TODAY'S AVIATION TOPIC IS:

[Karl/Pa.]

How to fly a helicopter.

Although flying a helicopter may seem very difficult, the truth is that

if you can drive a car, you can, with just a few minutes of instruction,

take the controls of one of these amazing machines. Of course you would

immediately crash and die. This is why you need to remember:

RULE ONE OF HELICOPTER PILOTING: Always have somebody sitting right next

to you who actually knows how to fly the helicopter and can snatch the

controls away from you. Because the truth is that helicopters are

nothing at all like cars. Cars work because of basic scientific

principles that everybody understands, such as internal combustion and

parallel parking Whereas scientists still have no idea what holds

helicopters up. "Whatever it is, it could stop at any moment," is their

current feeling.

RULE TWO OF HELICOPTER PILOTING: Maybe you should forget the entire

thing. This was what I was thinking on a recent Saturday morning as I

stood outside a small airport in South Florida, where I was about to

take my first helicopter lesson. This was not my idea. This was the idea

of Pam Gallina-Raisstguier, who flies radio reporters over Miami during

rush hour so they can alert drivers to traffic problems ("Bob, we have a

three-mile backup on the interstate due to an overturned cocaine

truck"). Pam is active in an international organization of women

helicopter pilots called (Gloria Steinem; avert your eyes) the "Whirly

Girls." She thought it would be a great idea for me to take a helicopter

lesson.I began having severe doubts when I saw Pam's helicopter. This

was a small helicopter. It looked like it should have a little slot

where you insert quarters to make it go up and down. I knew that if we

got airborne in a helicopter this size in South Florida, some of our

larger tropical flying insects could very well attempt to mate with us.

Also, this helicopter had no doors. As a Frequent Flyer, I know for a

fact that all your leading U.S. airlines, despite being bankrupt,

maintain a strict safety policy of having doors on their aircraft.

"Don't we need a larger helicopter?" I asked Pam. "With doors?" "Get

in." said Pam. You don't defy a direct order from a Whirly Girl. Now

we're in the helicopter, and Pam is explaining the controls to me over

the headset, but there's static and the engine is making a lot of noise.

"your throttle (something)," she is saying. "This is your cyclic and

(something) your collective." "What?" I say. "(something) give you the

controls when we reach 500 feet," Pam says. "What?" I say. But Pam is

not listening. She is moving a control thing and WHOOOOAAAAAA we are

shooting up in the air, and there are still no doors on this particular

helicopter. Now Pam is giving me the main control thing.

RULE THREE OF HELICOPTER PILOTING: If anybody tries to give you the main

control thing, refuse to take it. Pam says: "You don't need hardly any

pressure to... " AIEEEEEEEEEEE "That was too much pressure," Pam says.

Now I am flying the helicopter. I AM FLYING THE HELICOPTER. I am flying

it by not moving a single body part, for fear of jiggling the control

thing. I look like the Lincoln Memorial statue of Abraham Lincoln, only

more rigid. "Make a right turn," Pam is saying. I gingerly move the

control thing one zillionth of an inch to the right and helicopter LEANS

OVER TOWARD MY SIDE AND THERE IS STILL NO DOOR HERE. I instantly move

the thing one zillionth of an inch back. "I'm not turning right." I

inform Pam. "What?" she says. "Only left turns." I tell her. When you've

been flying helicopters as long as I have, you know your limits. After a

while it become clear to Pam that if she continues to allow the Lincoln

statue to pilot the helicopter, we are going to wind up flying in a

straight line until we run out of fuel, possibly over Antarctica, so she

takes the control thing back. That is good news. The bad news is, she's

now saying something about demonstrating an "emergency procedure." "It's

for when your engine dies," Pam says. "It's called 'auto-rotation'." Do

you like amusement park rides?" I say: "No, I DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOnnnnnnnnn't"

RULE FOUR OF HELICOPTER PILOTING: "Auto-rotation" means "coming down out

of the sky at about the same speed and aerodynamic stability as that of

a forklift dropped from a bomber. "Now we're close to the ground

(although my stomach is still at 500 feet), and Pam is completing my

training by having me hover the helicopter.

RULE FIVE OF HELICOPTER PILOTING: You can't hover the helicopter.

The idea is to hang over one spot on the ground. I am hovering over an

area approximately the size of Australia. I am swooping around sideways

and backward like a crazed bumblebee. If I were trying to rescue a

person from the roof of a 100-story burning building, the person would

realize that it would be safer to simply jump. At times I think I am

hovering upside-down. Even Pam looks nervous. So I am very happy when we

finally get back on the ground. Pam tells me I did great, and she'd be

glad to take me up again. I tell her that sounds like a fun idea.

RULE SIX OF HELICOPTER PILOTING: Sometimes you have to lie.