[simpits-tech] Helicopters...

[Roy Coates]

Although flying a helicopter may seem very difficult, the truth is that if
you can drive a car, you can, with just a few minutes of instruction, take
the controls of one of these amazing machines.

Of course, you would immediately crash and die. This is why you need to
remember:


RULE ONE OF HELICOPTER PILOTING:
Always have somebody sitting right next to you who actually knows how to fly
the helicopter and can snatch the controls away from you because the truth
is that helicopters are nothing at all like cars.
Cars work because of basic scientific principles that everybody understands,
such as internal combustion, and parallel parking. Whereas scientists still
have no idea what holds helicopters up.
"Whatever it is, it could stop at any moment," is their current feeling.
This leads us to:


RULE TWO OF HELICOPTER PILOTING:
Maybe you should forget the entire thing.
This is what I was thinking recently as I stood outside a small airport in
South Florida where I was about to take my first helicopter lesson. This was
not my idea. This was the idea of Pam Gallina-Raissiguer, a pilot who flies
radio reporters over Miami during rush hour so they can alert drivers to
traffic problems.
I began having severe doubts when I saw Pam's helicopter. This was a small
helicopter. It looked like it should have a little slot where you insert
quarters to make it go up and down. I knew that if we got airborne in a
helicopter this size in South Florida, some of our larger tropical flying
insects could very well attempt to mate with us.
Also, this helicopter had no doors. As a Frequent Flyer, I know for a fact
that all your leading United States airlines, despite being bankrupt,
maintain a strict safety policy of having doors on their aircraft.
"Don't we need a larger helicopter?" I asked Pam, "with doors?"
"Get in," said Pam.
Now we're in the helicopter and Pam is explaining the controls to me over
the headset. But there's static and the engine is making a lot of noise.
"........your throttle [something]," she is saying. "This is your cyclic and
[something] your collective".
"What?" I say.
"[something] give you the controls when we reach 130 metres," Pam says.
"WHAT?", I say.
But Pam is not listening. She is moving a control thing and WHOOAA we are
off the ground, hovering, and now, WHOOOOOAAAA, we are shooting up in the
air, and there are still no doors on this particular helicopter.
Now Pam is giving me the main control thing.


RULE THREE OF HELICOPTER PILOTING:
If anyone tries to give you the main control thing, refuse to take it!
Pam says: "You don't need hardly any pressure to ........"
AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
"Now that was too much pressure," Pam says.
Now I am flying the helicopter. I AM FLYING THE HELICOPTER. I am flying it
by not moving a single body part for fear of jiggling the control thing. I
look like the Lincoln Memorial Statue of Abraham Lincoln, only more rigid.
"Make a right turn," Pam is saying.
I gingerly move the control thing one zillionth of an inch to the right and
the helicopter LEANS OVER TOWARDS MY SIDE AND THERE IS STILL NO DOOR HERE. I
instantly move the thing one zillionth of an inch back.
"I'm not turning right," I inform Pam.
"What?" she says.
"Only left turns," I tell her. When you've been flying helicopters as long
as I have, you know your limits.
After a while it becomes clear to Pam that if she continues to allow the
Lincoln Statue to pilot the helicopter, we are going to wind up flying in a
straight line until we run out of fuel, possibly over Antarctica, so she
takes the control thing back. That is the good news. The bad news is she is
now saying something about demonstrating an "emergency procedure".
"It's for when your engine dies," says Pam
"It's called auto-rotation. Do you like amusement park rides?"
I say, "No, I DOOOOOOO............."


RULE FOUR OF HELICOPTER PILOTING:
Auto-rotation means "coming down out of the sky at about the same speed and
aerodynamic stability as that of a forklift dropped from a bomber."
Now we're close to the ground (although my stomach is still at 130 meters)
and Pam is completing my training by having me hover the helicopter.


RULE FIVE OF HELICOPTER PILOTING:
You can't hover the helicopter.
The idea is to hang over one spot on the ground. I am hovering over an area
about the size of Australia. I am swooping around like a crazed bumblebee.
If I were trying to rescue a person from the roof of a 100 storey burning
building, the person would realise that it would be safer to simply jump. At
times I think I am hovering upside down. Even Pam looks nervous.
So I am very happy when we finally get back on the ground. Pam tells me I
did great and she'd be glad to take me up again. I tell her that sounds like
a fun idea.

RULE SIX OF HELICOPTER PILOTING:
Sometimes you have to lie.