Yup, took my wife up for a flight a couple weeks ago. Her first helicopter ride. By her own account, she loved it. I was a little worried about how she’d do. Thought she might be really tense and anxious about, one, having no control and putting her life entirely in my hands, and two, just being a nervous flyer in such a tiny little aircraft. She did great, though. Said the only time she tightened up was on takeoff, because we had about a forty-yard run, nose forward about three feet up, till we hit about 50mph for takeoff. It’s a pretty fun moment for me now that I’m used to it, but I’ll admit it was certainly a stomach-lurcher the first few times I experienced it. She took some video of that takeoff but, uh, accidentally deleted it later on. We went out again last Sunday so she took some takeoff video again, though it’s not quite as exciting as the other takeoff cause I didn’t have as much room for a normal ground-run takeoff. I spliced it up a bit because I spent a long time hovering there waiting to see what this inbound life-flight helicopter was gonna do.
Here ya go.
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wow. that’s cool how the water droplets sucked upwards when you took off.
what’s that red string for?
There’s really two strings, they’re called “trim strings.” In forward flight they help you stay “in trim,” or directly into the wind. If the strings are leaning to one side or the other then you’re flying a little bit sideways. Just add a little right or left pedal and they line up straight. Not a huge deal, but it causes a lot of drag. What’s wild is when you have a strong quartering headwind, you actually DO fly sideways cause the wind pushes you way off course pretty quick.