Chopper lesson!

Today I had a trial Helicopter lesson (bought for me by Andy.C for my 30th Birthday presie) with Sterling Aviation at Norwich Airport.
The lesson had been postponed on many occasions due to weather conditions, but today we finally went for it, even with cross winds and blizzards!




The aircraft I would be flying is a Schweizer 300C (brand new!) and Andy had worked on it! It is perfect for lessons as there is duel controls for instructor and rookie!
You can see the strength of the wind by the windsock in the background behind my head!


After a quick 30min briefing of basic controls and safety precautions, I was ready to go.

"Requesting clearance Clarence" - "Roger, Roger" - "Whats your vector Victor" sorry i digress!


Soon we were up and flying. After a quick lap of the airfield we hovered just above the ground for me to try the controls! There are 3 main controls to a helicopter, 1 - the "collective" lever, which is similar to a handbrake in a car. This determines your hight and throttle. You twist for throttle and pull up or push down to go up or down!
2 - "yaw" pedals. These rotate the aircraft left or right.
3 - the "cyclic". This is the stick in front of you. This banks the helicopter left, right or points it up or down.
My instructor let me use the controls individualy at first to get a feel for how they respond. The main problem with all three controls is that you have to constantly adjust each one becuase of all the other 'forces' involved. The helicopter is described as an unstable vehicle! There is no chance of keeping it in the same position just by holding the controls steady! Today especially as there were strong gusts!
After trying the controls individually he then gave me full control to try and hover! I managed to do it quite well with only a little drift!
The best part was when he let me land and take off (only using the collective though!)
It was a great experience (cheers bro!)
Fixed wing lesson next!