The Art of Helicopter Flying

So this mini-post is for all of you out there who are interested in the more technical aspects of Jordan's training. There were a great number of people on both sides of our family who were so excited for Jordan to begin his training in helicopters, because it is such a unique aircraft to fly and much different from it's fixed wing counterparts. Well I finally found my notes that I had taken while overhearing a conversation between Jordan and his dad, so I thought I would give a bit more insight into his helicopter training for those who are interested. However, as I said, Jordan is a man of few words, and I am not exactly familiar with the helicopter or what it takes to fly in general, so unfortunately I do not know enough to fill in the blanks and make this a cohesive explanation.  So... here are my short hand notes:

It is a backwards machine. It's just odd.

It's 100x harder than flying fixed wing.

No Stabilization.

It (the TH-57B) is known to be the hardest aircraft to fly in the navy training wing or fleet.

The visibility is hard to get used to, because you are sitting side by side in the pilot seat with the instructor.

Instead of saying, "clear right, going right," it is now "clear left, nose going right" because you have to make room for the tail to swing around. It's odd to get used to.

Taking off is like leaving a parking spot. You lift up in a hover, and then taxi out along the runway at a 5 foot hover.

It is odd dropping nose down to ground, and staring straight down at the runway, but moving forward.

Transitioning from high speeds to now going 50-70 knotts is just odd!

So in other words, Jordan's first reaction to flying the helicopter is just, in one word, "odd."

Jordan has further tried to explain what its like flying a rotary wing aircraft, and in what I have understood, I have translated it to be that helicopter is not meant to fly. It defies the general, natural course of gravity or the natural flight inspiration of the bird. I found this saying by Harry Reasoner, that pretty much encompasses everything Jordan has tried to convey to me:

Well Jordan officially had his first experience of something going "bad." Yesterday while flying, and in a right bank, the door on his side FLEW OPEN! So with his door completely ajar, Jordan was literally looking over his right shoulder straight on down to the ground. Luckily they have harnesses that keep them securely locked in the cockpit. Jordan's instructor promptly went over the microphone to say, "Ahhhhh, this piece of "$h!t!, close the d@mn door." Jordan responded with, "Yes sir, you have the controls" and he proceeded to reach out mid flight, still in a right bank and harnessed to his seat, and pull with all of his might to securely shut the door against gravitational pull. Not only are the TH-57 Bravos one of the hardest types of aircrafts to fly because of their lack of stabilization, they are also difficult to fly in that they are very ancient aircrafts, and training on these definitely tests the student pilots on their EPs on a regular basis, because something always tends to go wrong.

I will leave this blog post off by letting you know that Jordan has safely arrived back from his latest flight just now in the Th-57B, acknowledging upon my inquisition that, in typical man-of-few-words-fashion, the flight went "fine," and that  he will be completing his first helicopter solo tomorrow and therefore, will be moving on to the TH-57C, which is a slightly more advanced, stabilized, and hopefully safer helicopter!

P.S. Are you all liking these shorter, but more frequent posts? I am going to try and make an effort to keep up with this pace! Hopefully our life proves interesting enough to keep you all entertained with stories at this rate ;)