Adding A Helicopter Rating: Check Ride Time

Fifty-plus years and several thousand hours of flight experience---time that included crop dusting, bush flying in Africa, King Air charter work in the Northeast, advanced glider aerobatics, hang gliding, ownership of a Taylorcraft, a Navion, two Skybolts, a TriPacer and a Clipper---had subdued my wonder somewhat and fostered a familiarity with flying that rightfully belongs to birds, not men. My love of flying was beginning to fade toward complacent affection.

Needing to add some spice to a time-worn passion, I felt beckoned toward learning the helicopter with an ever-increasing persistence I couldn't ignore. So I took action.

In Part One, I met the helicopter, started ground school and learned to hover.

Part Two ended with my first solo---three trips around the pattern. There were two more pattern solos to follow.

In this final installment, we get to the heart of the matter and the bulk of the flying. I wrestle with doubts about my ability to ever fly this machine competently, all the while falling in love all over again.

Hillsboro Aero Academy's FAA-Approved Part 141 commercial helicopter add-on rating was the matchmaker I chose; they had an active fixed as well as rotor wing flight school.

The director of training, Dan Doepker, was a rare bird, dual rated in both airplanes and helicopters, so my training had known precedent. If it worked out, I would join the ranks as a hybrid, dual-rated pilot.

HAA's lesson plans and training evolved from decades of experience with literally thousands of graduates. Every detail, the content and sequence of each lesson, performance standards, flight deck protocols and published maneuver procedures, required flight dual and solo flight hours, and progressive stage checks revealed a process honed to a fine point. Nothing in the lesson plan was arbitrary.

Compared to the world of airplanes, rotor wing aerodynamics is a much deeper dive into behavior of air around airfoils---especially rapidly spinning airfoils and the mysterious gyroscopic and torque forces that powered vertical flight conjures. It was fascinating. And complicated. I was engaged.

To fly a helicopter, a pilot must understand and be able to envision the ring state vortex of the main rotor and tail rotor as they trail behind during forward flight or lurk about during hovering, steep descents or certain departure turns, threatening to undermine and outrun lift or control authority for an unwary pilot. Attention to the wind direction and flow is a cardinal requisite for safe rotor wing flight all the time.

In an airplane, the approach to landing glide path is fixed in a narrow band defined aerodynamically by the wing's critical angle of attack and operationally by adjusting approach airspeed, flap and power settings---within the relatively narrow margins as published in the Pilots Operating Handbook for that airplane and normally resulting in a two- to three-degree glide slope.

In a helicopter, the approach to landing glide path is defined by the pilot making discrete yet interconnected control inputs continuously during the descent. This hands-on flying enables the pilot to select and vary the descent glide path from 0 degreesto 90 degreesat any airspeed, including zero, and in any direction. It's uber cool, uber fun,  and uber useful.

That is why Hillsboro Aero Helicopter Chief Instructor Lasse Brevik says, "Airplanes fly two dimensionally through three-dimensional space while the helicopter can fly in all three dimensions simultaneously and in any combination." It sounds easy, but believe me, it's not easy to get your head around this concept.

My helicopter flight training for the real world began to take off post-solo with training flights primarily focused on building control coordination with a paced introduction to advanced flight capabilities and maneuvers unique to helicopters.

The first advanced maneuver I met was the quick stop during an air taxi.

Helicopter taxi operations on a controlled airport come in two varieties.

The hover taxi is used to traverse short distances at a brisk walking pace while hovering normally 3 to 5 feet above the ground.

An air taxi, on the other hand, is (according to the Aeronautical Information Manual), "the preferred method for helicopter ground movements" because it's faster, more fuel efficient and minimizes disruptive downwash on the ground. A typical Air Taxi profile is 40 feet AGL and 40 knots airspeed. ATC will expect helicopters to remain below 100 feet AGL during Air Taxi.

Imagine for a moment taxiing on a busy airport at 40kts without brakes.

The quick-stop maneuver takes the place of brakes for a helicopter in Air Taxi mode and is accomplished with a simultaneous lowering of collective, aft cyclic and right pedal inputs, a bit more complicated than just tapping on the brakes in an airplane.

When properly done, the result is a graceful, elegant maneuver; the nose pitches up without gaining altitude while forward motion is simultaneously halted as the craft returns to level---a move with the harmony and grace of a wild goose flaring to land.

In training, the maneuver serves a more fundamental role; it teaches and drills accurate control harmony in all three axis, building on the control finesse learned first in static hovering.

It was during quick stop training that I first began to feel that I was wearing the helicopter, not riding it.

After the first quick stop, I remember turning to my instructor, Brett, with a big smile, saying, "Now that was fun!"

I was falling for this machine.

Then came more ground school and a long series of training flights to introduce, practice and fine-tune standard and steep approaches, spot landings to commercial standards and important emergency procedures.

Advancing

Soon after being introduced to the quick stop, the dreaded and legendary autorotation appeared on the lesson plan and flight schedule. During the following weeks, this one maneuver accounted for hours of home-bound chair flying with eyes closed, imagining the event and going through the motions, burning in the sequence of control inputs, calling out, "Entering autorotation in 3-2-1, then action: LOWER COLLECTIVE, AFT CYCLIC, RIGHT PEDAL, ROLL OFF THROTTLE, RPM CHECK, PITCH PULL (set RPM IN THE GREEN)," and then, while riding it down, "eyes in:" check rotor RPM/airspeed/altitude; "eyes out:" check line-up/LZ clear/altitude; REPEAT inside/outside scan---adjust as necessary; at 40 feet, 65-70 kts and a descent rate around 1500 FPM, aft cyclic to arrest descent, roll on throttle enough for the governor to match engine and rotor RPM, level the ship, and settle into a hover.

Actual drills began with straight-in autos entered at 700-800 feet AGL and proceeding down and straight ahead to the landing spot. Just as I was just beginning to get the hang of straight in autos, 180 degreesturning auto rotations were added to the drills. We entered them from about 1,000 feet AGL. For a turning auto, the pilot enters the autorotation abeam the intended landing spot, then executes an immediate 180-degreeturn, reversing course to line up with the intended landing spot. Turning immediately adds complexity and pilot workload since the lift vector of the main rotor disc is split in turning, which, in turn, increases the descent rate (speeding things up even more) while simultaneously increasing the rotor RPM---requiring additional collective input to keep main rotor RPM in the green just prior to flare and recovery.

This was stressful training. So my instructor's protocol was first to warm me up and settle into the helicopter by shooting a couple of standard patterns. After getting re-acquainted, we would then then do two or three autos, or maybe four during the last few sessions as I became more proficient and relaxed.

Early on I felt like I was (and was) just along for the ride during auto rotations. But as the training progressed during autos, time slowed down for me until I was eventually ahead of the helicopter.

We did close to what felt like a million auto rotations (okay, maybe not that many), and it was not until the last 10 to 15 that I felt present, aware and in command of the helicopter and the maneuver.

Let me note that Brett always told me when my performance was within commercial standards, providing waypoints to mark my progress and immediate positive feedback to help fix the successful performance in muscle memory.

He seemed happier about my doing a good auto than I was. That was probably because I was still bug-eyed from doing it.

It became clear to me very quickly that auto rotations, while safe when done properly, are never casual, regardless of the experience of the pilot.

Stepping Out

About halfway through autorotation training, we took a brief intermission and fulfilled the course requirement for a dual cross-country.

The weather for our dual cross-country was perfectly VFR, albeit hot with gentle winds. As a licensed commercial airplane pilot flying a route with mega landmarks galore, I found navigation was a breeze.

It was a stunning flight.

What wasn't a breeze? Not letting go of the controls (well, except the collective at altitude momentarily to scratch my nose or switch Unicom frequencies).

And the collective was especially heavy in the ship we were flying. In fact, my arm was getting tired---I felt like I was holding the ship up with my left arm. However, soon enough, we arrived at our mid-course fuel stop, and I forgot about my tired arm and started sweating the set-down by the fuel pump.

Other than these two minor discomforts, the flight was beautiful. How could it not be with a "floor to ceiling" bubble windscreen and a beautiful Northwest summer day?

Then came the solo cross-country. That was a huge milestone. Without the security of an instructor, things get real, and I think smart student pilots change demeanor on a first solo flight---if we are smart, we start telling the instructor (who isn't there) everything we are thinking, doing and thinking about doing.

After departing Troutdale to the north past Battleground VOR, away from the airport traffic and cruising at 1500 feet, secure that the ship was running smoothly and on course, I relaxed for a second and was hit with the same sense of wonder, excitement and accomplishment that my 16-year-old self had felt all those years ago. I was that kid again on his first solo in a J-3 Cub. And I'm not ashamed to say that I teared up for just a moment, long enough to lubricate the biggest smile to cross my face in decades.

What I didn't know was that this was just the start.

More Complex Maneuvers

After completing my solo cross-country, the focus shifted to the business of helicopter-only utility flight maneuvers. It was back to intensive dual flight instruction and off-airport operations ground school.

The Pacific Northwest is a treasure trove of geological diversity, offering every imaginable off-airport landing scenario, from year-round snow-capped rocky mountains to high desert prairies and canyons to sandy beaches to valley farmland to urban helipads and mountain meadows surrounded by 60-foot evergreen forests.

All of this was my classroom; all within 10 to 20 minutes of HAA's training bases at Hillsboro (KHIO) and Troutdale (KTTD), and we hit them all.

With hovering under control, we got about the business of training in setting down on sloping surfaces along with deeper dives into control finesse, approach techniques, situational awareness, effective reconnaissance and precision flying.

Then we got into maximum performance takeoffs, which are a straight-up vertical ascent followed by a carefully metered accelerating forward movement into effective transitional lift. It was literally an "up, up and away!" ride.

But behind the thrill ride of a max-performance takeoff from a remote hilltop are serious performance calculations and reconnaissance skills exercised before the off-airport landing is ever made, actions and skill sets that guarantee once you get in, you can get out.

More than a few pilots have spent the night on a remote hilltop, a place that was easy to get into but impossible to leave, waiting for the cool density of the early-morning air to get out.

Pilots flying slow, low helicopters in medevac, logging, construction, search and rescue, or recreationally in the outback have to think way ahead, be instinctually aware of and wrestle with radically different landing and atmospheric conditions, all without the aid of AWOS, windsocks, PIREPS , NOTAMS or ATC, and without the safety of level, clear, hard surfaces.

To land on a mountaintop or logging road or open meadow or in the middle of nowhere in the high desert or on top of a high-rise building or on a football field are all thrilling and very satisfying maneuvers, but they are acts that require a good dose of preparation, knowledge and skill---skill in knowing how to see risks that may be hidden in plain sight.

All this tribal knowledge informed and directed each lesson plan.

We landed on mountain tops, pinnacles, logging roads, sandy beaches, gentle and not-so-gentle slopes, on cold rainy days and hot sunny days and calm days and windy days. This was much more fun than work.

And then, suddenly, or so it seemed to me, my instructor told me I was ready for the Stage Two company check ride; a flight with the director of training, which is the equivalent of the flight school's stage check before taking the FAA practical commercial helicopter pilot check ride. If I passed, I'd be cleared to fly with the FAA pilot examiner to add the helicopter rating to my commercial pilot license.

It was at this point that I encountered the most critical element of flight safety for any pilot---something not from without, like an engine failure, but rather from within: fear of failure. And it affected my flying even in the face of positive, skilled and supportive check airman. We opted to fly again, and I was cleared for the FAA check ride.

For me, learning the helicopter topped off my flying career and fine-tuned my airmanship with that ethereal, indefinable element of flying that can turn pilots into aviators, that turns manned flight into an art form as surely as aerobatics does the same to fixed wing pilots.

Oh, I passed the FAA check and became a licensed commercial helicopter pilot on February 13, 2019, at 4:30 p.m. And for that, to Hillsboro Aero Academy, I am eternally grateful. As we began the advanced training, Brett was promoted to assistant chief flight instructor helicopter. Thankfully, he made room for me in his schedule and kept me on---adding to his already-packed schedule. Then his wife gave birth to their first child, further adding to his time crunch, yet he kept me on. This illustrates the spirit and caliber of the people I had the pleasure to meet at HAA.

And I can say that, at long last, as a commercial helicopter pilot. I guess some dreams do come true.

Read Part One

Read Part Two

Read Beyond The Helicopter Rating