I landed in Ft. Collins yesterday and after I tied the plane down and was walking away, I watched one of the flight school helicopters ground effects taxi between the 2 narrow rows of aircraft. After watching the tail of the Bonanza bouncing around when he hovered by I confronted the instructor about teaching the students such a procedure and politely pointed out they had a fairly large area painted on the ramp for their ingress and egress. I think it's a product of a flight instructors, fresh out of flight school and going right into teaching, passing bad habits onto each other.

Hell no you were not out line..on a good day what they did was stupid, other days just plain rude.

Ditto.

Just as we need to be aware of where our prop/jet blast is going, so do the rotor heads.

Robert

Ask the owners of the two rows of aircraft being hit with FOD if you did the right thing. You did the right thing!

You absolutely did the right thing.

There is a helicopter flight school located at an airport 12 miles away from my home base. The helicopters use an opposite side pattern there and land on the taxiway. They often come over to our little airport because there is less traffic, and they bring their local procedures with them, ie, they use a right-hand pattern where ours is left, and they land on the taxiway which at our airport is very close to the hangars. For months after I built my new hangar I couldn't figure out why there was always dirt, sticks, stones and other debris all over my hangar apron when we hadn't had a windstorm. Finally I was out there one day and saw a helicopter in action. I got on the radio and asked them to shut down, and we had a talk. It was a student and instructor and they were nice about it and apologetic, but they were completely clueless until I pointed it out to them.

Bottom line, they may not know until you tell them.

No, they actually got defensive and defended what they were doing, I told them it would be the same as me fireing up the 802 and doing a ground power check tail to tail with their helicopter, the student who came across as very dysfunctional (hair tied up in a bum on top of his head) actually got in my face saying I obviously have an agenda against helicopters. I told him my agenda was I didn't want my aircraft damaged and to have an instructor teaching students procedures like that in my opinion is stupid. I was starting to get frustrated that they didn't seem to care and thought I might be out of line. I talked to a couple of helicopter pilots in our company, and their feeling was they'ld be lucky to have a job if it got back to the boss that they did something like that.

Well, they're jerks then.

Mmmph. Our field is very busy with heilos, but they seem to do a fairly decent job of doing the right thing. A few faux here and there, but no more so than any airport with a lot of student activity.

Best,
Rich

Some helicopter pilots don't get how much of a fuss those things make.

I've had 1 close encounter with the US Navy where a guy had airplanes trying to lift off their tiedowns while he decided to taxi down the row of parked aircraft..

They are doing the right thing with the pattern (as opposed to bringing their local procedures). It's in 91.126. As for using taxiway, what's the difference between hovering full length of the taxiway to use the runway and shooting the approach to the taxiway? It's still going to kick up whatever is around. Is it much different than turning off the centerline to do a run-up (in a f/w). Personally, I try to use the taxiways (avoiding the flow of f/w aircraft), but land long near whatever intersecting taxiway goes to parking. When you're paying by the Hobbs every minute counts.

As for the OP, you were correct. They sound like ........ Maybe a chat with the owner is in order before he gets a bill for a damaged aircraft?

The way our airport is constructed, they can stay over the runway until they're clear of the hangars, and then turn off, which is what they do now since we had our talk. Common courtesy.

Normally students are taught to be considerate of their footprint and not to buffet aircraft. It could damage a parked aircraft. Actually it is a safety issue in a way.

Was the instructor also the school owner?

I'm helicopter pilot as well as a fixed wing but I'm surprised how many fixed wing pilots think on the ground the throttles connected to a transmission instead of a prop and continue to blow out hangers and other airplanes. It's just the nature of some people not to be aware of whats around them

Rocky

Point out to the owner of the school that he could be held liable for damage his choppers do to airplanes.

nuff said - they're bozos.