March 26-2007

On March 26 (Monday) I passed my flight test for Commercial Pilot (Helicopter) on the first attempt.As with any big test or exam, one is a little nervous or stressed, I had a whole 2.5 hours of sleep before I headed to the hanger to start the big day. The weather of the day was great, not very much wind, blue skies, 22,00ft celings, a great day for sure.When I arrived at the hanger, I completed the final stages of the nav exercise (inputting winds, leg time's, weather package, notams, etc.) and then the oral portion of the ground section began with questions on my routing, maps, symbology on the maps, airspaces and weather minima, radio frequencies, aircraft documents, systems, speeds, limitations, emergencies and all the other questions that come with this part of the flight test, when this part came to a end, I was briefed on how things would happen for the flight portion of the test (It is a FLIGHT test after all ). For the final portion of the ground section, I DI'd the machine, explaining what I was looking at, what I was looking for, and why I was looking, and then the examiner asked me various questions about the aircraft parts , and then it was time that I gave the standard passenger briefing, preety easily done, the entire ground portion went very well. Had to remind myself and be reminded not to be nervous or get stressed haha.Now it's really show time, the flight portion began. The Lift off, hover check, and all that went well and we were off on the navigation portion, this went well as the winds were as forecasted, time for the diversion, which went good,preety easy ,now onto the confined area and sloping ground landing, which both went well, nice recce's and approach and landing no trouble here of course, on departure from the confined I was given a simulated MR TEMP light, so it became a rejected departure, and I turn around and landed in the spot I had departed from, now it was time to depart the confined and climb so we may began the instrument flying exercise, which went ok, the wind picked up a little and their was a little bit of turbulence, but nothing too major or too challenging, and then it was onto the steep turn, for this I chose a 30 degree bank at 80 knots and 3,500 feet, this went well, held altitude and speed, and bank. Now it was time to head back to the airport for the real fun stuff, we entered the circuit to a hover landing, and then it was off for a few more circuits, with hover and no hover landings and take off's, and a stuck pedal was also thrown in, which went good, I was a little nervous about it before the flight test but it went fine, and then the engine failure, which went off without a hitch (no pun intended ) now it was time for the 180 and straight in autorotations, now the wind direction had shifted a little and made this interesting, but in the end it went ok, now it was time to head back to the base, and on the way I was given the simulated engine failure/forced approach, which required a 180 turn back into the wind, this went ok. Now it was time to come back to base , I made a smooth approach and landing,and then it was time for the debrief, which started off talking about how I was on the ground portion, which was done well, and the points in the flight portion, I scored mostly 3's and 4's on the flight portion, and when the examiner said I passed, I asked him, FULL PASS? And he said yes, full pass, then I had the ear to ear smile that's still on my face haha. And their you have it folks, From Zero hours helicopters to flight test, dealing with west coast weather, training on the coast, from R22's to 44's and the 206, now all I have to finish is the last few hours of the 206 training, which should be finished by the end of the week, and I will have that little piece of paper saying I am a Commercial Helicopter Pilot (Helicopter) RH22, RH44, BH06. Then the real fun begins, and I look forward to it and espically will enjoy getting back to working. So I will report on the last bit few hours of 206 training I have to do. Thanks to all who read my training blog and to those who replied to it was well. It's been fun thats for sure.

Have a good day.Matt

P.S: Oh neat, I just noticed this post, was my 100th post on Vertical, but my member number is preety old (655) as I have been around for awhile but never posted much, anyways 100th post!