#4 Helicopter Check Ride Ground School & Flight Training Tips

Another tip would be choose the aircraft that's right for you. The main helicopters out there being used is the Robinson, the Schweitzer, the Instrom.

They've all got good qualities.

Every helicopter has pros and cons to it, but they're all helicopters. So essentially they all fly the same. Some characteristics are a little bit different, numbers are a little bit different, but they're still all helicopters. Don't let one particular school tell you, oh, you've got to fly this helicopter for this exact reason. Look at the different helicopters out there and see what's right for you. If you're a really tall individual, you might want to go into the larger aircraft. If you're a small guy and every hour is what's the most important is the cost, then you're probably going to want to be in the Robinson Sweitzer's kind of in between. They've all got really good characteristics. They're all great helicopters. Do a little research. It might be worth your time to maybe drive a little farther to be in the aircraft that you should be in versus the one that's just closest. Spend a little time researching the different aircraft and pick which aircraft's right for you.

I want to talk about the one hour flight lesson. This is a huge training tip because the human brain can only handle about an hour of any new skill.

When you're learning a new complicated skill.

Like learning to fly helicopters or doing helicopter ground school, keep it at one hour. Take a break now. I'm not talking about later. If you're doing a long cross country or doing checkride preparation, once you've got a little more time under your belt. But in the beginning, when you're training, your flights really ought to be at an hour.

If it's any more than that, you're.

Kind of wasting your time and money. Before I was a helicopter instructor, I was a police officer and a firearms instructor. And I went through an instructor development course was the first thing. And back then they said anytime you have somebody in a classroom or you have them out in the field after an hour, give that person a break. Five minutes, 10 minutes, get up, leave the classroom, go get something to drink, grab something to snack on. Same thing in the helicopter. In the beginning, you need a break after an hour. The first 20 minutes you're kind of getting warmed up. The second 20 minutes you're doing really good. And that third 20 minutes of that hour, you start to drop off a little bit on your learning. Your learning curve starts to drop off, and after an hour it just goes downhill. I've done this video before, but it's been a while and it's that important of a message that I wanted to put it out there again. Keep your flight training to one hour. If you're going to a flight school and a guy's flying you 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, and this is your third, fourth or fifth less they're stealing your money.

Next training tip, which I think is the biggest of all is your self study and your dual time with your instructor. Depends on where you're flying. A lot of places give you lots of good ground. A lot of places, not so much. The thing that I've seen over the years is everybody's almost always lacking on the ground school. People don't usually fail from the flying portion. They usually fell the oral. Everybody wants to fly, nobody wants to do ground. That's just the way it is. The flying is the fun part. The study is not. You got to force yourself to study, study, study, do it with your instructor. Time at home again, I believe 75% of it is the ground school, 25% is the fly in. So commit yourself to making study priority one. And you want to study a lot in the beginning because it makes it a lot smoother. Process of getting your license. If you start early, hit the books hard, get the training down, get the ground training in the beginning of the flying and then continue to keep brushing it up as you go so that when you go for your practical test, you can spout these answers off to the examiner.

Boom, boom, boom.

The ground is truly the biggest part, so you have got to commit yourself to study.

The next one I want to hit is Helicopter Flying Handbook. I checked online for one today, it was around $17, so it's going to be right around 20 bucks depending on.

Where you get it.

Don't let the book overwhelm you.

Just start out kind of easy with it.

Helicopter controls, helicopter maneuvers. If you dive into it and start.

Really reading the aerodynamics, you can read.

It and it can scare you way before you even get started. The aerodynamics aren't that hard. Once you start reading it and you get some help from your instructor, you find out it's not too bad. So just get the Helicopter Flying Handbook.

And learn the basics so that when.

You go for your first couple lessons, you're already having a good idea of.

What the controls do and a little.

Bit about how the helicopter operates. Grab yourself a copy of the Helicopter Flying Handbook and we'll see you on the next one. Next tip, start thinking about your written test. Early on in your training, you're doing your duel. One thing that we like to say is try to have your written test done prior to solo. Not many people do it, but the guys that I've trained over the years, the ones that you could get the written done early, like prior to your solo, man, once the solo time gets there, you can get your requirements out of the way, get your duel done and get to the checkride. Which is why we're here. We're talking about getting from day one, getting you to the checkride and getting your rating. So very important, get a written test. Prep early on in the training. Start studying for that written test. The sooner that you get that written test out of the way, the better off you're going to be because the written test is always a hassle. There's been many times that we've had.

Guys that they get down to a.

Week before their check ride and they're still trying to get the written test done. So they're working on last minute requirements, paperwork, flying, written test, and I'm telling you, it's a pain in the butt. Get that written done and out of the way.

When you have a scheduled flight, even.

If the weather's bad, show up and do ground with your instructor. Students are horrible about, oh, I'm not going today because the weather's bad. There's so much ground to do. The ground is 75% of it, 25% is the flying. And time and time again guys will cancel because the weather's bad. Don't cancel. Go in, sit down with your instructor, do some ground school. It's a common issue that happens over and over again. So if you want to save time, save money, get through the rating in a decent amount of time just because the weather's bad, don't cancel your flight, go in and do ground school. Another helicopter training tip along your timeline of getting from off the street to rated helicopter pilot. Another important thing in the beginning is make sure that you drive with your instructor, somebody that you want to fly with, and that you get along. If there's some type of a personal issue or you just maybe plain don't like the guy or you don't like the way he teaches, find yourself another instructor. You're spending a ton of money and a lot of time and effort to get from day one to rated helicopter pilot. Don't be afraid to ask for another.

Instructor if you're at a bigger school.

Or even change schools if you have to.

If you're going somewhere small and if.

You'Re having personal issues or personal conflicts with the guy you're flying with, it's going to drag out the training and it's going to cost you a lot more money. In the long run, it's not going to be a good thing.

Learning plateau is something that you're probably going to hear about when you get started with your training. Know that almost everybody ends up hitting a learning plateau. You don't want to get discouraged. If you're say you're flying a lot, maybe you're studying really hard and you have a couple lessons where things don't start going so good and you feel like you're not making progress, a lot of guys will keep pushing on and you kind of end up wasting your time and wasting your money. When you hit that learning plateau, a lot of times it's a good idea to just take a break, take a few days off, even take a week or two sometimes and maybe you won't be able to handle it. Flying helicopters is addicting. Maybe you can't go two weeks without flying, but a lot of times taking a break, when you come back, you will fly better than you did the whole entire time you've been training. So know that you're going to have a learning plateau that's going to come up, kind of plan for it or.

Be ready for it.

And just know when it happens. Don't let it freak you out. Don't get too discouraged. Just say, hey, I guess I've hit my learning plateau. Take a few days off, take a week off. Go relax a little bit, Go hang out by the ocean, chill a little bit and then go back and hit it again.

I want to talk about aircraft. Checklist, checklist, checklist, checklist. You have to use the checklist. Whether you're just starting out or you're working on an advanced rating. You have to use the checklist for your pre flight, your all different phases of flight you want to be using the checklist. It's something that you're going to have.

To do no matter what.

Whether you're taking a check ride with a designated examiner, FAA examiner. If you become a career pilot and later you're flying with a check airman company, every single one of those guys is going to expect you to use the checklist. And the one thing that I can tell you over the years of training is if you don't use the checklist and then you try to use it when you go to take your test.

The examiner is going to Catch it.

He's going to know that you haven't been using it because he's going to know you don't have a good flow as you're going through it. So it's very important to use the checklist. It's also even more important because if you don't use the checklist, you're going to forget something. A lot of us over the years have think we get good enough that I don't need the checklist. I've done this so many times, I.

Know how to do this.

And every single time that you try to sneak one time without using the checklist, you forget something during that startup or your pre flight or whatever the case is. And then later you're going to end up paying for it. So you have to use the checklist wherever you're flying, no matter who you're flying with. If they're not making you use the.

Checklist, you better start using it on your own.

So all the way through your training, start to finish your entire career, you got to use the checklist. I have another helicopter training tip that I think is absolutely crucial no matter what you're flying, wherever in the world. Hover pre takeoff checks. There's a lot of guys out there and a lot of schools teaching hover pre takeoff checks before every takeoff. And that's a great thing. There are some guys that are teaching that, and that's not necessarily the best option for your helicopter training. You want to do the hover pre takeoff checks because you're giving that engine a chance to spit, sputter, miss, quit running, start acting up. You're given a chance for temperatures and pressures to maybe go out of the limitation. You're checking to see how much power you're using for the day so that you know how much available power you have, what you're pulling. In a hover, there's a lot of reasons to be doing a hover pre takeoff check. It's keeping you safe. It's making sure you got everything set where you should and making sure that.

The aircraft is ready to go.

One little thing that you miss could be total disaster by not doing a hover pre takeoff check.

So hover pre takeoff checks, if you're.

Not doing them, start doing them. You need to do them every single time prior to takeoff.

I want to talk about clearing turns. Now, clearing turns is one that a lot of people don't want to do every time because they think it's too redundant and they get tired of doing it and they think, ah, there's Nobody around us. Well, there's a fact that I've had several times where I've had not only a tractor come up beside me under underneath the rotor system, I've had cars go past, fuel trucks. When you think nobody's around, these vehicles come out of the blue and so do the obstacles. There's EMS pilots out there that have thousands of hours and they make a simple mistake and don't clear their tail, and they stick their tails into poles and wires and hangers and all kinds of stuff. So you have to clear the tail.

Every single time you go to turn.

The aircraft, make sure your tail is clear. Look out your side, make sure you're clear. If you're flying with somebody else, instructor or passenger, before you turn their direction or the tail in their direction, make sure they look out and clear the tail for you. The clearing tails. The clearing turns are a very, very, very important part of safe helicopter flying. And these safety things we teach you, they're not just for you to get through the checkride and then throw them out the window and never fly with. These are lifelong basic things that we're teaching you to keep you out of trouble. So do the clearing turns and do them every single time you go to move the aircraft. Clear that tail and make sure it's clear.