Here you will find lots of interesting content relating to helicopter flying. We are passionate about inspiring new pilots to the incredible world of rotary aviation, and dedicated to improving flight safety by sharing advice on how to enjoy your flying whilst minimising risk! We have a range of training videos, plus plenty of videos from our adventures in different helicopters.
We aim to have a new videos uploaded on Saturday of every second week in the month !
We provide Helicopter Pilot Services, ground school tuition and flight safety resources. We pride ourselves in putting safety as our highest priority. With experience in the helicopter industry since 2007, AB Helicopters is well placed to provide the helicopter services you require.
Our mission is to provide an excellent experience, focusing on customer service, technical knowledge and absolute dedication to safety in a range of helicopter services, and we hope you enjoy the videos!
Some rotary aviation terminology applied to life. If you can keep it in this business. What goes around comes around means; What advances in life, eventually retreats Vne Virgin, Never Entered TOT - Totaly Over Thatbyach Coriolis Effect. Is what happens when latrine is flushed ETL. Actually its better ETL. Better Earlier Then Later Pedals, Cyclic, Collective. Pedals keep you pointed in ehtical direction, collective is your physical strength to lift you up, and cyclic is your judgement as to which decsion you lean to. Profound widsom. Print it out. Thank me later on in life. Separating from your spouse is like rotor hub separation. There is no recovery. Things that go bump in the night are scary. Like the mast. We don't spiral down into abyss of loneliness, we autorotate into it.
@@ABHelicopters Well your game rig graphics look really real. Judging by your post. But why fly a sim of a pathetic weenie rotor like Robinson R..., well any Robinson. Its sim, just go straight to turbines. 406 for starters. Fun real world fact. 406 struck a wire. The wire cutters slice dthrough. Pilot landed ASAP. He had some explaining to do as to why he was below 500 AGL in violation of local FAR. Took a hot on his cert, his insurance bumped up, and had negative impact on his career. Sucks for him. He flew rich skiers to and from Aspen. Was a good gig. Robinson R44 struck a wire. Boom separated, cabin sliced through and crushed, main hub separated, two dead.
@@ABHelicopters 406 is a 'civilianized' OH-58 Kiowa. Demilitiarized. Engines deratred and IR suppressos removed. Common for engines to swapped, and only airframe is sold. 407 is civilian build from factory.
It would be useful to a student pilot such as me who is tackling Exercise 28 to see the calculations and checks that led you to perform a towering take off, or was that a vertical ascent ?
Great question James! So in this case, from the pre flight planning, realising that a vertical climb is required, you can go into the flight manual- section 5 on performance - in an r44 raven 2 , you look at section 5-5, OGE performance - which is what a vertical climb is. For the given weight, temperature and pressure conditions, you can see if you have the required performance . Then, in flight , before you commit to landing, you do a power check, in the 44, this is at 55 kts, and compare power used straight and level the max power permitted for the day. If you have a power margin of 6-7 inches MAP you can hold a OGE hover, and greater than 7 inches , you have sufficient for a vertical climb. You can also do a power check in the hover , usually you need about 10% more power to climb OGE than IGE, which translates to about 1.5-2 inches MAP
@@ABHelicopters Many thanks for your detailed response. I had a training flight today where I did a total of 10 take offs and landings including a running take off, a cushion creep take off, a towering take off, a running landing, a zero zero landing and a vertical descent, all the time paying regard to the parameters which you refer to in the R44 II POH. I also learnt not to be too hasty raising the collective to MCP when doing the down wind power check as this led to an unwanted increase in height. My instructor, incidentally, advises doing the power check at 53 knots. Even though the outside air temperature (OAT) was 30C, the aircraft had bags of power so these exercises were largely academic. However, as my instructor pointed out, had the aircraft at that OAT been fully loaded with 3 pax plus full fuel, the available power margin would have been substantially reduced so the exercise was very useful.
Glad to hear you had a good lesson, I used to love practicing the zero zero landing - it really improves your handling skill as you judge the power requirements and trade them off against the speed to touch down. The power check is usually flown at Vy- the minimum power speed , so check the flight manual for the correct value.
The 44 has plenty of power in the U.K., but still can catch pilots out, as you said, if you are heavy and suddenly demand power, perhaps if operating downwind or into a tight spot ! Keep up the good work and best of luck for the rest of your training. Feel free to ask any other questions on these videos and I’ll try and get back to you asap
What Allison model is this? On the C-20B we use I never see such high and fast TOT spikes on startup. It's more slow and gradual to a a peak (650-700 usually) and then decreases. Are you using the battery to start perhaps?
I'm up to about 200 hours, low time so always concentrating hard. However, I still get time for the occasional glance down and right and see our shadow racing across the ground - utterly thrilling! Really like the velocity vector display, which I presume is GPS rather than from the ASI. At about 10:49, that was a serious change of altimeter setting, is Blackbushe that much higher AMSL than Denham?
Thanks for the comment as always! The vector display is good in some respects - you can also show altitude and the track, but it often gets very cluttered , so I tend to go with a ‘less is more ‘ approach , unless trying to specifically show something. Yes it’s GPS derived. Re the altimeter settings - Denham is at 249 ft, Blackbushe at 325ft so should only be around 2 and half mb difference, however the circuit / arrival procedure at Blackbushe is done at 800ft based on the QFE, or, height above the airfield - hence the change
That case was a rotors running drop off , and then pick up, all in a few minutes . The landing fees are a bit high, each slot is only 15 minutes or so anyway! We have a load of heli route tuition videos , if you want to brush up on them before hand!
@@ABHelicopters i will definitely watch them. I didn't know that you needed a 15mil insurance on the heli to land at the heliport and do a familiarization flight either. I called to ask and that's what I was told and also the website had it listed.
I fly all these types in MSFS with VR, bit of motion, haptics and what I needed to get used to the most, is that you have to do these techniques way slower than you would feel they need to be done. Always think : slow down, you’re still too fast ;)
@@ABHelicopters Currently I have a beefy PC, Reverb G2, small amp with two budget shakers and a 2 DOF NLR V3 motion platform, which I modified ( hacked ) to make the pedals move with the seat. I am in the - slow - process of building a Departed Reality DIY motion platform to replace the V3. Which is already awesome by itself but I just want to experience 6 DOF. Motion is not the most important part of the sim, but it is the most unnerving, anxiety inducing, part. Doing a manoeuvre and feeling the ( some ) consequences, really makes you want to handle the aircraft gently. The only fundamental DOF missing on a pitch - roll platform is heave, all the rest can be simulated. Especially yaw is way more realistic than you would imagine, made possible by the fact that the pilot is not in the CG of the aircraft.
Wow - that’s one hell of a setup! I’m very impressed. It is something that you have been building over time , or did you take the plunge and build most of it at once? What’s your take on VR, is it the future of gaming and simulation ? Do you ever suffer from vertigo induced by the goggles or does the coordinated motion help offset any disconnect between the senses ? How about support for other simulations - is it easy enough to adapt to DCS , or X plane , for example ?
@@ABHelicopters Thanks for the friendly words. It was built over a short timespan. About 1.5 years. VR : the greatest thing since sliced bread. If you have set it up correctly, there is no going back, especially for VFR, and thus pretty much 90% of heli ops. Started out with a face tracker ( SmoothTrack ) on a big monitor, but never used it again since the G2. The only downside you could say is, it stops me from trying a virtual ATC because there is typing and writing involved, not too handy in VR. My Hotas, pedals and a couple of keys on the keyboard, is all I can manage to manipulate when wearing the goggles. Vertigo or motion sickness : very little in the beginning, and it very quickly went away. Motion is super convincing in VR. If you yaw the heli to the right, you don't have the feeling that the seat is tilting forward and left, you actually feel that you are thrown out of the heli, but still in the horizontal plane. I did start out with DCS and so my first VR experience was on that platform in an F-5 jet. The only thing I could think when I first saw the VR was : "I am finally there" :)
Unfortunately we don’t offer tours for charter , so the cost depends on where from and how long, but have a look at Elstree , Redhill and white Waltham for tour operators
it is really good on a fast internet connection (satellite in my case). only downside is a time-out feature (about 5 minutes) if you walk away from the ipad which is understandable as it uses their servers. Enough time to make a coffee though.
