Fight Training Phase 1C

Practicing At Home

This was it, D Day for solo hovering our own ship without anyone in the other seat to save my ass if I screwed up.

That first pick up was one I'll never forget as long as I live lol. We hauled our ship out to the local airport here in town and arranged a spot for our trailer and a flying area for practicing to hover.  We did a major preflight on the ship checking everything out on the list.  All that done it was time to go for it and it all went down hill from there.

First step was to gas up the ship. We had a hell of a experience doing it and spilled fuel onto and inside our ship. What happened was we poured 6 gallons of fuel in the pilots side tank. We then tried to do the same to the passengers side fuel tank with a large funnel jammed into the tank inlet.  We preceded to dump the 6.5 gallon can into the tank and after about 3 gallons the funnel began backing up.  Before I could stop the fuel reached very near to the top rim of the funnel and fuel started leaking out between the fuel tank inlet and the funnel. There was nothing we could do but watch as the funnel drained inside the ship running down the seatback and into the cabin through the passengers seatback access panels. When it stopped we had what seemed to be a gallon of fuel rolling around in the bottom of the tub. First thing in the mad rush to get the fuel out was to put the wheels on and tip the ship back on its tail to allow the fuel to drain out the back of the tub. That got alot of it out but there was still a quart or two left flowing around in it because of that aluminum tube glassed into the rear of the tub. Next thing we did was remove the RH cyclic access panel to see where the fuel was puddling up at. We then punched a small hole into the bottom of the tub to allow the fuel to drain out. Wow, what a first day we had. We spent the rest of that day cleaning up the mess which wasn't easy. Here's what we think happened to us. A friend that was helping us with this operation had, unknowingly to us, reinstalled the pilots side fuel cap. We're pretty sure that's what caused the fuel to back up. With a funnel tightly inserted into the tank and no vent on the other side the fuel didn't have much choice but to back up into the funnel. This one incidence was what prompted us to make our fuel cart. Even standing on a ladder, trying to dump a 45 lb, 6.5 gallon can of fuel in the ship is tough to do.

The next morning we were at it again. We rolled the ship out of the trailer to the heli pad and repeated yesterdays procedures. We took our sweet time topping the tanks. Next was another preflight. We finished that up about noon that day, took a lunch break and it was once again time to go for it.

I got in the ship and following the check list, began startup procedures. Everything went just as it should and it was time to pick it up. I pulled collective and got it light on the skids a couple times feeling the ship out just to make sure everything was right and then finally lifted it up into the air. Wow! my heart had to be going a mile a minute, I'll never forgot that moment. The only passenger I had was a 21 lb ballast weight on the passenger floor to give me the CG feeling of another person sitting over there. It was me and me alone hovering our ship for the very first time. After about 20 minutes I was used up, my fingers from squeezing the collective grip were white lol.  I hovered back over to the the heli pad and made 3 attempts to get it back on the ground. Just as I would get about 12 inches off the ground the ship would start feeling unstable from the feedback from ground affect and I would raise it back into the air and try again. On the 3rd attempt I got it stabilized and when I felt the right rear skid touch I dropped the collective into the pocket. It wasn't pretty but I was down lol. After the engine cooled I shut it down and exited the ship and

as soon as I was in ear shot of Donna, we both at the same time said to each other, "We're Buying Insurance" lol.

We did the post flight test and put the ship back in the trailer and called it a week and went home lol. After that first day it was better and better each time. Each time I hovered a bit longer and before I knew it I was hovering about an hour to an hour and a half each time. The ship never missing a beat and getting better and better all the time. I hovered out my 90 days and then gave Bill Orth a call to sign up for Phase II at Rotorway.