HeliPro Trial Flight

Something I have always wanted to do was fly a helicopter and finally I got the chance.

Sharon, her mum and dad (Pam & Dave), my mum and dad (Ngarie & Dave) and our good friend Leigh all chipped in and brought me a 'HELiPRO Trial Flight' ticket for my 40th birthday. The experience was awesome.

It started off with a pre-flight briefing where my instructor Dave explained how the controls of the Robinson R22 worked and what I'd be doing during the flight. We took off and headed for the 'Low Flying Zone' at the Waimak River. On the way Dave showed how the helicopter controls affected the machine during flight.

As we approached our destination, Dave gave me a demonstration of an engine failure and put the helicopter into an 'Autorotation' which I thought was pretty cool.

Autorotation is the state of flight where the main rotor system of a helicopter is being turned by the action of air moving up through the rotor rather than engine power driving the rotor.

In other words - if the engine stops you just don't fall out of the sky.

Next we hovered above the ground where I was put through my paces.

First up I had a go with the 'pedal controls' only - doing some left and right turning while Dave controlled the hover. Then it was up and down from the hover with the 'collective stick' only. Then I was to hold the machine in a steady hover using the 'cyclic stick' while Dave controlled everything else.

I was very surprised at how light the controls were and how much little movement they needed. It took a couple attempts for me to get the feel of this and after giving Dave back the controls to straighten us up again, I finally managed to keep the machine in a pretty good steady hover.

Then only after about 20 minutes it was time to head back to the airport where I had to put it all together.

With the exception of some very minor adjustments, I had 'full control' of the machine until just before the landing (for obvious reasons.) Finally, we hovered in front of my spectators so they could take some pics, landed and a de-briefing.

Yay - I flew a Helicopter!!!

I would definitely like to do this again and would recommend it to anyone.

You never know - it could be me teaching you ( I wish !!! )