Dec 16-2006

Well Well, I know it has been awhile since my last posting, I wanted to wait till I had a few things to talk about. The last 2 weeks have been interesting, as you know we have had some interesting weather here on the "Wet and now Snowy Coast" But I did manage to get in a few flights, and refine everything even more and correct one problem with how I was holding the cyclic and of course ground school and studying and doing a few practice exams for the big written. Didn't get to do sloped landings lesson yet due to the weather, but it's coming though.I covered 3 Solo's focusing on Confined's, 1 Dual flight on Take Off's and Landing (Correcting that cyclic positioning error I mentioned), 2 Dual Nav X-Countries and One Solo Nav X-Country.The Solo flights focusing on Confined's are getting better, I am getting more efficient at going through the Six S's and I have not been too high or too low on my approaches, so it's "just right" and my circles are circles and the altitudes and airspeeds are consistent.The Dual flight on Take Off's and Landings was to correct a problem with how I was holding the cyclic as the R22 has the ever so nice "T Bar Cyclic" and I was holding the cyclic when I was solo in such a way that I did not have alot of movement with my wrist and the movement was restricted somewhat because of this, and it was affecting my take off's and landings, It only developed over a few flights solo and it was just because I had to hold the cyclic alot more forward and to the left so it changed my positioning of where my hand held the cyclic, but over one flight we fixed that into the position it is supposed to be in all the time, and I am use to the new better way of doing things and it is working for me.The Dual Nav X-Countries, were nice, it was just getting back into the swing of things (map reading, etc.) since it is just basically a review (a good review though) of map reading and all that nav procedures, we also threw a diversion in their, and that went well, nothing new for me here.The Solo X-Country was good, the route was a interesting one, the first leg was following islands and the coast and the 2nd leg was through hills so that was interesting reading the map from that to confirm positions and such,did not have any problems though so that was good, On the first leg I had a projected G/S of 85 but in Reality when I was flying it I had roughly a 30 knot headwind......when the F/D for that time and altitude (3000) was predicted for 17 knots. But it was good none the less and I enjoyed it, and getting back into the swing of navigating and map reading, etc solo and the flight went smoothly save for some light turbulence which didn't last too long anyways.One of the flights that I did solo for the confineds, I flew Dual with the instructor from our base to the Airport, dropped the Instructor off on the heli pad, and then went off solo, and then came back to the airport and landed at the helipad, picked up the instructor and flew back to base, and this flight, the entire flight was so smooth, all the confines, dummy approaches, landings at the helipad at the airport (no hover landings) as well as the take off's and the ones from the base as well, everything was spot on and done well, I was very happy with myself for the flight, and the landing back at base, no hover, was In my humble opinion, nicely done. it felt good all around that flight, one of my best and favorite flights with regard to performance. All in all, it was a good and productive 2 weeks , for a total of around 48 TT (Heli)So, Onward and Upward and stay tuned for the next edition of Matt's training blog.Thanks for reading! Fly Safe and Have a good day.Matt