First Salad Shooter Lesson

Grum.Man

Grum.Man

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Grum.Man
I've had a gift card for a while now for an introductory helicopter lesson. I finally remembered enough ahead of time to get it scheduled for this Friday. Any tips from the whirlybird crowd among us? I've heard they are more sensitive than one would expect. I assume it will be in an R22.
 
Small, quick inputs. For every action, there's a reaction that must counter it. Example, increase collective, start to feed in a little left pedal. Hovering will be a bit frustrating but it'll still be fun trying to get the hang of it.

They're slow and inefficient but the ability to operate out of the places they go is priceless. Just departed off the middle of an interstate about an hour ago. Have a blast!
 
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I always thought the salad shooter was this thing:

Hiller_VZ-1_Pawnee_%282%29.jpg
 
Don't squeeze the grip. It needs room to breath as my instructor told me. Keep your hand near the stick and just will it into doing what you want.
 
I have flown left seat in an R22, and R44. Both arms folded across my chest, afraid to touch anything, or even breath. :)

They are a blast. It felt like an amusement park ride to me, and I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. Other than that, they have no reason to be "flying" if that is what you can call it, and they make a lot of noise, and wind. :)
 
Early advice I was given. Just "think" about what you want the aircraft to do. That is to say don't make deliberate inputs to try to achieve what you think you want. Rather than pushing the cyclic and holding it in a deflected position, just do very small (we're talking 1/4 inch deflections and return to neutral {which is constantly changing based on wind velocity and direction!}) incremental little nudges.

No matter what you do, you'll completely suck, everyone does initially. Go have fun!!! It's a different ball of wax.
 
Where are you taking the lesson? There is so much more fixed wing flying that I want to do and ratings to pursue but I'd like to get a few hours of helicopter time just for the fun of it.

Heck I've done so many other things with helicopters that it would be a shame not to fly one a little. I've worked on them, flew on them, did some door gunner training, rapelled from them and skydived from them. Gotta fly one a little.
 
SkyDog58 said:
Where are you taking the lesson? There is so much more fixed wing flying that I want to do and ratings to pursue but I'd like to get a few hours of helicopter time just for the fun of it.

Heck I've done so many other things with helicopters that it would be a shame not to fly one a little. I've worked on them, flew on them, did some door gunner training, rapelled from them and skydived from them. Gotta fly one a little.
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Come over to Sevier County Choppers in Gatlinburg. Pretty decent sized school there. I took a short demo ride there a few years back.
 
Free crack cocaine ! What could possibly go wrong ?
 
SkyDog58 said:
Where are you taking the lesson? There is so much more fixed wing flying that I want to do and ratings to pursue but I'd like to get a few hours of helicopter time just for the fun of it.

Heck I've done so many other things with helicopters that it would be a shame not to fly one a little. I've worked on them, flew on them, did some door gunner training, rapelled from them and skydived from them. Gotta fly one a little.
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Total flight solutions in Louisburg. Idk that it will turn into full on license training but will be a fun day to fly the venture and get some rotor time.

A friend of mine finally started his float plane training out of Lake Norman. Called Piedmont puddle jumpers, look them up and get you float plane rating.
 
Grum.Man said:
Total flight solutions in Louisburg. Idk that it will turn into full on license training but will be a fun day to fly the venture and get some rotor time.

A friend of mine finally started his float plane training out of Lake Norman. Called Piedmont puddle jumpers, look them up and get you float plane rating.
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Already have my ASES. I am wanting to get my AMES. I have communicated with Pudfle Jumpers to get some additional time. Unfortunately they won't do solo rentals.
 
Ryanb said:
Come over to Sevier County Choppers in Gatlinburg. Pretty decent sized school there. I took a short demo ride there a few years back.
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is that where you're based? I still have to hit KDKX/Calhoun's and also trying to get up to 6A4 to play a round over at redtail mountain.
 
eman1200 said:
is that where you're based? I still have to hit KDKX/Calhoun's and also trying to get up to 6A4 to play a round over at redtail mountain.
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It's not, I'm based down at 1A0/KFGU. DKX&GKT is about a ~40 minute flight away.
 
I have a little R22 time and I would love to pursue the rating but I don't see it being practical. Expensive, slow, I can't really afford to own one and I don't have anywhere I can land it.

I have thought that maybe I could buy/afford one of the single seat experimental helis and just chopper in to work every day.
 
I used to have to ride them around to oil rigs and drilling rigs in the Gulf o' Mexico, hated every minute of it and even had the pleasure of collecting the bits of wreckage from three of them when they missed the platforms. They don't float for ****e(even with the self actuating airbags installed)
 
Well got .6 hours of R22 time in the logs. It was nothing like I was expecting but fun none the less. Some takeaways.... it's hard to not use airplane inputs in helicopters. Kept wanting to push on the cyclic if I started gaining altitude. There's no control feel and while a little movement gets a lot of change in attitude, it's a delayed reaction. Finally got the hang of it and could hover for 30 seconds before it would get away from me and I would have to reset. Hover taxied back to the pad on my own. We did an auto rotation and went out over a local pond.

All in all I highly recommend the experience for anyone. Had a nice 30 minute leisurely flight over in the Venture at 184kts TAS @ 8.5 gph at 4500ft. Great day of flying and hovering.
 
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