I haven’t had time lately to update everyday after flying so I’ll try to get the gist of what’s been going on the last few days. Technically, I can fly now, although my skills need some major tuning and tweaking still. The instructors have also been adding more and more maneuvers each day. I’ve now done quick stops, autorotations, 180 autos, hover autos, autorotation to flare, turning autos and settling with power recovery.

This week, I also made my first forray into class C airspace when Rob and I flew from Caldwell to Boise. We landed at the compass rose at the east end of runway 28L on taxiway A. We then took off and re-entered the pattern for another go around. We landed back on the compass then requested a straight-out departure for Caldwell. We headed back out of Boise’s airpspace and practiced some autos on the way back to Caldwell. We were flying back toward Caldwell when I noticed a plane at our 12:00 coming straight at us. I said “Rob, plane straight ahead.” and he had us descend and move right. The plane, probably a crop duster, never altered it’s course or acknowledged us at all. He probably didn’t even have a radio (it’s not required in class G airspace). From the time that I first noticed it to the time he passed over our left shoulder probably about 20 seconds passed. That’s how long you have to avoid a mid-air collision. We were going 70 kn., he was probably going 100 kn., so we were coming together at 170 knots (almost 200 mph).

Yesterday, Rob and I flew to Parma (a little town about 15 miles from Caldwell) and practiced hover autos. In a hover auto, you’re practicing for the event of an engine failure while you’re hovering. The practice procedure goes like this: get into a 1 ft. hover, turn the throttle off, while correcting with lots of right pedal (as the throttle rolls off, you have a major decrease in torque so right pedal corrects for your left yaw), wait for the rpms to drop (about .5 secs) then pull up collective to increase the pitch angle of the blades and cushion your fall. The goal is to maintain your heading and not slide or yaw one you hit the ground. We did about 5 of them and I was starting to get it on the last one. A couple times I got confused between a normal at-altitude auto and a hover auto and accidentally shoved the collective to the floor, causing us to smack the ground and bounce on the skids. Not good. We’d been doing so many different maneuvers I was starting to get confused, so we took off and practiced turning autos, where you enter an autorotation at altitude, then turn to get into the wind or to line up for your emergency landing spot. We eventually did a 180 auto where you actually turn all the way around during an autorotation. I like autos. They’re thrilling in a rollercoaster sort of way and they require you to think fast and make good decisions. There isn’t a lot of room for error because you’re descending pretty fast so you’re eyes are constantly scanning. The scan for an auto is airspeed, rpms, outside…airspeed, rpms, outside. I just keep that repeating in my head.

I’m hoping to be ready for my stage 1 check ride around my 20 hour mark. I think I can do it if I keep progressing as I have been.

Day 8 flight time: 1.3 hours
Total: 8.7 hours

Day 9 flight time: 1.5 hours
Total: 10.2 hours

Day 10 flight time: 1.3 hours
Total: 11.5 hours

Day 11 flight time: 1.6 hours
Total: 13.1 hours

Here are some kinda boring movies that Andrea took of me flying.