So I’ve been over analysing this as normal. You do sixty-five odd hours of tuition, fly a hundred mile cross-country, so why then do a test to show you can fly the thing when obviously you can. Well. I was told just before we set off that I could navigate and I could fly, what this test was about was captaincy and how I could deal with various situations. So everything goes fine for the first twenty-five minutes, leave Staverton, on heading, start stopwatch. Everything goes tickety-boo. Then you go over that bloody mountain. It’s a bit like the Bermuda triangle, something bloody weird happens. If there is any wind at all you will be blown madly off course. I worked out it was actually about nine miles off course. You are expecting to see Chipping-Camden, and it ain’t there. I’ve never seen anyone smile so much at someone else fucking something up so completely. Then it kind of clicked. This was what was expected to happen. There is no-way a heading hold would work on that route. He was just interested in how I would deal with the situation. Thankfully I realised how far out we were and corrected it and found the destination. Promptly then took the wrong road out of that and had to correct that again. The whole test was a series of tasks and situations. Each one was carefully designed to catch you out. Even back on the airfield we’d just been doing some slope landings, very close to the tree line in front of us. He then says, right, do a 180 degree spot turn to the left. Rather than do it, I said I think we are far too close to the trees so we should back up a bit. That was the answer he said he wanted. If I had done the spot turn I would have hit the trees with the tail rotor. Its a very clever test. To be honest some of my flying was bloody awful, but when he pointed to the oil light and said ‘oil light is on, too late’ and snapped the throttle closed, that collective shot down and I turned into wind in about four seconds. And it wasn’t like that only happened once, I had every failure I’d ever heard of, plus a few more I hadn’t. He did put me into a rearward acceleration so I had zero airspeed then told me to turn, it flipped round and shot into a dive, I just let it settle and then recovered it, never experienced that before. After I shut the aircraft down I asked if I’d passed, he said, yes yes, your flying is fine, the captaincy was very good as well, but you should relax more. I certainly have a lot of respect for the man, he is the son of a very famous test pilot. He is listed as one of the finest and most experienced helicopter pilots in the world and holds several world records. I have a huge amount of respect for him. It was an absolute pleasure, if somewhat a slightly terrifying one to have my skills test taken by this man, it’s certainly two hours of my life I’m never going to forget.

Okay, so today was a bit weird. Woke up as normal and did coffee and cereal. Planned my route all out again and drove up to Staverton. Then was told that the weather wasn’t good enough at the moment, but looked like it would clear up later. Then we waited. And waited, and waited, then had lunch and waited some more. Eventually we made the call at two forty-five that it was clearing and we were able to go. Quentin arrived in an R44 in about 20 minutes from about 100 odd miles away. He was easily the most eccentric person I have ever come across. I was busy redoing all by headings as the new spot wind chart was now valid.

We started out well with the ‘A’ check and passenger briefing. Got off to a good start, out the airfield, up to Tirley Bridge and then set heading, all was fine until we got over that mountain, exactly the same thing as before over these things, you get way off course, blown massively to the right. Thankfully I knew where I was, so got to the town and took the wrong road out of it, so doubled back and picked the right one and found the building. Then we did the track crawl which was fine and then the VOR with the diversion. We then did a load of emergencies and forced landings. Some IMC stuff with the goggles, all okay. Then we did our confined landing, towering takeoff, which was a tad cruel as he put me about ten foot from the tree. We did some quick stops at about a thousand feet, then a load of vortex ring recovery stuff, tail rotor stalls. Back to airfield, where I did a couple of auto’s, one on to the ground. Low power takeoff and landing. Slopes. Then did some hovering in a square round a pattern and then it was all over.

So apart from the nav going a bit wonky, which in the end turned out fine, as I used captaincy to solve the issue and worked out where I was, it was actually great fun. Parked it up and shut it down. That was it, almost two hours, all over. So in the end it was about sixty-five hours, of which ten was solo, including a 100 nautical mile cross-country landing at two away aerodromes. Nine ground exams, one practical radio telephony exam and finally a skills test. And enough money to buy quite a nice BMW. All done. All complete. I now have a helicopter pilots license. How useless is that? What next? JCB license, how about a fork-lift truck.

One things for certain. I ain’t going in an R22 again for a few weeks. Mind you, Ben has asked if I’d be interested in going up on November the fifth, we can do some filming in the dark.

Do you ever feel that you are on countdown and only have five seconds left to solve the conundrum? I’m at that stage.

Woke up a bit later than planned, but in no hurry. Ate breakfast. Had coffee. Looked at a nav on Google Earth. Then walked Sasha. Had lunch, got some petrol and some milk. Captain James texted me to say the aircraft was available now. Drove to Staverton, quick brief and we were off. Shite weather, bad cloud base, winds pissed us around. Found everything though. Came back to the airfield, practiced and perfected the auto to hover and did some quick stops. All ready for my test, I wonder when that is…

So started with coffee and cereal. Read the paper for a bit and headed to Staverton. We then did a bit of general handling. All was good until I did the auto to a hover, where one attempt I ballsed it up completely, unloaded the disc and sent it into a zero G situation, which meant we were due to fall out of the sky like a brick, thankfully James was on the case, flared like fuck and dumped the collective, I even managed to finish the attempt. The last one was pretty good though. It’s a really difficult procedure, and dear reader, it is something that you would only ever do in an emergency. You would not normally steam into an airfield at 75MPH at 1,600 feet a minute decent rate and then 40ft from hitting the ground flare the fuck out of the aircraft to kill the airspeed and then gently raise the collective to recover to a hover. In an R22, to get it right, you need about 1,000 hours. I have about 60, but still need to put on a bloody good show to the examiner. Also my quick stops were still a bit slow and I tended to veer a bit. So out of about 80 manoeuvres I need to perform on the day, two worry me. To be honest the whole thing scares the absolute shit out of me and I’m terrified about the whole ordeal, I’ve paid over twenty grand for this experience, why did I put myself through it?

After the flight, Ben very kindly took me round to another Helicopter company to do an ‘A’ check on an R22 while James was out with Sid (another early PPL student). Everyone is very friendly in the industry, he just randomly called them up and asked if we could come and do a check on their aircraft. We then went back and Ben gave me a crash course on helicopter aerodynamics. I then did the test and scored 100%. To be honest I already knew about 90% of it, so it was nice just to clear up the last 10%. So that’s nine ground exams, a cross country and a practical telephony test. Oh and that bloody skills test I need to do…..

Oh, and I have my test date.

Jamie did a fairly bad job of playing with Mr fully articulated rotor system, still never mind, it was better than having a semi rigid teetering one. Work today was all about crash dumps, not very exciting, but quite interesting in places. Walked Sasha, short today as it was very gloomy and I was very busy. Stuck petrol in the car, that’s the last of the supplies now. New stopwatch arrived, for doing the nav with. Did some nice placards for my map. Everything is in place now. More flying tomorrow and another bloody exam, I thought I saw the last of those. Got a few bits to perfect tomorrow. Now I know something you don’t. Actually I know a hell of a lot you don’t, but in the same way, you probably know quite a lot I don’t. As some president once said, ‘There are known knowns, known unknowns and now we have unknown unknowns’. I’m not sure where any of this lies.

All about spot lights and energy preservation today. And really if its worth it or if it’s too much of a pain in the ass to set up. Basically it comes down to if you make the outer cone narrower then the intensity increases for the same power. It looks nice in test setups, I’ll leave that one up to the wrists. Sasha got her walk. Had an odd text from Captain James asking about my ‘Principles of flight’ paper, then realised there are actually nine ground exams not eight, so that’s one I’ll have to do on Saturday, no real problem, I know about 80% of it already, there’s only a few weird specifics I need to know. Went for a run, it rained at some point today, no idea when.

Today was supposed to be very simple, do a point SDK update. What a bloody shambles that turned out to be. So wasted a huge amount of time on that. Once again a very nice day. I hope this keeps up into next week. Walked Sasha. Walked to the gym, did Pump, which I must admit, I’m enjoying considerably more than Combat at the moment. I was supposed to watch that R22 video again, I do like Dick Sandford, but just couldn’t handle him telling me to check my welds yet again, maybe tomorrow. I’m going to bed with a glass of wine and watching last weeks ‘Lewis’.

Today was mostly about cubes and them being in the wrong colour space. Why can’t artists get colour spaces? Surely that’s their thing? My DVD turned up, this is the one where Dick Sandford goes round the Robbie and pokes bits. I have to learn the entire thing inside out by the weekend. I’ll watch it tonight, with a glass of wine. Still got a load of other facts and figures to learn as well, 1370 lbs maximum weight, 900 lbs empty weight. 23 gallons (US) of fuel, need to calculate all the weights and balances, in my head, on the fly. Just hope the examiner isn’t a fat git and throws all my calcs out. I’ve flown over about 500 square miles of the Cotswolds on Google maps. I’ve flown over about half of that for real, I’m trying to remember every little town and every little detail. The examiner can dump you anywhere in a 50 mile radius, it will be an interesting challenge and if my air-speed and altitude control are as bad as they were on Sunday, finding the location is going to be the least of my worries. Still a nice day today. Walked Sasha, went for run, very cold now though, shivering.

Back to work. Bit of a slow day, ended up doing a lot of testing. Didn’t get a huge amount checked in until this evening and I’m not sure all that is working correctly. Another nice day weather wise, Sasha had a nice walk. Walked to the gym, did all the new Combat, which I didn’t like, give it one more week and then do Pump I think. Walked home, did much work. More of the same tomorrow now. Lots to learn this week, but having a night off from it tonight. Going to watch a documentary about plane crashes instead.

So oddly woke up this morning with the alarm at 8AM. Made breakfast, quick read of the paper and then studied all my radiotelephony notes again. Drove up to Staverton. Plenty of time. Went in to Cotswald Aero club. I was given a fake map and flight plan. I was then left on my own for half an hour to prepare everything. It’s all done on a simulator, which uses a plane, which would be quite interesting. Put on the headset, dialled in my first frequency and clicked ‘start’. Was at an air / ground station, so requested a radio check and taxi instructions. Was told the active runway and QNH. Lined up, then departed, clicked on ‘take-off’, then changed frequency to the MATZ, called for a penetration, that all went fine, then changed frequency to the Class D air-space. Asked for zone transit, all okay. Then the horn went off and I had an engine failure, did the mayday, asked for a vector to the nearest aerodrome, even though it’s only a simulation, you still panic. Started my diversion and then the engine light went out, so cancelled the mayday and said I’d restarted the engine. Turned at the correct point and started to cross the channel. Changed frequency to the open FIR. Tried to change frequency to the destination aerodrome and ask for weather but they didn’t respond. Back on frequency. Passed a drifting lifeboat in the channel, so did a pan-pan call and reported it. Changed frequency again to destination aerodrome and asked for weather, was fogged in, what a surprise. So said I’d divert to my alternate. Changed frequency, asked for a QDM, changed heading, then did the join base leg and final calls. Then it was all over. Made a couple of mistakes, I changed frequency too early initially, I was still within the air / ground ATZ. Also when I was in the control zone I should have stayed on that frequency to make use of their radar rather than change to the open FIR. Also when I was after weather I could have just asked the FIR. Also my route description I just had departure and destination, looking at the map they were opposite each other, so really I should have put in ‘via’. Anyway, I passed. Then went back to James with all the signed paperwork. I then did a 1.4 hour flight which to be honest was a complete disaster. There was this ‘vulcan’ flypast at Staverton, so it was packed as fuck. Leaving the ATZ every plane on earth was heading straight at me, so I was trying to do a nav while literally dodging incoming planes. The heading hold wasn’t to bad, ordinance survey was fine. Then the track crawl was fine up to the motorway intersection, then my altitudes went to shit, same for the airspeed, plus I did go back on to the correct heading. Miles out. And the diversion was shit. Too much on my mind. Waste of money, I may as well have just given four hundred quid to my mother. Still, exam passed anyway. So that’s it now, all I have to concentrate on is flying. No more exams, no more tests. Just have to prove to the examiner than I know what the fuck I’m doing, after today, I’m not so sure.