weekend and Arron from Rotorvation was providing scenic flights. We flew down Saturday morning, camped overnight on Saturday (with temperatures dropping to about 1C!!) before flying back to Jandakot to make last light Sunday afternoon.





And then Emily visited! Another very close friend of mine (and another drummer) flew to Perth for a week. We've talked about this flight for a long time so having it come to fruition was awesome. Sue (yet another drummer mate) also came along for the ride.



Saturday, 14 May 2016

Clocking hours and sharing the good times


It's now been six months since I got my license and I have steadily been building my hours in the R44. It's been awesome; taking up friends and family to share the joy and show them the world from the unique view of a helicopter. In the previous post I had just been rated on the R44, and since then I have been building experience flying this machine, and flying with more than one passenger!

I started by taking up Steph and Ed, a couple of mates from the BoM for a scenic flight around the Perth city. I was glad to get this in before Ed choofed off to Sydney, bastard;)









My next flight was with my mates Pete and Max, also from work. We did a morning flight to Rotto (becoming a regular trip!) for a coffee and donut before returning around midday. The trendy vests we're wearing are not parachutes, they're life jackets! Just in case.



My folks then visited from Victoria and we did the same flight, out to Rotto for the day. It was a perfect Autumn day; sunny, low 30's and no sea breeze! We rode around the island and even got into the water for a bit.





The following week my six-month-pregnant sister visited. It was great seeing her glowing, looking beautiful and happy in this special moment in her life. Birchy and Nadine (more BoM mates!) were keen to go on a different flight than the others I'd done so we flew northeast to Northam for lunch (Est shotgunned front seat!). We flew over the forested area to the east of Perth, the Helena River Reservoir, and out over the farmlands towards the country town of Northam. We called the one taxi in town for a pub lunch before returning via Mount (pimple) Dale. There were some prescribed burns going on over the Hills on our return trip and we were able to fly beneath the smoke layer that these were producing, giving the sun a beautiful red glow. We were all fairly gobsmacked at the surreal scenery of flying over the forest, with a red sky above us and the Perth Metropolitan area on the horizon.















A good mate of mine from was visiting from Queensland. I went to Uni with Deano, through the met course and chased tornadoes in the USA with him back in 2013. He's by far the most passionate weather nut out there and always up for a good time. It was great being able to take him up and show him my new-found skills. My housemate, Callum, also tagged along for his second ride on Jonno airways.








Another Rotto trip was calling! I took a Catherine and Richard, a couple more friends from work and another mate, Will, who's been working in Kalgoorlie as a Geologist. Three meteorologists and a geologist made for a fairly nerdy day on the island! We also caught some footage on a GoPro that I'm hoping to upload soon...








And then just when I thought I couldn't fit another flight in, my housemate had some blow-ins from Scotland, Sarah and Steve, who had never visited Perth. I took them up for their first flight in a chopper and gave them the tour de Perth. A very lovely couple!