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I did my helicopter flight lesson today. That shit is HARD! Apparently I did pretty good keeping the cyclic steady; I felt this was all the harder because we were not supposed to put our entire hand on the stick, just two fingers; probably to ensure he can save our lives if I did something stupid, but nonetheless I kept it steady for several seconds - at least when it was the only control I was managing... Pedals were fairly easy, they would just take some getting used to. Same with the collective.

When trying to coordinate everything though it becomes a magnitude harder. I would be in a hospital right now if it were purely up to me. Still it was a lot of fun and I wish I could afford lessons.

I walked away with a 17 minute video, unfortunately the cord from the headset is blocking half the view for 10 minutes which is pretty lame. I'll try to put it up somewhere so anyone interested can view.

Post the video!

Thought I did - oops:
Few pictures:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/11656624235 ... 4MZLst95Ui

Video; unfortunately the first 10 minutes have a cord in the way of half the picture, which is lame, but what can ya do:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/11656624235 ... 4dk2ARyeKR

Wow dude, very cool. That instructor pilot makes it look easy eh? Interesting controls for training. I saw how he saved you at the end there, lol. I was getting butterflies in my stomach just watching the video. I can only imagine how it was in the helo. Looks like a lot of work flying a helo...learning the controls, watching your surroundings, keeping your bearings, measuring altitude, using the radio, etc... Crazy busy. That must have been a great experience for you. Did you do any classroom time before the flight? Did you start in a simulator or go straight into the helo? Very cool, thanks for sharing.

Yes, I actually made the comment that he makes it look so easy. I was very envious of his ability. It was interesting, for all the flailing around we were doing when I was 'in control' it wasn't very scary, mostly because he was able to regain control so easily. He mentioned that in order to become an instructor he actually had to perform an autorotation to prove he could do it; the thought made me a little sick to my stomach; I know how all my simulator autorations have ended

The cyclic is definitely the hardest thing about it. And upon reflection about what he said and what I did, with practice I certainly could have done better; at least when just controlling the cyclic. When putting all three together it is very hard to coordinate! That, has to be the most time consuming thing to learn. And there is just no getting the thing to stay steady in any direction without some kind of input. I loved it though. I wish I had a few k just to spend on lessons to learn how to fly it well enough to hover. Maybe someday

The only classroom time was 30 minutes to quickly go over the basics of flight in a helicopter and safety, then straight into the heli.

Hey Hudson, this reminded me of your Flight lesson. Pretty cool what this guy did. Check out the video clip:
http://youtu.be/ffEYqGGYXRk

Nice! That's actually, what I flew in, an R-22. Those guys make it look SO easy; it's unbelievable. You see how easily he hovered that thing when the guy picked it out of the tree; I couldn't do that to save my life.