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24Mar/100

Ringing the bell

I instruct in the TH-57 - very similar to the "news helicopters" of the 80s and 90s. Carries 5 people, two blades, skids to land on. We use it because it's cheap, reliable, easy to fix, has readily available parts, etc. etc. Considering all we put the birds through, it's a beast. For example, on any given day a bird may have its engine cut to idle in flight, float to the ground, and then run the engine back up to full speed, for anywhere between five to ten or more times. Point being, we run the birds into the ground, but they're designed for it, so they perform admirably.

Overtorques are a very notable exception. You see, we have a very capable engine that gives us about 420 shaft horsepower, but a transmission that is only rated to 317 shaft horsepower.

What a TH-57 may look like.

We also have a "droop compensation system" that responds at a rate commensurate with the rate at which you move the collective. (The collective controls the pitch on the blades - more pitch = more thrust = needs more engine power.) All of these things along with student jitters combine to create the overtorque. We're normally allowed to go to 100% torque, with a 10-second allowance up to 110%. Above that, you have to land the aircraft to get trucked back due to the fact that you may have damaged the drive train - and the aircraft doesn't fly for very long when disconnected from the engine.

Overtorques happen for many reasons - an improper pedal turn, bringing the engine online from idle while still applying pitch to the rotors, or, in my case the other day, a very quick increase in collective. Instructors are given guidance to defensively posture themselves to avoid overtorques, to include advising you to place your hand over the collective to limit its travel when you think the student is about to increase it for whatever reason. In my case, my student looked to end an approach early due to being in a bad place to make a safe landing. He began to increase collective quickly and I wasn't in a good position to stop its travel and DING! We hit 118%. My first overtorque.

(for those wondering what "ringing the bell" is, it refers to the quickness with which the torquemeter's needle moves - and when it gets to 110% or more, the digital display flashes at you. DING DING DING DING DING)

Tagged as: flying, instructing, Navy No Comments

17Mar/100

Today’s flight

Weather was skosh while driving in, but we briefed anyway in anticipation of the clouds lifting later in the afternoon. After briefing I saw a lot of red CNX WX up on the ops board and my studs were giving me a bit of pressure to cancel. I had a feeling that we just needed to give the weather a bit more time, so I said we'd sit for a while and see how the cloud decks turned out. Sure enough, in an hour and a half we had enough sky to go flying for a couple of BI flights.

I was a bit nervous, as this was my first flight with students and I was the first guy from my squadron to launch and go fly BIs, which have a different set of weather requirements than all our other flights. After going through checklists that seemed to take twice as long as usual we got out to the working area - weather was juuuuust good enough to complete all our maneuvers. Not bad for a first flight. To top it off, the lineman gave us a ride back to the hangar!

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14Mar/100

Paved with good intentions

I didn't really anticipate the extent of weather and ops-related delays in getting started with students, but here I am - 2 weeks in, not quite ready for prime time and still one IP/IP flight left. Although I'm hoping to have my first students on Tuesday or Wednesday, I'm not terribly concerned about it. Hell, in my free time since checking in, I've installed a surround sound system into the ready room, designed a bamboo overhang for the bar. Just trying to keep busy.

Tagged as: flying, instructing, Navy, personal No Comments

1Mar/100

First “Instructor” Flight

Got to the squadron around 8:15 - brief was at 8:45. Had to ask a couple people where all the stupid preflight planning stuff was, like a weight and balance form and the grade cards, which took up some of my extra time, but I still made it to the skipper's office in time for the brief - at which time he said "Great, Herbie, go grab us a briefing space." (usually you brief in the skipper's office in my experience, but whatever, he's the man.) I grabbed a space, put the discuss items up on the board and waited. He came in, I stood up and we shook hands and then got down to business. We didn't cover much more than the ORM brief items (which were one of the discuss items) in the brief, but it was good anyway - lots of sea stories.

We met on the back porch, looked at the ADB, walked to the aircraft, started up and got going. It was a bit weird to be running the checklist vice actually doing it, but that's what the skipper wants, so that's what he gets! The weather was GORGEOUS - a few clouds way, way, up there, good winds of 8-10 knots, sunshine and about 65 degrees. You can't ask for a better day to go flying.

We got out to the working area and began to go through simulated emergencies at altitude, including engine failures. I demo'd the first engine failure, talking all the way through it and then the skipper took the controls and acted like he was a typical dumb student flying the engine failure. (We simulate those by reducing the engine throttle control to flight idle and then using the kinetic energy stored in the rotating blades to autorotate downward.) I rolled off the twist grip (throttle) and he started going through the procedures, acting like a student and making typical student errors. I corrected him, took the controls and waved off the approach, and we set up to head into Pace (an outlying field or OLF).

At Pace we started easily with a normal approach to a a hover and a vertical landing with me talking my way all the way around the pattern and onto the deck, just as if I was with a student. The skipper then did the same thing, acting as a student and gauging my responses. I suppose I should add that this flight was my first time acting as an instructor, even though I was flying with the CO, so I don't really have my techniques locked down just yet, but I'm told that this will come with time. Skipper did nothing terribly crazy - just some shady ball control and confusion over the appropriate altitudes, but with some prompting from me it ended up okay.

After that we did some maneuvers for my proficiency, then steep approaches to a no-hover landing for both me and the skipper-acting-as-student. That was a bit more squirrely, since the procedures are just different enough to confuse students - and when you don't know what's going on, you usually revert back to a previously learned yet similar behavior - in this case, a normal approach. But other than that and getting caught up in a low hover vice a no-hover landing, everything was reasonably good.

From there we went to power-off maneuvers. These are cut guns, taxi cut guns, and autos. Cut guns happen when the instructor (me) rolls the twist grip off while in a hover. I did one in order to gain proficiency for me and additionally to see how the aircraft is going to respond to the power off maneuver. After completing one, I transferred control to the skipper, who did one for his proficiency. We didn't go "fight's on" (skipper simulating a student) for cut guns and taxi cut guns due to their unforgiving nature, but did so for the autos. We finished up with some taxi cut guns, which are cut guns while taxiing forward, and proceeded to the auto pattern. After completing a couple of 90- and 180-degree autos, we went "fight's on" and the skipper started simulating a student again, forgetting to roll off the twist grip for one auto and getting sloppy with ball and Nr control on the second. The second also saw him neglecting to bring the twist grip back to full open at the appropriate altitude, resulting in me taking the controls and rolling it on while executing a waveoff. Not quite a low Nr recovery, but kinda close to it.

After that I did one more 180 auto for my proficiency and NAILED it - it was probably the best auto I've shot in a Charlie - and then we departed and headed home via course rules. After the flight and post-flight the skipper walked me through TIMS (our flight recording and grading system) and simultaneously debriefed me on the flight. Everything went well and he especially liked my verbal procedures and explanations of all the maneuvers and encouraged me to keep up the effort. After turning in our radios I went to talk to another instructor about something while he said that he'd "see me around campus" and headed back to the squadron.

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4Oct/090

Vacation, pt. 2: Helicopter Ball and Norfolk

The morning after we got back to Norfolk was the day of the HSC wing ball, along with my farewell. Usually farewells aren't held in conjunction with other events, as the other events tend to overshadow the person being farewelled, but in this case I agreed to it since it let us have an admin room where we could drink and schmooze a bit before the ball itself. But I'm getting ahead of myself a bit...

Kendra and I in the bar before the ball

As I said, we got into Norfolk the night before the ball, but were so relieved to finally have some time to ourselves that we ended up staying up quite late watching movies, talking and just catching up with stuff. Which meant that we slept in until my haircut and Kendra's hair and makeup appointments the next day, compressing our time schedules a bit. I had assembled my uniform the night before, but didn't account for the time that it would take for me to assemble all the crap I needed to while also getting my DJ deck, mixer and speaker ready to go (more on that later.) With the farewell set to kick off at 4:00, I got us a cab out front at 3:00, giving us an hour to get to the hotel and get the music set up. Things being what they are, I was a wee bit behind in my preparations, with Kendra chuckling at me while I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to find ID, debit cards, etc. So we get going around 3:10, and I was feeling a bit rushed, since I didn't have my standard ipod for my deck and had to use my iPhone instead - long story short, I didn't know that it would work at all, and I was responsible for the music. (Sidebar: yes, I shouldn't have been responsible for anything since it was my farewell, but if I don't do it, who will? Anyway.) Upon getting to the hotel Kendra and I head up to the admin room to find it in something of a state of disarray. Around 3:20. I let the guy in charge of the place know that there should probably be some more work done on the room, and then Kendra and I headed down to the bar for some quick munchies, as we were both starving, having gone without food since the previous night. After munchies, a beer and a photo, we returned to the admin room and saw... no one. I double-checked my watch - yup, it was four after four. DJ equipment not there, bartender not there, people not there... Uhhhh, wtf? As it turned out, the XO had told everyone the day before that things wouldn't really be kicking off until 5:45, so we were a weeeee bit early. People trickled in slowly - a couple here, a stag guy there, but before you knew it, we had a nice critical mass of a crowd - assisted by some social lubricant - and everyone was having a good time, yours truly included. This was a great relief to Kendra, who was a bit tired and frankly just did not want to deal with my shit and couldn't see why I thought it was such a big deal that no one was there "on time." And she was right - everything ended up being just fine, regardless of how much or how little I fretted about things.

Kendra and I waiting for things to start

With the aid of the aforementioned social lubricants the time passed quickly, and before I knew it I was up in front of the whole squadron listening to the skipper recount my deployments and jobs held, followed by what was really a touching series of anecdotes and compliments regarding me and my three years in the squadron. After the skipper and XO had had their say, to include calling Kendra "another piece of arm candy," we took a couple of photos with me receiving my plaque and photo mat, and then I had the floor. I had given this "speech" of sorts a good bit of thought since I got the official date of my farewell, so I went with a theme that I'd visited earlier in my time at the squadron - the distinction between the Armed Services and standard civilian jobs, and how that distinction is slowly but surely being eroded. I pontificated on that for a bit and then challenged the JOPA to prevent that from happening by holding on to the traditions and special things that make the Navy more than just a corporation with weapons. Having made my point, I thanked all those that had helped me through my difficult times and had enabled me to help out with all the things that I did while at 26, and then graciously exited the stage to applause.

Kendra and her corsage

With the farewell portion out of the way, the skipper motioned for me to fade out the music and entreat people to head on down to the ball proper. Kendra and I walked in and she was immediately given a balloon sculpture - I guess that's what people really want at military balls. It turned out to be a rubber ducky, complete with bubbles... and it went on Kendra's wrist like a corsage! Nice touch, weird balloon guy. At the end of the room, close to where we sat, JOPA had constructed a 12' tall minotaur for our "centerpiece" that was mandated by the squadron that organized the ball. There was an added benefit - the thing actually housed a 5 gallon keg of beer and associated CO2, with the tap being in the only logical place. This afforded us more cheap booze, since the admin room was closed and our pre-paid booze locked up until the ball was over - but the ingenuity of JOPA struck again, this time against the tyranny of high drink prices at mandatory functions. We took our seats in the corner, far away from any unwitting senior officers who might spoil our fun, and proceeded to eat, drink, and basically be jackasses for the evening, making catcalls and whoops and hollers at judgments we didn't agree with. Kendra got a bit tired by the end of dinner and the start of the gambling (oh wait, I forgot - the theme of the ball was "Monte Carlo," and we could gamble for raffle tickets at any of the many tables they had set up.), so I set her up in a room so she could get some sleep.

Matt and the, ahem, tap

While she was catching a quick nap, I kept on gambling - doing not so well at craps, semi-okay at blackjack and then headed to one of the bars to refresh my drink, our minotaur keg having been shut down at the behest of some higher ups. While there, I was somewhat cornered, as these bartenders weren't especially quick and Kendra was still somnolent, so my ex, who was there with the guy she left me for, approached me to catch up. To be sure, I could have just gotten my drink and said "See ya!" and I don't need Kendra to defend me from anyone, but at the same time I'm better than that - and it's a bit telling that the ex waited until I couldn't go anywhere and didn't have the awkwardness of my current girlfriend being present to talk to me. At any rate, I was gracious and said hello and then talked with her for a few minutes about... well, nothing of consequence at all, really. Lots of small talk, how her sister's been, etc. When her fiancee came up to join the conversation, I knew that it was time for me to make my exit, so I said that I had to get back to my blackjack game, and that was that.

Upon getting back to the blackjack table I saw that all the spots were taken, so I headed over to the poker table, where a seat had just opened up near Dan and his wife. I sat down and proceeded to do pretty well over the next hour, including two huge hands and one prize of turquoise jewelry for Kendra. I was also happy to see that Kendra got up and headed down to the ballroom, and she was ten times better than she had been when I put her to bed an hour and change earlier - bright, alert, and ready to roll. Unfortunately for her, the effects of drinking for 8 straight hours had started to catch up with me, so I gave most of my chips to the skipper's wife, who was sitting next to me, and Kendra and I caught a cab home, where I proceeded to serenade her with real life Rock Band on my guitar, bass and drums. While she ordered pizza. Good times!

The next morning I was a bit rough until we got coffee and pancakes at The Pancake House near Ward's Corner, along with some much-needed cold medicine from the Eckerd's nearby. It was such a nice day when we left the Pancake House that Kendra lamented the fact that gas cost as much as it did, otherwise we would just go driving like people used to do. On a whim I said "why can't we just go driving?" So we rolled down all the windows, put the sunroof back and cruised around Norfolk neighborhoods, including the house my mother used to live in when she was stationed here back in the 60s. Upon returning home we discovered that I had left the house key inside the house, so we used the time we had waiting for the locksmith to show up further enjoying the great weather on the porch swing. That evening we had some wine and watched a movie again - basically just relaxing in preparation for our flight to New Mexico early the next morning.

Tagged as: DJ, Navy, personal, wtf No Comments

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