Training Blog

[new guy]

it's good to hear that every thing is going good keep it up. :up:

 

so i guess with all the down time due to this stupid weather (sorry normal weather) you have been doing alot of studing at charbucks???!!!

[Cole]

Seems our friend Matt is addicted to starbucks. I can see him shutting down his trusty R22 on his long Xcountry and running for the nearest little pilots room.

[Cole]

Unless he falls off the face of the planet... if you dont post soon im sending a search crew.

 

I got Wx'd out this morning (MAX .5 Vis, 6 inches of snow today- eew)

Guess Im gonna have to try again next week

[Mustache Gear]

so i guess with all the down time due to this stupid weather (sorry normal weather) you have been doing alot of studing at charbucks???!!!

Don't knock the weather...with out it 90% of people wouldn't be able to start a conversation.

[Cole]

No offence to anyone, but I would rather go flying then sit at my computer.

 

Something I have to remember though, I would rather be down here wishing I was up there, then up there wishing I was down here.

 

Matt will post soon, I have a "feeling" haha. (Lets see, how many coffee's does Matt have to get for free befor he posts, mabey it doesnt have anything to do with the coffe, mabey its just being generally prevoked on a public website haha)

[matt_as350]

Well It's been a week since my last entry, and I'm glad to report I flew 2 flights 1 Solo and 1 with the CFI, If I recall correctly, so for the rest of the time it was ground school, this time on Nav, which was all review for me and I just planned out some nav trips.

 

It's amazing how much you lose "it" after a few days/weeks of not flying but it comes back to you so quickly after a few minutes or an hour or so and you are back into the "groove" of things.

 

As you all know I have been working on the Confined Areas, particulary the High recce, and the Low Recce and the dummy approach, all challenging things at first but with a certain resemblance to the Precautionary Landings in fixed wing (The Recce's and the questions you ask of your selected landing area), and the High/Low Recce's are doing fine but it's on the dummy approach that I am finding myself not extending far enough on the downwind and ending up too high when I should be lower for the dummy approach.

 

With my flight with the CFI on Friday, we corrected that problem (Not extending far enough on downwind), and started doing landing's in to the confined's and those were fine, also doing turns around the tail and take off's and set down's in the confined areas (pretty big confined's at this point still). Also was taught how to read the wind if their is no visible wind (reading the difference between GPS G/S and IAS and A/C Drift as well).

 

I unfortunately did not get any new pictures or video's this week other then the sunrise shots I posted in the Photos From the Field thread), but I will try my best this upcoming week. The upcoming flights will be 2 Solo practicing the High/Low/Dummy/and final approach (no landings in confined areas solo yet) then another flight with the CFI to check my progress. Ended the week with, 34 hours or so If I recall correctly.

 

 

Well, That concludes this edition of Matt's training blog, coming to you live from the now SNOWY :shock: West Coast!

 

Also, Here's a link to the sunrise photo's I took this week.

Matt's Sunrise Photos

 

 

Matt

[Cole]

Good stuff, now were good lol. Keep 'em coming Matt

[matt_as350]

:up: Well Another Week in the history books, a very productive week even though I only had 3 flights, but they were good flights.

 

This week I was concentrating on the Confined Approach, specifically the High/Low Recce's and the Dummy Approach and Maneuvering in a Confined Area. I had a tendency to end up too high on my dummy approach and have to overshoot,

and come in at the proper height on the 2nd pass. On my 2 solo flights I corrected that problem of being too high on approach (No not that kind of high ) and on my last flight I nailed all of the confined areas, at the correct height, speed and to the spot I intended to come into a hover at, that was a good feeling of accomplishment. The circle around the confined (on the recce's) was initially a little "non-circle" but on the 2 solo flights, I corrected this problem and again, On my last flight I flew nice circles around all of my confined areas, again, a good feeling of accomplishment to have that tendency fixed. I just need to relax when I'm coming in for landing, the last few feet I seem to get nervous then I screw up what would of been a nice landing, as my CFI says "just reeelllaaaxxx" so I will have to try that :shock: I think I was just focusing too close to the machine as opposed to a point a little further away.

 

On another note, I attended a company christmas party (For the company I use to work for before I started Flight Training) and it was very nice, Just reminds me of what a great industry that I am getting into and the great people that you meet in this business :up: :up:

 

Didn't manage to get any good quality videos or pictures this week so I will try again next week.

 

Until then....Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the next edition of Matt's Training Blog: Episode: Sloped Ground Landings! :up: :up:

[Snowroller]

Keep them blogs coming "blog" 350,need more updates there "egg in training"

[matt_as350]

Well Well, I know it has been awhile since my last posting, I wanted to wait till I had a few things to talk about. The last 2 weeks have been interesting, as you know we have had some interesting weather here on the "Wet and now Snowy Coast" But I did manage to get in a few flights, and refine everything even more and correct one problem with how I was holding the cyclic and of course ground school and studying and doing a few practice exams for the big written. Didn't get to do sloped landings lesson yet due to the weather, but it's coming though.

 

I covered 3 Solo's focusing on Confined's, 1 Dual flight on Take Off's and Landing (Correcting that cyclic positioning error I mentioned), 2 Dual Nav X-Countries and One Solo Nav X-Country.

 

The Solo flights focusing on Confined's are getting better, I am getting more efficient at going through the Six S's and I have not been too high or too low on my approaches, so it's "just right" and my circles are circles and the altitudes and airspeeds are consistent.

 

The Dual flight on Take Off's and Landings was to correct a problem with how I was holding the cyclic as the R22 has the ever so nice "T Bar Cyclic" and I was holding the cyclic when I was solo in such a way that I did not have alot of movement with my wrist and the movement was restricted somewhat because of this, and it was affecting my take off's and landings, It only developed over a few flights solo and it was just because I had to hold the cyclic alot more forward and to the left so it changed my positioning of where my hand held the cyclic, but over one flight we fixed that into the position it is supposed to be in all the time, and I am use to the new better way of doing things and it is working for me.

 

The Dual Nav X-Countries, were nice, it was just getting back into the swing of things (map reading, etc.) since it is just basically a review (a good review though) of map reading and all that nav procedures, we also threw a diversion in their, and that went well, nothing new for me here.

 

The Solo X-Country was good, the route was a interesting one, the first leg was following islands and the coast and the 2nd leg was through hills so that was interesting reading the map from that to confirm positions and such,did not have any problems though so that was good, On the first leg I had a projected G/S of 85 but in Reality when I was flying it I had roughly a 30 knot headwind......when the F/D for that time and altitude (3000) was predicted for 17 knots. But it was good none the less and I enjoyed it, and getting back into the swing of navigating and map reading, etc solo and the flight went smoothly save for some light turbulence which didn't last too long anyways.

 

One of the flights that I did solo for the confineds, I flew Dual with the instructor from our base to the Airport, dropped the Instructor off on the heli pad, and then went off solo, and then came back to the airport and landed at the helipad, picked up the instructor and flew back to base, and this flight, the entire flight was so smooth, all the confines, dummy approaches, landings at the helipad at the airport (no hover landings) as well as the take off's and the ones from the base as well, everything was spot on and done well, I was very happy with myself for the flight, and the landing back at base, no hover, was In my humble opinion, nicely done. :up: it felt good all around that flight, one of my best and favorite flights with regard to performance.

 

All in all, it was a good and productive 2 weeks :up: , for a total of around 48 TT (Heli)

 

 

So, Onward and Upward and stay tuned for the next edition of Matt's training blog.

 

 

Thanks for reading! Fly Safe and Have a good day.

 

Matt