Hey everybody, Josh nearing co-founder and chief pilot of Kitty Hawk that IO here at Falcon field in Arizona with Ron buyer helicopter, instructor extraordinaire, who is probably unadvisedly going to. Let me fly the Sicari svh 4. It is a helicopter training platform. I don’t know if you can see it behind us here, but it is actually on a platform. You can’t actually take it off, but that probably won’t help me that much so right.

Let me ask you a question yeah. How do you think I’m gonna do here? You’Ve taught hundreds of people how to fly, and I have zero hours experience. So I think you’re gonna do fine. It’S it’s flying.

A helicopter is all about patience and taking your time so we’re gonna break. It down into small, simple parts and what by they by the end of the day, I’m going to have you hovering, I’m gonna have you doing pedal turns and if you’re, if you’re capable and able we’ll have you a little dig we’ll? Have you taxing this aircraft around on our lot here? I think I think you’re going to be fine. Well, this is date you’re letting the the fixed-wing guy and the drone guy fly something rotary.

So this is going to be really exciting, we’re gonna and if we do, if I do my job right, we’re gonna take you to the dark side. You’Re, never gonna want to fly that stuff again. You’Re only gonna want to fly a helicopter. Can’T wait, look out, we’ve done a couple of the basics with the Sicari SPH four we’ve done some of the basic tubing power management of a little bit of up and down landing and taking off, and some pedal turn so we’re getting ready to do it. On its fleece pressurized system, so it’s pretty much gonna, be all jog here, move it forwards.

Let’S see how he does [ Laughter ], rather than subject you to the crazy, loud and annoying helicopter noise. I figured I’d kind of narrate, some of the things that I was working on here. So this was kind of the first part of the training, where you’re really just trying to make sure that you have the ability to maintain your altitude and your heading. And while that sounds really easy, it’s actually surprisingly difficult. Every time you adjust the pitch, the aircraft actually changes heading, and so your feet need to get busy.

We were doing 4-point turns what we would do is every 90 degrees stop the aircraft and every 90 degrees go again, and so this was a great way to kind of get a sense of. How do you control the tail and if it’s you’ll notice Ron is actually walking around with me so having good tail control is super important. Otherwise, it could potentially be a bad time really enjoyed this, and this was kind of a good way to start without getting too crazy and in the weeds all at once, and then obviously making sure you get the money landing is the key to any good flight. All right Josh did pretty well. He he was at the lease lease setting right now, but one thing he has right now is the deck is still attached to the ground.

So we’ve gone through some of the basic training on it. So far, now we’re gonna shut down we’re gonna take a quick break. Then we’re going to come back recognize. This is not a simulator, it is a flight training device. So the helicopter, as you can see, is moving it’s suspended by the by the the the fixture that it’s setup and but it is flying.

It is torquing it, as twisting is doing everything that a basic helicopter pilot was learned. So what we’re gonna do now is we’re gonna shut it down we’re gonna take a quick break. Then I’m gonna release the deck. Now we’re gonna go through that process again of moving the aircraft this time. So we got to get a little taxi action, so he’s going to be it’s safe because it’s it’s set up in that bracket system.

So it’s not going to let you get out of control and that’s the idea of the trainer to learn these basic skills. So once you move into the big helicopter, it’s an easier transition. We’Ll see you in a few minutes, Hey so just spent 20 minutes in the svh for and number one. I think I love rotary aircraft now, but I told you Ron you’re, bringing me to the dark side but number two. It was surprising at how much control Authority it had for such little inputs.

It was really interesting to say: wow, I’m gonna move the stick. I’M gonna think of moving the stick to the left and just move to the left so extreme. It was awesome, so I’m super psyched good. This is gonna be fun. What are we gonna do next Ron?

What we’re gonna do next is we’re. gonna take a short break and then we’re gonna I’m gonna recharge the system we’re gonna release the base. So now the aircraft will be movable move over mobile. So as now right now it’s attached to the deck, so we contained the amount of movement that the aircraft could have so now. What we’re gonna do is we’re going to release the deck recharge it up a little bit so that it, the the flight controls, are a little more tense because once it starts moving its it’s real intense, so we’re gonna gradually get him to the point.

Where we are right now on the tension of the controls to where he’s moving the aircraft, all by himself with the least amount of tension and he’s basically flying, then once we get done we’re gonna go fly the real thing we’re gonna go out and Do a quick flight and then come back and talk about that, oh boy! So, having completed the ability to just kind of understand, the controls ron has, in its infinite wisdom, removed the ability to remain in one place. So now this thing this party’s on the roll. So we’re gonna see what happens now, so this is probably about 40 minutes after I started working with the Sicari and I have to say it was pretty impressive to be able to move this thing around, and you know there was some initial trepidation with the Idea that the base moves – and it kind of freaks you out because it moves like one of those weird 1980s r2d2 style robots where it’s not necessarily moving in a linear fashion. But if you stop looking at the thing, it makes a big difference and, as you’re kind of moving around, you have the ability to get a sense of how the helicopter is performing now.

The one thing that did trip me up a little bit, though, is that there were cracks in the tarmac and so you’ll see it like right now exactly you kind of get stuck in this crack and you need to give it a lot of control to get Out of the crack that initially gave me some some headache, because I was worried about moving the stick too much. I just spent the last 45 minutes, training myself to actually under control the aircraft, and now I’m like. Alright, let me just keep pushing the stick forward until this thing moves, so you can kind of see how that might be weird for somebody new, but on a flat surface. I’M sure this would be an amazing experience where it’s just feather-light. I was not afraid to get a little handsy with the stick once I figured out that yeah.

I just need to get out of this little divot that I’m resting in and that really made a big difference and once I kind of got it go and I was really kind of excited to start doing, sideways hovering and you know taxiing from place to place. So all in all, I have to say my experience with the Sicari was awesome and I would love to spend a couple more hours getting the hang of it. So I could cruise this thing around the airport, really cool stuff, really cool, still up. Okay, so Josh did pretty well. He I gave him a very, very accelerated course on this aircraft which he took to it like a like a fish and water.

So I’m really pleased so what we’re gonna do now we’re gonna cool the aircraft off shut. Her down and then we’re gonna go fly the real thing and we’ll talk about it, some more be back in a minute, so you get Josh’s comment Wow. That was significantly harder than I thought it would be, but I have to say it is really interesting to see how all of the systems interact with each other and as a drone pilot when you’re kind of on the other end of this really beautifully computer-controlled flight System you fail to understand the nuances of how things interact. It was different rod. It was very different, but you did extremely well.

Like I said earlier in one of the earlier clips, I gave you an a very accelerated course. Normally. What you did today is going to be an hour or two before we get to that kind of that kind of flying depending on age ability all sorts of different factors that come into play. You know we move the. We move the training based on how you progress, so you did really really well today.

I’M anxious for us to go, fly in the real thing and see how you do there. Let’S go fly something new. It’S gonna fly something new, do it so after spending about an hour with the Sicari Ron took me up in the Switzer 300c. This is just an awesome aircraft and I have to say it was more fun than flying the Sicari by far because it was just a little heavier on the stick and you could get a sense of really what it was doing. Just a little bit easier and the things I think I’m realizing I like most about helicopters is the sight picture is amazing.

You don’t have to worry about, like kind of being in a tail dragger and doing sideways taxis. You don’t even have to worry about taxiing. You just pick up and go. It was a ton of fun and then kind of coming back in for this landing, where the Sicari sitting on the ramp – and I had just gotten done flying the Switzer out in the desert – was just an amazing way to end the day and really made for A memorable experience all right, so we just wrapped up here in the Schweitzer 302 gorgeous aircraft. We took the doors off it’s a beautiful day for flying, definitely and Ron how’d.

We do. We did fantastic, so based on our training with the flight trainers, akari trainer. We went out got got Joshua on the flight. Controls did really well with that that we went into our hover area out in the practice area and within a couple couple of minutes, I had him hover in the normal brand new pilot that we’ve had out there that, were you only have a couple of hours On the pendulum process, the swinging of the aircraft around we didn’t have any of that because of the kind of the training we did on the Sicari that pendulum problem and the feeling of control was already there. So I’m really pleased with Josh’s performance.

He did really well, you know if we were continuing on with flight training. The only the next phases we’d be moving on would be just positions, body positions in the aircraft, locking down the movement of the helicopter and then more precision with the hovering. So you know what I have to say: it’s been a great day, lots of helicopters and as much as I’m loathe to admit it, I think, must drone folks can learn a lot less Kel brethren. So thank you to Ron and Canyon State Aero. It’S been a great day and if you’re looking for some helicopter flight training, might I recommend these guys?

They know what they’re doing all right thanks Ron thanks for coming watching with us today, so Kenna drone pilot fly real helicopter. I think the jury’s still out for me. I know that it humbled the hell out of me. Those two aircraft put me through the paces. I was sweating bullets by the time we were done and I don’t know if you can tell, but I look ragged.

It was an amazing opportunity to get to play with these things and get a shot at flying. Something real. I want to take this opportunity to thank Canyon, State and Ron for the awesome awesome help in learning how to do this, and when it comes down to it, it doesn’t matter what it does if it flies. I love it as always. If you have comments, feedback or questions feel free to put them below and as always fly safe thanks.