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Flight Training Phase 3B

Training At RotorWay June, 2002

Phase III at RotorWay I crashed and burned big time.

From my 2nd hour of flying it went sliding down hill and it got worse by the day. I'm no Patty Wagstaff by any means but I thought I was ready for my check ride and a veteran CFI in Tulsa thought I was ready too. The fly guys at RotorWay pissed in my cheerios at ever opportunity they could. By Tuesday I felt like the dumbest person on earth. There's a lot more to my experience than just heading out there for my test and it wouldn't be fair not to tell the whole story because it's a one thing leads to another kinda thing.

"The big Phase III"

Really and truly I really thought I would have no problem once I got the autos down and how hard could it be to get myself to wait another 20 feet to start the flare. I did autos in my mind all the way to Phoenix and that's alot of autos lol. We arrived in Phoenix and set up camp at RotorWay Friday night right on schedule. Saturday morning we finished rolling out the awning and I hit the books reading, reading and more reading and taking the test questions from RotorWay over and over again from Brandy and more of the same all day on Sunday. Bill Orth of RotorWay had sent test questions I would have to know for the oral test for me to answer and then study. After answering every question I could on my own Donna and I called Bill and Steve a few times and went over my answers with them to make sure we had them correct before I used them to study with. When I got them "what I thought was right" I went over them again and again for at least 3 weeks. On the trip from Knoxville to Tulsa and Tulsa to Phoenix, Brandy would ask me the questions about 4 times a day. She would ask them in order, random order, backwards and every other way she could think of to trick me up lol. This whole thing was something we all did as a family and Brandy and Donna were right in there all the way helping every way they could.

Monday Morning 5 am Phoenix Time

I got up and got ready for my first day of class. 6am took forever to come but alas it did and I went in and met up with John, Bill and the brand new CFI guy, Kye Gunn (come to find out I am his second student ever). We chatted a bit and we were off the the hanger to roll out the ship and head out to Chandler airport.

On preflight I noticed a few things that made me uneasy like the oxygen sensor was barely hanging from the pipe and had all but completely fallen out of the socket it was screwed into on the collector pipe, the radiator expansion tank line was almost rubbed or melted through the clear cover on the chain case, clearly in a bind. Another thing was the slop in the rotor head slider ball socket I guess, I asked them about it and they said it was ok but it still gave me the willies. My ship has a very small amount of that slop and Tom Smith told me it "wasn't normal" from the description I gave him over the phone of it. We decided it was pitch link rod ends and I ordered a set to install if it got any worse. Aside from what you can peak through the holes and see you don't get to see what is under the panels at RotorWay so at this point I'm now apprehensive as all hell wondering if the swing arm and perhaps the secondary had some issues too. Sure wish I didn't see that stuff because it gave me flashbacks to my first day Phase II crash and I think that's when my pucker factor went into gear. Anyhow you only live once right! Oh yeah and they wanted me to sign a check list that I checked the ship over. So I checked everything I could see but the things I could not see I put "could not see" on the check list. I don't think they liked that!

We got in and buckled up and fired the ship up, what a gorgeous day I was thinking when I noticed there wasn't a bearing temp gauge on my side. Next thing was the com wouldn't come online so Kye got out and removed the front panel, poked around a bit and Wallah it came online, another comforting moment. We lifted off and headed out of Stellar to Chandler airport and Kye showed me the the flight paths to get there. Once you've listened to Chandlers ATIS and have the keyword for the hour you contact Chandler tower and they have you report at a position they call north point and fly into and across the airport mid field of the control tower. That was a new one to me as I've always entered the pattern at an airport from the down wind or at the very least the base leg, well except for one time with Bill on our Casa Grande cross country on the Phase II flight training. We just kinda sorta flew kitty corner across the runway to the helipad with a plane coming in on final just about to touch down on the runway as we crossed over it. First thoughts that come to my mind was Chandler is a busy place with airplanes and helicopters coming and going all the time and they don't have radar and were about to fly right through the middle of it lol. After a time or two flying around Chandler airport you start feeling better because they seem to have it all well under control. We never once had an incident of anything ever coming close to us that wasn't part of the plan, they do a hell of a good job there controlling the place. Every pattern we flew the tower would contact us about midfield and say "helicopter 904 clear for the option" which was a new phrase for me meaning "clear to do what ever we wanted to, land, auto or what ever, it was all ours". It took me awhile to catch onto the radio like Wednesday I think. Kye was the only one who could hear them or make out what they were saying 99% of the time. If he had his volume up it took away from mine and vise versa if mine was up his wasn't but Wednesday afternoon the com started kicking in and we both had good communication abilities. Oh yeah, don't say "Roger that" when replying to the tower lol. I guess it's only a Tennessee thing cause Kye sure didn't like it. It is best to repeat and it is also a requirement I think, what the tower has told you back to them to avoid any misunderstandings and I totally agree with it, it's just not something I can stop doing after spending the past 20 years doing it. We flew the standard airplane pattern just a smaller one square corners and all. Flying the Box I call it was another thing that was odd to do as every helicopter pattern I've done here at home and away is much smaller, just another thing I was going to have to do to pacify John O'Neil in order to pass his check ride. Kye would get on me about not flying straight lines but after spending some 50 or so hours flying alone and with others, flying field to field and avoiding things you don't want to do an autorotation into like Bill Orth and a few others taught me to do was hard to do unless you were totally thinking about it. If we were engrossed in conversation I'd be right back at it again. Now I'm not talking S turns or anything just slightly straying off course, minor wiggles in the trail to avoid things like that purple mud pit, houses and power line towers and such. Well we did landings, normal, steep and shallow approach and a few other things and it wasn't to bad until we started doing autos. Kye did the first one or two and when he flared the ship at the bottom to say the least I about had a bird. We had to be everything but standing on our tail and no more then 20 to 25 foot AGL. All I could see was the kick plate on the floorpan for forward vision and of course out the door at the runway lights on my side of the runway. At that angle in the flare Kye would wait until the tips of the skids were inline with the runway lights and push the nose down and over leveling up the cabin and then into a hover. He was damn good at it and never missed a beat but that type of flare just isn't for me and it sure as hell wasn't what Bill had taught me at Phase 2. I've seen some autos from the ground and I've sat through some other guys have done in their ships that I've been in but never seen any with this radical of a flare so you can guess my pucker factor went to the moon on this new move. We did a couple more with me following Kye on the controls and after you get over the fear of death it isn't to bad lol. My Turn!.......... Well let me tell you, if I was brand new to helicopters and never had my hands on the controls I couldn't have done worse!! From the moment I put the collective down I screwed up. Once, hell more than once, I pushed the left pedal down and never let it up, I've no idea what was happening to me much less why I was doing that, that was even a new one for me and all I could think of was where the hell did that come from!! After awhile I figured out what it was, Kye was over there stomping the right pedal and I guess feeling the feedback on my left pedal we would have a pedal tug a war going on. Autorotations are something I'll be the first to admit scare the hell out of me. Long story here but to say the least, I've got a real hangup doing them, its right up there with going to the doctor, dentist, getting shots and hell it's even more frightening then dealing with my ex wife lol. The only thing I can come up with is that first day at Phase II when Bill Orth and I went down in a ship. We had one hell of a ride down with the engine kicking in and out turning left and right all the way to the ground as the engine came and went online and back out again many times prior to us slamming into the desert floor and everything but rolling over front first. Ever since then I've had a problem flaring to high and I even had to pay extra training time that week to pass my Phase II training before Bill would sign me off so this wasn't a big surprise to me. I knew it was coming but figured i'd get it down at RotorWay prior to taking my check ride with John on Wednesday. Well after a few tries at it I just wasn't getting it at all so I told Kye we better quit for the day and maybe tomorrow would be a better day so we headed back to Stellar.

Tuesday

We got the ship out of the hanger, did the preflight and fired it up for more fun and games. As usual Kye had to get out after we started the ship and remove the front cover to wiggle the wires around to get the Com radio going lol. I couldn't help wondering what else was loose on it or what components were under the same quality of care the Com was, funny how you get that bad feeling in your gut and go ahead and do it anyway all the while telling yourself it'll be alright. If I had a brain I'd have quit right there but I didn't say anything and just went with the flow, hell I was a long ways from home and spent one hell of a lot of time and money getting here. It was only Tuesday and thinking back to my Phase 1 training here I didn't hit a lick until Wednesday so I wrote it off to 2nd day jitters, gave it a what the hell and off we went. We did a staggered course to Chandler as I still hadn't got the flight path down as of yet and as we got to the north check point I was finally getting comfortable in knowing where I was in relationship to the airport. We did a lot of the same things we covered on Monday in the morning with the exception of settling with power exercises so that was the next thing on the list. We headed out to a small circle out in the desert about 6 clicks to the south and climbed to 1000 feet AGL and Kye did a few demo's for me. My turn finally came around and each time I managed to do it, Kye said I was loosing way to much altitude before the ship was flying again but watching him I didn't seem to loose much less altitude than he did. Worst case out of all of them all was loosing 250 feet if I remember correctly and this maneuver wouldn't begin at 1000 AGL if 500 AGL was a fail safe altitude. Anyway he didn't seem too happy with that but we went on from there and headed back to Chandler. Ohboy! Time for some more autorotations <sigh>. Well here we go around again and again and each time I would screw up something. The maneuver called for 65 mph glide with the cabin in trim and the rotor rpm in the green. I would hit 60 mph and Kye would take it over, 70 mph and Kye would take it over. If the rotor rpm went to the bottom or top of the green he'd come in and take it over. I found myself trying to move so fast to overcome something I'd screw up even worse. His response was he had certain perimeters he wasn't allowed to let me get past and if I did he had to take back the controls. <geeesh!> Well this went on in the afternoon too and we just couldn't get past it so we called it a day and hoped tomorrow would be a better. <sigh>.

Wednesday

Off we go into the wild blue yonder lol,,,,<SSDD> <same Shi$ different day> was the phase of the morning. I did a little bit better in the autos but still freaked in the flare rolling the power back in at the end of the flare prior to rolling the ship level. Once Kye was doing one and he said I rolled his throttle in during the flare and to the best of knowledge I didn't even have my hands or feet on the controls, now I'm beginning to think I'm a little nuts lol. Around we go again and after having another conversation of me pleading to him to let me do it I dropped the collective and this time I was going to get it right! We entered the glide right on the money and at the bottom at no less then 25 AGL I flared the ship, right when the ships skid was level with the runway lights I began rolling her level and just as we were about to come to that point a little too soon I brought the power in and Kye took it from there sat it down on the ground saying that scared the hell out of him and he had to catch his breath lol. I'm catching on to this whole thing now, he's a control freak and that means we are not going to get anywhere until he slacks up that's for damn sure. After a minute or so he felt he needed to do a few practice autos himself to feel comfortable again, so off we went. After he did a couple he felt something wasn't right so he did a couple more and came to the conclusion the airspeed indicator was reading 10mph too slow and that was why we had been having so much difficulty at the bottom all week. He did a couple at 75mph and it performed much better so, oh boy, new airspeed. Couldn't help thinking to myself how much time, money and experience I had lost and he's finally coming up with, we haven't been going fast enough. Hell if he was me he would have lost control at 70 mph and nobody would have ever known lol.<sigh> After this big break through we went back to the barn for a break.

Wednesday afternoon

While back at RotorWay, while Kye was out and about, I had a conversation with Bill Orth and John O'Neil about my lack of progress or actually regress. 1st Question I asked was what is the deal with the airspeed being off in the ship? Their answer was it was common on their ships and other ships and they just know when it's not right and corrected for it and just shrugged it off like no big deal. . My thoughts were how am I supposed to know when it's right, being a low time pilot, and then again hell if that were true there wouldn't be a need for an airspeed indicator at all and everyone would just do it by the seat of their pants like old Orville Wright did way back when <sigh>. 2nd Question was I didn't understand why these flares had to be so radical at the bottom. Speaking to Bill directly at this point I asked him, when you taught them to me we never once lost sight of the horizon. His and John's answer was it's just another way of doing it and even though it was a tougher move it was ok for Kye to have me do them that way. Well I didn't think it was ok and when Kye came back in Bill explained the way he taught me to do them and instructed Kye to try and do them that way with me and see how it goes. Well off we went again back to Chandler. Holy Cow! Wow what a difference it made in me. All of a sudden I was doing better by leaps and bounds. Even though we were doing it the same at the top I didn't have near as much of a situation to handle at the bottom as I felt I had before. Much less intimidating and way easier to handle as I didn't feel I was on the edge of loosing control of the ship. All in all it was just another quick stop and I was really feeling good again. We did several and quit on a good note and headed back to the barn. After our return we called it day and the plan for Thursday morning was to meet in the hanger at 6am and do a 25 hour service on the ship we had been flying. Donna got here this afternoon and Kye told her that I shouldn't have a problem and all was well, one more day and I ought to be ready for the check ride on Friday.

Thursday Morning 6 am

Wow, I was finally going to get to see a RotorWay Factory ship naked lol. 6am came around and everyone was late getting started so we didn't really get to do much until 7am or so. We had some conversations this morning and one of the things we chatted about prior to heading out to the hanger was an operation in the PTS handbook called a simulated run on landing. When it came up I freaked thinking of my lack of experience since I'd never been taught this much less tried it on my own in my ship. I had it in my mind it was done at 65 mph and there was no way I was going to let a RotorWay touch the ground and skid in at 65 mph with my butt in it after hearing about all the rollovers in the past from doing such things. Kye said he did it all the time and I told him I wasn't going to do it point blank! All I really ever learned from Bill in phase II was how to take off, fly a pattern around an airfield and land with a long high final approach. We never did anything that allowed the ship to touch the ground during flight other then at a hover. The closest thing we ever did that was iffie was a hovering auto, all the other maneuverers Bill demonstrated to me like a short shallow approach dropping in over some small trees , a power takeoff up and over the same small trees and settling with power. I never had the controls during any of these operations. Hell we never did a running takeoff shallow or otherwise much less a shallow running landing. Well after going over it in my head it clicked, what they were really looking for was a very shallow approach ending up just above transition speed and never really going any lower then a foot or two above the ground. That I didn't mind a bit even though I was still kinda wiggly with the pedals as long as we didn't have to slide in on the deck. Boy what a relief. I thought they were going to try to kill me for a minute there lol. Well the gang's all here now and it was time to head out to the hanger and do the 25 hour service on the ship. We started pulling panels and I started seeing things I really didn't like seeing. The FADEC panel serial cable hookup was laying on the floor of the tub with no attaching screws on the connector. One of the oil return lines on the passenger side that runs to the oil tank was about half chafed through where it was allowed to rub on a fuel line. The radiator coolant tank line was either burnt or had rubbed almost through the inspection panel window of the oil bath. I saw that the first day on preflight but seeing it with the panels off revealed it being even worse then it looked from above with the ship all together. Next thing was a full inspection of the front through the front panel. Everything there looked great as far as the instruments and pedals went but the radio connector to the back of the com was a cluster for sure. It looked like someone had soldered wires to the pins without removing them from the connector. There were wads of solder everything but touching one another, no wonder we had so much trouble with the com unit and headsets! Kye was adjusting the valves and another fellow was greasing the grease points. The secondary pulley had one heat temp strip on it that all the dots were blown on and one that all were good on, that really left me with a major lump in my throat but the good news was the clutch swing arm looked great lol. The tail rotor skin felt extremely rough to the touch and wondering just how much metal was left on the leading edge really bugged me too but they said it was just fine and left it at that. The coolant tank was low again so some more coolant was added. They didn't have any so they just put some distilled water in it and called it flight ready. Well valves adjusted, ship greased, fresh oil change and filter and a visual inspection of everything we could see and it was time to take off. I was like what was that, when we do a 25 hour check on our own ships it takes the better part of 8 hours to go over everything but here it only takes an hour and you just skip all that other stuff in the book. Like I said in the beginning, I'm here and I've spent a ton of money so here we go!.

Thursday 9:30am:

Finally heading out to fly, we we're off and running. Prior to the flight Kye told me he had talked to John O'Neil and that I'd have to handle all of the radio traffic on my own which I told Kye I wouldn't have a problem if he wouldn't instantaneously reply to the tower and give me a chance to hit my button before he did. I thought I'd done a good job at that on Wednesday after he got the volume levels set right and I could actually hear what the traffic was saying so I really didn't understand where that came from at all. Finally, we have ignition and we we're off and flying to Chandler airport. After Wednesdays flights I was feeling pretty confident today and I was going to do great.

First thing after we made it across the airport and entered the pattern Kye said he was going to show me the simulated run on landing and that is just what he did. As we rolled over on final in a shallow approach Kye was right on track and running about a foot above the runway and then just to prove it that a RotorWay would handle it he let it down skidding it along on the pavement going down the runway at about 25 mph or so. OK, my pucker factor went to the moon and we're just about to have to head back to get me some new underwear when he finally lifted the ship back up into the air. See! he said, these ships perform that maneuver very well! Nothing to it! I didn't know what to do! I was totally freaked and told Kye I didn't want to play that again period!

We did a go around and it was my turn at the controls and despite my pucker factor being about a million I did just fine, slightly tap dancing the pedals a bit but not enough to be a factor. We did that a few more times and it was time for autos. We took her around the pattern and up to 500 feet arrived at our spot and I dropped the collective and entered the glide. About 150 feet or so Kye came in on the controls again just like he did Wednesday morning, we were right back where we started again. Next go around was more of the same and the next and the next. Boy this was really sucking, what was going on here, yesterday afternoon I had it in the bag and today it might as well be Monday all over again. Airspeed up or down 5 mph and he'd take it over. Rotor speed, I never did figure out where he took over, it never really felt like I had control of it at any time, I would push the collective down to gain some rpm and he'd be pulling it up always fighting me for control. Well this wasn't getting it and we had been at it about an hour or so, so I suggested we head back take a break and have another go at it on round two. Back at RotorWay we landed the ship and began the after flight check on the ship.

Kye, for some reason, wanted to check the oil again and upon removing the inspection panel found that there was white oil blowing out of the oil tank filler cap. He went and got Mark and they pulled the ship out of commission since it obviously had an issue. I went in and chatted with Bill and told him my morning events and told him I felt I was just spinning my wheels with Kye and we were regressing instead of progressing.

Bill's response was that he had been going over my practice oral test and that I had answered many of the questions improperly or had the wrong answer all together. He began pointing out mistakes on the ones I had wrong and I was once again in aww!. Bill, You and I and Donna and a few times Steve went over each and everyone of these questions you are pointing out and you guys are the ones who gave me/us these answers with the exception of the ones you marked down in airspace. His reply was "ahh no I didn't, I didn't tell you that". Well here we are in a total stale mate. It's pretty hard to defend ones self in this position. Bill told me "just the fact of obtaining a score of 100 on my FAA exam was a sign I was a dumbass, it's a proven fact anyone who does that just memorizes the answers and doesn't really know the material at question." Pretty much biting the bullet I really wasn't a happy camper at all hearing that but I was still confident in an oral test environment I could show him he's wrong about that.

The night before Bill had given me 5 possible airports to study up on and make flight plans for. He said John would have me do a flight plan on one of them for the check ride. I did them all for shits n giggles the night before and had them ready that morning so Kye had came in and was looking at one of them and he said I did it wrong. What's wrong I humbly asked. He said "for one you didn't do this one in a straight line flight". Huh! The flight he was looking at was for Penal, that's an airport located just below Casa Grande and all I did was pick out the same flight paths and check points I had in the Phase II cross country training when Bill Orth himself was my CFI. All I had to do was add the extension in from Casa Grande to Penal. In Phase II Bill was the guy that taught me what to pick out for flight paths and check points of 90% of this same route and your telling me it's wrong? Well Bill was sitting there at his desk not saying a thing in my defense what so ever, Another Kodak Moment. I told Kye that I would do it over again with the straight line fight path and the check points he wanted to see and got out my tools and went to it. All was ok until I got to figuring out all the data such as flight times to check points, fuel burn and ect.

As I was calculating Bill said "ah! John will tell you you can't use that electronic E6B for the check ride because the batteries are dead". LoL! I thought this is like the FAA requiring you have a compass instead of relying on your 8 thousand dollar GPS unit isn't it? "Well Bill" Donna said (she was in there too during all of this) "we have an extra set of brand new batteries". Bill said "yeah but they're dead too". Donna's reply to that was "well Wal-Mart is open 24 hours and we'll just go get some new ones" lol. Bill came back with a firm "You CAN NOT USE IT here, John won't allow it!" Bill your kidding right? You've got to be! I and others used it here in Phase II and The FAA allows it to be used in the written test how can you say that?!

His response was "John could do anything he wanted to and he wouldn't allow anyone to use one of them here at RotorWay for their check ride".

OK, thinking to myself as I sat there for a moment. This as in everything else since I got here doesn't make a bit of sense. It's like they are trying to fail me on purpose WTF!! Just then Kye came back in the office and asked me if I was ready to go fly! LOL "fly, fly in what", I asked, "the demo ship is down, we just cooked the engine in the one we have been flying all week and all that is left is the Exec 90 carbureted ship. Humm let's see, it's approaching noon and 107 degrees outside and you want to go do autos in that ship?" No way I told them both. I've had enough and there wasn't anyway I was going to make the check ride anyway with all the bullsh# that was going on here. So I told them to total up my bill so I could pay them and leave. <sigh>

After all the remarks from them about how if I left now I wouldn't have a sign off to fly, I told them I already had a sign off from a CFI in Tulsa, and I didn't need theirs nor did I want it or even his because I didn't feel confident enough to fly my ship anymore since I was obviously such a dumbass, and if I cant do a proper autorotation I have no business in the air anyway.

Donna and I left Bill's office and went and told everyone bye while they were getting the bill together. After that we finished rolling up the bus and were ready to pull out of the parking lot and went back in to sign the credit card slip.

Bill, Kye, John and Tom Smith were having a conversation in Bill's office when we came back in and Kye told us he needed to copy my log book for their records because it is a FAA Regulation (according to them, we have no idea actually). Donna went out to the bus to retrieve it while I stayed there and chatted with them all telling me that the signoff I had in my log book for high winds wasn't something the CFI in Tulsa could do and he obviously had no idea what he was doing.

My response to them was "Ya know guys when you were all still a drip running down your mama's leg this guy was flying and teaching others to fly helicopters. None of you really have a right to question him about what he does without knowing what your talking about yourselves. Hell Guys when I was with him I didn't have any problems performing in my ship so that in itself should mean something to all of you." With that said Kye finished copying my log book and we left for Tulsa to pick up our ship and head home.

This was one hell of a long trip. I spent most of the first 300 miles or so apologizing to Donna and our daughter for letting them down. Let me tell you, no one on this planet could ever know how low I felt as we drove up the highway toward Tulsa. They had me so disgusted I was ready to sell my ship but I got over that when we got back to Tulsa, as you will see in the next episode lol.

Almost 3 years later
I got this in the mail and It pretty much makes it all add up.