Chasing a Private License

     If I am going to be a helicopter pilot, I must begin somewhere. The first task at hand is finding a school and getting my private license. After much research and prayer, God gave me an incredible opportunity to get my license without having to move or quit my job!

    My CFI (Certified Flight Instructor) is Wesley Rhodes. We worked together hour after hour, day after day, week after week to build my skills and knowledge for my exam. In order to earn a FAA Private Pilot Helicopter license, the student must complete a minimum of 40 flight hours plus be proficient in the knowledge necessary to pass the exhaustive exam. While 40 hours may sound brief (after-all most of us work at least this many hours each week), at the beginning of training, fatigue sets in after less than an hour of flight. As the student progresses they build a tolerance and can fly longer and longer, but this takes time. At the end of my training, the longest flight I was capable of was 3 hours.

     To begin, I practiced control of the yaw pedals (turn of the fuselage around the rotor axis) in isolation. After this, I attempted to control the collective (the control that increases the pitch of all main rotor blades collectively providing lift) by itself. This was a bit more tricky as each collective input directly affects the yaw of the aircraft. After this, I took control of the cyclic (the instrument that increases the pitch of the rotor blades at certain points in its cycle of rotation) alone. The cyclic is by far the most tedious instrument to manage. Inputs must be precise and almost predictive or else the helicopter behaves like a drunk pendulum. Finally I began taking control of all the instruments at once.  

     After hours of practicing approaches, slope landings, auto rotation, stuck pedal, hover autos, confined, and on and on, I had the required hours and felt prepared to take my exam.