The helicopter checkride

Last Friday I took a checkride to add a Private helicopter rating to my Commercial pilot’s certificate.  The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will, in theory, examine applicants for this rating but in practice prefers that you pay a Designated Examiner.  The fun started at 9:00 am in Nashua, NH at CR Helicopters with Joe Brigham, a retired legend in the cranberry bogs of New England.  The oral portion of the exam lasted until nearly 11:00 am at which point the winds had picked up from calm to a typically unpleasant New England 10 knots gusting 15.  When the objective is to hold the helicopter steady within a foot or two of a reference point on the ground these kinds of winds make life tricky, especially in the Robinson R22, one of the world’s lightest helicopters.

Running the startup checklist on the R22 takes about 4 minutes during which one tests the engine’s dual independent ignition systems, the carb heat, the sprag clutch that enables the rotors to freewheel if the engine quits, and the low RPM warning horn that sounds if the blades begin to slow down.  The test complete, I called Nashua Tower to ask for clearance to a grassy area east of the paved 5500′-long runway.  Once we got across the runway Joe asked to see a sideways hover taxi then a backwards hover taxi.  These are done with the skids of the helicopter 3-5 feet off the ground.  I set the helicopter back on the grass and Joe asked me to pick it back up.  When we were 2′ from the ground he twisted the throttle on his side of the ship to idle, simulating an engine failure.  The helicopter immediately started a yaw to the left.  I pushed the right antitorque pedal to bring the nose back to where it had been pointed.  As the R22 settled towards the ground I pulled the collective pitch control to use some of the rotational energy of the blades to cushion the impact.  Every time you pull more collective the helicopter wants to yaw to the right so I had to step on the left pedal.  We thumped down on the ground about 1 second after Joe had closed the throttle, reasonably smoothly and within about 5 degrees of where we’d started on the heading.  The standard for a Private rating is 10 percent and Joe declared that I had demonstrated a hovering autorotation.

The next maneuver was the Quickstop, simulating an attempt to take off and then an abort due to failure to clear trees or the appearance of an obstacle.  We had to get over to the side of a small hill about 1000′ away.  I accelerated the helicopter to about 40 knots and 40′ above the ground and then pulled sharply back on the cyclic to flare off the speed while simultaneously lowering collective to prevent the helicopter from ballooning up in altitude and using the antitorque pedals to prevent yaw.  At the end of the Quickstop Joe asked for a running landing to simulate bringing the helicopter down at a high altitude in which the machine lacks sufficient power to hover.  We slid into the grass.

We were near the hill at this point so it was time to demonstrate slope operations.  One approaches the slope at a 45-degree angle with the helicopter yawed so that the skids are parallel to the slope at all times.  You hover so that the upslope skid is about 2-3′ above the ground and then gradually lower the ship until the upslope skid touches.  At that point you push the cyclic into the slope to lock the skid against the slope while simultaneously adjusting collective pitch to hold a level attitude.  After pausing in that position for a moment I lowered the collective to bring the downslope skid into contact with the ground while simultaneously adding addition cyclic towards the upslope to keep that skid locked.

Slope operations complete we started with a normal takeoff and normal approach.  Unless you are all by yourself in a Blackhawk you don’t take off straight up in a helicopter.  You bring the ship up into a hover and then push the cyclic forward until the helicopter is flying fast enough that the blades are biting into fresh undisturbed air.  This is called “Effective Translational Lift” (ETL) and the helicopter rapidly picks up speed and then altitude beyond this point.  The normal approach and landing is a reasonably shallow angle coming down toward some traffic cones abeam the Nashua windsock.  Once back on the ground Joe asked for a maximum performance takeoff in which one does try to depart as nearly vertical as is possible.  This involves spending some time under the R22’s “deadman’s curve”, a combination of having a low airspeed and a low altitude such that it would be impossible to make a smooth landing in the event of an engine failure.  Joe asked for a steep approach to the cones.  This is not straight down as you might think but rather just steep enough that you could clear the trees around a mid-size field before landing on someone’s helipad.

Next up was an autorotation.  This involves closing the throttle about 700′ above the ground and gliding down at about 65 knots and 1500′-per-minute descent rate.  Starting roughly 40′ above the ground I began to pull back on the cyclic to slow our forward speed and reduce the descent rate.  When the forward speed was just about gone I leveled the ship with the cyclic so that the tail did not strike the ground and began to let the R22 sink towards the ground with just a bit of forward speed.  At the last minute I pulled the collective to cushion the final impact with energy from the rotating blades.

The final part of the checkride was escaping from a vortex ring state.  Joe took the controls and slowed the helicopter down so that we had lost almost all forward speed.  Then he lowered the collective to start a 500 foot-per-minute descent from our 700′ altitude.  The helicopter began “settling with power” into its own disturbed air, falling suddenly much faster than the initial descent rate established by Joe.  The controls became mushy just as he said “You have the controls”.  The way to escape from a vortex ring state is by pushing the cyclic forward to try to fly the helicopter forward out of the disturbed air while simultaneously lowering the collective so that the helicopter isn’t beating the air so hard.  Once I had recovered some flying speed I pulled on the collective to resume a climb.

That was it.  What can one do with a Private helicopter rating?  Take friends for rides, basically, and that’s about it.  I’ll be starting work on my Commercial rating next week.