55 SA Flyer Magazineflight test
A
T 1,000 ft
above the dry
Arizona autumn
landscape, MD
factory test pilot
Dennis Banks
counts to three
and then closes
the throttle.
Down collective, right pedal, aft cyclic, wait
for the disk to tilt back, the RPM to build up
and the speed to settle around 65 knots.
A few minutes prior, we had
acknowledged visual contact with a
Longbow attack helicopter, the Boeing
AH-64D Apache, going to the same training
area. Stuff from the movies.
Both the MD and Boeing factory are
based at Falconfield in Mesa, Phoenix
Arizona. I am in a different world from myusual day to day flying. Dennis is a veteran
military pilot with more than 10,000 hours
on type. He flies with his reptilian brain, that
is, subconsciously. He is so moulded with
the machine, the man-machine interface is
blurred. His job in the military was not the
flying; it was the mission – flying was just
the means to the end.
The long drive from San Diego the
day before and the night in a motel was
right out of an episode of ‘Ray Donovan’
and it spaced me out. Now I am rushing
back to planet earth at 2,000 ft per minute,
with Dennis brushing up on my instruction
skills. I’m doing full down autorotations in
my favourite helicopter, courtesy of Andy
Pillado and Craig Kitchen, the heads of
global helicopter sales at the MD factory –
and my wife who indulged me driving there.
Let me state right here that I amseverely biased. The first thing I did way
back when I added helicopters to my
commercial flying privileges was attend
a five-day factory approved MD500
conversion course run by Helistream out of
John Wayne Airport and Fullerton, near Los
Angeles in California.
It was a former Orange County Police
Department five-bladed MD500D model,
and the other course attendants were
all DEA, FBI, CIA, police- and sheriff-
department types from all over the US on
recurrent and refresher training. I was the
only one without a sidearm.
It felt good!
I unconditionally love this machine,
which is not to say that I hate all the others,
but I have a disproportionate fascination
and infatuation with it. And I’m not alone in
this.There’s no denying the MD500 has iconic status, but it’s difficult to pin down
why – until you fly it. Its taut, military spec agility instantly makes it a
favourite with all who have strapped the helicopter to their backs.
The MD500 began life in the
US Army as a light observation
and attack helicopter.MD Helicopters