This piece originally ran in Vic’s Checkpoints column in the June 2023 issue of EAA Sport Aviation magazine.

About three years ago I wrote a column on airplane first flights. Many of you know that I recently completed building a Hummingbird helicopter. Upon completion of an aircraft, there are two more steps that take place — the certificating and the first flights.

Even though I am a designated airworthiness representative (DAR), I am not allowed to certify my own aircraft. Emotionally, I would have liked to have my name on the airworthiness certificate. But, practically speaking, it’s better to have someone else look over your aircraft. I’ve certainly seen that firsthand over my years of inspecting new experimental amateur-built aircraft, discovering things that others missed. But that’s why we do it. It’s all about safety. Even the morning of my helicopter inspection I decided to go over it again for the umpteenth time, and I did find a missing cotter key.

Lucky for me I know a good local DAR, Vern Darley, who has certificated many aircraft. Vern, EAA 69666, had stopped by multiple times to see the progress and understand the helicopter. Vern certificated our RV-10 13 years ago. It is always a pleasure working with him. He’s very thorough, and exactly what I need for a final inspection.

Now that the Hummingbird was officially an aircraft, it was time to preflight the pilot, namely me. While I’ve done more than 50 first flights in airplanes, I have never been part of a helicopter test flight or test program. Even though I have almost 11,000 hours, only 200 of them are in helicopters. The majority of that helicopter time was in the Hughes T-55 I owned. I sold it about six weeks earlier, so technically I was still current. A hard look at myself in the mirror told me that I might be rotary wing current, but I certainly was not current or proficient in this much larger helicopter.

I had the opportunity to fly the Hummingbird over a year ago, and I liked it well enough that I decided to build one. But test flying one is certainly much different. I know from all the first flights in other aircraft that I have become pretty good at noticing if something is wrong with the aircraft early, allowing me to assess the seriousness of the problem and either aborting or continuing the flight. I did not have the confidence in myself that I could recognize a bad situation in a helicopter. That gave me pause.

Luckily for me, the great support and relationship I had experienced with Vertical Aviation during the building process continued when I asked if there would be any opportunities to fly with their test pilot. The answer was yes, and the date was set.

Alex Anduze probably has more flight experience in the Hummingbird than anyone else. He owns an original Sikorsky HO5S-1 (precursor to the current model), and you may have even seen it land on the aircraft carrier in the movie Devotion. (See “A True Test of Determination,” November 2015, for more on Alex and his HO5S-1. — Ed.)

For me, it is an honor to fly with someone with so much experience. My goal was to find out not only if I thought I could make the first flight, but hearing if Alex thought I could as well.

We managed to get some good flying completed in the factory helicopter, including everything from pickups and setdowns to auto-rotations. Truth be told, I can’t fly it nearly as well as Alex. It’s a much heavier helicopter than anything I had ever flown. The controls are a little heavier as well. The electric trim works well, but you must use it or it feels like you are fighting the controls.

When we landed, we also performed some taxiing, which is cool and would come into play for me on my own test flights. More about that later. When we shut down, I looked Alex in the eye and asked if he thought I was ready to fly my own, and he said yes. While I felt relieved, I also felt he had more confidence in me than I did.

He gave me an interesting piece of advice that I’ve always found myself giving others on their first flight. Carol and I had flown down in the RV-10. Both Alex and Brad Clark (president of Vertical Aviation) were interested in looking it over. I was showing off the Advanced Flight System’s ability to make all the engine instruments into one big screen and mentioned that I was really going to like that on the first flight. Alex looked right at me and said, “Get your head out the window. You are at more risk than the aircraft.” No truer words were spoken.

Since we were in Florida, Carol and I took a couple of extra days to wind down, as the past year had been quite fast-paced. I was also trying to complete another book. It seemed like a couple of days on the beach would give some relaxation, and some time to figure out a checklist for my helicopter.

Late February and March in Atlanta can be quite windy. I had set a limit of 10 knots for the first flight. So, I ended up waiting a couple of days after we returned. I was anxious to not lose the skills I had developed with Alex, but I didn’t want to push it. I also decided to go at it slowly, unlike airplane first flights.

On airplane first flights, I am always conscious of minimizing the ground run time and getting in the air as quickly as possible so we can control the temps and break in the cylinders properly. The nice thing about airplanes is that we take off at maximum power, and then can run at 75 percent power, if the engine temps permit, thereby ensuring a good break-in.

Helicopters typically use higher power settings in the hover rather than in forward flight. I would certainly be quite a bit under the maximum gross weight, so there’s no way I was going to use max power at liftoff or come even close to 75 percent power in vertical flight. Luckily, I had asked the Thunderbolt team to run the engine at high power for an extra hour or so, and they did. So, at least I didn’t have to worry about break-in.

Remember the taxiing? I realized that I could now taxi out to the runway to give myself more room to take off than my backyard allowed. It enabled me to get the feel of the anti-torque pedals, check the brakes, and get a feel for the rotor. Alex had also mentioned that pavement would be better than grass, and since we have RunMat on our runway, it was like having a paved runway. I performed multiple run-ups and shutdowns, keeping the cylinder head temps below 300 degrees, before I worked up the gumption to lift off.

The first liftoff was quite easy. Alex had mentioned it was best to feel for it and not fight it. I had some forward motion due to the wheels versus skids, but it was nondramatic. I did multiple pickups and setdowns, checking all engine gauges in between them. The down force on the collective seemed quite heavy to me. After a while, I found it tiring. When I mentioned it to Brad, he explained how to bend up the trailing edges of the last four pockets to help ease the down force. That really worked. Amazing.

After another session of pickups and setdowns, I had the confidence to assume forward flight, flying down our 4,500-foot runway at 50 feet, and then taxiing back. After a day of that, I finally left the runway environment and flew some patterns.

All in all, things are working out well. The fun factor is very much alive for me. However, it is a helicopter, and there are lots of moving parts that require lots of tweaking. I’m over 11 flight hours now and will give you some more highlights next month. If only the wind would die down.

Vic Syracuse, EAA Lifetime 180848, is a commercial pilot, A&P/IA mechanic, designated airworthiness representative, and EAA flight advisor and technical counselor. He has built 11 aircraft and has logged more than 10,000 hours in 74 different types. Vic founded Base Leg Aviation, has authored books on maintenance and prebuy inspections, and posts videos weekly on his YouTube channel. He also volunteers as a Young Eagles pilot.