[simpits-tech] Helicopters...

[snar5 at mags.net]

Roy,

That is the funniest damn thing ever, thanks for the insight
I just purchased my dad a helicopter ride and the pilot
asked me to go with them, I have refused and it looks like
for good reason. 

M



----- Original Message Follows -----
> 
> 
> 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.
> 
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