Testing Robinson R-44 Tow Ball GoPro Mount Landing At My Friends House!

All right, he's recording. All right. For fun video, we're going over to my buddy's house named Terry. Terry's a good friend of mine I've known for many, many years. And when I started hogs, Terry helped me out because he had a little production. Video production company, and I didn't even own a damn camera. And Terry helped me start hogs from nothing. This is Jack and stepson, and Jack went to go for a ride today, and I'm like, sure, come on over. And as long as you do some. We want to do some filming for. And then we conjured up the idea. Well, let's go over to Terry's, surprise him.

Yes, sir.

He lives out in the country. I've never landed at his house. I. I'm pretty sure he's always kind of hoped I would do that.

Oh, yeah, he's talked about it a few times.

So we didn't. All Jack did was just text him and said, hey, are you guys home? That's it. Say nothing about a ride. We're gonna film a confined area. Landing one over there. Even though I know somebody on YouTube's gonna go, well, that's not confined. That area was huge. That's not the point. The point is we' a location I've never landed before. That's not an airport. I understand he's got a lot of property, but we still want to. Because I've never landed there. I want to do the setup. Free circles around. Check the area, see what obstacles are there. Path in, path out. Where's the wind? What are we looking for? So I thought it'd be a fun confined area to go do. So not only are we playing and with the helicopter and having some fun, we're shoot us a video along with it that might be useful to hogs or for our free content.

Yeah, this is definitely a lot different from the military helicopters I've been in.

Oh, yeah, for sure. This is. This would probably fit inside the military helicopter shooter. And we'll make a nice little video of this for Terry, too. We'll have some nice footage for Terry, and I'm gonna have Jack use the camera and film the instruments as we make our approach into Terry's house. Because we want to make sure that we stay out of vortex ring state. We make a nice, slow approach. I'm going to point some of those things out. So I'm gonna do that now for Jack's purposes. When we're going in there, I'm going to be looking at airspeed and vsi that'll be the main things I'm looking at down here for trim or up there for trim. But mainly airspeed and VSI are the two. I'll really be focusing on our way in because the general rule, we want to keep 30 on our airspeed until our rate of descent is below 300ft per minute. So we go in nice and slow. We can do that. And the other reason you go in nice and slow is we're looking for wires, poles, trees, anything that could be a problem on the way in that we didn't see when we made our circles above. I do three circles, keeping 500 AGL, 60 knots minimum. Put the spot outside my door. And then on the way in, if I'm going super slow, maybe Jack sees something. Hey, Kenny, there's a tower over there. Hey, Kenny, there's a tree limb or whatever the case is. So by going in nice and slow, you have the opportunity to either avoid that obstacle or just fly away and plan a different approach or abandon the whole thing together. Oh, yeah, and we have a nose camera. Oh, yeah, I forgot. We just mounted a camera on the tow ball mount underneath the R44. I ordered a cool little attachment off the Internet that allows you to mount your GoPro to that little bulb. We mounted that before we took off, and I felt really comfortable about that. I've always been hesitant in the past to mount stuff on the outside of the aircraft, but this one, we spent a little time on it, and I got it on really nice, tight and secure, and I'm confident that thing is not coming off. So we'll have a new view for you underneath the aircraft. So not only do we have a couple of these cameras, we got the camera that Jack's operating. Then we have a nice nose picture for you too. So we're gonna see how that comes out. And it's our first R44 doors off Fly, too. Freaking love Doors off flying. God, I've missed this so much. Great memories. Back when I started my training years ago, flying in the summertime with Doors off with instructors, and most all of them became good friends of mine. And you know, other you get into the working world and you're flying EMS or doing other things, sometimes you don't have the opportunity to take the doors off. So this is nice springtime here in Indiana. One of the first days. We've had a few nice days, but last couple days, the first, it's really been nice. So, Jack, what do you think of the Robinson R44?

It's pretty cool. I'm enjoying it a lot. Like I said, it's a lot different from the other ones I was in. But his red truck is okay.

So that's Terry's. Yes. Okay. I'm gonna turn the other way, though, so I can put his house out my side. Got about 80 on the speed, so I can. Time to slow down. So again, I've never landed here before, so I'm going to use this the way I was taught back when I did my commercial. Watch your leg there.

Oh, sorry.

You're bumping my control. So I'm going to keep 60 minimum on the speed. I'll pull up a little power, go find his house, and then I'll make three circles, keeping 60 and 500, just to give myself time to give a good look at it. Plan my path in, plan my path out. It's one of the first things I'm looking at because it's easy to plan out a landing into a small area somewhere, and then you get down inside, you forget what's on the outside. So now I gotta find his house again. Okay, there it is.

All right.

So this would be start of number one. I see the house, and I see the nice, long yard. That looks good. The wind's more out of the south, but we can kind of maybe. I got my plan already here. We open fields going in so we can use the wind, go towards his house, and then go on over into the yard. That's his yard by the driveway, right?

Yep.

Oh, that's all kinds of room. So still good confined area, though, for. If you want to point it out the window. We're going right over here. So he's got a long yard going this way, which is great. The wind's that way, so I can kind of come in over this field and then hook into his property, and he's standing outside. And then when we go to come out of there, it works well because there's open fields on the other side. So we know once we're in there, we're not going to need a whole ton of power when we go to go out of there. We're not small guys, and I did top off before we left today. So most generally, you do not want to go into a mined area full of fuel because it causes problems when you go to get out. However, this thing's refurbished. Just the engine's fresh, making tons of power. The test pilot said, man, this thing makes all kinds of power, more than most of them. And because we got the big open area, I'm not worried that we'll be able to get out of there. I'm sure we'll be fine. And again, nice big open areas over there. As I go towards the house. I just go over the house into the yard. I think it's not going to be much of a problem at all. Again, we'll do it slow just in case something pops up. But I foresee this being a pretty smooth landing.

So I want to say it's probably about the size of your yard where you landed, maybe a little bit big.

Oh, then that's best big, then. Yeah. Hard to judge from up here. All right, I got 70 on my airspeed, about 700. So I'm gonna get down a little lower. I go down to 500 and still get a different. Get a better view. I see them out there in the yard. All right, looking good as we get a little bit lower here. Down about 500 AGL. I was about 7. I got a better look at it. Looks good. Is this time two or number going around, or is this three? This. All right, cool. So I got my. I'm gonna do kind of see a downwind over here. I got a tree line just in front of me. I'm gonna kind of use that like kind of a right downwind.

You might have to do a little.

Hoaxing or coaxing to get Terry in.

Here, but I think he might just come on his own.

Well, it's up to him, you know, I'm sure he's gonna be thrilled that we just landed in his yard.

Oh, yeah.

We'll get out and shoot the breeze. And if he wants to go up, I'll take him up. If not. All right, so warning caution lights are out, gauges in the green, lots of fuel, 17 minutes of flying. So again, this is kind of now my base, and I'm going to turn kind of a final. And then as I'm over that field, I'll make that turn right into his yard, and again, we can fly away. Something transpires, but it looks really good right now. So I'm going to start slowing my speed down because again, I'll have Jack really focused in this area right here. I'm going to do my best and try to be about 200ft per minute as we go in there. So I want to start getting rid of some of that up here, and I'm going to try to keep 30 on my airspeed until my rate of descent is below 300ft per minute. So let's see if I can do it. I don't want to blow shingles off his roof, his home. He's only had it a couple years. I don't want to be the first guy to.

I think they're on there.

Good.

All right. There's 200ft per minute. Taking our time. Nice and slow. We're pointing into the wind.

He's like, what are you doing?

Clutch lights on. Which is okay because that's just their clutch. Lights out. Three. Tensioning the belts. Yes. Down into the yard. I'm going to turn around here so we can see them now. We'll set up. All right. Start our shutdown there. We land at your house. Did it look squirrely?

Huh? Is it a little windy?

It's not bad. A little squirrely. Once I got right to the.

I seen it. It was.

Yeah. I don't know why. Probably because probably the wind changes. Well, you kind of lose it when you get to the treetop level. Maybe a little bit of wind coming over the top of the trees. I don't know. But. Yeah. I wasn't expecting that wiggle.

I figured you'd come in because normally.

Well, directions. That's why I came this way versus coming this way. Did you hear mom?

Where's the doors? I said, you can't fly in a helicopter with doors on.

This is our first flight with the doors off.

Yeah.

I love it.

I told her. I said, I'm surprised Jack's life with the doors off.

I asked him if it'll be all right. He said, yeah, no, you didn't get his mother.

I figured he has to have a.

Written permission from his mother.

I told you I was going up.

I expected him to say he was supposed to text me to say that.

And tell me when he was coming. I said, he texted me. Well, it's supposed to be a surprise. I said, he texted me and told me before he ever even left. You guys gonna be home?

Yeah.

Where's that?

Oh, you.

Is that the GoPro that you said?

I just got this mount.

Did you?

Yeah. I'm gonna shut it off.

Because I couldn't figure out when you saw him out where it was gonna go. I couldn't figure out where it was gonna.