So this morning I was rudely awaken by a call from Captain James, “I’ve just spent 140 grand on a new R22 would you like to have a go in it for free?”. Well, call me a cheap skate, but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Today was actually a bit fucked over as there was only one helicopter available as the other had broken down again, so we had an hour at midday. We did advanced auto-rotations, which were great fun. Basically, it’s how to stretch the distance out as much as possible during an engine failure, so you go at it at 75 knots and reduce the engine RPM to 90%, which means the horn is screaming at you constantly (It triggers at 97%), now remember that you will get irrecoverable rotor failure at 80%. So it’s quite fun, if incredibly dangerous. We also did constant attitude auto’s which is what you do at night, plus a number of other auto conditions, whole thing completed in 55 minutes from engine start to shutdown. Anyway, his new chopper needs to go to the other side of London for it’s safety check. I need to do some cross-country stuff, so is everything goes to plan I get to fly it pretty much for free to it’s service destination. That’ll be pretty cool. So anyway, came back home, had lunch and then parked up just west of Easter Compton. Did seven Geocaches that were very spaced out, so took around four hours but it was nice to tick them off.

So next week is pretty much more of the same, but with a few extras. The part for my new machine should turn up tomorrow. Then I’m having dinner with Carl on Friday. Plus this possible cross-country flight, so could be a fun week. Also a wedding thing to go to at the weekend, so that will probably remove any joy I have.

Jamie is cooking this evening so I could also have gastro-enteritis to look forward to.