[simpits-tech] Helicopters...

[Brian Sikkema]

Any idea who wrote it? It sounds a lot like Dave Barry. At any rate, VERY
funny stuff. Gotta send it to my dad (diehard chopper loonie).

Brian
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Roy Coates" <roy at flightlab.liv.ac.uk>
To: <simpits-tech at simpits.org>; <x-plane-tech at yahoogroups.com>; "Digital
Flight" <e_group at digital-flight.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 2:09 PM
Subject: [simpits-tech] Helicopters...


>
>
> 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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