I was straight back into the cockpit after Christmas, the 2nd January to be precise. I had last flown around 12 days earlier in my PPL skills test in the R22 and was now setting out to fly the R44. I was lucky enough, at this stage of my flying to already have close to 8 hours on the 44’, following short hops to Newton Abbot, Shobdon, Kemble and The Helicopter Museum. So it wasn’t completely unfamiliar.
I’d spent the Christmas period, in between drinking gin and eating too much chocolate and turkey, reading the R44 POH. When I arrived bright eyed and bushy tailed at Rishe Helicopters in January I was chomping at the bit to get started. I completed the course in 3 days with 5 more hours under my belt and was chuffed to bits.
The biggest difference, that I noticed immediately was the power it oozed in comparison to its little brother. You almost have to stop it from flying when you lift into the hover, rather than pull it off the ground like the R22. My muscle memory after flying Uniform Charlie (G-BXUC) for almost my whole syllabus, is to almost pre empt with a modest amount of left pedal as we lifted; in Hotel Bravo (G-ODHB) I was sub-consciously doing the same, rather than reacting to the aircraft. The first 3 take-offs I was over controlling, and hovering 10 degrees left of when we we were on the ground. The disapproving look from my instructor soon put a stop to this, and we launched into manoeuvres and emergencies.
Gloucester is an incredible airfield to fly from, and the sadist in me gets a thrill out of good R/T. The procedure from the apron to heli north with ATC involves a good amount of radio chatter and getting this right always resulted in a thums up popping into my field of view from the instructor.
Straight into tight turns, simulated instrument flight with the 1970’s foggles and Autorotations. The climb rate of the 44 made the whole lesson a lot more smooth, the comparable sortie in the 22 was mainly made up of climbing back to altitude for the next auto type. When in a PFL or auto configuration, the higher inertia rotor system gives you an almost ‘floating’ sensation with a considerable amount more time to react and choose your field.
Heading back into the field and click, on the cyclic, HYD OFF. No more magic carpet floating, I am now wrestling with a baby rhino to keep the flight profile the same. It was staying like this until the ground, and straight into a running landing. The tip was to not move the controls at all unless you had to! Easier said than done.
Limited power take-offs and approaches, with full-down autos to the ground over the next day and half, finished up by quick-stops (my favourite). Just remembering there’s an extra few feet of tail in the 44 when you enter into the quickstop, was something I needed to burn into my spatial envelope.
Peculiarly, the skills test doesn’t assess your ability to take the new machine into a confined area. I was baffled by this! (We practiced it into a beautiful spot towards Ross-on-Wye, where we were rudely interrupted by the appearance of a random border collie!) Surely, the majority of off-airport stuff you’d do with a helicopter is into confined areas, hotels and private sites.. not being tested on it seems remarkably short sighted, especially if you’re used to the rucksack sized R22!
The skills test was just under an hour, with a different local examiner than I had for the R22, she was very formal and demonstrated some full down autos in different configurations back to the field. A tick in the box and home for tea and medals 🥇 🚁
Hourbuilding Adventures 