My helicopter flying lesson

First of course a few facts and statements about helicopters and flying:

• The only time you have too much fuel is when you’re on fire
• When in doubt, hold on to your altitude. No-one has ever collided with the sky
• Never fly the ‘A’ model of anything
• Try to stay in the middle of the air. Do not go near the edges of it. The edges of the air can be recognized by the appearance of ground, buildings, sea, trees and interstellar space. It is much more difficult to fly there
• If the wings are traveling faster than the fuselage, it’s probably a helicopter – and unsafe
• If helicopters are so safe, how come there are no vintage / classic helicopter fly-ins?
• A helicopter is a collection of rotating parts going round and round and reciprocating parts going up and down – all of them trying to become random in motion

There are a few things which really get my blood pumping, the adrenalin flowing and the cold sweat trickling down the back of the neck….the anticipation of flying in a chopper is one of them…the anticipation of actually flying the chopper does ten times that! Taking up the other two seats in the helicopter were the journalist Ian Woods from Sky News and his cameraman….be afraid boys be very afraid!

After a short postponement due to Hamilton Island Race Week getting in the way of the previous engagement my meeting with this beast of a helicopter, the R44 Clipper, was back on. I drove down to the offices of Hamilton Island Aviation where Des from Heli-Biz was waiting for me and as I made my way out onto the runway other belly-poppers (as the B.F.G. used to call them) were swooping low over the tarmac, the pilots all expertly maneuvering their machines around…time to perform Ben.

I climbed into the cockpit of the R44 and strapped myself in, the sun beating down through the vast glass area adding to the unnecessary heat my body was already suffering from in the build up to my big moment. Des went through his pre-flight procedures meticulously, started the air-con much to my delight and wound the rotor blades of the chopper up to operating speed. This was really it….

As we left the surface of the runway Des turned to me and started to go through the instructions….”this is the cyclic, hold the controls lightly in your fingers, keep the ball between the two lines and head in that direction” – ‘What me…now” came my none-too confident answer.

I held the controls and gently worked the stick until I had the balance of this great flying machine, slowly bringing up the height of the chopper as we cleared the boundaries of Hamilton Island leaving it getting smaller in the distance. As we made over the Fitzalan Passage, Whitehaven Beach started to come into view (voted Queensland’s best beach and understandably as it’s amazing!) and I adjusted out flight path to make for it….this was turning out to be a much longer go at the controls than I first thought….wicked fun!

As we cleared the end of Whitehaven Beach Des again too the controls, gained around 1000ft in height and told me to hang on, here comes the demonstration! We commenced a tight sweeping spiral turn coming back around onto ourselves three times dropping the nose down towards the ground each time with my stomach and head were spinning and the fast approaching ground – this was the way to fly a helicopter, incredible.

Back at the controls now we turned back towards the mainland and gained height over Whitsunday Island passing the highest ridge before the ground dropped away into the ocean once more. As I settled into the role Des turned to me and said “Ben maybe you could grip the controls slightly lighter than you are now?”, I checked my hand and the whites of the knuckles were showing clearly! It’s totally weird trying to control something so powerful with just your light fingertips….I changed my hold but ten seconds later was back to the old ‘fish-strangling’ position!
Ten minutes later we were passing up the passage to Shute Harbour and across the mangroves which signalled the approach to Whitsunday Airport, our destination for the end of the flight.

Now they say that the hardest thing about flying a chopper are the take-off and landing….I was about to find that out. With Des still reluctant to take the controls back from me he talked me through the basics of hovering this lightweight bumblebee. It’s a combination of three different controls just to hold it in one place!

You know the game where you rub your belly whilst patting your head??? It’s like that but with the added bonus of trying to keep a football up in the air using your feet at the same time….i.e. Damn difficult.

A couple of minutes and tail drops later Des came to his senses and took control of our chopper and gently brought it to rest on the ground outside the hanger – one day I will learn to fly one of these for real but for now this one will have to do….

End of trip location: Whitsundays Airport

Distance covered: 80kms