ScottM
Taxi to Parking
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iBazinga!
On Sunday I got to partake of a really fun event. I was able to visit the Illinois National Guard in Peoria, IL and spend some time doing some training with the air unit there. They primarily fly Chinooks and Blackhawks but they also run one of that last Huey UH1A full motion simulators.
The event started with an over view of the facility and briefing. I was participating with a couple of other people, who like myself had no rotor time. A portion of the orientation dealt with the instructors mentioning how superior fling winger were to fixed wingers. It was all taken in jest.
The simulators is vintage 1980s technology and uses some ancient Motorola CPUs that have about as much power as the Apple Macintosh II had. But there were several of these computers to make the whole thing work. There were two sims to fly and both rested on top of 10 pneumatic actuators. Each of the Hueys had room for pilot, co-pilot, and sim instructor. See pictures.
I was first up and the mission was to take off in zero vis, fly the ILS into Peoria, go missed and hold. Not too much pressure for my first flight to be IMC with an approach to minimums
I was wondering how well I would do as my only experience flying helicopters was in M$ Flight Sim. On that package I managed to crash the Bell Jet Ranger about 50% of time on take off, the R44 I only crash about 10% of the time.
Once in the cockpit a detailed briefing on all switches and procedures was accomplished and it was time to start the engine. The Huey is a turbine helo so it was a matter of getting the fuel settings right, the generators set and then holding on the starter until the the engine kicked in at the correct N2. Once that happened we proceeded to do our checks and get clearance for take off.
The throttle on the UH1A is governed so once it was set it was a simple matter of lifting the collective until the torque was achieved and then pushing the cyclic forward just enough to get the airspeed needed. Flying the Huey was not as hard as I thought it was but it required constant attention. It was like trying to balance a small ball on top of a larger ball. Small slight corrections were always needed and since this was IMC a very good scan was needed.
Upon reaching 2400'MSL I flew out bound to the OM and then did a procedure turn inbound. I had a little trouble holding my heading but eventually I got it settled down. The track of my ILS is also a picture and you can see I was not meeting even FAA check ride standards, but I flew it better than anyone else in my group.
Controlling airspeed was done with pitch and power adjusted the descent rate just like in fixed wing, but I used the controls just slightly different. The missed procedure was as I expected busy and was I was happy for an experienced co-pilot who was handling the radios. I don't think single-pilot IFR ops in the UH1 are even allowed.
As I climbed out from out on the missed we had a short shaft failure and the engine RPM dropped to zero. So it was an auto rotate time. I pushed the collective down and adjust the cyclic to the correct airspeed, at about 100AGL I pulled back on the cyclic to bleed off airspeed and up on the cyclic for a safe but rough landing.
The full motion was really cool! I have flown in real Hueys and this felt exactly the same. Later when I was in the instructor seat I was peaking out a small crack in the back door to the SIM. The pilot fly had us in a +60 degree bank and it felt like it! but looking out side we were maybe only 10-20 degrees tilted. There is also a picture of him over backing.
We also did a tour of the Chinooks after meeting the battalion commander and speaking with him for a while. The Chinooks were being prepared for their 2nd Iraq tour. You can see some flare canisters being installed for this trip as the last time they took a lot of missile fire.
The event started with an over view of the facility and briefing. I was participating with a couple of other people, who like myself had no rotor time. A portion of the orientation dealt with the instructors mentioning how superior fling winger were to fixed wingers. It was all taken in jest.
The simulators is vintage 1980s technology and uses some ancient Motorola CPUs that have about as much power as the Apple Macintosh II had. But there were several of these computers to make the whole thing work. There were two sims to fly and both rested on top of 10 pneumatic actuators. Each of the Hueys had room for pilot, co-pilot, and sim instructor. See pictures.
I was first up and the mission was to take off in zero vis, fly the ILS into Peoria, go missed and hold. Not too much pressure for my first flight to be IMC with an approach to minimums
I was wondering how well I would do as my only experience flying helicopters was in M$ Flight Sim. On that package I managed to crash the Bell Jet Ranger about 50% of time on take off, the R44 I only crash about 10% of the time.
Once in the cockpit a detailed briefing on all switches and procedures was accomplished and it was time to start the engine. The Huey is a turbine helo so it was a matter of getting the fuel settings right, the generators set and then holding on the starter until the the engine kicked in at the correct N2. Once that happened we proceeded to do our checks and get clearance for take off.
The throttle on the UH1A is governed so once it was set it was a simple matter of lifting the collective until the torque was achieved and then pushing the cyclic forward just enough to get the airspeed needed. Flying the Huey was not as hard as I thought it was but it required constant attention. It was like trying to balance a small ball on top of a larger ball. Small slight corrections were always needed and since this was IMC a very good scan was needed.
Upon reaching 2400'MSL I flew out bound to the OM and then did a procedure turn inbound. I had a little trouble holding my heading but eventually I got it settled down. The track of my ILS is also a picture and you can see I was not meeting even FAA check ride standards, but I flew it better than anyone else in my group.
Controlling airspeed was done with pitch and power adjusted the descent rate just like in fixed wing, but I used the controls just slightly different. The missed procedure was as I expected busy and was I was happy for an experienced co-pilot who was handling the radios. I don't think single-pilot IFR ops in the UH1 are even allowed.
As I climbed out from out on the missed we had a short shaft failure and the engine RPM dropped to zero. So it was an auto rotate time. I pushed the collective down and adjust the cyclic to the correct airspeed, at about 100AGL I pulled back on the cyclic to bleed off airspeed and up on the cyclic for a safe but rough landing.
The full motion was really cool! I have flown in real Hueys and this felt exactly the same. Later when I was in the instructor seat I was peaking out a small crack in the back door to the SIM. The pilot fly had us in a +60 degree bank and it felt like it! but looking out side we were maybe only 10-20 degrees tilted. There is also a picture of him over backing.
We also did a tour of the Chinooks after meeting the battalion commander and speaking with him for a while. The Chinooks were being prepared for their 2nd Iraq tour. You can see some flare canisters being installed for this trip as the last time they took a lot of missile fire.
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