I'm a pilot because I love it. I can still walk through a hanger full of various aircraft and just gaze at them with the wonder of a child. Taking an aviation safety course, I learned, was about learning from very experienced pilots who share the same passion for flight as I do. Although statistics and diagrams lit up the presentation screen in front of us all week, most of the lectures weren't about theory, they were pilot stories. And getting to hear fascinating examples from people who fly the same aircraft as myself was delightful. I found myself not only compelled to take notes, purely for my own benefit, but also full of questions to learn more. While I first thought the only interesting part of the class would be the flying at the end, I discovered to the contrary that I learned much more from the classroom.
Briefly just to explain, my class was taught by long time Robinson pilot Tim Tucker, who was involved in the start of the company in the early 70's and we learned from others is a legend in the industry. Myself living and doing my training here in Los Angeles I'd nearly taken my Private Helicopter check ride from Tim, but ended up scheduling with another FAA Examiner, Dan Benton, who was willing to drive up to Van Nuys. I almost wish I'd gotten to fly with Tim, because clearly he packs with him such an arsenal of flight experience that I would have benefitted from his critique. Perhaps I will for my future Flight Instructor check ride.
After two days of flight safety lectures from Tim Tucker, interrupted on the second day for a detailed tour of the Robinson Helicopters manufacturing plant where the course took place, our third day was devoted to maintenance safety topics, taught by Robinson mechanic Efrain Vargas. This material was much more dense, and though we benefitted from more stories and examples about specific mechanical issues to be aware of, the end of our time with Vargas left me with more questions than I was able to ask. Still, I did leave with a much deeper understanding of what to look for in a preflight inspection and which issues are more important than others to resolve before taking to the air.
Lastly, the fourth day began with a lecture by Bob Muse, the local Chief Pilot for the city of El Monte's fleet of Robinson R44 helicopters. Filling in for Tim Tucker, Bob added a new personality and method of teaching to nicely round out the course. Bob was full of stories, and acted less like an employee of Robinson and more as a devoted user of their aircraft. He was very open to questions and again the whole class kept him busy talking about his experience and career, and he also talked a good amount about the debate he has with people who look down on Robinson's helicopters for not being turbine-powered. Currently the company is in the late stages of developing it's first turbine-powered ship to expand into that market, the R66, so there were plenty of questions from people about that.
In the afternoon I finally got to do my own flight in an R22 with one of Robinson's own CFI's, and actually all the anticipation (and possibly coffee and donuts) had me a bit nervous and excited. What would we do on the flight? Full-down autorotations? Zero-speed autos? Or something entirely new that would help me realize the extent of the R22's performance envelope? Before the flight I even ran to Radio Shack for a cable adaptor that would let me record the headset audio on my iPod, so I could listen back again later. I prepared my questions, and waited for my turn.
Although the flight didn't turn out to be mind blowing, it was certainly beneficial. We did indeed do a full-down autorotation (well, he did it), and even a zero-speed 180 degree auto upon my request. One of the best things he taught me was how to maneuver to the side while descending in autorotation and then turn back at an angle to help judge the timing to hit a specific landing area. But what I really benefitted from was simply that this CFI, Mike, actually let me do everything completely by myself... and I felt the difference. He was comfortable enough, having done this thousands of times with a variety of students, to keep from holding the collective with me and nudging it along - which I hadn't even known my instructors before were all doing, but I had always felt it. And unknowingly, that had always been leaving me a little insecure about autorotation maneuvers. Feeling now that it was all me moving the controls, making mistakes and making corrections, did something I'd had a hard time doing under other instructors... it built my confidence.
I intend to take another big step in my aviation career soon, indeed perhaps the biggest, to become a CFI. And in addition to the boost of knowledge that attending this course gave me, the boost of confidence may prove to be an even more important tool in working toward that.
