Learning to Fly Helicopters (3) “First Solo “
March 25, 2014 in Learning to fly helicopters
Learning to Fly Helicopters
Part 3: “First Solo” (in a Helicopter)
The irony for me of course was the fact that I had, myself, in previous life, sent many a fixed wing student pilot off on his or her first solo. And it was always I who, as the (h)airplane instructor, had watched (anxiously) as my student ventured off into the sky. It was always I who had paced, and quietly worried.
Without showing it.
Now, here I was, keenly aware that the shoe was on somebody else’s foot. The boot belonged to the other Papa bird. It was I who was about to get lobbed out of the protective nest. It was I who was about to face the unknown. Alone. It was kind of odd. Like a big mistake. An accidental role reversion. I wasn’t sure what to make of it.
Also, a “first solo” in my past experience was just that: ONE solo circuit ride around the pattern. One time. Take-off, (discover religion), land, (hopefully), stop, finish, celebrate. Bore the hind legs off everybody.
For days.
I’d never seen a first solo student sent off to perform no less than THREE solo circuits & bumps. But that is what they briefed me for.
Okay… fair enough.
I was a little surprised, but I reckoned I was up to the challenge, and quietly happy to go. What the heck, anyway. It was a bit more than I had planned on, of course. I was originally just going to hover it one time. To prove to everybody how easy it was. But… well… Let’s go around the pattern on my own. Just to show… how addictive it was. I mean, how easy. (nothing to it) (stupid things, helicopters)
I had already flown one ride around the pattern with the Chief Instructor, who had spent most of the time making wisecracks. I’ll call him Fred. He seemed to be endlessly amused at the thought of a multi thousand hour fixed wing pilot about to go solo in a heli-whopper. But he was happy with my flying, and said so. My own instructor was happy for me to go solo. I was… happy. Happy-ish. I had already been reading up on helicopter accidents, and asking lots (and lots) of questions. I was well aware of the many cases of pilot error leading to fatal crashes in Robinson helicopters. Hell, it was a helicopter. Very strong for the loads it was designed for. Very safe if you treated her with respect. Treated her right. If you didn’t… I was in a pensive mood as I walked out on my own. Nobody can be completely calm for their first solo flight in a helicopter.
What the hell was I doing?
I started her up. Did my checks. Then I saw Fred strolling out.
What does he want…?
He didn’t come over to me directly, but went and stood twenty yards in front of me.
What gives? This wasn’t in any brief?
But his hand motion was unmistakable: I want you to lift up into a hover.
I obliged. Damn. My first solo hover. In a helicopter. Is this wise? There was a little wobble, as I was to learn later, quite a common occurrence on first solo hovers in a Robinson. Nobody had warned me to expect it: it is only a small ship, and the left seat was now empty.
Now what? You’re in my way, Mister Fred…
He motioned again: ‘Do a left turn’. I obliged with a left turn. It felt good. ‘Do a right turn’. Again, I obliged. (“How’s that?”) He seemed happy. I had not been briefed on the pantomime, but I could follow what he meant. ‘Move sideways to the left’. Good. ‘Move sideways to the right.’ Good. ‘Move backwards’. Okay. He grinned. I was concentrating too much to grin, but I felt good. And I had both hands full, both feet were occupied, so I couldn’t wave, or waggle a foot. I found myself mentally asking him:
Now, can I REALLY go solo, please, Mister? Please? Pretty please?
And there followed a gesture that has stayed with me. It seemed to me, at the time, almost a ceremonial gesture. Practical, but also a lot more… Poignant, almost. Fred stepped to one side, out of my way, and both hands, palms upwards, invited me on, pointing from the Robinson forwards in a sweeping motion to the grass runway, and up into the clear blue sky.
“Away you go, laddie, she’s all yours! I am giving you the sky!”
Whatever was going to happen, was going to happen. I went…
Nose down. Picking up speed. Faster. Feeling the rotors beginning to enjoy clean air. Ease back on the cyclic stick. Ease back…
Soon I was climbing through three hundred feet, four hundred, five hundred.
I was on my own! That wonderful feeling. Now I was a REAL chopper pilot. Whatever else happened, I had to get her back down.
No going back. My first helicopter solo was so totally underway.
Check instruments downwind. Look at the airfield. Check height. YEAH!
Look around the Big Sky, for brief, indelibly precious seconds. Look into the distance. Look far. Swivel head. Soak it all in. Love it, love it.
Music in my simple heart…
Base leg, smooth turn onto finals. Satisfying blade slap. Finals check. Going good.
Slow it down. Steady-steady, into the hover, eyes aim beyond the concrete square… steady, steady, gently down, five feet to go… three feet… nearly there…
TOUCHDOWN!
That was a goodie… I look over to the little group of onlookers. I see waves, thumbs shooting up, grins… and this time, there is a big answering grin from me. And I get two more??!
FUK’N AYE! Go for it…
And off again, into the sky, settling into strange new ‘experienced solo chopper pilot’ feelings. Building cautiously on experience. This is great. Beyond great. Awesome. There are no words to describe this. I want to fly. Forever.
Landing after the third circuit, I really didn’t want to shut her down. I wanted to take that little Robbo and disappear over the horizon. Go explore those mountains…
Wistfully, I pulled the mixture, and the reliable old Lycoming rumbled into silence. Blades still swishing around… I didn’t want to apply the rotor brake. I just let the rotors wind down slowly of their own accord… I just didn’t want to shorten the enjoyment.
It’s over. It’s all over…
I sat back, and reflected. Once again, the sheer thrill experience of flying had overwhelmed me. Some extraordinary taste or hint of some magic ingredient in Life. Some kind of joyous tranquility, mixed with a deep, reverend awe. A liberation of sorts. Throughout my flying career, it would sometimes hit me with a wallop. Stun me. It would utterly fascinate me. Puzzle me. That Man could be so privileged, to experience so much, to fly so high, to soar, to ponder and dream, and yet… Man was still always locked in a struggle. In some way, I was exploring ever deeper into my own nature. Trying to realize my own truth. I accepted then, as I do now, that our permanence of existence is an illusion. One we are wise to recognize, to calmly accept. We are transient, small, limited, groping creatures. But we can touch the face of… the Sublime. That which is without Limit. In our flying, we can hover close to Nature. In more meanings than just one. There is that which we can sense only dimly. But it is a tremendous truth. An awesome dimension. Into which we, the seeking ones, can only enter softly, and reverently. On tip toes. The image comes to mind of humble pilgrims, creeping in, timorously, hushed, through the massive, tall, ancient oak doors of a medieval cathedral.
In a time warp, standing off, unseen, to one side, I still, to this day, see a much younger version of myself walking over to the little group. They are very pleased with themselves. Suspicion enters my naïve and trusting soul… are you guys up to something?
But no, Fred is kindly holding out an (opened) can of beer. How very thoughtful of him!
“Here you go, Francis, you’ve deserved it!”
“Gee, thanks!”, I still hear myself saying. I stretch out a grateful paw.
“I could do with that! I’m hot!”
The can of beer gets emptied all over my surprised head. Laughter.
“You devils, so that was what you were all grinning about…”
My naivety is on display. I wasn’t expecting that.
Fred looks sympathetic. He’s still grinning.
“Are you hot then, Francis?”, he asks solicitously.
“Rather!”, I answer, foolishly, vaguely aware of movement behind me.
A hose is tuned on, and I get thoroughly soaked.
You devils…
Marvelous, indescribable feeling.
Francis Meyrick
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Last edited by Francis Meyrick on November 16, 2015, 4:50 pm
Learning to Fly Helicopters (2) “Do I trust this thing? “
March 23, 2014 in Learning to fly helicopters
Learning to Fly Helicopters
Part 2: “Do I trust this Thing?”
The Robinson R-22…
Long time ago. Early model days. Old fashioned twist grip, no governor, straight tail. I was suspicious, still, about the mechanical integrity of the beast. It looked so flimsy. Like a bunch of surplus tin cans beat roughly into shape. Now masquerading as a flying machine.
A wind up, clockwork, plastic toy.
In a quiet moment, I ambled in to the work shop. Asked for the chief mechanic. Boss man engineer. Out he came, pleasant, friendly, American. I wanted to ask some questions? Learning to fly at the school? Sure, go right ahead.
“Thanks. First. This here rotor system. It looks so home made. So fragile. What is the history of Robinson crashes due rotor system structural failures? As opposed to pilot error, and people losing Rotor Rpm due to incorrect technique?”
I thought that was pretty well the fifty million dollar (and some cents) question.
He laughed and told me: one. That he was aware of. Early on in the history of the R-22, some guys had noticed rotor delamination. Somebody had wondered if it would still fly okay. One way to find that out, eh? Let’s go fly! It didn’t work out, and they augured in.
Oh!, I thought. You can’t really blame that one on the designer. I was later to hear that there was also a minor matter of overflying the component times involved. (5,500 flight hours on a 2,000 component life)
The mechanic then showed me a section of a timed out rotor blade that had been sawn through for training purposes. This exposed a honey comb carbon fiber synthetic something-or-another center. It was hardly ye old wooden rotor blade of the pioneers. It looked devilish strong. It actually inspired confidence. It looked tough. I was glad it wasn’t wood. It sure didn’t look as if it was going to split or break in a hurry.
Okay, I believed him so far. Now, how about those minor bolts holding the rotor on? He put some in my hand. Good psychology on his part. They were pretty huge, close up. I couldn’t really imagine them shearing. They were actually considerably bigger than the bolts holding the wings on to all those Cessnas and Pipers I had flown. Not to mention the aerobatic biplanes.
Check. Passed. Now, this tail rotor drive. How is it constructed and driven? I had once seen a helicopter with a series of belt drives. That had not impressed me. The mechanic showed me. Drive shafts. Looked pretty good. Nicely engineered. Nice finish as well. Hmmm…
An hour or two later of the patient mechanic’s valuable time, and a zillion questions later, and a lot of poking around, and examining stuff close up, and I was frankly very impressed. I thanked him kindly, and walked off, a much inspired, comforted, reassured… budding helicopter pilot.
Not bad, Frank Robinson, not bad at all…
I didn’t know it then, but many (many) experiences down the wandering Yellowbrick road, years later, would greatly strengthen my faith in this funky, but hellaciously tough Robinson flying bubble.
One was watching an R-22 crash, spectacularly, and really, really close up. So close, I thought he was coming through my (spinning) rotor disc. I was doing my UK CFI (helicopter), and sitting quietly prior to take-off. The course required some dual role playing. I was playing the patient instructor part, and my “student” (another CFI candidate) was superbly playing “dumb-ass Mutt student”. Oscar winning stuff. I was patiently giving him some non-critical brief, when we saw this (brand new Robinson) fly a rapid downwind, finals approach to land. I interrupted my patter with the dry comment:
“Ah, here comes a pro. Let’s just watch how he does it…”
A few seconds later, the pro had realized his error, and had decided to turn and land into wind. He made this decision at a height of maybe fifteen feet and a ground speed of twenty knots. And followed up on this command decision with a hard pedal turn left. Striking the ground firmly, going sideways and still going forward, in the original direction of landing, at about fifteen knots. That does not compute? You think? Hell, it doesn’t. Not Frank Robinson’s fault either. The poor little R-22 paid the price. It was a case of roll-over all right. Not so much dynamic as meteoric. Hurtling. Cascading. Like trying to do a pole vault in your choppy, using your rotor disc as the pole. Kind of disconcerting. All of a sudden, there was this upside down helicopter somersaulting towards us in a brown dust cloud. I held my breath. A strange sort of highly resigned state of mind. I was strapped in. We were turning and burning. Disaster was totally unexpected, and mere yards and nano seconds away. I didn’t have time to say much (unusual for me), and I certainly didn’t have time to unbuckle, and exit. Walk away. I wish. So instead, we just kind of sat there, in a dumbfounded, speechless (mark the calendar), staring, mooh-eyed, resigned and submissive silence. Whatever was going to happen, was busy happening. I’m amazed nothing unscheduled came through our rotor disc (or our cockpit), but we were undamaged. When stuff had quit flying through the air (rotor blades work real well as agricultural rotivators) we shut down, and participated in the après-atterissage. The after landing party. I remember we helped the (seemingly uninjured) (stunned) pilot out through his broken wind screen. This (for the benefit of dumb-ass students) is a non-standard procedure. I also remember his first words:
“Dude, I think I f#@ked up…”
Um. Maybe. And I also remember that evening, in the bar. When my (dumb-ass) student started snickering into his pint. Giggling. We were like… what?! What’s got into you? More snickering. He asked, did I remember what I had said? Huh? When? Apparently, with a broken, out of control, spinning helicopter gyrating madly towards us, upside down in a cloud of grass and brown earth, the acting instructor on board our ship had finished his (non-standard) patter with a heart-felt, but apparently very calm:
“That is NOT the way you do it…”
The point of this story however, was that the rotor system on this poor little Robbie never split, or shattered, or broke. Despite it rolling over, and kicking up huge sods of earth and grass with the rotor tips, the blades only bent and twisted. A bit like toffee. Short of a tree trunk, a concrete pillar, or Mother Earth, as far as I can see, absolutely nothing is going to wreck a Robinson rotor system.
Except a pro of course.
Another confidence inspiring event was, many orbital circumnavigations of our Minor Sun later, when I decided to expand on my A+P license, with a Robinson Factory maintenance course. As part of this, we were taken on a guided tour around the torture chambers. In these huge areas, Robinson employees indulge voluptuously in their sado-masochistic tendencies. It’s quite awesome. Poor innocents, deserving of a much better life, are subjected to truly heinous devices, purpose built to inflict outrageous suffering. The dominant clergy at work in the days of the Spanish Inquisition, when they routinely (for the love of Jesus) flogged the living beJayzus out of you, were rank amateurs compared with the professional executioners at the Robinson Factory. You take a perfectly good drive shaft, say, and clamp it between two machines, and surround it by real tough safety glass. So we can see. Then you spin it around quickly, but also bend it, warp it, twist it, pound it, and generally treat it in a way designed to elicit pity in any honest mechanic’s heart. I found myself staring in shocked disbelief at what these guys were doing to their innocent charges. One particular abuse stunned me so much, that I felt this part was about to fail. It couldn’t possibly have lasted more than a day or two. I was glad of the protective barrier. I was sure when this thing failed, pieces of metal would fly like so much shrapnel in all directions. Awed, I had to ask. Of course. Some mothers…
“How long has this thing lasted so far?”
I was amazed how it could have survived the last hour. It wasn’t human. The technician, seemingly bored, consulted a manifest. “That one… yes, it’s been a problem for us.”
I’ll say. How do you expect anything to last if you’re going to treat it like…that!?
“We kind of need it to break. We want to examine it. But…”
You need it to break?? Just wait half an hour.
“It’s normal life in service is 2,000 hours. These are WAY beyond any normal flight loads…”
I’ll say…!!
The part in this test has already logged…”
Half an hour? An hour?
“Three thousand, seven hundred, twenty hours…”
How much!?
“…and twenty-seven minutes.”
* * * * *
But those two experiences (and many others) were still away in an uncertain future. For now, on that sunny day In California, way back, when I was young, wide eyed, and innocent, (more or less) I owed my new found, steadily increasing confidence to the friendly mechanic at the Helicopter School. So, I decided I was willing to go solo, and trust my life to this extraordinary contraption. Fine. Decision made.
This first of all involved a trip to an American Quack, who strangely tut-tutted right through the medical examination, shaking his head and mumbling to himself. Maybe it was my sanity that he was evaluating. He need not have bothered. I was already doing that myself. He kept putting his hands into and onto unmentionable places, until I was wondering if I had Aids or something cheerful. In the end, I got signed off. Physically, anyway.
Back to the chopper shop, and now my first helicopter solo was about to get under way, American style.
Francis Meyrick
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Last edited by Francis Meyrick on November 16, 2015, 4:50 pm
The Old Eagle
March 22, 2014 in Short Story (symbolism)
The Old Eagle
As an old Eagle, battle scarred and cynical, I still soar, high and alone, through the grey, damp soaked, wintery skies.
Lightning flashes incessantly, and the dull kerr-whump of distant thunder rolls alternates with the sharp, explosive crackling detonation resonating all around me. It is cold. And I am weary.
If I was wise, I would find a safer place, to roost, and seek the easy comfort of non-thought.
The pleasant oblivion of deliberated complacence.
I would do as so many of my brethren do. I would engineer my acceptance of a convenient status quo. It would be easier on the mind. But instead, I stretch my battered wings out, and force myself higher. For I want to see. Further. Into the future. Over the horizon. And for that, I must climb. Higher. Higher still. It is hard for me. I always struggled, where others soared effortlessly. I always floundered, where others excelled. I always came last, trying desperately, whilst listening to the scorn and open contempt of my fellows. But I, alone it seems, still want to fly. I force myself into the air, although my aching body screams in protest. My mind, cowardly and weak, offers me the inner vision of resignation. A quick dive for home, and shelter. My own private little cave, where I can pretend that all is well. That all is under control.
That all is as it must be.
A rain shower assaults me. A fierce headwind. Drops as cold as ice hack at my face. Through the veil of mist and rain drenched saturation, I spy the looming, yet distant ridge. I see it for a moment, clear and stark, and then it disappears once more. I know it is coming. I am prepared.
My gaze travels far. I see into towns and villages. Into houses and rooms. Into hearts and minds.
I see him, proud and confident, wearing designer clothing. If he knows, or has heard of the overseas sweat shops where his clothing was forged by the sweat of indentured labor, his actions show no empathy. No awareness. Bathing in pride, his swagger communicates only righteousness and entitlement.
I see her, beautiful in a glamorous definition of the word, proud and confident, snorting cocaine with her upwardly mobile friends. They revel in their rebelliousness, their youth, and their contempt for authority. If she knows, or has heard of the carnage wrought by the drug trade in Mexico, the deaths, the violence and the endless suffering, her actions show no empathy. No awareness. Bathing in the blinding, dazzling light of short-lived, privileged youth, her deportment communicates only righteousness and entitlement.
I see them, knocking back the drinks and eyeing the expensive girls. I see them, arrogant in their expensive, well tailored suits. Drunken with their own self valuation. Based on half million dollar salaries, unlimited expense accounts, and the largesse of tax payer funded bailouts. In their actions and pronouncements I see or hear no humility. No diffidence. No respectful questioning of the road they travel. No consideration for other working men. I see only greed, and pride, arrogance and coveting. Desire, and illusion. The endless hunger for more baubles.
I see them, those mighty windbag orators in Congress and the Senate, thundering forth the party line. Looking to their own, short term benefit, willfully ignoring the long term consequences of their actions. Grab what you can, while you can. Baubles.
I see them, the slavish followers, the disciples, the acolytes, the happy-clappies. Those who obey, unquestioningly, with feeble minds, easily led, warped, and molded. The scant information foot soldiers, blinded by absurd promises, outrageous logic, unsustainable living, and the expectation of lavish gifts, forever.
And I circle, unseen, high in the sky, tired and weary, old and beaten, and I see. Over the hill, beyond that ridge, through the uncertain mists of stormy weather, the coming events. The inevitable implosion. The cataclysm that will open. The riots, the panic, the fear, the crime, and the desolation.
It is lonely up here. It is cold. My wings are beat.
If I was wise, I would find a safer place, to roost, and seek the easy comfort of non-thought. The pleasant oblivion of deliberated complacence. I would do as so many of my brethren do. I would engineer my acceptance of a convenient status quo. It would be easier on the mind. But instead, I stretch my battered wings out, and force myself higher.
I wish to soar. To think. To dream.
I have no wish for your land.
Francis Meyrick
Lifting the Iron Curtain (1) “Minefields at the Border “
March 22, 2014 in Auto-biographical
Lifting the Iron Curtain
Part 1: Minefields at the border
The Cold War was still very hot in the late sixties.
Tensions simmered, and nobody really know how the future was going to play out. As a teenager, I read books on Karl Marx, Nikita Kruschev, and Stalin. I read about the Katyn massacre, and the Gulags. I was shocked at the barbarity of Stalin. The fact that he was busily murdering people long before Adolf Hitler got in on the act, made a big impression on my young, and probably rather serious mind. When I fully realized, in later life, that Stalin murdered more millions than Hitler, and that these ethnic butcherings were known to be going on, long before the ‘Insane Alliance’ of American President Franklin D.Roosevelt, I was totally bemused. I still am, especially when I see the Hollywood movies, that without exception portray the events of World War Two as a uniquely chivalrous, and perfectly successful crusade of the Good Guys against the Forces of Darkness… Perhaps the average American has no stomach for the truth. Or even less interest in History. I don’t know. But all the warnings from men much, much more learned than I, are totally valid; A Nation that neglects the painful truth of its History is doomed to repeat those very same mistakes.
“Boy! Minefields….! “
The Skull and Crossbones. Rows and rows of them, between acres and acres of barbed wire. The warning symbols were unmistakeable. I trembled with nervous excitement. I was merely puttering along, on my Triumph 750 motorcycle, carefully obeying the speed limit. There were speed bumps, and concrete barriers I had to slowly drive around. I wondered if, even now, there was a machine gun trained on me. I didn’t want to get shot at, and after all, this was “No Man’s Land ” between Free Western Europe and the Communist Empire. At age twenty two, this was an incredible adventure for me. I reflected on what lay behind, and what lay ahead.
Behind was the Western Europe I thought I knew. A Western Europe I had been raised in. Nothing was perfect, but nothing was too bad either. I could travel on my motorbike anywhere I liked. I could pretty well say anything I liked. I was free to chose to believe in God, or not. Nobody, apart from my poor Irish mother, really cared much. But I was also keenly aware of the military forces facing each other across the Iron Curtain. The Americans were everywhere. I had seen their fighters fly over, and their helicopters. I had seen their leaders on Televison. I remembered the assassination of John F.Kennedy. I remembered my mother’s passionate support for Richard Nixon. She wrote to him, and was incredibly proud of the ‘personal’ letter she received back.
I admired the Americans. To me they were heroes. And America the Land of Liberty. It was just a terrible pity about the agreements made at Yalta, and FDR’s blundering failures to secure a Free Eastern Europe…
I thought back to the Austrian border guards. Fat and jolly, they seemed to be very surprised at my intention to drive my motorcycle across the Iron Curtain to Hungary. It obviously wasn’t the done thing.
“You have visa?’
“No, no visa. “
“No visa? They not let you in! “
“Well, I’ll try anyway! “
They smiled, .laughed, stamped my passport, and waved me through. As I pulled out of the Austrian border post, there were several of them, in uniform, lying comfortably in folding deck chairs. Ready to defend Austria. Unarmed. Nobody had a gun. They all smiled and waved, at this strange young man all the way from Ireland, on his British motorcycle. Who said he wanted to go to Budapest, the capital of Communist Hungary…
And now I was crossing No Man’s land. Along the bumpy, potmarked road. Carefully. In case I upset the Communist Border guards. In the distance, I could make out what seemed like a major fortification. Concrete pillboxes. Machine gun emplacements. Wow…
I thought back to the Young Communist in Vienna. With whom I had stayed for a week. Arguing and debating until four o’clock in the morning. History, Economics, Politics… I remembered how he had talked about the Communist Workers’ Paradise. Praising Stalin, and Lenin. The walls of his apartment had been covered with revolutionary posters. Dramatic. Smiling working class peasants, standing united, shoulder-to-shoulder, with factory workers. All with arms raised, triumphantly saluting the glorious revolution of the proletariat.
The fact that he was permitted to freely hold his views, in Free Western Europe, seemed to mean little to him.
I was getting closer to the fortifications now. It was ugly. Barbed wire, concrete, and the unmistakeable barrells of guns protruding. And all that to defend against an attack from the unarmed, fat Austrians in their deck chairs back there? I wondered how many Communist soldiers were watching me at this moment…
Finally, late one night, I had asked my Communist host this question: “Here in Vienna, you live very closely to that Communist Workers’ Paradise. A few hours drive. You must visit often there? ” He had looked sheepish. Sensing weakness, I pounced: “So exactly HOW MANY times have you been there? ” He had to answer. He had never been there. Never. Ever. It was all a grandiose pie-in-the-sky. A trendy thing. How to shock your parents and friends. How to get notoriety amongst your peers. How to kick at the traces.
It was all a nonsense…. I told him as much, and promised him when I returned from the Communist Workers’ Paradise… I’d fill him in. He was embarrassed…
Some soldiers were coming out. With rifles. Carrying them at the ready. I drove up to them, smiling. They did not return the smiles. I stopped, and they advanced cautiously. I was impressed with the weaponry. It was hard to take your eyes off it. I wasn’t used to it, coming from the West.
Brusquely, they demanded my passport. Then, the expected: “Visa! ”
I looked stupid, with a look of “Hey! I’m from Ireland! “
“NO Visa??? ” He made an emphatic gesture with his hand.
“You GO BACK! ” He motioned in the general direction of where I knew, a few miles back along the potholes, the fat Austrians were lounging in their folding deck chairs.
I unzipped the pocket of my leather jacket.
“Cigarette?’
I flashed a packet of American cigarettes. “Lucky Strike “. Their eyes lit up.
They shouldered their Kalashnikovs, and accepted the cigarettes. I put one between my lips too.
Soon there was a little troupe of us, all puffing away contentedly.
“Nice Motor Rad “, the one said.
Soon we were quite friendly, and I gave away the packet.
Then, again: “You have VISA? “
It was time to put my plan into action.
In answer, I kicked out the sidestand, and parked the bike. They eyed me carefully. I walked back to the luggage panniers, and slipped out an unopened carton of Lucky Strike packets. Their eyes lit up.
“Visa? ” I asked, with an expressive upward jerk of my eyebrows.
A few minutes later, ten dollars poorer, with some banging and stamping of my passport, I was in the possession of a visa. They opened the gate, and motioned me through. I kicked my bike into life.
“Gud luck! ” they said, in a strangely accented English.
I waved, and in a cloud of dust, I entered Communist Hungary.
I had made it. All the way from Dublin, Ireland, across the Irish Sea, the English Channel, Belgium, France, Switzerland and Austria. I was now on sacred soil, that I had read so much about it, but never touched…
The Hungary of past empires, past wars, forgotten massacres, and the untimely 1956 failed Hungarian uprising.
Next stop: Budapest, the ancient capital.
I wound open the throttle, and proceeded down the dilapidated, crumbling highway, carefully watching for the potholes. The adventure had begun. I was young, I had a great motorbike, a tent on the back, and a thirst to see new things, meet new people, and learn new things.
In the event, I was to succeed beyond my wildest hopes…
Francis Meyrick
Last edited by Francis Meyrick on March 22, 2014, 11:01 am
Learning to Fly Helicopters (1) “Seduction “
March 22, 2014 in Learning to fly helicopters
Learning to fly Helicopters
Part 1: Seduction
When a chap has already logged several thousand hours fixed wing, and then starts getting involved with helicopters, people will ask ‘why?’. When on top of that, he has previously been unkind about helicopters, people will be doubly intrigued. My quiet opinion, along with a great many fixed wing pilots, had always been along the lines of:
“Fly helicopters? No chance! The day I climb into one of those contraptions will be the day I run over a Leprechaun! The most outlandish Heath Robinson concept ever thrown together. You need two nuts to fly a helicopter. One to hold the rotor on, and one to drive the infernal machine. There are more Jesus nuts and rotating parts than in an average scrapyard. It’s far too complex a machine to have gyrating around the sky. At least in an aeroplane, if the engine quits, you’ve still got a wing. I do not fancy being suspended beneath a rotating paddle. If the engine quits on those damn things, you are going to know all about it. No thanks. I don’t want to know. Should be banned from the sky.”
(Or measured, soft-spoken diplomatic words to that effect)
So how did I end up with a sticker on the back of my car that says: “I brake for Leprechauns”??
Well…
It was a hot day in California. I was bored. Thirsty. Frustrated. I had entered a business deal which had gone badly wrong. And now I was over trying to sort it all out. I had a hangover. I was not particularly sober. I had for some days being noticing a sign which said:
‘Helicopter trial lessons $35’.
I had also been amazed at the frequency of the helicopter traffic that had been going round and round. I found it a bit annoying to see something aeronautical going on about which I knew absolutely nothing. The cocky students swaggering around, and discussing their flights in loud voices in the café also annoyed me. If those gibbering prunes could learn, then I was jolly sure I could. Eventually, a beer too many, I staggered in to book a trial lesson. “Just to prove I can hover the damn thing, and then I’m off”, I remember distinctly thinking to myself. I had some idea of proving that it was easy, and then leaving it there having made my point. I could then go back to Fixed Wing and state disdainfully: “Choppers? Oh, yes, did a few hours on them. Nothing to it, really. I learned to hover, but it didn’t appeal to me. Stupid machines.”
The next day, sobered up, I entered the flying school in an obstreperous mood. A nice lady welcomed me in, and introduced me to a thin, thoughtful looking instructor. Not letting on that I had any flying background, much less an instructional one, I amused myself by asking damn silly questions. With a straight face. The thin, serious looking instructor was so nice and pleasant, and trying so hard to sell me helicopter flying lessons, that I just couldn’t resist the temptation to take the Mickey. Pure mischief. “What happens if we run out of gas?” “What happens if the rotor falls off?” “What’s this thing for? (pointing at the tail rotor)” “Why don’t we have any windscreen wipers? Can’t we fly in the rain?” “Are these (pointing at the Navigation lights) for when you turn corners?”. Etcetera. He was so nice, and patient, I just had to see how far I could push the game.
Eventually, we went flying. I was sorry I’d sobered up. I didn’t like it at all. I was secretly, quietly, totally petrified. I knew why. For the first time in years I was once again newly trapped in a flying machine that I was incapable of flying. If Rabbit Features beside me (he was a vegetarian) keeled over, I knew I had no hope of controlling the thundering contraption. I kept hoping he was healthy. He looked a bit anemic to me. (all those endless salads) It was altogether too much like being perched precariously on the edge of an abyss, sitting on a little plastic platform. The full bubble windscreen didn’t help either. I could see FAR more than I was used to. Or desired to.
He was being very nice, and then he asked me if there was anything I wanted to do.
“Yes, go home straight away!”, was exactly what I thought. I remember it vividly, all these three-and-a-bit decades later. So sensible. If only…
I actually said: “Yes, I’d like to try and hover the blessed thing.”
Male pride. Testosterone. Stupid stuff. Causes wars.
Obligingly, he flew down to a concrete dam, flat and big as a football pitch. Then he carefully handed over to me.
It was a farce. No sooner had I stopped it doing “Waltzing Mathilda” one way, than she’d be off in the opposite direction. Try as hard as I might, the oscillations would get bigger and bigger, until eventually he would have to take over. Maddeningly, the moment he took control, it would all settle down, and the infernal machine would instantly and obediently return over the required spot. I would try and try again. After about twenty minutes, I was covered in perspiration but getting absolutely nowhere. At least HE knew what he was doing. It was obvious that he could fly. Thank goodness. Probably had a few thousand hours…
I asked him, flying along, nervously’ (read: terrified), looking down five hundred feet at the rocky floor below.
“How many hours you got on choppers?”
“Two hundred.”
“TWO HUNDRED??”
“Yep.”
My thoughts: “EEEEEK! WTF!? I’m flying along in a plastic bubble alongside a salad eating, anemic freak who’s only got TWO HUNDRED hours!?!”
I thought: “Surely, he’s kidding… he’s messing with me. Getting his own back for all the stupid questions I asked about the windscreen wipers, and turning corners. Or maybe he’s got a boat load of Fixed Wing experience. Although what that’s got to do with it…”
I said: “”Errr… you got a Fixed Wing background maybe?”
“Oh, no, never flown one in my life.”
My brain reeled. I asked, lamely, totally well aware that the question was unsoundly based, given the two hundred hour time reference: “How long you been instructing helicopters?”
“Just got my Instructor’s ticket. You’re my first student.”
Silence. Dead, silence.
(thinks: “I AM SO DEAD!”)
* * * * *
The next day… I turned up again.
You would think I’d have learned my lesson. Helicopters are for the birds. Stay with what you know. Wings bolted in place. But I was feeling pigheaded and determined. As well as scared. I went and had a good glare at the machine first. I’m one of those pilots who attributes a soul to aeroplanes and engines. A Karma. A previous Existence. Normally I’m nice to them, but this thing and I needed to sort out who was Boss.
Up we went again. He seemed to think I was doing ever so well, and was full of compliments. I didn’t pay much attention, and put it down to sales talk. Marketing gimmickry. It was a better performance I suppose, because I could now hover quite reasonably well within a small-ish area. Provided it was the size of very large football pitch. He, for his part, was ecstatic. After the flight, he grabbed the Chief Instructor, and told him I was a natural. That gentleman just smiled. I thought this was just taking marketing gimmickry to extremes. Or maybe he meant it. Then again, I thought cynically, it was easy for him to say I was his best ever student, wasn’t it?
I resolved to have just ONE more go, Just to hover. Just to say I had done it. He rightly insisted we do some of the rest of the syllabus, but soon we were back to the dreaded, eagerly awaited, elusive, ‘Waltzing Mathilda’. I was sure I could do it. Unfortunately, El Robbo R-22 (early model) (oldie style twist grip), had not quite got the same message. She was still putting up a tussle. Back and forth we danced, up and down. Sometimes we did an impression of a seasick camel, at other times it was more like a one-legged drunk. Trying to totter down an UP-going escalator. Carrying a heavy suitcase in one hand. And playing a trombone.
Time and time again, Old Anemic would say: “I have the controls!” and grab the reins. Within a nano second, SHE would be sucking up to him, and just hovering there, quietly, meekly. Infuriating….
There came a point I stopped analyzing what was happening. I started more to concentrate on ‘doing’ whatever ‘felt right’. It got better. The breakthrough was an abrupt point, when I started not trying to STOP an involuntary drift to, say, the left. I just started to try and HALVE the rate of drift. And then HALVE it again. And again. Now I wasn’t fighting it anymore. I was waltzing in unison with her.
And, although I didn’t fully realize it at the time, I was also falling in love.
It got better. After a few hours, I had definitely achieved a stage where I could climb in, start her up, lift up into the hover, take off, fly a circuit, and approach. And land. After a fashion. Auto-rotations I did not yet trust. The entry, when we dropped, scared me. Later, as a helicopter flight instructor myself, I was to learn the Art of first easing students into auto-rotations ever so very gently. By demonstrating very smooth, gentle entries. So smooth, that they didn’t even know we were in auto-rotation, until they saw the needles split. No need to scare them by violence at the start of the lesson. Quick stops were fun. Slope landings were okay. But hovering was my favorite. Maybe it was time to quit. I was ahead.
It was then, just as a reasonable degree of satisfaction was creeping in, that Rabbit Features decided to show me a whole new Art. There were two main themes to this melody, and variants thereon. The first consisted of hovering at a constant height along the lines of a large square. You started out at the bottom left. First you hovered forward, then, when you got to the top, you hovered exactly sideways right. When you reached that top right hand corner, you hovered perfectly backwards, until you got to the bottom. Then sideways left. Perfectly. Back to your origin. Not as easy as it sounds. But awesome, when you first learn how to do it.
The second variant was my favorite. Face in towards the center of a large circle. Then, maintaining an exact heading towards the center, rotate the Beast (Beauty?) sideways around the circle. Maintaining an exact heading towards the center. No wobbling! That was soooo cool.
Getting reasonable at that? Okay, now do the same thing, but facing OUTWARDS. Tail exactly towards the center. Follow the circle. Still cocky? Put your LEFT hand on the cyclic, and your RIGHT hand on the collective. And watch your brain untangle that cerebral Synaps overload…
By the time I had danced all those waltzes, I had a enjoyed a real good crack at learning to love Mathilda. A week and a bit had now passed, and some twenty flight hours. Rabbit Features wanted to send me solo. Now I was suddenly less than enthusiastic again.
Solo? In one of ‘them things’? Me? 
All I wanted was to hover it one time.
Hmmmm…
Francis Meyrick
Return to Index? (ChopperStories.COM)?
Last edited by Francis Meyrick on November 16, 2015, 4:49 pm
Of Helicopters and Humans (25) “Benjy, the Groundsman “
March 21, 2014 in Helicopters and Humans
Of Helicopters and Humans
Part 25: Benjy the Groundsman
(a true story)
Many moons ago, and many complete elliptical orbits around our medium class Sun, I was instructing hairplanes and heli-whoppers in a faraway country. It tended to be wet there, and the grass grew often and tall. We had a good old boy there, working as a groundsman. He was a retired fellow, very respectable, in his late sixties. He was happy to have a job that got him out of the house, and that kept him active. He was a regular, steady, slightly plodding, rotund figure around the airfield. He drove the tractor, mowed the grass, painted the signs, serviced the fire truck, and fixed the plumbing. He was as reliable and steady as the arrival of unexpected bills in your mail box. He even made the coffee. Everybody liked him a lot. He did a terrific job, and he was soft spoken and old fashioned. Never a cross word, and never an adjective escaped the mouth of this honorable gentleman and grandfather.
It was therefore with some amazement, not to mention dumbfounded disbelief, that we all witnessed Benjy one day breaking Light Speed. None of us would have thought him possible of such a Warp Speed sprint. But here he came, like an express locomotive, thundering across the tarmac, heading straight for the club house. Sensing an aircraft emergency, I leaped off my chair, swinging my gaze along the runway. Looking for a crash, or a fire.
Nothing…
Had somebody crashed into a field?
“Fire crew standby!”, I announced. Several trained volunteers jumped to their feet. People shot over to windows, looking. Where? There was no sign of anything amiss. Apart from Benjy.
And still he came on. I guessed he was going to hit the crash alarm button beside the entrance. Perhaps that was why he was running. But then why didn’t he just shout and wave? Point? He would have already had us all out there.
He had reached the main entrance. I braced myself for the crash alarm he was about to activate. Surely? But no, Benjy ignored it completely. Instead he piled frantically right through the door, and, still at Benjy VNE, he now headed for the restrooms. Wow. He must have been in a helluva way… Needed a pee urgent-lee?
But no. It wasn’t a frantic call of nature.
He didn’t even shut the door. Instead he was running water, and splashing it all over his face and hair. He appeared to be highly agitated. Water was going everywhere. And still he was splashing himself. Everybody was dumbfounded. Heat stroke? No, the weather was warm-ish, but only just above cool. That didn’t make sense either.
“Are you all right, Benjy?”, we asked, concerned.
Had Benjy maybe lost it? Some kind of mental breakdown? Should we call an ambulance?
Faces were crowding around the doorway.
In answer, Benjy, dripping wet, just shivered, and shook himself, and kind of emitted strange sounds.
“I was doing alright…”, he mumbled eventually, speaking slowly and thoughtfully.
“I was doing just fine…”
Yes?
“I was carefully strimming that grassy slope down by the fuel pumps…”
Yes? We all knew the slope in question… Benjy maintained it beautifully.
“And I guess I was holding the strimmer up at about chest height or so…”
Yes? And then what?
He straightened up, obviously carefully trying to regain his usual composure. His grandfatherly dignity.
“And then…”, he shivered again, involuntarily, as if the memory was still too fresh. His eyes still showed, hollowly, the sheer awfulness of the event.
WHAT!?
“And then… well, I strimmed…”
????
(He gave us this frustrated look. A mixture of ‘sheepish’ and ‘indignant’)
(quietly)
“…right through…
(very quietly)
… this fucking big dog turd.”
Francis Meyrick
Last edited by Francis Meyrick on March 21, 2014, 10:47 am
A Blip on the Radar (39) “I could have been a Librarian “
March 19, 2014 in Auto-biographical (tuna helicopters), Blip on the Radar
Forgetting to undo one tie-down…
the one millionth pilot to make this same old mistake
A Blip on the Radar
Part 39: I could have been a Librarian
There was a period of time in Oz and New Zealand, when, if I understand correctly, Federal student loan programs were very readily available for those wishing to further their education. Those loans were also available for those wishing to become Commercial Helicopter Pilots. And therein, ironically, lay the seed of much grief and heart ache down the road. It’s called ‘Supply and Demand’. A lot of eager beaver young guys who wanted to be pilots, had THAT DREAM. Poor guys! And what able bodied, warm blooded, Testosterone pumping, Sheilah loving, fair Dinkum, stand up guy does NOT want to be a chopper jockey?? (you want to be a… what?) (A librarian?… that’s so… COOL)
The first thing to recognize about ANY loan, is that the sumbitch has to be repaid. With more sumbitch interest. Now if only I could learn that lesson myself today… So I’m certainly not able to preach such a virtue from the lofty moral heights of purity and supreme wisdom. I guess I had better not preach sobriety either. Abstention? Nope. Moderation? Yeah, maybe. But, seriously, we all know that debt can be ugly. I recently talked to a heli-whopper flying buddy here in Yankee land, whose student debt stands at a truly staggering $160,000 US dollars. That’s a record for me, but I’ve heard about student loans over $100,000 US Dollars many a time. It’s a helluva way to start your career. You are taking on a house note size loan, without the four walls and the cool beer in the refrigerator, but with the roof ready to cave in on top of your favorite head, if you can’t get a job once you are qualified. And not just any job. It had better PAY decent money…
Scribbling “Moggy’s Tunaboat Helicopter Manual”, or MTM for short, has been a challenge in terms of labor and midnight candle hours, but it’s also been rewarding. I especially immensely enjoy the many emails I get. A reward in itself, right there. Reading between the lines, many a time, I get this mental picture of “young guy”, and “starting out”, and “anxious, borderline desperate” to get a job. You can almost sense the puppy dog eyes, and the tongue hanging out.
Wanna fly… soooooo BAD. Mister, do you know where I can get a job?
Brother, I know just how you feel…
I’m an old puppy dog, but the urge to go fly, pull pitch, burn fossil fuel, rip up into the sky, and think (“Yippee…!”) never seems to have left me. (Limited I.Q., probably). So I know it, there’s a lot riding on getting going and finding work. The newly qualified guy, with 200 to 300 helicopter hours, has invested Time, Effort, Loan Money, Hope, Expectations, and Self Respect. He may be married, have a family, or be seriously thinking about it. He may have been doing a much better paid job, but in some field that was boring him to tears. Maybe he was a welder, or a bus driver, or even a librarian. Mama (the great one) has given him permission to follow his Life’s Flying Dream, but Mama also expect food on the table, and clean nappies for Junior.
Her patience, forbearance, understanding and support, is… Finite. Am I right?
And now, along comes that offer of a tuna boat helicopter flying job. The lure of flight hours. At least SOME money.
And a guy can be forgiven for being overjoyed, and willing to overlook the “minor” drawbacks.
But what of risk?
And this is where I’m going to annoy some people. The jocks. The heroes. The bullet proof, three hundred (or three thousand) hour Sky Kings. I have said it many a time. Because it’s true. The world over, tuna helicopter flying has killed hundreds of pilots and their passengers over the years. It’s not something to be breezed into. A couple of beers, a talk with old Bernie who did six months on the “Agrippina”, and who is a world class expert. And it’ll be alright, Mum. Never fret, Dad. No bother, Brenda.
No worries, mate…
“It’ll be alright”, because it HAS to be? Not exactly a boatload of job choices available.
I’ve flown fixed and rotary, IFR, day, night, single pilot, two crew, EMS, Law Enforcement, Search and Rescue, Tours, Instruction, Mountain, Desert, Jungle, North Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Africa, Europe, all around the Pacific Rim, Airways, and dirt strips. I’ve flown aerobatics, taught aerobatics, flown air shows and aerobatic competitions. STILL learning the ropes. ONE of these days, I kind of hope I’m gonna know what I’m doing. ‘Cos I’m still learning… Every day. But as regards RISK, now that is one mother that I know a bit about. Believe me. Madame Risque, she has my full attention and respect.
So, what of risk?
Helicopter Flying is a thinking Man’s game. Not a jock’s game. It’s a game for the soft spoken Man. Not the Loudmouth at the Bar. Don’t listen to him. Your survival chances go way, way up exponentially if you have a discrete, but highly developed, super cautious side of you, that asks good questions. Informed questions. And demands answers. A side of you that is willing to pause, back up, and think through the Master Plan again.
Remember that “little amber caution light”? The one I often invoke?
He’s your buddy. Listen to him.
If I was going to go on a Tuna Boat, I’d be asking a lot of questions. What’s this “MTM Tuna Manual ” thing? Any good? Has anybody read it? Does that idiot know what he’s talking about? Has he flown tuna? Five years? Hmmm…. Maybe I’ll read the damn thing. Hmmmm… He’s making me think, that Moggy dude. And what’s this he’s asking? If it’s a Hughes 500, then what of the engine? C10, C18 or C20? C20B? Military surplus? A rebuilt C18? Rebuilt by who? Paper work? So that matters? Is there a belly hook provided? If not, why not? Moggy says it’s a great safety tool. And that it probably saved his neck. My potential boss says angrily that Moggy is full of shit. Don’t read anything that mother writes.
Hmmm… Who is right?
My attitude towards risk has changed. In some subtle way. There’s still a little boy in me, that likes to play. Or a little thug, depending on your point of view. (watch me on my motorcycles, scraping the footrests, running out of throttle… or, maybe not) But some vital ingredient has made itself at home, over the years, in my perspective on risk. That ingredient is the sober realization, learned from the bitter fruits of near disaster, that I am fully capable of really prize, classic clangers.
Gi-normous boobs. Call it too many Moggy heart-in-mouth (“Oh, shit?!”) moments.
I have honestly tried to share with you some of these really horrible moments. Spread across Tuna Boat flying, Law Enforcement, North Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Africa, and elsewhere. Sure, I didn’t actually break anything. I actually never even scratched a helicopter. But maybe it was more of a “lucky near miss” than merely an “academic potential”. I nearly, nearly screwed the pooch. I got so close I got to smell his damn doggie breath. I didn’t like it. So I slowed down. Backed off. I accepted I was not perfect. Not even remotely. Not only was I not a brilliant pilot. I was perhaps just a very average fixed wing and chopper jockey. I needed to slow down. And watch myself… re-evaluate where I stood on Risk. It’s the simple things that get you in helicopters. It’s not the Green Man from Planet Yuptulia cutting you up in his convertible Flying Saucer, practicing barrel rolls. Nothing as exotic as that. It’s the STUPID little stuff that trips you up. The routine. If I can get that point across, I’ll be thrilled. I give you two simple examples, neither of which paint me as the great Sky God. But, hopefully, they show you how easy, easy, easy, the stupid, simple stuff can bite you…
* * * * *
A) Dynamic Roll-over accidents
Question: Now, a roll-over type accident is typically a low time helicopter pilot’s mistake, right? Or a student pilot, right?
When you hear that somebody rolled a helicopter over, what do you -honestly – think? “There for the Grace of God”, go I? I doubt it. I imagine you think: “Dozy bugger…!” And “that would never happen to moi…”.
Back up right there, amigo. Back the bitch up. WAY UP.
(Sigh). Lemme tell ya a story against myself…
Answer: (small, squeaky voice) “I nearly did it, actually… “
I already had thousands and thousands of hours. I was in Africa, and it was HOT. I was at this poky hole of a place that was masquerading as a major airport, and waiting my turn to get the hell out of there. One Passenger on board. There were helicopters everywhere, and big old African blunder buses (Boeing 727’s if I remember) coming and going. And blowing hell out of everything with their engine wash. Those guys will turn on the spot, firewall one engine, and not seem to notice the absolute chaos behind them. Or they just don’t care. Corrugated iron fence sheeting flying through the air, pedestrians flattened, helicopters spun around, and total mayhem. There was an Antonov taxying, a few commuters, and above it all, the emotional African gentleman in the tower, who was doing his best. His heavily accented English, coupled with the machine gun velocity of words, coupled with the static, coupled with the fact that many African pilots were talking in their own language, produced in this weary Irishman’s psyche ONE overwhelming emotion:
“Let me the HELL out of this fuk’n place…”
But I had to wait my turn. So I sat. Turning and burning. Cooking. Twenty minutes. Marinating in my own body juices. Sick of it. Getting grumpy. Getting dehydrated. Getting a headache. All the Blunder buses had priority over us mere rotary fodder. Anyway, they spoke the language, and we were just interlopers. Waiting, waiting… Beside me, three other helicopters were also turning and burning. Occasionally, we would kind of look at each other. Shake our heads. Another romantic, helicopter flying day in beautiful Africa.
Shit hole…
When I finally got the call to taxy to the runway, delivered in a heavily accented micro second, before he moved on to yet another blunder bus, I was primed and incandescent hot to trot. Wound the throttle up, in a hurry, (before he changed his mind), and pulled pitch quickly. No time for “little amber caution lights”, and all that BS. Let’s get going…
(??????) (What!!!???) (DAMN…!)
(THAT WAS CLOSE…)
In a nano-second, I had achieved a truly astonishing angle to Terra Firma.
It wasn’t supposed to be that way, I was sure.
I was way off on a kilter. Either the control tower had rolled hard right, or I had rolled hard left. One of the two. Another nano-second, and the control tower had rolled back hard vertical, and now dust was floating above the cockpit floor. The collective was hard down. I was actually trying to push it through the floor. Damn…
What!?
My buddy, turning and burning beside me, came over on the radio.
“Hey Moggy! Watch it, I think your left skid is sunk in the tarmac!”
He was right. The right skid, on my side, was wholly unaffected. I had actually looked out my door, at the RIGHT skid, wondering about the tarmac and the heat. I had seen nothing to alarm me. It was the unseen LEFT skid that had sunk into a soft patch on that scorching hot day, and the stage was set for career disaster. Normally, I take off real smooth and gentle. Normally, I am real careful. Normally, this would never have happened. But as Murphy’s Law dictates, the weird one-off collusion of different factors all at the same time (fatigue, heat, hurry, soft tarmac on one side only, soft tarmac on side away from pilot’s view, etc, etc) had me well on the way down the Yellowbrick Road towards a whole lot of paperwork, and huge personal embarrassment. It’s pretty horrible how low that rotor disc will dip. In a split, split second. Where I had sunk one skid in, there was a permanent shiny black groove, that stood out clearly from the rest of the dull top coat. My fellow pilots, with that usual great compassion for their suffering buddy, of course immediately dubbed the track “Moggy’s Mark” for the rest of my sojourn there. Like: “I was parked just down from Moggy’s Mark…
* * * * *
B) Firing up with the Rotor Blade tied down.
Question: What kind of dumb, moronic, asinine, myopic, dim-witted, certifiable klutz starts up with his rotor blade tied down? And does all manner of horrible damage? Sometimes in excess of $100,000? Not to mention the real risk of rolling your bird over onto her side? (torque, when the blade finally does let go) And totally destroying her? Not to mention the risk of killing somebody?
What kind of NUT-CASE pulls a stupid stunt like that?? When you hear that somebody fired up with the blades tied down, what do you -honestly – think? “There for the Grace of God”, go I? I doubt it.
I imagine you think: “Dozy bugger….!” And “that would never happen to moi….”.
Answer: (small, squeaky voice) “A nut-case like ME, actually. “
I find myself still wincing in embarrassment. How in hell’s name… did I manage that. I had two near brushes with this particular ghoul. The first was when I was flying an OH 58 for the Sheriff’s Office up in Arizona. I was told I had a VIP to take on a flight, but that the gentleman was actually very nervous. Would I please be nice. Sure… I’m kind of a well meaning, bumbling type hombre, and I try to be nice. So much so, that I had Mister VIP nicely seated, carefully seatbelted in, all nice and tucked in. If I had been still carrying my Teddy Bear around with me, I would have lent him to the VIP. I had been really, really nice. Read: distracted. Maybe there is something to be said for: “Get in, buckle up, and SHUT UP!” Anyway, I got as far as a nano second’s worth of starter application, just a blip, before my eye traveled to the rotor blade, and I thought it was maybe a good idea to go and untie it. No damage, just a one second burp, and then I stopped. With a hurried “Let me just go check something”, I hopped out of the cockpit, redressed the major error, and continued the flight. But for all my covering up, the message of my error went home. Damn. Not good.
I soon became a firm devotee of this trick: before you start up a two bladed helicopter system, ALWAYS park your blades at nine o’clock and three o’clock. Left-right. Never, ever, start up with your blades fore and aft. I strongly recommend it.
Well… The years rolled by. Many more flight hours. Thousands. And now I was in Africa. We had a political problem there, working with some of the locals who were easy to work with. And some, who were emotional, unpredictable, and bi-polar as hell. Black men with all the same attributes as many white honkies. Must be a human thing, being a difficult SOB. Anyway, I worked with this African gentleman dispatcher, who had this ability to go from rational to hyper hysterical in three seconds flat. He also had this unique talent of blaming everything on the pilot. You will come across this phenomenon a lot in the rotary world.
I was in my bird, one hot afternoon, and I had already logged nearly five hours that day. But there was more to do. I had just completed my checklist, and I was about to hit the starter. Somebody ran over. The Dispatcher was on the phone, wanting to talk to me. I switched the battery off, and hopped out. Walking back over to the office, with my life jacket still on, I thought of something, and turned around and went back to the helicopter. A few minutes later, I reemerged from my phone call, with my brain in a knot. He had wanted to give me another two hours’ worth of flying, on top of what I already had on my list. I didn’t have the daylight to do all that, nor did I have sufficient flight hours left out of my maximum permitted eight flying hour day. Once again, I was forced to patiently explain this, for the three hundred and fifty fifth time. He got emotional.
And so it was, that I legged it out to my bird, still wearing my life jacket, with my tiny mind full of calculations. How long here, how long to there, how much fuel, how much…
I hopped back in, strapped in, and then I had this irresistible urge to just hammer the starter. Battery on, fire in the hole. To hell with the checklist. Just do it. The little angel on my right shoulder, the boring dude wearing the white toga and sandals, he of course immediately said: “Hey! You always do the checklist!” I paused, for a nano second. The angel on my left shoulder, dressed in black, (funny guy), he of course said: “Oh, blow it! You’ve already DONE the checklist! Let’s hit the road, homey!” I paused, my finger hovering over the starter button. But, for once, the white angel dude won out. Him with the skirt. He was right. I always did the checklist. So, wearily, I removed the digit that hovered in mid air over the starter button, and instead I went to the checklist.
Item # 1. “Tie-downs and intake covers removed.”
(“well, of course they are. You think I’m stupid?”) As per routine, long, old, ingrained routine, I swung my gaze to the left. To the nine o’clock position.
No blade…
What!?
Swing gaze abruptly to the right, three o’clock position.
No blade…
What!?
My brain stalled. In a nano second, I considered and dismissed a thousand possibilities. The main rotor blades had been stolen? Unlikely? They had fallen off? I had already looked on the ground. Nope, they hadn’t fallen off. That left one distinctly uncomfortable possibility…
My gaze swung to the twelve o’clock position.
One main rotor blade.
Yoo-hoo! Here I am! Oh, by the way, some dickhead tied me down just now…
And I remembered that I had hopped out, and walked away, and then returned, a good little boy, to tie my blades down.
Fooled! Fooled by being in a rush. Fooled by the temptation to cut a corner, ‘cos after all I was in a hurry.
And of course, in that horrible predicament, when you know you have really, really, almost messed badly with the pooch, what does a professional pilot do? What does he think? I’ll tell you exactly what he does. And what he thinks.
His first thought is: “Did anybody just see that??”
And you look frantically left-right-left, to see if, even now, some observer has got you cold. If, even now, he is either laughing his socks off, or grimly making notes.
Nobody had seen it. I exited, suddenly only three feet tall, corrected the mega mistake, got back in, and flew off. No damage. No $100,000 repair bill. No egg farm all over face. No rolled over helicopter. Nothing. Got away with it.
That night, upon my return, I wondered if anybody would come over and say anything. Maybe the Big Boss. Maybe he would want “a word” with me. Maybe.
But…nope. I had gotten away with it. Sticking laboriously to the checklist, like a good little soldier, had saved my posterior. Again. Would I ever learn not to cut corners?
A few weeks went by. As so often happens to pilots, the transgression needled on me. I needed a Father Confessor. Just a good buddy. To share it, get it off my chest. I went and talked to my African American buddy, a pilot I shall call Eboniah.
Funny dude. Soft spoken, highly intelligent, insightful, with a vast repertoire of stories to tell. Great Poker face as well. Which he turned on me. He had me sussed. Only I didn’t realize it.
I told him the whole story. He listened, without interruption. When I was finished, he fixed me with a solemn, judgmental expression. “Do you realize”, he said sternly, “how potentially serious that was?”
I nodded, crestfallen. I knew. He proceeded to give me a stern lecture. I nodded, guiltily. Part of me was still feeling guilty. Another Part of me, however, was thinking: “Well, thanks, judgmental buddy of mine. Next time I need some peer support…” But then his face split into a big, ear-to-ear grin. He laughed.
Fooled ya, you daft Irish mutt…
“That ain’t NUTHIN’…”, he chortled. “Do you want to to know what I did?”
“Oh!”, I thought, the sudden change in emotions catching me by surprise. (I’m no good at Poker)
“Errr, yessssss”. My turn to look stern and reproachful. Fold arms. Tap foot.
“What did YOU do, Mister?”
His turn to adopt that little puppy dog look. And throw a theatrical look around us, as if to make sure that nobody was listening. He then proceeded to tell me about climbing in with this old, ancient, weather beaten Oilfield hand, who promptly pulled his cap over his eyes, leaned back, and went asleep.
Eboniah admitted to me that he thought words to the effect of “what an old duffer!”, and proceeded. With the checklist?
Or from memory. I’ll let you decide.
Battery on…
Ready to hit the starter.
A voice came over the intercom. A lazy voice. An old Oilfield hand voice. A tobacco chewing, no-nonsense, shoot from the hip old Oilfield voice.
“Hey, Cap…”
Eboniah, surprised, replied:
“Sir…?”
There were some thoughtful chewing motions from “the old duffer”, who was still comfortably reclined, with his cap over his eyes. He continued:
“AIN’T YOU GONNA UNTIE THE BLADES FIRST?”
(oops…) (Eboniah slides out of the cockpit, suddenly shrunk to a mere three foot tall)
Oh, baby. Try and pass THAT one off like you meant to do it that way.
Last anecdote on firing up with the rotor blade tied down.
Another buddy of mine was a really, really high time dude when he pulled this stunt. Fired up a Bell 206 with the blade tied down, and with a mechanic standing on a stand, with the engine cowling propped open, and the mechanic’s head stuck inside. The blade was firmly tied down a mere seven feet away from the mechanic’s busy head.
Between the two of them, neither had figgered out what was going to happen. He wound it up to 60% N1. Blade not moving. No reaction from the mechanic, standing on the work stand, with his head in the cowling.
The build up of torque at this stage is gi-normous. What’s gonna happen. Well, the rotor blade BROKE. It didn’t snap off, a clean break, but it gave up the unequal fight, and succumbed to superior forces. Now the blade tie-down slipped off.
And now… the broken blade, dangling down, was free to BEAT HOLY HELL OUT OF EVERYTHING.
Tailboom, windows, cockpit… all got the pissed orf giant-with-a-sledgehammer treatment. Inside, the petrified pilot was hunched down, discovering all manner of religion faiths in an intensive, personal, deeply spiritual moment.
How ’bout the mechanic? He should have been killed. What we think happened is that the helicopter, which was luckily already tied down for the night, jumped violently against the straps. In doing so, it dealt a violent blow to the step ladder, which knocked the mechanic off. Onto the concrete, on his head. Probably a nano second before the broken, dangling rotor blade and the mechanic mutually shared the same point in space. For a very brief second.
Now this is the sort of accident that fascinates me, because EVERYBODY says “How Stupid!”
Whoa! Hold it right there, buddy. Back up right there, amigo. Back the bitch up. WAY UP.
We are all going to be much better pilots (and mechanics), not to mention much kinder human beings, if we study such events, and learn vividly how EASILY circumstances conspire to lead us simple little human being, by the nose, down the glory hole. Truly, there for the Grace of God… go you and I.
And if you truly believe this could never happen to you…
Well, there’s a really good job going down at the local library.
Let me explain some of the innocent steps, that led up to this event. Some of the “accident rings” that started, one by one, to neatly line up in a row, just itching and waiting for that “accident arrow” to cleanly sail through all of them.
1) It was night. There were floodlights, but it was night time.
2) The pilot was fatigued. He had already flown a full day’s flying. He was about to go home, when maintenance, who couldn’t find the regular pilot on that aircraft, asked him as a favor to fire it up on a maintenance run.
3) The pilot was used to flying a totally different helicopter. It had been a long time since he had started a 206. For that reason, he was pre-occupied with the gages, anxious not to over temp this baby.
4) The pilot knew the mechanic was there. Yes, it’s the pilot’s responsibility. But he knew…there was a guy on a ladder back there.
5) The mechanic knew the pilot was there. Yes, the blade was tied down a mere eight feet or so to this right, but he knew the pilot was there.
6) The mechanic was tunnel vision focused on HIS piece of the maintenance puzzle. You are talking a massively experienced, thirty plus year professional, who can bring a huge reservoir of experience to bear on any particular problem.
A powerful focus on THAT particular area.
7) The pilot, a super high time guy, was intensely focused on NOT over temping a (for him) unfamiliar beast.
Disaster. For me, a big learning event, that I applied to my own thinking, experience and humility. If it could happen to those guys, with all their experience… Am I really thinking something like that couldn’t happen to me?
Solution? Caution. Checklist. Slow it down. Think. Step back. Read accident reports. Study. Think.
Humility…
Helicopter Flying is a thinking Man’s game. Not a jock’s game. It’s a game for the soft spoken Man. Not the Loudmouth at the Bar. Don’t listen to him. Your survival chances go way, way up exponentially if you have a discrete, but highly developed, super cautious side of you, that asks good questions. Informed questions. And demands answers. A side of you that is willing to pause, back up, and think through the Master Plan again.
Remember that “little amber caution light”? The one I often invoke? He’s OUR saviour buddy. Let’s listen to him.
Francis Meyrick
Last edited by Francis Meyrick on March 19, 2014, 9:57 pm
MUSIC WHILE YOU READ
March 17, 2014 in Other Authors
(without intrusive adverts) 
tip: open a second browser for the MUSIC. FEEL THE HEAT, DRINK THE PASSION+++
Last edited by Francis Meyrick on July 24, 2016, 9:58 am
Of Helicopters and Humans (24) “Of Vomit and Mischief “
March 15, 2014 in Helicopters and Humans
Of Helicopters and Humans
Part 24: Of Vomit and Mischief
I have worked as a flying instructor (fixed wing and heli-whoppers) in widely different parts of this funky blue dot. It’s been rather interesting. What sticks in my tiny mind are a great many different things, one of which is the wide variety of different Instructor personalities you meet. You meet them as the victim, greet them as the oppressor, or see them at work with other victims. I also worked as Chief Flight Instructor or Chief Pilot in different arenas, and on different continents. Again, it was kind of intriguing to watch different individuals live up to their particular notion of what it means to “teach”.
Thus we had a young Fixed Wing instructor, whose technical knowledge and handling skills were beyond repute. He was an intelligent young fellow, very quick, and a whizz at computers. Brains to burn. I wondered about only one area: his compassion department. Thus he seemed to get an unnatural amount of pleasure out of people throwing up under his care. He would be at the bar, afterwards, recounting the day’s events in glorious Technicolor. Not very nice. It seemed almost like a badge of honor. An achievement. “Got another one to throw up…” (Ha-ha-ha!). I also noticed, over a period of time, that he seemed to get along much better with younger students, his own age. The older, slower students, seemed to annoy him. He could be snappy, and impatient.
I was in the habit of occasionally riding along in the back. It wasn’t so much an evaluation, as more a way to see if I could offer the new, junior Instructors some help and tips. I tried to make it low-key. I would also sometimes go up with one of my instructors, and we would do some role playing. Usually, I would play the dumb-ass student. It was always orientated towards fun, which can be a rare and fleeting ingredient in some training establishments. The world over, aviation training departments seem to attract a certain type of screamer. Haughty, aloof, condescending, and invariably conceived by Immaculate Conception. Funny thing is, when they do screw up, instead of laughing at themselves, and using the event as a valuable, self-telling learning example, they would bluster, and become embarrassed, or even wholly deny the event. Or resign and run. I didn’t want to be like that, and I always sought a relaxed, professional, good humored cockpit. It kind of grieved me to see students or trainees humiliated.
There are multiple reasons why I think such a self perpetuating culture is counter productive. But that’s probably another story. Suffice it to say here, that as time went by, I was becoming increasingly worried about our hero. I was even beginning to smell a rat. The suspicion was gnawing away at the back of my mind, that our hero was not above making some of his older students (who he did not get along with) deliberately air sick. If I flew along in the back, he was as good as gold, but what exactly he was up to when I was not a witness, was what worried me.
Eventually, after yet another vomit story telling by him at the bar, in the usual glorious (ha-ha-ha!) Technicolor, I decided positive action was required. But what? How could I break him of this habit? Confrontation was always an option, but it was a last resort. I puzzled about it for a day or two. Then an idea struck me, and I made a few arrangements. I also chatted with one of the older students, who was a very bright gentleman. Engineer of some sorts.
* * * * *
So there we were, the three of us, cruising along. I was sitting in the back, allegedly because I had nothing better to do. The cover story was that we were allowing our Engineer student, who was getting ready for his qualifying cross country solo flight, to fly the long leg to a Regional Airport. We were scheduled to have lunch there. It was a decently long leg, and it was almost past lunch time. I had deliberately engineered this circumstance.
“Ho-hum”, I remarked, casually, over the intercom. “I’m getting hungry!”
They both assented. Yes. Hungry.
A minute later, I broodingly commented: “I’m FAMISHED! Don’t suppose there’s any food in this crate”.
Our hero assured me there was not.
Another minute later: “Whoa! Look what I found!” I held up a very full sick bag. A strong smell pervaded the cockpit. “Somebody must have gotten sick here!”
Our hero, wrinkling his nose against the pungent smell, expressed his disgust that somebody would leave a full sick bag in the aircraft.
A minute went by. “Wow!”, I said. I had undone my seat belt, and was now leaning forward between the two front seats. The strong smell was overwhelming. I was holding the sick bag open, showing off the contents. “I can see what they had for lunch!”. I expressed this diagnostic truth with a calm and dispassionate objectivity. Our hero looked around, startled, and his jaw dropped.
“Are you completely SICK?”, he exclaimed. “Put that thing away!”.
“Well”, I said, “Just saying, he had beans and rice. Oh, and sliced sausage…Here!”
I fished around a bit, and then stretched my hand out, with a fine specimen of each in my open palm.
“GAWD!”. Our hero went ballistic. “I have NEVER…! Put it AWAY…!”
He was indignant now. The smell was overwhelming.
I pretended to be suitably chastened. “Okay, okay”, I said, huffily. “No need to get all mad. Here, I’m putting it away, see?” And I did. Our hero, splendid in his rewarded indignation, adopted the demeanor of one who has righted the world’s injustice.
Now it was the turn of the student. “What else was in there?” He sounded genuinely interested.
“GAWD!”, yelled our hero. “What is it with you guys?” My student just shrugged.
“Um”, I said. “Well, lemme see… there was sliced sausage, rice, baked beans… oh, and I think I saw some pieces of broccoli.”
“Yummy!”, said the student nonchalantly, with a slightly wistful face.
We flew on.
A few minutes later, the awful smell re-erupted through the cockpit. Our hero spun around. His boss, the Chief Flight Instructor, was sitting with the vomit bag, open, stirring vomit around absent-mindedly with a white plastic spoon.
“What THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?”, he bellowed.
Startled, I looked up. “Oh, nothing”, I said guiltily. I was just wondering what else was in there…”
Our hero was now having a Caniption. An arterial event. Running a cardiac test. “PUT THAT THING AWAY! GAWD!”.
He was white-faced and yelling now. Spluttering. I looked at him absently.
“Dude!”, I said, nicely. “There’s nothing wrong with it. And I’m hungry! I found some cream crackers, and I was wondering how it would taste…”
Screams from our hero. He can’t believe his ears.
The student’s turn. “Should taste okay on cream crackers”, was his calm, considered verdict. Our hero sort of stares at his student, mouth open, totally aghast. Stares at me. Stares back at his student.
“That’s what I thought”, I answered. I heaped some of the vomit bag contents on a cracker. And spread it out slowly. Still that awful smell in the cockpit. Our hero was going daft. Eyes like saucers. “YOU ARE NOT GOING TO EAT THAT????”
“Why not?”, I replied, taking my first crunch. “I’m hungry!”
The student, calmly: “What’s it like?”
The Chief Flight Instructor: “Not too bad. Needs some pepper. Oh, I found some…”
I tore open a small paper salt and pepper pouch, and added the condiments.
Strange noises from our hero. Kind of baulking sounds.
“Can I try a piece?”, said our student.
“Sure! Here you go…” And I handed HIM a vomit covered cracker.
He took a large bite. “Yes, it’s good”, he said, with a full mouth. Masticating cheerfully, he proffered the half eaten cracker in question to our hero.
“Wanna try it? It’s good!”
Our hero can’t believe his eyes. More baulking noises. He is grabbing for a sick bag.
“I HAVE NEVER…”
Too late… and he humped up.
Satisfied, I ‘high fived’ the student. My secret accomplice. Justice was served.
Then, perfectly pleased with myself, I put away the tube of Acetone (out of which I had squeezed regular drops onto a rag, whenever I wished to stink the place out).
Then I stowed MY sick bag.
With my concoction of the previous night, mixed lovingly together out of an assortment of shopping food tins…
Francis Meyrick
Last edited by Francis Meyrick on April 24, 2014, 4:02 pm
Of Helicopters and Humans (23) “Those Dang Dangerous Helicopters “
March 15, 2014 in Helicopters and Humans
Of Helicopters and Humans
Part 23: Those Dang Dangerous Helicopters
I always ask the ground staff to let me know if I’ve got a “First Time Flyer”. A virgin chopper-rider. After all, if they have half a brain, they should be nervous. Maybe a touch of ‘terrified’ even.
“What, leaving the ground? In that thing? With that funky old dude? With the wicked grin? Coming over right now to talk to me? What the heck? He wants me to ride in the front? Beside HIM? This is NOT a good idea…”
Now the point is that these guys are our customers. Our bread-and-butter. The mortgage payment. If they don’t go out to work, then nor do we. Mama would not like that. As mine said, one day, when I was leaving for work, in that intuitive, sensible, logical, wifely way:
“Be careful now. Remember, forty-eight beating hearts are depending upon you!”
I looked blank. Huh? Were there a whole lot of unclaimed, illegitimate offspring lurking around out there, that I didn’t know about? A product of an admittedly wild, and perhaps slightly debauched youth? An anarchistic past? No, she was referring to the following:
Three donkeys, two miniature horses, three goats, thirteen chickens, three geese, eight Peking Ducks, six Guinea Fowl, three Bantams, three dogs, one cat, a pigeon, and a budgie.
Forty-seven of the little monsteeee… beating hearts. Hers was the forty-eighth. I sighed, trying not to think of the monthly feed bill. Meekly, (well trained), I nodded. It would be not good to be struggling to pay the monthly feed bill. I could only imagine the dawn chorus of displeasure, if feed was not appearing quickly enough. Have you ever heard three randy, pissed orf female donkeys complaining about the lack of service? On a cold, winter’s morning, when H-A-Y is the only thing on their mind? Instead of the usual S-E-X? I have. Rolling over, trying to sleep. Pillow over weary head. Go away… Please.
So we have to be nice to our customers. I’m the funky, wrinkly old dude, with the dirty big grin all over my face. A “mucky grin”, a scrumptious, ex-girl friend of mine used to call it, nervously.
As in: “Down, boy! Back off! You are wearing that mucky grin again…” Or, “That was a real mucky laugh…” (“Go to your kennel…!”)
I’m the guy that walks up and smiles: “Hi! I’m Francis! First Time Flyer, eh? Oh, you’ll enjoy this. Come on in, and sit down right here… make yourself comfortable.”
A short while later, you find yourself at the mercy of that madman. You know it’s not going to be good, the moment you lift off the ground, to what those idiots call a hov-ver. There you are, wobbling around precariously, and HE is laughing his ass off. “Welcome to the world of Rotary Flight!”, he announces over the intercom. YOU stare out the chin bubble. At least it’s still not too high to jump. But a minute later, after a bit of driving out, you sense that chance is fleeting away. The crazy old dude asks, laughing:
“You haven’t changed your mind, have you…?”
Wisely, you say nothing. Best to ignore unstable people. A second later, the contraption you are riding in starts clattering across the grass, ever quicker. There’s a lot of rumbling and vibrating, and you wonder if it’s all gonna blow up. You catch a fleeting glance at a little bird on its nest of old broken coral and shells, protectively stretching its wings over her tiny eggs. You know JUST how she feels… Suddenly, the ground drops away. This is NOT good. Now it’s too high to jump. The intercom crackles in your ears. It’s HIM again.
“…Because it’s TOO LATE NOW!!” For some reason, he thinks he’s hilariously funny. You don’t.
A few minutes later, you’re at some dizzying altitude, and not doing the climbing thing anymore. Just flying along. Nutcase beside you has being making radio calls and doing stuff, but now he seems to be content to sit back and chat a bit.
“How do you feel about it now?”, he asks. Nicely enough.
You wonder hard. How DO you feel about it? You decide to ask the inevitable question. “What happens if the engine stops?” You presume you are dead meat, but somebody said these things can glide. How can they possible glide if nothing is driving the fans overhead? It doesn’t make sense. Patiently, the Old Dude explains about auto-mation. If the engine quits, the blades auto-mate. They keep fanning. So that bit is cool, but what’s not cool is that we still go down. Then at the bottom, we have to do a “flare”. Whatever that means. It sounds obscene. He doesn’t seem remotely worried about it, though. He says he used to be a flight instructor for many years, and he’s probably done a couple of thousand practice ones, and a few real ones. You guess he must have survived. He doesn’t seem to be missing any bits that you can see. Arms, legs, fingers… all there. Maybe a couple of dozen marbles missing, but that seems to be it. He chats on. Then he asks you:
“Are you feeling happy, or still a bit nervous? ‘Cos, you know, we like happiness.”
Stupid question. What man is going to say: “Fuk’n petrified!” or “Me trousers are full!” So you kind of shrug in a manly way, and remark that “It’s alright”. You are lying. Old Wrinkly then asks, in a kind of quiet, whispering, worried, confidential aside:
“You know the bit about this flight that scares the BeJayzus out of me…?”
The pilot nervous!? Oh, that is SO GREAT! All your stomach butterflies, that were beginning to maybe settle just a bit, and buzz around pretty flowers, mixing it happily with pollen and honey, take off in a mad fluttering scramble. You reply silently, with eyes the size of small saucers. The expression reads a question: “Huh!?”
“Yes”, he says, looking real serious. “There is ONE part of this flight terrifies the willy’s out of me…!”
You wish you had not gotten up that morning. This is a bad dream. He gives you a sad look across the cockpit. He is shaking his head, wearily. He asks, with a nervous, sideways glance over his shoulder:
“What part do you think that might be…?”
You don’t know. You guess. “Errr… the landing?”
He shakes his head. “Oh, no, not worried about that at all. No worries there.”
He looks at you, cocking his head slightly. Like inviting your next guess. Hell, you don’t know.
“The take-off…?”
He shakes his head, dismissively. “Oh no, never worry about that!”
He looks at you again. Yo! What’s LEFT!??
“What… just driving along like this?”, you ask incredulously. Your eyes the size of LARGE saucers.
“Oh, no”, he says casually, dismissing that suggestion. He looks at you. You wonder. Is he taking the rise? Pulling your plonker? Messing with you? What!? He is wearing an expression that is just too… controlled. Poker Face. You’ve met his type. On some level, you have a growing suspicion this guy is really, really, off his trolley.
He kind of crouches, and casts a theatrical look over his shoulder. As if he’s worried that they guys in the rear cabin might hear him. Or somebody else.
“The bit that really scares me…”
You find yourself breathless, hunched forwards yourself. Quietly, you say: “Yes..?”
“The bit that REALLY scares me…”
He’s totally got your attention now. Are we gonna die?
“…is when this flight is over, and when I’ve got to get in my truck, and drive back home…”
Your mind is reeling.
“…and then go and mix it with all the druggies, crazies, texting drivers, and Hockey Mums on the cell phone running red Lights, and jay walkers, and dogs, and speeding tickets, and… and…all that stuff!”
“Fuk’n eejit! “, you think to yourself. Messing with me. But he DOES have a point. It’s a lot SAFER up here.
You find yourself smiling.
“Well, there’s no red lights up here. For a start!”, you say.
He nods, satisfied. “Exactly!”, he says, seemingly pleased with your wisdom and insight.
* * * * *
“How did you like your first helicopter ride?”, one of your new work mates on the drilling rig asks later that day, at the dinner table.
“Oh, it was alright,no big deal”, you lie convincingly.
“Who was your pilot?”, somebody else asks.
You think hard. “Errr… He told me his name… old dude,Irish guy.”
Amusement at the table.
“That would be Francis!”, four different voices remark.
“Did he screw with you?”, somebody asks.
Did he screw with me?
But you, a veteran of the rotary world, and fully cognizant of the workings of engine failures and resultant auto-mations, brush it all off.
“Ha!”, you say. You exude an air of confidence, and worldly wisdom. The dude who has been around the block. Got his sh… shtuff together.
“He tried a bit, but I saw through HIS little game…”
* * * * *
But you make a mental note to, next time, try and bag the best seat in the house.
That front seat. With the best view.
Beside that crazy, chatty Old Pilot.
Francis Meyrick
Last edited by Francis Meyrick on March 15, 2014, 11:00 am