#171 Helicopter Pilot NO GO DECISION, forget it and move on

All right, day 171, coffee with Kenny. Today is going to be a good little discussion, probably won't be real long. And I want to teach you something that I learned from a Vietnam era pilot. And this is something that I learned when I was flying ems. But you could use this. Private pilot, commercial pilot, any type of flying situation that you are in, you could use this. It's kind of like the whole checkride thing that we're going through right now trying to get this checkride done that's been canceled twice, that's scheduled for tomorrow. Last night when I canceled it, I moved on, right? And Mark was trying to call me after that. And I know what he was trying to do. I think he was thinking, well, there's going to be, you know, weather coming out again later. But there's a point in the day where it's like, let's just call it off and move on. Sunday night and I'm at home, I don't want to worry about it anymore. And the examiner kind of wanted to know. So that's just on scheduling a flight. But when you're making a decision about go, no go, when you're going to make the decision to not go, make the decision, move on. And I say that because in the EMS environment, right, there's a lot of pressure whether I'm going to take this flight or not. And I can remember sitting around after a flight one time and I remember beating myself up over it, dissecting it, looking at the weather. And when I was working opposite a Vietnam air pilot and we were talking about it, and he goes, kenny, stop that shit. Look at the weather, make your decision. And then when you decide not to go, you're done. Move on with your day, move on with your night. And don't sit around and stare at it. Don't sit around and second guess yourself. When you make the decision you're not going make it and be done. The worst thing you could do would be go back on your decision. You made the decision to not go. And then you sit around and you haggle over it and then you go and make a decision, well, I'm going to go try it. You're setting yourself up for disaster, okay? There is so much that goes along to a go, no go decision. And these are hard. And you know, I've said over the years, sometimes I think it gets harder with experience, not easier, you know, and it could be the way around and any one of you, it could be different. But you know, it's just like Checking weather. It's like the more you learn about weather, the more you realize that forecasts can be right on or they can be so far off. And many times the forecast can get you into trouble because the forecast may not be. The weather could always be worse than what is forecasted. It can be even worse than what any station is reporting at any given moment. These things we have talked about before in coffee with Kenny and we talk about these things inside Helicopter Online Ground School. I am creator helicopter on ground school. By the way. We've been online seven years, private commercial CFI and instrument courses. So anyway, I just want you to think as a pilot, the go no go decision, there is so much to it, there are so many things to consider, so many things to think about. But in this particular video, I want you in the mindset of I'm going to look at it and I'm going to go with my gut and I'm going to make the best decision possible and then you're done. Don't sit around second guessing yourself. Don't sit around with your fellow pilots or sit around with the medical crew or whatever situation you're in, even if it's just a private pilot and maybe you're stuck somewhere overnight and you're in a hotel. Don't sit around all night going, man, I should have went. Man I should have went. Man, I should have went. No, if you made the decision to not go, you stick with that decision and you move on. Very simple. Sounds simple, right? And again, I learned quite a few good things from this one Vietnam era pilot that I flew EMS with. And again, I've talked about him in the past copy with Kenny videos and I talk about him specifically inside Helicopter Land ground school. He taught me some cool stuff like, you know, talking about emergencies and warning horns and things going off. And I was telling him about an issue that I had with the engine out horn. Flying a twin engine aircraft on approach into a hospital where over here is buildings, you got nowhere to go if there's a problem. And I had to engine out on approach to the helipad. Nothing I could do but deal with it. And I felt bad that I couldn't ascertain in a split second whether I really had an engine failure or not. And so I just hurried to the pad as fast as possible and got down, got on the ground, everybody was safe, but the crew's even like, hey, that was a little faster than normal. Are you okay up there? And I'm like, yeah, I had an engine out warning and Turned out the engine wasn't out. But he said, you know what, Kenny, he was the first guy who ever told me this. He said the Average person takes 12 seconds to figure out what just happened. And you'll have people that argue that point. Because you see so many articles out there. As a helicopter pilot today, you must be able to make split second decisions, blah, blah, blah. Well, maybe, maybe you'll only have a split second, but that's not really the case. Even my examiner I've used for 20 years says there's normally time to handle an emergency. You know, if you have an angel failure of 500ft, sure you're descending and you've got to deal with it, but there's time. So this is, you know, something that we could battle back and forth all day. But I just wanted to relay that to you today, make the decision that you're not going and move on with your day. So, top 10 checkride tips we ship these books. We pay for the shipping and handling. Amazon number one best seller I did with Taz Christman 2018 flight instructor of the year. Awesome book. We took our 40 years of experience together and put in the things that we see people screw up getting ready to go for their checkride and the things that we see them screw up over and over and over again. We're not throwing flukes in here like, oh my gosh, nobody's ever felt for that before. We are putting, we put in here the things that we see continually over and over and over. Grab the copy of that book that's going to help you with that headache and heartache the day of your checkride by checking out this book and using the tips that we have in here. TAS went out and interviewed examiners in the Las Vegas area. So he's got recent feedback from like three examiners on things that they see continually applicants showing up, problems they have showing up and problems they have during the checkride. 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All kinds of tips, tricks, things good and bad. Anything helicopter related game for the videos. So I'm gonna go move on with the day. Get ready for the checkride Wednesday. We'll see what happens and we'll let you know. Peace out.