onthebeach
Well-known member
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2001
- Posts
- 240
True Story
Did an Army instrument check in a UH-1H in 1982 with a very professional examiner. Had just gotten my helo ATP & had ambitions to move up in the profession (yeah, that was a long time ago) so was very conscientious to be instrument current & on top of the game.
My portion of the day's flying was from TYS to CHA. We had lunch & then it was the second pilot's turn in the barrel. We'll call him "Old Bill."
Old Bill was a Scout pilot. A real Scout pilot, still flying some of the same OH-6A's he'd ridden in Viet Nam years earlier. Now Old Bill could fly the pants off that OH-6, and for that matter just about anything with a cyclic & collective, including the Huey we were riding in--as long as we're talking "VFR." And, by VFR, I mean, like enough to see through the windshield.
But Old Bill's attitude toward this IFR stuff? Questionable at best. He did do it, though...once a year...on the checkride...like this day.
Rock steady on the takeoff, air taxi, and climb out, but then the examiner asks Bill to flip the hood down on his helmet. Thought we were gonna die. Had never experienced closer to helo aerobatics until that moment. We climbed out through multiple layers & multiple excursions from controlled flight until Old Bill got warmed up & managed to "level" at "5000" on the airway back to TYS.
As the examiner wiped the sweat from his brow and saw that Old Bill now had enough spare attention to direct to tasks other than S&L, which for the case at hand we'd have to define as +/- 500 feet, 30 knots, & 20 degrees, he tasked Bill with some position-fixing.
(In our aircraft this meant cross-tuning the single VOR receiver to establish a radial-radial fix and thus determining whether we were before, at, or beyond a given intersection. I myself had once previously had the opportunity to fly a Battalion Commander's bird equipped with DME and it made me think I had died and gone to Heaven.)
"OK, Bill," the examiner said, "where exactly are we?"
Without a moment's hesitation Bill flipped up the hood, squinted through the chin bubble at the broken layer below, and said, "Well, that's Etowah right down there!"
Did an Army instrument check in a UH-1H in 1982 with a very professional examiner. Had just gotten my helo ATP & had ambitions to move up in the profession (yeah, that was a long time ago) so was very conscientious to be instrument current & on top of the game.
My portion of the day's flying was from TYS to CHA. We had lunch & then it was the second pilot's turn in the barrel. We'll call him "Old Bill."
Old Bill was a Scout pilot. A real Scout pilot, still flying some of the same OH-6A's he'd ridden in Viet Nam years earlier. Now Old Bill could fly the pants off that OH-6, and for that matter just about anything with a cyclic & collective, including the Huey we were riding in--as long as we're talking "VFR." And, by VFR, I mean, like enough to see through the windshield.
But Old Bill's attitude toward this IFR stuff? Questionable at best. He did do it, though...once a year...on the checkride...like this day.
Rock steady on the takeoff, air taxi, and climb out, but then the examiner asks Bill to flip the hood down on his helmet. Thought we were gonna die. Had never experienced closer to helo aerobatics until that moment. We climbed out through multiple layers & multiple excursions from controlled flight until Old Bill got warmed up & managed to "level" at "5000" on the airway back to TYS.
As the examiner wiped the sweat from his brow and saw that Old Bill now had enough spare attention to direct to tasks other than S&L, which for the case at hand we'd have to define as +/- 500 feet, 30 knots, & 20 degrees, he tasked Bill with some position-fixing.
(In our aircraft this meant cross-tuning the single VOR receiver to establish a radial-radial fix and thus determining whether we were before, at, or beyond a given intersection. I myself had once previously had the opportunity to fly a Battalion Commander's bird equipped with DME and it made me think I had died and gone to Heaven.)
"OK, Bill," the examiner said, "where exactly are we?"
Without a moment's hesitation Bill flipped up the hood, squinted through the chin bubble at the broken layer below, and said, "Well, that's Etowah right down there!"
