Saturday, January 12, 2008

Engine Failure!

Ok so today was officially the worst day I have had while I've been here. It started out good. Today was my first solo flight in the Robinson R22 and I was also going on a long solo crosscountry flight. I got to the airport around noon and planned my flight to an airport 60 miles south of us, got my helicopter, started up and took off. Everything was going great for about 5 min then stuff started going wrong. I called up "flight watch" (a service for pilots where we file a flight plan and if we dont show up they send out search and rescue for us) on the radio and got no answer. So I climbed a bit higher, and called again. No answer. Called again. No answer. So I started thinking my radio was bad. So I made a call to my fellow pilots. They said they could hear my loud and clear. So I tried calling flight watch again. No answer. This went on for about 20 min. By the time I reached my half way point, I gave up. So I crossed my fingers and hoped to make it without problems. Well, I did make it to the airport, I landed, shut down, got fuel, then did a preflight check and started up. I got clearance to leave and started hovering out to the taxi way to take off and all of a sudden the engine made a coughing sound and it torqued/twisted to the left. Then it went back to normal, then coughed twice (torque/twisting as well) and I said "EFF THIS!" and slammed it back to the ground (I had only been hovering at about 3 feet. I called the tower and said my helicopter isn't running right and Im not gonna move it. I shut down, called the school, they told me they would send an instructor down in the truck to pick me up (during the week they would just fly down) well..... 4 Hrs later the instructor shows up and we attached wheels to the heli and moved it out of the way and on monday the mechanics will go down and get it. So, we finally get back to our home airport and i'm about to leave and guess what? my car battery is dead!!!!! So I bum a ride from someone and on the way home we got stuck waiting for a train! Geez. I will forever remember 1-12 as one of the worst days in my memory.
Here is a picture of my broken helicopter sitting on the taxiway at the airport.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Someone call AAA Towing?

Glad you are safe!
Ziggy says YEAH BABY THE Chi is fun to chase!