Unpaved Freedom
Flying takes time to build experience. It takes flight hours for a Private, more flight hours for Commercial, keep going for an Instrument rating.....and more flight hours for a Turbine Rating. And as pilots fly more and more, they build experience to "out-weigh their 'bag of luck'" - as I have heard from pilots as they re-tell their "close calls" to me. "There is no 'bag of luck', only experience and good decision making" is the other way to understand pilot 'close calls'.
From hearing stories from pilots, I wanted to learn to fly. I couldn't say when exactly, but when I asked what brought others to flying, most would say they were simply drawn to helicopters (not fixed-wing), and one thing led to another. Certain people, certain moments led them to start flying.
Wanting to fly is one thing. Most pilots will agree, flying is arduous - but a hell-of-a-lot of fun! Going through the ups and downs, both persistently and studiously, whether training is Part 141 or Part 61, and especially in the lively and sensitive training helicopter - the Robinson 22 - can also be a self-defining lesson in the type of pilot being shaped.
I've met some extraordinary helicopter pilots who have been humbled by flight. "There's always some pilot who flies 'better' than me, someone flying in other operations more advanced than what I'm doing," said one humble CFII.
Here's the thing, helicopters are inherently unstable. The many axes of instabilities make flying challenging. But I couldn't hold back that urge.
So, after some flight hours and ground school, I asked how can my human brain manage to fly 3 degrees of rotation? Managing 3 rotations of the - yaw, pitch and roll that translates into pitch rotation, forward/aft translation and climb/descent - that's 3 degrees of freedom (DOF). Airplanes have 3 degrees of freedom. For helicopters, now add the next 3, which are roll rotation, left/right translation, and right/left pedal rotation. What makes helicopters unique from other aircrafts is the cross coupling of 6 degrees of freedom.
It's true, our human brain can control 3 DOF. We can balance objects vertically, and we control larger objects easier than smaller objects. However, flying helis take on 6 DOF, noted above, and as I realized more and more when I fly, I am anticipating every one of those rotations and translations in my head (the mental part). For instance in a hover, with a slight pressure on the cyclic, anticipating any movement into translational lift, the pilot anticipates the next steady pitch, to the next tilt, to the next thrust generating a longitudinal acceleration into velocity.
Hold on..... I'm neglecting an essential part of flying.....it's the "feeling" (body or as$ flying). Perhaps you heard pilots say, I get 'feedback' from the machine, or I know how it feels without looking at the instruments or that 'brisk walk' we are often told when keeping a steady rate of closure, or it's that 'feeling' when a maneuver feels the way it should, when a descent 'feels' like a normal descent. The problem is, words can only go so far in instruction. Mathematical equations can can only supply a controlled explanation of hover to forward flight with moments, angles and linear accelerations.
So when does the pilot start to realize that he/she has a feel for flying? And when pilots start flying as student pilots, is that feeling only present in their early years of flying but now has been redefined as pilots continue on in their careers with more instrument flying, stabilized augmentated system, 3-axis and 4-axis autopilots?
I thought it might be worthwhile to write about how pilots understand what it means to 'hand fly the machine' or feeling the feedback from the machine as they fly or what does it mean when pilots say 'it's a feeling'. Put in an another way, "Fly with your as$." The postings below are about flying, and since flying encompasses everything from the pilot's personality to the type of operation, not least, the weather, the flight environment and so on, I'll try to make sure the postings are not laden with too much of one thing but with some substance and wide ranging experiences, and light-hearted one liners from pilots.
This site are postings of what pilots say. And a bit of my own reflection from what I hear from them referring to my experiences thus far. And because helicopter pilots don't need runways, these pilots have a different perspective on flying and on life. Helicopter pilots constantly make decisions in flight and all the way down to when the skids or wheels hit the ground, and extends to when the aircraft is in the hangar or tied down, and even that there might be.......The point is, helicopter flying gives a sense of freedom and often hard to explain.
The first posting was inspired from a Old Timer Pilot flying in Northeast Nigeria.
