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> Now I'm wondering if the pilots hold hovering competitions, in the same way people in the military frequently do target practice. Yes. Have a read of "Rescu

by femto 8y ago

> Now I'm wondering if the pilots hold hovering competitions, in the same way people in the military frequently do target practice. Yes. Have a read of "Rescue Pilot" by Jerry Grayson. It's a great read. He describes how they used to practise hovering with a single front wheel resting on the top of a particular coastal rock formation. It was a competition in the sense that one crew upped the ante by managing to balance their tail wheel on the rock, so the rest of the crews followed. [1] https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/rescue-pilot-9781472918840/ https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/rescue-pilot-9781472918840/ Edit: Another link: http://rescuepilot.net/ http://rescuepilot.net/

FireBeyond 8y ago
Similarly, some fire departments will do dexterity exercises like playing Jenga with rescue tools ("jaws of life" - https://www.jawsoflife.com/ https://www.jawsoflife.com/), and similar with ladder trucks and building blocks.
waffle_ss 8y ago
They also open beer bottles with the skids to demonstrate precision control: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=helicopter+beer+bottle https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=helicopter+beer...
exikyut 8y ago
Wow, I just read the first chapter via https://issuu.com/bloomsburypublishing/docs/rescue_pilot https://issuu.com/bloomsburypublishing/docs/rescue_pilot. Yet another book to add to the wishlist... I'm gonna need a job that gives me a bit of spare time, the pile is getting pretty big, haha. The Vulcan bit leapt out at me; I've also read Vulcan 607! That book was purely technical; I would have appreciated an explanation about the political upheaval going on with the RAF at the time as well, I had absolutely no idea. I had no idea hovering over sea is as complex as it is - of course everything underneath the helicopter is going up and down. So the helicopter needs to match that if it doesn't want to whomp onto the deck as it lands. Hah. And so, in the same vein, hovering over a ship doing rescue operations is clearly going to preclude the use of the kind of autopilot described in the GGP comment. I've been interested in the idea of flying since I was about 15, but I've been dragging my feet on getting involved for years (I'm 27 now) - if I love it, I'll be depressed I can't afford to dive right in, but if I hate it or can't get my head around the flight controls (I have poor hand-eye coordination, a lot of visual things don't "click" for me, and I can't keep an RC helicopter in the air), I'm not sure if I'd handle the let-down. Because of the expense involved I'm a bit on the fence about it. Various health issues are why I didn't go the RAAF route a long time ago. (I'm not even sure what to name my condition - I've briefly described it at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15005811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15005811 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17780498. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17780498.)

by femto 8y ago

FireBeyond 8y ago

Similarly, some fire departments will do dexterity exercises like playing Jenga with rescue tools ("jaws of life" - https://www.jawsoflife.com/ https://www.jawsoflife.com/), and similar with ladder trucks and building blocks.

waffle_ss 8y ago

They also open beer bottles with the skids to demonstrate precision control: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=helicopter+beer+bottle https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=helicopter+beer...

exikyut 8y ago

Wow, I just read the first chapter via https://issuu.com/bloomsburypublishing/docs/rescue_pilot https://issuu.com/bloomsburypublishing/docs/rescue_pilot. Yet another book to add to the wishlist... I'm gonna need a job that gives me a bit of spare time, the pile is getting pretty big, haha. The Vulcan bit leapt out at me; I've also read Vulcan 607! That book was purely technical; I would have appreciated an explanation about the political upheaval going on with the RAF at the time as well, I had absolutely no idea. I had no idea hovering over sea is as complex as it is - of course everything underneath the helicopter is going up and down. So the helicopter needs to match that if it doesn't want to whomp onto the deck as it lands. Hah. And so, in the same vein, hovering over a ship doing rescue operations is clearly going to preclude the use of the kind of autopilot described in the GGP comment. I've been interested in the idea of flying since I was about 15, but I've been dragging my feet on getting involved for years (I'm 27 now) - if I love it, I'll be depressed I can't afford to dive right in, but if I hate it or can't get my head around the flight controls (I have poor hand-eye coordination, a lot of visual things don't "click" for me, and I can't keep an RC helicopter in the air), I'm not sure if I'd handle the let-down. Because of the expense involved I'm a bit on the fence about it. Various health issues are why I didn't go the RAAF route a long time ago. (I'm not even sure what to name my condition - I've briefly described it at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15005811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15005811 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17780498. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17780498.)