Flight Log: {006}

The pre-flight. Before each flight, a thorough and comprehensive preflight inspection is carried out. This includes both an external and internal inspection of the aircraft, including all of its flight controls, moving parts, surfaces, fuel and oil levels (just like you do on your car), instruments, warnings lights, and more. This is carried out in order to ensure that the machine is in tip-top shape to fly and that there are no observable snags (things that are wrong with the aircraft), thereby minimizing the occurrence of an issue in flight. All malfunctions cannot be prevented, and so a pilot is also taken through emergency procedures training, in both theory and practice, but more on this later. The pre-flight inspection on the R22, as indicated in the pictures, takes about 20 minutes in total, and yes, you will get your hands dirty. A very dear instructor of mine used to always advise me, that a pre-flight inspection has not been conducted properly if you finish and your hands are still clean. As you can see in the pictures, the R22 can be flown safely with both doors on and doors off configurations. A similar inspection is conducted post-flight, in less detail, again ensuring that there are no snags on or inside the aircraft that need to be reported to maintenance. The Robinson R22 is an ideal machine to learn how to fly on, as most of its engine and parts are open and visible behind the seats of the cockpit. The R22 is a complex little machine, nonetheless, and great fun to fly. The machines in my pictures for this blog are ZS-RMZ (Romeo-Mike-Zulu), ZS-RTA (Romeo-Tango-Alpha), and ZS-HTP (Hotel-Tango-Pappa).