My First Event with BVA

[Guest Nathan Snell]

First off, I just want to say thank you to everyone, especially cessna4, he helped me out all night and had a lot of patience with me. I took the weather challenge as the first even that I participated in through BVA. I had a blast and wanted to just share a little bit of that with you.

All day I was kept saying to myself, "I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this," after all why did I join here if I wasn't go to partake in events. Besides it is a little weather event, nothing bad. So being that I am a rotary wing guy, I got out the old hawk and checked her out, made sure she was good to go. Anti-ice, check, pitot heat,check, three tires, four blades, and two paddles, check check and check. Good to go. So I sit down to do my flight plan, just like in the old days. I realize its not going to be so bad. I will start out in Otis and just head North until I am told otherwise. I actually had a few way points, but as a good pilot, I made sure my gps and flight system could load it and handle it. Now I just needed to. So I sat down, had a cup of coffee and waited. Suddenly the weather changed and other pilots started joining the session. I was excited and ready to go. I have never been into these airports but had all the charts I needed and for alternate airports as well. I planed one fuel stop at Manchester and bathroom break. So now I start psyching myself out. I tune in Boston ground to get clearance. I wait a good fifteen minutes before I get the nerve to speak up and say something. I have always had the nerves, even in my PPL at Riddle, I don't know why, I used to talk all day on the radios in the Army. So I make my move, "Boston ground Charlie Golf 6028 with Alpha at helo pad four Otis request IFR to Burlington, ready to copy." Here it goes!!!!!! "Charlie Golf 6028, contact Boston Center on 135.70" "Contact Boston Center on 135.70 Charlie Golf 6028" Opps, I forgot about that. So I tune up Center,"Charlie Golf 6028 contact Burlington Approach on 121.10" So here we go, third time is a charm, I am ampt up and ready to go. "Charlie Golf 6028 contact Boston center." Back to center!!!!! "Charlie Golf 6028 cleared as filed climb and maintain 3000, call when airborne." Here we go, I am so pumped up this gas hog cant climb fast enough. Off we go, I level off and engage the flight systems and wait five minutes to enter mission profile and start my fuel checks. I love listening to everyone else making radio calls, it is so much better than just flying around and hearing nothing. Engines and torque look good, anti ice is working, no coffee spilled, we are good to go. "Charlie Golf 6028 contact Boston Approach on 133.0." So I make my way down to my center console and dial in on my one radio( my only complaint with this model) and tune approach. "Boston approach, Charlie golf 6028 with you at 3000." "Rodger Coast Guard 6028, radar contact expect vectors into Manchester, contact when ready for vectors." I love it! I make get my vectors and make my way around Boston to the North and turn in for ILS35. Now I have done a few of them before and all successful, but not pretty. I make some corrections and finally have the airfield in sight. I get some gas and another cup of coffee. I take off again, full bags, making my way towards Burlington at a slow pace. Finally and sadly, I left Approaches airspace and because my creeping copter took a lot longer to make it across country, I had to switch to CTAF. I keep on flying remembering all those long IFR flights back in my Army days, freezing cold in the back because there was no heaters and the precious pilots could not be bothered to turn the heaters on or else they might get warm. After a little while I decide to start my climb to 7000. I disengage my flight systems and hope for the best. I manage to stay on course and climb, then suddenly a 35 knot tail wind hits me from my four O'clock. I am tossed around like a rag doll. No wonder why people prefer to fly those nice big fixed wing aircraft, my next event I will just fold my HH60 up and load into a C5 or C17 and fly it that way. All i need is 17 inches of nitrogen in the front landing gear. I manage to get it under control in time to hear that the server will be reset. I hand the collective off to the back seater behind me to pull every last bit of torque I can get, combined with the tailwind, I manage to make up some time. Then the sound of brushing on the air frame. "I wonder what that is, kind of sounds like trees rubbing on the belly, nah, it will go away. Wrong!!!!! If there has been many lessons I have learned in the real world out there, never get in a hurry. So ended my first event in the trees just 4.6 NM from the threshold. Its my own fault, but I have not had this much fun in such a long time. I really love aviation and being able to simulate flying has been so wonderful for me. I cant wait for the next event, I wont be so timid at first and jump in. Again I thank you to all the controllers who make this such a valuable and realistic experience, without all of you, we would just be out there collecting FCC fines, I am sure,LOL. Again a special thanks goes out to cessna4 and I look forward to hearing from you all and seeing you out there.

 

DUSTOFF!!

[David Bernhardt]

I'm glad you enjoyed it. I couldn't get my comms working since I had just switched over to using fsuicp for my controls.

 

Sure is fun, isn't it? :D

[Guest Nathan McGuire]

Natsnefltdoc,

 

I couldn't help but notice your location is Meridian, ID, which happens to be where I live! Do you fly out of Nampa or Boise? or Caldwell?