#243 Coffee with Kenny Keeping your hand on the collective, or not?

Day 243, coffee with Kenny. Man, trying to get over this freaking cold. So I'm gonna do a quick video today. No big fancy production here. This from a hogs longtime member, as he put hogs long member, long time. This is from cw and he was just talking in this email that he just sent me about future topic. And he put keep your hand on the collective. And in the email he's talking about, he's watching a young video blogger and he said, you know, the kid's really knowledgeable and seems like he does a great job. He said, however, the one thing that really caught my attention was, except for takeoff and landing maneuvering, this pilot never kept a hand on or near the collective. I was shocked as all the instructors over the years and myself was always taught, when in flight, keep your hand on the collective when flying. Just thought I'd pass on this observation. You know what, what I do personally, just for this is my take on it. I always have my hand on the collective. Yes, we train, you know, student from day one, somebody. Somebody always has their hand on the collective. During ground run up, shut down, hovering, takeoff, landing, somebody, either instructor or the student always has a hand on the collective. Now, what I've done over the years, just because I did train in the R22 early on for my ratings. So, yes, when you train the R22, you're taught to man. You got to have that hand on that collective all the time. You got to be ready. You gotta be ready to get that collective down in the event something bad happens. Now, throughout my career, no matter what I've flown, I still keep my hand on the collective. Just because for me, personally, unless I'm tuning radios or, you know, moving a chart or doing something I have to do, I just keep my hand on the collective. Because, you know, at a certain point, it's like, whether my hands on my leg or my hands over it on the collective, what really makes a difference? You're just kind of resting your arm anyway. And, you know, people have different techniques. And this also goes back to, you know, what aircraft are you flying? What does the PoH say? Some aircraft, you can friction the collective during flight and take your hand off. Some you cannot. It depends on the aircraft. I just would rather have my hand there. And even when I'm teaching, I tell the student, you know, don't let it bother you. You see my hand, the collective. Because when you're letting somebody solo, you are not solo. When you're letting someone manipulate the controls and getting comfortable Doing it on themselves. An instructor does need to get their hands back at a certain point, right? So the person understands that they really have the controls. With that being said, I tell them, you know, I'm not moving the collective. Just understand that I'm probably going to always rest my hand there. I just feel better with my hand on the collective. So, yes, I keep putting my hand on the collective for takeoff, for landing, ground, run up, hovering, taxiing, takeoff, landing. My hand is always on the collective and in flight, too. And I like repeating what happened in EMS when I got to fly the EC135 and we had an autopilot, right? And I've told this story before in coffee with Kenny, and I'll repeat it. It was kind of funny to me because one day the base manager came up to me and said, kenny, the medical crew has a problem with you. I'm like, oh, yeah? What's that? And he's like, you're not using the autopilot. And it makes him nervous. And I just kind of giggled, right? And I'm like, the medical crew has a problem because I don't use autopilot. Yeah, it makes them nervous because we all use it. And I'm like, you know, that's okay. That's great. You guys all use it. Our flights are 0.2 over to here, 0.3 over there, and then point two back home again. So I'm not in the air very long. So to me, what's the point of turning the Autopilot on for 5 minutes or 10 minutes? I want to fly the aircraft. I want to fill the controls because that's why I became a helicopter pilot. I became a helicopter pilot because I want to fly and I want to have my hands on the controls. So I just found it funny when they go, or the base managers tell me, oh, yeah, they. It's really upsetting to them that you don't use autopilot. And I'm like, you know, I am a helicopter pilot, you know, with over 2000 hours of experience and, you know, all these years of experience, why do they care? You know, just more comfortable with my hand on the collective. The first time I flew with autopilot with a buddy taking a Jet Ranger down from the Midwest down to Florida. You know, he had this autopilot on there, and he's like, well, you know, you got to keep your hands on the controls just in case it cuts out, right? So my first experience with autopilot was, yeah, you can use it, but you got to have your Hands there in case it kicks out, Right? Same thing in the EC135. What if it would just kick out for some reason? And it's. Autopilot's great, right? You're on a long trip, and you want to organize some charts or something. You want to use an autopilot, use it. Great. But if I'm just flying around, I want my hands on the controls. That's just me, you know? Could be weird. So there you go. CW that's my take on it again. You always got to boil back to what aircraft you're flying. What's the POH say? What can you do as far as frictioning the collective in flight or not? I'm just more comfortable. My hand, the collective. I can't stand riding in a helicopter with someone else when there's no controls. 20 years of riding around, teaching, right? You just get that way. You just like. You like to have controls. And I hate riding in the backseat of a helicopter. I just. I don't hate it, but I'm just not comfortable. Right? I mean, because my whole livelihood has been flying and teaching, even when I was doing ems, so. So there you go. There's my take on that. Do us a favor and like and subscribe. When you subscribe, click that little bell. Go down below to check out helicopterground.com for all of our courses. Private, Commercial, CFI and Instrument. Check those out down below, give us some feedback, give us a thumbs up, and we'll see in day 244.