Confined area mission tomorrow

[choppergabor]

That was a nice confined area landing Stan. Sure you could land a Sikorsky 58 there too but it's never about the could...... you don't effing own a Sikorsky 58! LOL Good judgement on the spot and nice execution on the recons. I can not emphasize how important the high and low recons are. Sometimes you can spot little things like buried wires hanging out of the ground usually on construction sites can hook your skids and tip you over and stuff like that. Probably the most dangerous places to land. You did good! Thanks for the pics. Waiting for the video

[StanFoster]

Just a few more views. Completely hostile terrain till one gets to the slightly sloped area next to the driveway. If I ever get to the point where I think this is a less than exciting landing......then I need to quit flying as I am getting too complacent.


When I was on the steep approach...I was thinking about how if my helicopter had marginal power....where it could hardly hover out of ground effect. Then if I were approaching with a descent rate that I could not arrest, classic example of settling with power....and not entering a vortex ring state. I did have plenty of reserve power as I can easily fire my laser on my collective and read how much pitch it takes to hover in and out of ground effect for my weight and density altitude at that time. Very handy check. I lifted off to a hover....saw I was only pulling 11 degrees with full fuel....and went ahead with my departure.

By the way....that 2 story guest home is beautiful....and I commented to the contractor yesterday what a nice guest home. He comented back..."Yea...it should take us only a week to bulldoze it in and fill the hole."

Stan

[StanFoster]

This is the reasonf for my mission to the home.....installing the spiral stairway. The contractor requested me to come up and get the column and treads installed. Thats what I was hoping to hear as I had already been at the home and saw the potential for flying in here.

This contractor does exquisite work on his homes he builds...and I was very pleased how much he liked the spiral stairway.

I had just enough time showing him how to install the curved handrail. I feel I explained it well enough that he wont have any trouble. Maybe he will request me to fly back one more time!


Stan

[Scary Gary]

Is there going to be railing on that ?

[Lee Scatt]

Hey Stan, you are living the good life. I bet you can hardly sleep at night, just waiting to get up and do it all over again.
Has DeWalt set you up with one of these? It's the ultimate nail gun.

[StanFoster]

Gary---Yes..there is a railing....Look at the first picture and in that pile you can see a 16 foot long curly que piece of wood.....that is the railing. There will be 3 iron balusters on each tread such that when the inspector comes with his 4 inch diameter ball....it wont pass through any opening. If it does...the stair wont pass code....There are several other requirements that have to be met...max tread height.....minimum run.....minimum radius....minimum width....maximum difference in height between treads....blah...blah...blah...

Now...the treads are so slick a fly cant land on them, and in my opinion that is more dangerous than any difference in height.



Leigh- Dewalt never gave me one of those helicopter collapsible stock AR15 rifles...but they gave me almost every other tool they had. I owned one exactly like that in flat black of course. Made a good ground hog rifle. Those .223 are nice little rounds. If I remember correctly they came out of the barrel around 3100 feet a second.

I am still sitting on unopened cases with new DeWalt tools inside.




Stan

[BEN S]

I did have plenty of reserve power as I can easily fire my laser on my collective and read how much pitch it takes to hover in and out of ground effect for my weight and density altitude at that time.

What is this?

Ben S

[BEN S]

hmmm
You would think that (if I am imagining this right) the rotating handle on the collective would have scale markings on them? Or am I on the wrong part in my mind?
Ben S

[ylf]

Looks like you even had refueling on site.

That's probably in your standard stairway contract: "Contractor agrees to provide 15 gallons of Jet-A at job site whenever Stan is required on site."

[ylf]

Originally Posted by BEN S

hmmm
You would think that (if I am imagining this right) the rotating handle on the collective would have scale markings on them? Or am I on the wrong part in my mind?
Ben S

That would be the throttle.

Here's a link to Stan installing the laser pointer:
http://rotaryforum.com/forum/showpos...&postcount=143

[BEN S]

not the rotating part, but the up and down part!

I got you, now...

Thanks for the link ylf, a picture is worth a thousand words!
Ben S