Half way done with learning how to drive Russian built agricultural grade flying machines.

Alright...we're about at the midway point in the Mi-17 flying training part. It's a lot of fun, occasionally humbling and usually funny. One of my favorite characteristics is...no two  Mi-17's are alike, which is awesome for learning how to drive them. Every cockpit is slightly different in switch placement, gauge configuration, radio compliment and translation of Cyrillic to 'engrish' on the little switch labels...but the operating manuals are super awesome. And those translations...well, there are quite a few engrish words I never knew existed and I have no idea what they mean. But that's okay, because nobody really does...we just guess what the Russians were trying to say. Sometimes it's better to read it how it was written...as in half a bottle of Vodka later. To be honest with you dear readers....it's kind of our style, it's pretty vague, a little loose and the end of the day it comes down to a good WAG. (that means 'wild ass guess' in case that was unclear). And that is pretty much how we fly...pretty much...'mostly like that', 'I'm pretty sure that's the switch/its supposed to do that' and 'close enough' are words to live by.

Here is an occasionally 'typical' cockpit...the Russians had a whole lot of teal paint. They used it in the cockpits of everything. And all the gauges were made in the same barn...for everything, helicopters to Mach 2 fighters. It's a great way to save money and it works out okay since the helicopter goes like 240 Kmh/h. That sounds way faster than 134 knots....and jets go like 500+ knots. And the radar altimeters are sometimes in meters and sometimes in feet. The VSI or VVI is (vertical velocity indicator...it tells you how fast you're climbing or decending) in meters per second which is just like an american one, which is in feet per minute...it's all the same, I think.

Then this one...is all black inside with ALL of the switches in Cyrillic, and the Radios are ridiculous, but at least you can't hear them so you can't really tell how bad the sound is most of the time. Ah...the centralized planners, those little Commies didn't really want it to be easy to communicate with the outside world, and definitely not for all the crew members to know what was really going on, in that scary outside world! Like when other planes are going to land on you but you can't hear them.

Oh yeah......this one also has a door to the cabin, too keep the riff raff out. This cabin door is where our Mi-8 (Mi-17's and Mi-8's are the same thing, mostly, usually like a lot of the time, for the most part, when drinking Vodka)...anyway, this is where it says 'EXPERIMENTAL'...read the fine print underneath:

NOTICE THIS AIRCRAFT DOES NOT COMPLY WITH FEDERAL SAFETY REGULATIONS FOR STANDARD AIRCRAFT

I don't know what that means. But I do know that we hold the door open with a couple of bungie cords. It lets a good breeze blow up into the cockpit.

 

I almost forgot...the agricultural equipment, yes, this thing smells like a tractor, and the air brakes sound like big rig or bus brakes hissing and squeaking when you're driving around on the wheels. Here is a view down the tail boom...those little cables up at the top of the picture, go back like 50 feet (okay, not quite but almost) to the tail rotor. Those little cables are what work the tail rotor! 

That's it for today. I need to go shampoo and condition my mustache...I think there are Oreo crumbs in there, and yes, they were double stuff.

Update from Florida...it's Been Rough, the Living Accommodations are Sparse...

We arrived in Florida for Mi-17 training last Sunday...the place we're staying at is on a highway and the noise is sort of constant. The weather is so so and we've been cooking for ourselves too...

So here are a couple pictures of the place we're staying at for the month while we learn how to fly a Russian built flying dump truck. They build stuff a little...well, okay, a lot different than the non-commie type countries (like they did things to make it harder for pilots to defect back in the day...)

anyway....the view and constant noise is oh yeah, the gulf surf on the beach. 

and this is our completely hetero convertible? um...but we are in Florida so we had to rent it right? Okay it's kinda metro...

and the Mi- we're gonna fly...the guys that are going to teach us just picked this bird up a few days ago...so they're working the kinks out...and they flew by the beach condo for us...