Thank your instructor!!

[jebthereb]

Today I would like to thank my instructor. His name is Mark Fiedore. He works for Vertical CFI. He saved my life and the Helicopter.

We were working on auto-rotations, at the end when it was time for the power on recovery a dog ran out on to the taxi way. I froze. I completely locked up and was gripping all of the controls. He could not return power becuase of my grip on the cyclic. I eventually relaxed a little but it was too late and by the time he was able to re-apply power and pull in collective the low rotor horn and light was going off and we had to contiue all the way to the ground.

In the end the ship was ok. We scared the crap out of the dog. As of this writing I am still unnerved but I am better. I will get over this. A good nights sleep will work wonders.

Two lessons learned today.
#1 Clear establishment of what we are going to do and who is going to have control of the ship and when.

#2 When the instructor needs to take control that he clearly says "I have controls"

We did not do those things and we both discussed this after we were on the ground.

Last but not least to those of you that are obtaining instruction. Thank your instructor whenever you can. They are the best!!!

[choppergabor]

Glad you made it down on the skids! Freezing up is nothing unusual. Too many things happen way too fast for a beginner and any destruction in concentration during autos will just freeze you up. Yeah thank God for CFIs. And most of them do it for $20,00 per hour LOL. Since they are only building time (according to the school owners). But as you can see they are not building time. They are making pilots out of ordinary everyday guys who walk into the school. That reminds me that my CFI will expire next month! And will let it run out. Not planning on ever using it again..... One thing Jeb. If he doesn't have time to say I have the controls you can still feel his inputs on the controls so ride it through with him but let him do the flying Glad it turned out OK man.