Learning to Fly Aeroplanes and Helicopters: Collected Articles From Flight Training News 2006-2011, #1

By Helen Krasner

Helen Krasner has been flying for many years, and holds a Commercial Helicopter Pilot's Licence and Instructor's Rating. She also has a Private Pilot's Licence for Aeroplanes, and well over 1000 hours flying time in total. Until recently she worked as a freelance helicopter instructor, flying mainly R22s and R44s.
Helen writes about helicopters and other aviation-related subjects for a number of publications, and she is also the Newsletter Editor for the BWPA (British Women Pilots' Association). She was nominated for one of the Aerospace Journalist of the Year Awards in 2004, for an article about Flying Helicopters in Russia. She has published a book about helicopter flying – The Helicopter Pilot's Companion (Crowood Press 2008), and a second book, on learning to fly helicopters, is due out in July 2011. Helen has also written and published a book about a five thousand mile walk around Britain which she undertook some years ago (Midges, Maps, and Muesli).

In 2006 Helen started writing a regular column in the monthly publication Flight Training News. She contributed informative but lighthearted articles on all aspects of flying, for the most part drawing on her own experience, and almost invariably peppered with useful anecdotes from her own flying. To date she has written nearly 50 of these articles, and various people have commented on how useful they have been, and also remarked that they would make an excellent book. That is how this book came about...

Helen starts by asking the all-important question: Can Anyone Learn to Fly - and she concludes that they can. The next few chapters give useful advice on those all-important price-related issues, plus finding the right airfield, flying school, and instructor. We then move on to some of the human issues related to aviation training, such as confidence problems and how to learn from one's mistakes. The later sections talk about the important milestone of 'going solo', and finally, how to cope with test nerves when you get to that crucial final flight test.

Helen hopes that you will enjoy reading these articles as much as she enjoyed writing them. She would like you to feel free to email her at the address above with any comments. She apologises in advance for any repetition, and also for the large number of apparent gaps, should anyone expect this book to follow the whole Private Pilot's Licence course. It should be remembered that this is a collection of articles, written at different times during the last few years, so such things are inevitable. It should definitely not be used to replace a standard textbook and a flying instructor's briefings, but will hopefully provided additional useful and interesting information; that is all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Helen Krasner
• Release date: Nov 21, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301107872

Helen Krasner

Helen Krasner worked as a helicopter instructor for several years, instructing for various flying schools on Robinson R22s and R44s. She has also flown a large number of other helicopter types, held a private pilot's licence for aeroplanes, and has had a go at flying microlights, gliders, and balloons. Helen has been writing professionally for many years and contributes regularly to a number of aviation publications. She was nominated for an Aerospace Journalist of the Year award in 2004, for an article about flying helicopters in Russia. She has also had several books published, both print and ebooks, mainly – though not exclusively – on aviation related topics. She is also a former Newsletter Editor for the BWPA (British Women Pilots' Association). You can find out more about Helen, including details of all of her books, on her website, helenkrasner.com.com.

Book preview

Learning to Fly Aeroplanes and Helicopters

(Collected Articles From Flight Training News, 2006-2011)

By Helen Krasner

Published by Helen Krasner at Smashwords

Copyright Helen Krasner 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

Preface

Helen Krasner has been flying for many years, and holds a Commercial Helicopter Pilot's Licence and Instructor's Rating. She also has a Private Pilot’s Licence for Aeroplanes, and well over 1000 hours flying time in total. Until recently she worked as a freelance helicopter instructor, flying mainly R22s and R44s.

Helen writes about helicopters and other aviation-related subjects for a number of publications, and she is also the Newsletter Editor for the BWPA (British Women Pilots’ Association).

She was nominated for one of the Aerospace Journalist of the Year Awards in 2004, for an article about Flying Helicopters in Russia. Helen has published a book about helicopter flying – The Helicopter Pilot’s Companion (Crowood Press 2008), and a second book, on learning to fly helicopters, is due out in July 2011.

Helen has also written and published a book about a five thousand mile walk around Britain which she undertook some years ago (Midges, Maps, and Muesli).

In 2006, Helen started writing a regular column in the monthly publication Flight Training News. She contributed informative but lighthearted articles on all aspects of flying, for the most part drawing on her own experience, and almost invariably peppered with useful anecdotes from her own flying. To date she has written nearly 50 of these articles, and various people have commented on how useful they have been, and also remarked that they would make an excellent book.

Hence the idea for this publication – the first of a series of four. This first ebook collects together Helen’s fairly introductory articles on learning to fly both aeroplanes and helicopters, aimed at the beginner and those undertaking the Private Pilot’s Licence course. The second book will give advice on becoming a commercial pilot, the third will be more specifically about flying helicopters, as this is Helen’s speciality. The final book, provisionally entitled "A Helicopter Instructor Speaks Out" will include those articles which focus on Helen’s experiences as an instructor, plus advice for those following the same career path. Look out for them, or contact Helen at mailto:[e-mail], and she will let you know when they are published.

So to the present book… Helen starts by asking the all-important question: Can Anyone Learn to Fly - and she concludes that they can. The next few chapters give useful advice on those all-important price-related issues, plus finding the right airfield, flying school, and instructor. We then move on to some of the human issues related to aviation training, such as confidence problems and how to learn from one’s mistakes. The later sections talk about the important milestone of ‘going solo’, and finally, how to cope with test nerves when you get to that crucial final flight test.

Helen hopes that you will enjoy reading these articles as much as she enjoyed writing them. She would like you to feel free to email her at the address above with any comments. She apologises in advance for any repetition, and also for the large number of apparent gaps, should anyone expect this book to follow the whole Private Pilot’s Licence course. It should be remembered that this is a collection of articles, written at different times during the last few years, so such things are inevitable. It should definitely not be used to replace a standard textbook and a flying instructor’s briefings, but will hopefully provided additional useful and interesting information; that is all.

Good luck and happy flying, and blue skies and tail winds to you all.

April 2011

Contents

Chapter One: Can Anyone Learn to Fly?

Chapter Two: Which Flying School, Which Instructor?

Chapter Three: Price is Not Everything

Chapter Four: High Hours Instructor or Enthusiastic ‘Newbie’?

Chapter Five: How to Afford to Fly Helicopters

Chapter Six: Are Helicopter Pilots Super-People?

Chapter Seven: A Question of Confidence

Chapter Eight: Helicopter Delusions

Chapter Nine: Large Versus Small Airfields

Chapter Ten: Learning From Mistakes

Chapter Eleven: Going Solo

Chapter Twelve: Coping With Flight Test Nerves

Glossary

Chapter One: Can Anyone Learn to Fly?

Return to Table of Contents

There are some skills which we assume almost anyone can acquire. We all send our kids to school, expecting them to learn to read, write, and do simple arithmetic well enough to cope with ordinary adult life. Similarly, most people believe they will have the intelligence and coordination required to learn to swim, ride a bike, or drive a car – and indeed, the majority of them do.

Flying is not like that. We tend to have an idea that it is different, special…and certainly difficult. A lot of potential pilots are a little scared that they won’t have the aptitude to do it. Perhaps, they speculate, being a pilot is something like becoming an opera singer, actor, or professional footballer – only the elite few can make it. This attitude is not helped by the presence of flying ‘aptitude’ tests, useful though these may be in some respects. Then there are the rumours we sometimes hear of young men and women being ‘chopped’ by the armed forces for not learning to fly quickly enough. Perhaps we even know individuals who have given up PPL training because they found it too difficult. So people go for trial lessons, and a proportion of them ask afterwards, as I have now and then been asked: Am I good enough? Will I be able to learn to fly? Maybe I hear this more often than fixed-wing instructors, since helicopters in particular have a reputation for being only for supermen and women, but I suspect something similar happens to all flying instructors from time to time

Personally, I think that almost anyone can learn to fly. As I tell my students, if you have enough ability to learn to drive a car, you ought to be able to fly a helicopter. It is more difficult than driving a car, so it will take more time to learn to do it, that’s all. As with driving or any other skill, some people will take longer than others. And, as with driving, some may