Cicare VH3 -- Innovative Heli Trainer

How about a hover trainer that is cheap to run, behaves like a larger helicopter, gives the student confidence and provides a progressive series of graded exercises. Enter Argnetinian Augusto Cicare who made one for his son. The moving base, U-frame gimbals and light helicopter make a safe single-seat hover trainer. Six degrees of freedom in free-flight mode can be reduced to four for initial training.

Trainee pilots sit on their own with the instructor outside on the radio. This allows students to develop confidence as they move from tethered to free-flight mode.

This is a conventional light helicopter with a 500cc Rotax engine. There are four devices to damp and reduce the power of the controls as the instructor progressively introduces the student to hovering. These constraints are sequentially removed and the reality is that the FAA credits six helicopter flight training hours for 10 Cicare hours.

The instructor can kill the engine at any stage and there are automatic safety features. In rain the instructor gets wet but moves are underway to operate indoors once exhaust filters are in place.

For the experienced pilot there is a striking correlation to the real thing. and there are some useful training features.

• Turbulence mode
  
• Partial / total engine failure
  
• Tail rotor control failure

Often we find that a student can fly or talk on the radio ­ but can't do both. Considerable precious flying time can be expended negotiating this hurdle. Cicare hours are cheap. Fit a compass, remotely driven altimeter and navaids and some pretty valuable training can be provided very economically.

An innovative, well-executed solution to helicopter flight training with acknowledged flight training benefit. There's a corporate entertainment factor as well.