I will be burning a lot of kerosene the next few days. I have been leaving the camera on the ground while I am getting the feel of this helicopter. I feel like a duck taking to water in it. It has tremendous power available from the turbine when the collective is pulled aggresively. I can't explain the smooth feel of a lot of power back there. It is simply an adrenalin rush to pull collective, and feel the turbine instantly gulping what amount of fuel it needs to satisfy my left arm. This thing actually does feel like a rocket on rails. I have learned a lot already, but I know I have so much more to learn. A few Helicycle pilots have already contacted me and all are saying that I will love this thing more and more as I gain experience in it.............................................................. I am practicing autos with power recovery now. Quick stops are simply a riot and you can really stand it on its tail. I found a smaller screen size mode for my videos, and they upload to Youtube much quicker. I will have my camera mounted outside the cabin tomorrow, and will activate it while on the ground, and do a few takeoffs and landings with it. I will try to post them this weekend. I will also now have a camera with me at all times to take pictures of all the places I set down and catch on fire! Just kidding. I could not be more pleased so far. I have only to wipe some grease on my tail rotorshaft, about 30 seconds, and will be tightening my belts at 5 hours tomorrow. That takes about 10 minutes. I will drain my tail rotor gearbox also at 5 hours, and then the belts and gearbox are good to go till 25 hours. I have been told that the Helicycle averages about 10 minutes of easy maintenance per hour of flying. I know I worked on my SparrowHawk a lot more than that. Time will tell. I will post my maintenance/flight time ratio in my Helicycle maintenance thread after I get more hours of flying time in. I am already getting feedback from several people how whisper quiet it is in the air. I am fighting euphoria flying this thing, but I have some very strong engrained training about the HV curve, vortex ring state, mast bumping, etc............that I feel will keep me ou of trouble. Just because the machine can go straight up to 12000 feet, my Turbinator won't find me flying it that way! Stay tuned, my adventures by photos begins tomorrow. Stan
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