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Lewis Bray learns to fly!

19 Oct 09

Many of you may remember Lewis – he worked with DC throughout 2008. Lewis has been over in the US throughout 2009 learning to fly a helicopter and has sent us a message which you can find below about his time over there...

Hello everyone,

As your festival season draws to a close after a long hard summer, I thought I would let you all know how I am doing.  If you don’t know me I am Lewis and I worked for DC all last summer at festivals from the South Coast to Scotland.  This year as you were just starting work back in May, I moved to Florida to start my training to be a commercial helicopter pilot. In the past four months I have gone from not knowing the first thing about flying a helicopter to flying on my own and landing at an international airport, to passing my FAA PPL!

The first seven weeks of studying was 100% ground school learning all the principles of flying a helicopter. These seven weeks went very slowly as every day I would see students from earlier intakes flying around. However, after seven weeks it was my turn to start flying, from then every other day was a flying day. Hovering is the hardest thing to do, it took me a few lessons to get the hang of it but now I am ‘almost’ an expert at it. After flying with an instructor for just 21 hours I was let loose with a helicopter on my own. Flying solo for the first time is the best feeling ever, knowing that I was totally in control of the helicopter; it was also a bit scary knowing that there wasn’t someone sat next to me making sure I wasn’t making a mistake. You can see a video of my first solo here!

The next stage after going solo was cross country, flying to another airport and back. This was really relaxing and it was nice to have a break from the normal structured lessons.  Following this there was the Solo cross country, this wasn’t so relaxing. Flying to another airport on your own with no one to help you if you mess up. I survived though, flying into Melbourne International all by myself!

After cross country flying the next thing on the agenda was Progress Test 1 a stage check with one of the senior instructors to check up on how I am progressing and that my instructor is teaching me the correct things.  I passed this which left me then to focus on my FAA PPL. For the PPL I was required to do 3 hours of night flying to include a cross country and 10 take offs and landings.  Night flying is so cool. It is actually cool in temperature too which helps. The whole night flying experience is so much more relaxing than in the day. I loved it.

Then all that was left was my actual PPL Checkride. This includes a 2 hour oral exam, where I can get tested on anything to do with flying, rules, medical factors, and how to plan a cross country flight. The oral went well, and I could answer all of the examiners questions. Then there was the flying part.  I felt like I had flown well and I was pleased with how the flight went. The examiner also thought I had flown well as I passed and I am now a Private Pilot! This means I can fly people around as long as I pay my fair share for the flight.

Outside of school is almost as good as the flying. The area I am living in is called Titusville and is right next to the Kennedy Space Centre and only 30 minutes from Orlando. Since I have been here I have seen four shuttle launch; the best being the fourth which was a night launch; the shuttle lit up the sky like it was day time and I could see it all the way until the engines cut out. See a video of it here.

The beaches around here are also very nice. I try and go to the beach at least once a week. The weather over here is what you expect it to be really, hot, although there is usually a storm about 4pm every day.

Whilst I have been here I have been following your antics via the forums and newsletters, there have been times where I have half thought ‘I wish I was there’ but overall I can say that I would rather be here.

I hope you all have a great winter off, only another nine months until it all starts again!

Lewis

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