General aviation/airplane news and chat
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pseudonarcissus
fluttering and dancing
Thanks for that reassurance…alas it was a little premature…my luggage decided to extend its vacation in Madrid…I am now travelling light…I hope Air France are correct in their assurances that it will be delivered to my home in Rio in a few days ..
I’m in the lounge and it’s cocktail time
cybershot
Well-Known Member
Apparently this has now secured funding to start building in Coventry. The world's first drone airport. Although if it's the only one in the world, where can it take you? Other than around the ring road in Coventry! By air.
www.urbanairport.com
urban-Air Port Ltd
Urban-Air Port Limited designs, develops, manufactures, sells and operates ground, air and digital infrastructure for new forms of sustainable urban air transport such as air taxis and autonomous delivery drones.
www.urbanairport.com
pseudonarcissus
fluttering and dancing
Apparently this has now secured funding to start building in Coventry. The world's first drone airport. Although if it's the only one in the world, where can it take you? Other than around the ring road in Coventry! By air.
urban-Air Port Ltd
Urban-Air Port Limited designs, develops, manufactures, sells and operates ground, air and digital infrastructure for new forms of sustainable urban air transport such as air taxis and autonomous delivery drones.
This interests me…why would drones need an airport? Or flying cars?
I work offshore a lot and fly in helicopters frequently…years ago you’d jump in and take off…now they taxi to the end of the runway and behave like little aeroplanes…obviously the devil-may-care freestyle flightplans are dangerous..if drones have to go from fixed start and end points, and along flight corridors, surely they become a bit boring?
spitfire
Walty McWaltface
My understanding of that is that the rolling take off is more efficient for helicopters. Gives it a rolling start rather than just AAARGH FUCK YOU AIR I’M GOING UP FUCK YOU AAAARGH
pseudonarcissus
fluttering and dancing
The best pilots are the ones that swoop down when they take off from the offshore platform and skim over the waves…I had a client in the US who was pretty much the last of tue self-made Texas oilmen. All his pilots were US Marine pilot buddies of his from the Vietnam war era…one of them even used to let me fly..fun, but I’m sure the more regimented operations are safer.
spitfire
Walty McWaltface
God I’d love to do that.
pseudonarcissus
fluttering and dancing
Pat Taylor was a character…shall we say, staunchly Republican, but set up a programme to pay tuition for anyone on Louisiana that graduated from highschool in the top 10%..and paid all his employees’ kids’ tuition too, from the doorman up. Wiki doesn’t really capture that Mrs Taylor was arguably the brains..
Patrick F. Taylor - Wikipedia
Those days are over
T & P
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I remember coming across a video on YouTube of one of the proper big fuck off Russian helicopters preparing to take off. Can’t recall which model but top-five largest ever territory, anyway- and it actually taxied for a fair bit to the runway and took off almost like a fixed wing aircraft. Quite interesting.
Out of curiosity, if a chopper of such size happened to be landing at an airport and the runway was fully available, would it be more advantageous to also land like an airplane, or are vertical landings always best for helicopters of all sizes?
Out of curiosity, if a chopper of such size happened to be landing at an airport and the runway was fully available, would it be more advantageous to also land like an airplane, or are vertical landings always best for helicopters of all sizes?
pseudonarcissus
fluttering and dancing
They land pretty much like aeroplanes too…I’m sure part of it is to make sure they are following the circulation of fixed wings
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
Always reminds me of Logan’s run
T & P
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At least getting stuck in a terminal, while grim, it’s not as bad as getting stuck inside a plane that’s been delayed for whatever reason. I think the longest I‘ve endured was the best part of 90 minutes, which doesn’t sound terrible in itself but it was hot as fuck and no inflight entertainment, so it was rather awful actually. Having said that, I am sure plenty of folk have had it far worse than me.
Storm Fox
Trying the find the next noun to verb
My longest flight was Hong Kong back to Heathrow. We leave the stand, start taxiing, then return back to the stand. The fault is repaired, which took about an hour. The plane was topped up with fuel. We took off, but took a longer route due to ash from the icelandic volcano, the only good thing flew straight into heathrow and didn't have go into a holding pattern.
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
Got on a BA747 in first class bound for JFK, was already fairly refreshed from a couple of hours in Concorde Room, well a stewardess gets a call her kid’s ill and she bails, an hour’s wait for a replacement. Once the replacement arrives the ground crew can’t retract the air bridge, so a further hour’s delay. All the while quaffing more and more champers. Was fucking hanging by the time we took off. Pray for me.
A380
How do I change this 'custom title' thing then?
Running take offs are cheaper and safer as the rotor disk is more efficient in 'clean and still' air rather than air that has been churned up by the rotors, Sometimes if heavy or if they air is hot or thin a helicopter won't be capable of hovering but can still fly forwards.
If it's not leaking oil its because it's run out...
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pseudonarcissus
fluttering and dancing
Please can you hold off with these stories, at least until I’m airborne..if we land on schedule, it will be exactly 24 hours after initial take off..and now I’m sans valise
T & P
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Cheers. All you guys in the know who have replied in the last few minutes reaffirms my suspicion that flying helicopters sounds even more devilish and requires more training than fixed winged aircraft. Almost sounds like the old cliché about veterinarians and doctors.
If you don’t mind me asking another question on the subject, how much additional training would be required for a qualified helicopter pilot to get a pilot licence, and viceversa? Is it a longer process to transition from chopper to fixed wing than the other way around? Surely a qualified airplane pilot wouldn’t be subject to the same extent of studying, tests and qualifications as a civilian to get their chopper licence…
pseudonarcissus
fluttering and dancing
I suspect it’s like going from a piano to a big church organ; the principle is the same, there are just a hell of a lot more variables
A380
How do I change this 'custom title' thing then?
I've got a lot of hours sitting in the back of rotary aircraft but only 30 mins of flying one. As a low hours fixed wing PPL the flying it straight and level and turns was almost exactly the same even though it works completely differently but my two attempts in the hover were, as expected laughably brief and useless... I couldn't even manage one of the three main flight controls whilst the instructor did the other two, but I think almost every one gets that. Speaking to rotary pilots they say the main issue is the hover which apparently is similar to balancing a pool cue on your finger, really hard till you get the knack for it it then quite easy. But then landing a fixed wing is the only difficult thing about the mechanics of flying (Not the planning and management of safe flying). There is also a state to avoid called ring vortex in the hover which basically means the rotors can't get lift and it can 'really fuck you up' - a technical aviation term.
Lots (most) of skills are the same, navigation, fuel management, weather etc. I think, but someone who knows more about it than me can confirm, most military rotary pilots do about 20/30 hours fixed wing first before transitioning to helicopters DownwardDog ?. Also there are loads of ex-rotary pilots flying for the airlines.
From memory I think if you have fixed wing PPL you have ten hours less in the minimum requirement for a rotary PPL and vice versa But most people need the minimum time or a bit more anyway, And eight of the nine exams for PPL are the same so you don't have to redo them.
But at least £450 an hour to learn even in an R22 I don't think I will ever know first hand.
What's the difference between a helicopter pilot and and a helicopter engine? The engine stops whining at the end of the flight.
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T & P
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Cheers, most interesting.
A380
How do I change this 'custom title' thing then?
Was in Boston in the paid for lounge when my Virgin flight was delayed (economy only) Got chatting with three blokes who were traveling together ecconomy for work as I had checked bags and they didn't.
When the lounge closed one of them persuaded the Virgin lounge to let us in because of the delay - they are next door. And then we got through three bottles of Mr Bransons champagne for nothing...
DownwardDog
Riding a Brompton with a power meter.
Yes, RW pilots start on FW then transition after Elementary Flying Training.
I went the other way. Harrier conversion included a helicopter phase on the Gazelle to learn the visual checks and scans for hovering. I really liked flying helicopters and didn't have a problem with hovering although I had over 500 hours in fast jets when I came to it so I really shouldn't have had a problem...
I got my PPL(H) when we moved to Australia but didn't use it that much as helicopters are so expensive to operate for the private pilot.
RC helicopters are harder to fly than real ones, I'll tell you that for sure.
T & P
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Thinking back, I am actually recalling several 4+ hour stays in terminals. There was one in Ibiza that triggered some kind of EU free drink and snack regulation (five hours?). We were all crashing down from a week of copious substance consumption, so that wasn’t pretty. I also remember a five hour transfer at Mumbai. Dreadful due to the shit facilities. Also a five-hour delay at Amman due to a sandstorm, which Royal Jordanian deemed insufficient to justify giving passengers even a bottle of courtesy water.
DownwardDog
Riding a Brompton with a power meter.
The PC based helicopter sims are very good now and having a lot of time in one of them would really help. It's worth paying extra for hydraulically damped (as opposed to sprung) controls because they feel very close to the real thing.
I don't thing I'll ever get into private rotary wing aviation as the bottom end is basically all R22/R44 which are fucking death traps. If I had the money I'd have an AS350/H125 but I don't have $3m to drop on a helicopter.
from 2020
'Lucky escape' over helicopter's Long Marston emergency landing
A pilot and passenger walk away from an emergency landing before the aircraft catches fire.
www.bbc.co.uk
DownwardDog
Riding a Brompton with a power meter.
from 2020
'Lucky escape' over helicopter's Long Marston emergency landing
A pilot and passenger walk away from an emergency landing before the aircraft catches fire.www.bbc.co.uk
As part of my mate's mid life crisis starter kit (along with a Filipina second wife off the Internet) he went to the north of Western Australia and worked mustering cattle by helicopter.
He's been in 4 R22 crashes in 7 years.
pseudonarcissus
fluttering and dancing
My luggage arrived at my home yesterday, 5 days after me! Well done Air France (and I mean that, as I suspect it was a complicated reunion to achieve, as the bag wasn't tagged for Brazil)
