#190 "Take Time for a Walk Around and for Checklists" Helicopter Safety Team
Kenny Keller explains why helicopter pilots need to walk around their aircraft before flight and use checklists every time. He shares stories from his experience to show how these simple steps prevent accidents.
Chapters
Day 190, coffee with Kenny. How y' all doing? For all of you that are doing things right and using the checklist and studying, keeping your knowledge fresh, here's to you. Cheers. To those of you who are not, maybe you need a good swift kick in the ass. And I say that because we all need that occasionally. Not all of us, some of us occasionally. And we're gonna hit the number two thing from the helicopter safety team that they put out to help start trying to reduce accidents. And they picked seven things that they put in this PDF and I'll put the link down below. It's 2019. Helicopter crashes are up, possibly going to reach a record this year. We want this to go the other direction. And when I talk about getting a swift kick in the ass, I'm going to use my cell phone as an example. I'm down in Texas for first time going to work for this EMS company and we went through 10 days of training and their safety guy was in talking to us as a group and he's talking about how many of you really want to be safe? How many of you just say you want to be safe. And he singled me out and he goes, he points at me and he goes, I saw you today pull up in the car and you weren't wearing your seatbelt. He's right. And I don't know why, I can't tell you why I did it. But he said, you know, if anybody in the room really doesn't care about safety, it's not really your top priority, then you can get up and just leave the room right now, you know, so made me feel kind of, you know, he singled me out. But I guess that's okay because now I'm repeating the story how swift kick in the rear, right? I should have been wearing the seat belt. What could I say? I didn't have an excuse. So number two, take time for a walk around and for checklist. We just did this in 187, day 187 right before this thing came out from the US safety team. And it came from a question from a member said how often do you really pre flight, you know, go back to catch one day one day 187 where we do just talk about the pre flight and the walk around, how important that walk around is. So here's what they say. Take a time for a walk around and for checklists. An adequate pre flight inspection, a checklist and a final walk around are central responsibilities that determine the condition of an aircraft prior to Flight. In addition, post flight inspections can identify issues prior to the next flight. We just talked about that in day 187. How a mechanic once said, you know, I think you learn more from a post flight than a pre flight. Okay, so you can go back and check that out. But I just wanted to bring up the point that, you know, as human beings we might do good for a little bit and then we start becoming slackers, right? And it can happen. And I'm going to go back to my law enforcement training. I was a firearms instructor and they told us in firearms instructor school prior to me becoming a helicopter pilot, as a human race, we learn and then we forget and then we have to relearn again. And it works in law enforcement like it works in helicopter training. Somebody made a comment on video I just did, on, you know, keeping your knowledge fresh. And the comment was something like, you mean 30 year pilots still need to refresh their mind. What are you talking about? Well, if you don't lose it, you use it, right? Knowledge has to stay fresh. And I know there's plenty of people out there that are guilty of not cracking a book in years and maybe they've been sliding through with flight reviews because some guy just signs them off and they don't even go do a flight review and don't sit down and do an hour of ground. That happens in the real world. People take a time for a walk around and for checklist and you know, we've all. Well, not we all. I've tried the no checklist thing and I forget something and I'm going to tell you in EMS they said, guys, you got to use the checklist. We want you using it every single time. And a lot of the guys I flew with didn't use it and they just did it by memory. And you know, when they complained about my speed, the first base I worked at, I was getting off the ground in like nine minutes, right? So everybody else is getting off the ground in like seven minutes. And the medical crew complained, well, I got 10 minutes to get off the ground. If you're off the ground in 10 minutes, you don't really have to explain why if it's longer than 10 minutes. Now mind you, in 10 minutes you get to call, you do your weather check. There's a lot of things you may have to do. Get the helicopter out and be in the air in 10 minutes. Okay, that's pretty darn fast. So you know, this is an argument in the, in the EMS world, many times some of these aircraft are Complicated enough that you can't do a proper startup and be off the ground 10 minutes, you know, so another argument for another day. But I'm flying ems, and along the way somebody says, well, hey, Kenny, you know, the other pilots are getting off the ground in seven minutes and you're taking nine. I'm like, well, let's see, I have less time in EMS than all of them. I have less time in the BK117 than all of them. Most of them aren't using the checklist. I am. That might be why I'm getting off the ground in nine minutes. Okay? So that's how important the checklist is. And I did to try to increase my time, you know, because they kind of wind. I tried doing it the way the other guys did it and try doing it without the checklist. Try just memorizing. But when I did it without the checklist, I'd forget something every single time. I just would. So, you know, I guess for some of you that can just have perfect memory, can do it every time without, I guess, more power to you. But it's in most situations, it's not, it's not. It's frowned upon, it's looked down on and in some cases can get you fired for not using a checklist. And the walk around, man, it only takes a few seconds and you'll see so many people out there and you can watch them. Airplanes, helicopters, watch some people go out to an aircraft after they've had lunch and walk them climb right in. Not even a single walk around. A quick walk around. Are the fuel caps on? Are there any cowlings open? Is there any fuel leaking out? It's so stinking important. And it's number two, right, of seven things that the helicopter safety team is saying, you know, to avoid this unwelcome record. During 2019, the USHST, which is the US Helicopter Safety Team, is calling for pilots, instructors and others with a stake in helicopter safety to focus on seven key actions that will save lives. And I've said it for years, it's the basic stuff that we learn, right? The basics of being a good private pilot go on throughout our whole career, even as commercial pilots and instructors and getting out in the, in the real industry. In the industry, it's about basics. It really is. It's not about fancy gadgetry. It's about the basics of checking everything before you go, knowing that you're ready to go. I've been pushing this paper back. You know what? There's a free PDF I just got this in the mail. I ordered a whole bunch and they shipped me just one for some reason. Chapter seven is checklist. That's how first book I did with 20 some chapters, number seven was checklist. And I talk about how you know the check airmen say, you know, how we know you're not using a checklist. We can tell when we come to show up for your 135 checkride and you're fumbling through the check list. When you're in there with us, we know you haven't been using it. And that's what they told us. An examiner is going to do the same thing on a private pilot or commercial or an instrument. If you're just kind of half assing it and you're fumbling through, they know you know, and that's, that's counting against you if you're fumbling through the checklist because you're not familiar with it or you're not recently familiar with it. So you know what, again, for those of you doing it right, more power to you. For those of you that are slacking, here's your swift kick in the ass. Get back to it. So there's a free PDF for this book. I've been pushing the paper back. I'll put the link down below for the free PDF. If you want to check out Helicopter Checkride, my Amazon number one bestseller free PDF, you can start checking it out right away. And the paperbacks are available as well. But I start, I'd start throwing out the PDF link because some of you may not want to spend seven bucks on shipping and handling to get a free book. You may just like the PDF. And a lot of people like electronic form these days. Some people still like the good old paperback, right? I'm gonna put that down, but link below. So I am Kenny Keller, creator, helicopter, airline, ground school, private commercial, cfi, instrument. We have all those courses. And not only do we teach you the knowledge that you need to know for the oral flight, we have written test practice, but we do push safety through all the courses, right? Safety is a simple word to say, but everything that goes along with safety, there's a lot to it, right? There are so many things that we have to know as a pilot. And I'm a firm believer that just because you've been flying 30 years doesn't mean you never have to crack open a book anymore. Doesn't mean you don't have to. You know, some people say, oh, well, I got my rating. So I don't, I don't, I don't ever have to study again. Well, you don't have to study per se, but you should review. I mean all these things in your brain are not going to just stay there solid and concrete if you never look at it again. Train, retrain, train again. Keep learning. Every single day. It's awesome. All right, wrapping up day 190. Hope you're all having a great weekend. It's Sunday. It's time to go pick up my daughter here shortly. So wrap up day 190. Day 191 is going to be recognized. The potency of OTC medications, over the counter medications says right in there 10 to 13% of aircraft accidents. A factor is over the counter medications, people not thinking about what it is that they're taking and checking on the side effects. Alrighty then, let's get out of here. See you in day 191. Oh yeah. Subscribe. When you subscribe, click the bell. Go down below for helicopterground.com. check out our courses. They all have a 24 hour test drive and a 30 day money back guarantee. See you on the inside of hogs. Peace out.
