Chris_Doane

So I setup and in-cockpit video camera during today's flight lesson. The last two lessons, we'd been working towards me taking over more of the controls. There are three main controls in a helicopter you have to be working...sometimes all at once. The cyclic (stick in your right hand,) the collective (lever in your left hand) and the pedals under each foot. The collective also has a twist grip throttle control on the handle. A landing approach is one situation where you need to be adjusting all 3 controls at once. Today was the first day I was doing all the work on the cyclic, the pedals, and as much of the collective as I could manage. Kinda hard for a newbie with 5 flight hours logged. Things were going pretty well....until they weren't.

LoL, uh, what was that? A 50 yard race?

The blog I'll be doing: http://www.chrisdoane.net/heliblog/

There will be more than one wheelbase length for Alpha. Ding, ding, ding!

LoL...actually, it was pretty funny. I'm guessing Alpha will be pretty exceptional. They are throwing quite a lot of resources at it.

I would, that chassis is pretty much done.

Yea that's my thought. Hasn't always been my approach in the past, but I'm thinking differently as of late. Thanks

$1000 for that? That's about $900 too much.

Valid point. I've been asking myself questions like that lately. Maybe, just maybe, I'm starting to find some answers. Just make sure you don't ask yourself "what if" for too long. Obviously you have things to consider, but if you spend all your time worrying about all the possible outcomes, or being afraid of them, you're not going to go anywhere. I spent months doing just that, agonizing over what might happen....instead of, you know, actually finding out. Unfortunately it took a friend dying to snap me out of that.

That's good to hear. Im not actually real worried about learning the actual flying...it's just all the procedural stuff that seems daunting. Well, that and learning to auto-rotate sounds like it will be, uh, exciting. Well, not to turn this into a motivational speaker thread or anything but, it's never too late. If you're doing something that isn't that great, or that you don't want to do, then.....why are you doing it?

Ha, an engineer I know said the same thing. I swear thats not really why I'm doing it. GM may install an anti-aircraft battery anyway if they see this thread.

Yeah, congrats on that. Until you're a full-fledged flier, though... keep it together! I found it odd that this was the first BMW you'd ever driven, though. Had you driven one from, say, the late 80s/early 90s, you'd definitely find a difference in the steering feedback. Thanks. Nope, never driven an older Bimmer.

Yeah, but you're the pro. Get it together! Not for much longer!

Ha, oh hell, I've made that mistake before.

Thanks guys Thanks...and, yea, that's just it. There just don't seem to be many positive aspects left with this job. I feel like I'm rotting away. I hate to say it, but I think my friend dying gave me the last little push I needed to make this change. I'd certainly prefer Melissa to still be around, but, it was more/less an "OK, that's it" moment for me when she died. I'm not the most self-confident guy there ever was, but I know I need to at least try this. Letting life slip away for months and years, while idly hoping for things to get better, never improved anything for anyone. Either will get you a swift kick to the junk.

And now for something completely different… When you were 12 years old, "back to school" time was the worst. Summer fun was out and book reports were in. When you're several years out college, working a so-so job, you'd give anything to be heading back to campus. This fall, after an 8-year absence, I'm quitting my job (sort of) and going back to school. There won't be any 500-seat lecture halls at this school, however, because I'm going to flight school to become a helicopter pilot. Being a pilot is an idea that's been in the back of my head for a few years now. Anytime I had a bad week at work, I would occasionally tell people something like "To hell with this, I'm going to helicopter flight school!" That line became somewhat of a reoccurring joke, but there was always a little part of me quietly thinking "Maybe one day?" Vacations out west are probably to "blame" for giving me chopper ambitions. Out there, helicopters are a fairly common sight, doing any number of tasks. EMS flights, fire fighting, search and rescue or utility work are the most common. One summer, I was mesmerized for 2 days as a Chinook helicopter crew worked to install a new chairlift on the mountain, right outside my window. To see this massive, twin-rotor aircraft work with such precision was incredible. I couldn't look away. More recently, when a wildfire broke out nearby, another helicopter was brought in to douse the flames on a section of very steep terrain. Once again I sat there, unable to take my eyes off the chopper, while this pilot lowered a huge bucket into a stream 150 feet below him, lifted it back up, flew out of the valley and then swooped down over a ridge to put the fire out. The words "I want to do that!" went through my head. The funny thing was, I *had* done that. Well, sort of. Several months before the fire, I'd visited a fight school and done the one-hour "intro flight." Other than taking off and landing, I did most of the flying. It was great, it was awesome, it was….expensive. Really expensive. I left the airport that day wondering how I'd ever make it happen. While that hour-long flight was a nice escape from reality, the last year or so of my life has consisted of some of the toughest months I've ever known. In addition to some health problems, several of my best friends had come and gone, be it through life changes, disagreements, an immensely difficult case of unrequited love or, in the worst instance, an incredibly tragic, untimely death. The latter two, occurring almost simultaneously, left me wondering how much more I was supposed to bear. On top of that, the professional side of my life was starting to dwindle. Today, the "car spy" business is not what it was when I started 8 years ago. Sales are down and it seemed like more and more testing was being done out of the public eye. Driving around to all the testing hot spots, without seeing a single worthwhile car, gets fairly demoralizing after a while. With gas at $4/gallon, it also gets very expensive. Due to these things, and more, it started to seem like the future of my odd little, niche job was questionable. The last two months of work had been especially frustrating. Then, when my friend Melissa died (at 38) it predictably made me stop and think about things. It is totally cliché', but she was very good at living life to the fullest. When I thought about how she lived, in comparison to how my own life was going, the contrast was stark. How many more days, weeks, months or years would I spend, burning gallons of fuel, racking up 100-200 miles a day on my car, only to have nothing to show for it? What the hell was it I was doing here exactly? Why should I, or anyone, spend this much of my life doing something that isn't all that enjoyable? Whenever I was out working, and a helicopter flew over, my heart sank. Someone was having much more fun at work than I was. I was being teased from an altitude of less than 1000ft. Soon, I started to feel like I was just wasting my time. If every person has their breaking point, I was getting awfully damn close to mine. Something had to change or a nice man would come put me in a vest with straps and take me away to a quiet room that had no sharp edges in it. Green jello would be served for dinner. My life needed something new. Naturally, my first thought went to cars. I'd just had the chance to race some Porsches on a track and it was the most fun I'd had in months. Having a car like that in my everyday life would be awesome, right? Hmm, yes, a new car was in order. Ever since I got to review the Audi R8, I've wanted one. My week with that car was one of the best I'd ever had. I'd checked the pre-owned listings countless times before, but it was always under the pretense of "maybe one day". This time, I was ready to act on it. I'd sell both my current cars to make it happen. Owning an R8 would make EVERY day a track day. Totally irrational and impractical, sure...but who cares? I located two R8's that could work. One was in Wisconsin and one in Arkansas. Then I browsed an Aston Martin or two, a Porsche…a 2001 Ferrari F360? Oh, hell yea! Then…the rational part of my brain starting fighting back against those boiled over frustrations. If I bought an R8, that would be great. That would make all the driving around I do for work a lot more enjoyable, but I'd still be doing that job. I'd also be burning more fuel and attempting to do a covert job in a car that is anything but subtle. More importantly, it would, of course, do nothing to address my questionable job security. I could easily wake up one day in the not-too-distant future and find I've got a supercar in the garage, but no more job to fund its use. One of the biggest things holding me back from starting helicopter flight training was the cost. It will run you about the same amount as a college degree or a really awesome sports car. Wait…what? Here I was willing to spend big bucks on a car, but not something that would potentially be an investment in my future? Yea, that's brilliant. The R8 was simply the path of least resistance. Sell this, do that, sign here and yeeeeeeehaw, I'm living life at 150mph! Easy. Horsepower and German styling had completely clouded my judgment. Becoming a pilot will be much harder. It will probably take 12-18 months to complete the training necessary to gain all the license ratings I need to become employable. There will be endless procedures to perfect and FAA tests to pass. Even when I do, I will be back on the bottom rung, competing for entry-level jobs. Past that, it could be 5-10 years before I've got the experience necessary to be a pilot like the one I saw fighting that wildfire. I am, essentially, starting my life over. Part of me is pretty scared at that prospect, but part of me is pretty excited too. Besides, what is the alternative? More of the same? Eh, no thank you. In the meantime, I'll still do some automotive work, but flight training will be my main focus. While it'd be great if I got the first photos of a 2014 Corvette prototype, I think it'd be a million times better to save someone's house from an out-of-control wildlife fire or rescue an injured hiker off a remote mountain ridge. That said, I'm still totally in love with cars, and I still want that Audi R8 *really* badly, but...I think I'd rather commute to work in a Bell 206 Long Ranger. I don't know if all this will go as well as I hope, but it's time I tried. No more of this "one day" garbage. Today. Now. See ya' at the heliport. -- CD (Content may not be republished.)

Hm, Im pretty sure the PR packet that was in the car said electric. 'Course I can't go back and check because it's in the glove box and the car is long gone.

Having spent 4 years in this neck of the woods in college....I can't say Im surprised.

For whatever reason, the dynamic handling package on the 5er doesn't feature adaptive steering.

2011 BMW 535i xDrive I’m going to admit something slightly embarrassing here in the hopes that other people out there, who suffer from the same thing, won’t feel so alone. OK, here goes. I’m a virgin. …a BMW-virgin. I’ve driven many Audis, Vokswagens, Mazdas, Infinitis, Cadillacs and even a few Porsches, but never a car with the blue and white roundel on the hood. All that changes today as I step into the new, 2011 BMW 5-series. Today, I become a man. Or, something… What Works Good news first. The 535i is packing a 3.0L, inline 6 cylinder motor with a twin-scroll turbocharger, and it likes to party. Its’ 300hp will get you to 60mph in about 5.5 seconds, and a $250 speeding ticket in another 4 seconds. While that might sound raucous, the turbo 6 delivers its power in a very smooth fashion, whooshing your passengers up to 100mph without them realizing it. The exhaust note and rumble this 6-cylinder makes might be the best part of the entire car. As the growl builds from 3,000 to 4,000rpm, it will only egg you on to keep revving and increase your aural pleasure. Keep in mind that approach will make mincemeat out of your fuel economy. The view from the driver’s seat is pretty fantastic as well. Most of the luxuries you’d expect to find in a large German sedan are there. Fine leather and rich wood surround you, along with a 10-way adjustable seat with heat, but oddly, no cooling in this particular 5-series with the near $68-grand price tag. There’s also a bird’s eye view camera system, which makes it possible for you to see everything around the car on the dash screen. If you back into something or clip someone’s bumper because you thought you had enough space to make the turn, it really is your fault this time. What’s So-So Let’s just jump right to the often-dissed BMW iDrive system. After so much discussion, I probably don’t need to explain it at this point, but briefly, it is the multi-function dial on the center console that controls most of the systems in the car. It’s not really the dial itself that is bad, it’s the way the system is laid out and appears on screen. Navigating through the many levels of menus just isn’t as user-friendly as it could be. Like any technology, though, the more you use it, the more sense it makes Right next to the iDrive dial is another piece of questionable technology: the shifter for the 535i’s 8-speed, automatic transmission. For whatever reason, it’s been styled to look like a Norelco electric razor and has some slightly-less-than traditional looking controls. I suspected this might throw off certain drivers so I tried a quick experiment. I had two people from, let’s say, slightly advanced generations, sit in the driver’s seat. All I asked them to do was turn the car on and put it in drive. Figuring out the push-button start didn’t cause too much trouble, but when it came to the shifter, things got hectic. There was double-clutching of the shifter, pushing of multiple buttons at once and general confusion. The BMW alert chime sounded several times to alert them something was not being done correctly. Both found it needlessly complicated. That should, at the very least, get BMW’s attention as their target market for the 5-series would likely be drivers of their age. Once you get the 5-series moving, the handling is pretty good, and a bit strange, all at once. The good part is that, like many BMW’s before it, this 5-series can take a bend in the road quite well. As part of the optional Dynamic Handling package, this Bimmer has adaptive suspension dampers, along with the standard anti-roll bars, to make sure you corner quickly and flatly. The strange part is that the steering feels…strange. The culprit is BMW’s electric-assisted steering system. While I know I can take a corner quickly in the 535i, the steering feels so light, it just comes off as unnerving. It’s something you really have to feel in person to understand. On the plus side, BMW’s xDrive, all-wheel-drive system has been updated and now features torque vectoring. When going through a corner, this system will brake the inside rear wheel, while feeding more power to the outside rear wheel, to help you rotate the car through the bends. Past the techno-whiz bangs, the new exterior design is a nice step forward from the old model. Where the 2010 5-series had many slab-sided surfaces, the 2011 model has new, tightly formed sculpting and some sharp, leading lines to it. It’s still conservative, sure, but in the luxury sedan market you can’t expect massive spoilers and crazy, sweeping sheet metal. What’s Sucks I know it’s probably ridiculous to bitch about this, but the alert chime in the 535i drove me up the wall. It is the most polite-sounding “hey, idiot, your seatbelt isn’t on” chime I’ve ever heard. A chord played on a marimba, I believe. The fact that it comes on with such frequency is what gets annoying. Yes, I know I didn’t push that button on the shifter. Yes, I know the lights are on. Yes, I know my seatbelt isn’t on, give me 5 seconds to put it on before you start yelling at me. Yes, I know I started the car, what the hell is wrong with that?? On a completely different plane, the side mirrors on the BMW are much too small. I found myself wanting more rear visibility in that department. Wrap In the end, the 535i is a little two-faced. You’ve got a hot-tamale powertrain and chassis, but it’s being cooled off by a conservative, vanilla luxury design style and a steering system that leaves you confused. None of that is likely to bother most of the 5-series’ potential customers, though. The 5’er is an extremely comfortable, very capable luxury cruiser. As for me, I’ll save my pennies for the much hotter, harder (way more expensive) M5 sedan. Monte Carlo Blue and the 6-speed for me, please. 2011 BMW 535i xDrive - $52,400 -Premium Package - $1800 -Premium Package 2 - $4500 -Dynamic Handling Package - $2700 -Sport Package - $2200 -Cold Weather Package - $1050 -Comfort Access Keyless Entry - $1000 -Side & Top View Cameras - $800 -Space Gray Metallic Paint - $550 Destination - $875 TOTAL - $67,875

You'll probably have to settle for four doors: http://www.caranddriver.com/news/spied/11q3/2013_chevrolet_colorado_suv_spy_photos-future_cars (Though, right now, it seems very unlikely the SUV will be sold here at all)

A U.S. spec model will start production in Wentzville, MO in late 2013/early 2014. Two years from now? How about six months from now instead? Why is GM sitting on this for it to be sold here? I don't know, but that's the current plan. Plans can change. I imagine they will need to reengineer some of the truck to be able to certify it for the U.S.

A U.S. spec model will start production in Wentzville, MO in late 2013/early 2014.

Ain't no refresh coming. Next-gen on a new chassis is next.

I'm sorry your stomach couldn't handle the speed at which I was able to corner.