#94 HOVERING MISHAPS | Are you too cool for clearing turns? | Tail Rotor Strikes

Welcome to Day 94. Got the steaming hot coffee going today. I want to talk about hovering clearing turns. I'm Kenny Culler, creator of Helicopter Lane Ground School. In case you're brand new to this, we do a daily video talking about all kinds of things helicopter related. This is day 94. I'm having a blast. Sun just came up, and I'm ready to do another one. So a lot of people think this is too redundant and a waste of time. Well, let me tell you, it's not. Starting out from day one as a student pilot and then on through the rest of your career, you should be doing a hovering clearing turn every time you go to move the nose of the aircraft and the tail of the aircraft. I don't care how basic or redundant it seems. Got some various sized obstacles over here we can use for demonstration purposes. But I want to start off by saying, well, those people that go, well. But I fly out in the boonies at airport and there's nobody or nothing around. There's all kinds of room. I don't need to clear my tail. Well, let me give you an example of that, where I used to fly in an airport out in the boonies, and we're out here on the taxiway, and I'm with a student, and we're practicing turns and hoverados and doing all kinds of stuff on the taxiway, Right? Out of the blue, we're out here hovering, and all of a sudden, here comes this tractor, and this young guy's name was Danny. And I'm gonna tell the story because I just saw Danny at Heli Expo, and Danny's now a Czech airman for the airlines, right? This is back when he was a young kid working the line and he just didn't know anybody any better. We're out there hovering in a helicopter at an airport with very little traffic, big open areas, no real obstacles other than maybe a windsock or maybe some weather equipment. There's nothing around to hit. But we're on a taxiway. I'm not expecting a kid on a tractor to come driving up beside us. And I went back that day and I yelled at him, you know, and we can laugh about it now because like I said, I just saw Danny at Heli Expo, and Taz Crispin was with me, and we told the story and we laughed and joked about it. He goes, man, you were mad that day. And I go, I was mad, Danny, you know, and we talked about it again. You approach a helicopter from behind. I mean, we could have. We could have Done a hover auto that went bad and maybe we didn't put the wrong inputs in. You know, the tail could have hit him, he could have hit us, could have killed all of us. You know, definitely killed Danny, rolled us over. I mean, God knows what could have happened. So there was, you know, as a CFI and the same thing happened when I was a student pilot. I was flying in Illinois and we're out on a great big ramp where they allowed cars to be on the ramp all the time. And twice, two times when I'm out there hovering with an instructor as a student, same thing. Cars come from up from behind and drive right freaking past us. So you can't tell me that there isn't any obstacles where you're flying and there are no dangers, right? Because you never know who's gonna be coming up behind you. This is a great story again because of this week and last week. I'm working with my helicopter add on guy helicopter online ground school member who traveled up to fly with me. Work on his ratings. He's a private pilot in airplanes, instrument rated and he's got helicopter time over the years. One of those guys who just hasn't finished a rating yet. Like a lot of people that come back after a while and they haven't flown for a while. So he's doing really well. We've had actual three days of flying. Each time he comes up, we fly twice a day. He was just here again yesterday. Big improvement each day. And I knew the thing I wanted to hit yesterday was what he was. Two things was hover pre takeoff checks. I just did a video on that yesterday. I got him in that mode yesterday. Got him calling those out. That was good. At the beginning of the lesson I said, hey, today I want to work on something else because he's an airplane guy, right? What do airplane guys do? They just follow the taxiways and just kind of do this right? That's normal. They're following those yellow lines that turn and curve and do all this kind of stuff. I said, hey, what I want to do in the helicopter is I want you to clear the tail every single time. You know, if this is the ramp and we're going to go over here, the taxiway and over here and out to the Runway. I said, I want clearing turns each time come over, stop. Now in the Nstrom your pic on the left. So he's on the left, I'm on the right. I said, before you turn to the left, make me clear the right tell then we get over here I want you to stop and I want you to physically look outside. Clear the tell. Turn this way. I can't stress enough how important this is. Let me give you another example. When I worked for ems, they did a study with our own company. They said, guys, you know what's what? One of our biggest things that's happening where helicopters are getting damaged and wrecked. And the number one thing in our EMS company was pilots turning their tail into buildings, trees, ambulances, cars, trucks. They said, guys, that's our number one problem is people turning, you know, aircraft into something. Now you could do hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage by turning your tail into something. Not alone kill people, right? They also said in this study they go, and in general, it's not the new guys that are, that are wrecking and hitting stuff at that time. They said, it's guys with over 15 years experience in EMS in over 6000 hours. Can you believe that one? So not saying a new person can't do this, but basically, if you think about that, that means the guys that's been flying a long time just get kind of careless and oh, I can judge this, or I don't need to clear the tail or whatever the case is. So they were big on clearing turns every single time. So, you know, you might be in an open area or let's just do an example here. God, you can have all kinds of things. You can have all kinds of things out there that are your obstacles that you could run into. So they can be fixed obstacles of all shapes and sizes. They could be vehicles coming up from behind you that you're not aware of. There are so many scenarios on things that can happen and things that you can, you know, turn your tail into. So another part of the fun part of the story. So many times over the years, right, I've heard where somebody I flew with and trained flies with somebody else. And then that person comes and says, well, I was flying with so and so. And they. And they goes, well, Kenny's not around today, so I'm gonna do this. Well, Kenny's not around today, so I don't have to do all these clearing turns. I've heard it over the years and I even had one flight school where I was the main instructor. And I taught one of the guys that followed me after I left. And I heard, right, I heard after I left, well, Kenny's gone now, so we don't have to do all these hover pre takeoff checks and all that clearing turn stuff. Well, we don't have to do that. Anymore he's gone, right? Like Iowa. Kenny was just the pain in the ass. Well, I am a pain in the ass, especially when it comes to hover pre takeoff checks and clearing. That tell you need to clear the tell every single time you can hit something as a brand new student, you can hit something as an EMS pilot flying over 15 years with 6000 hours again, our own company said, number one problem, guys are sticking their tails into buildings, trees, any kind of object that's out there. People are turning their tail into these things, wrecking the helicopters. Number one, it's safety, right? Number one, you could lose your life. Number two, look at the amount of damage that you're doing again, could be hundreds of thousands of dollars. So just like the hubber pre takeoff checks I talked about yesterday, I told this gentleman who's here, my helicopter only ground school member. I said, look, going for a check ride to me, 50% of it is the hover pre takeoff checks. The clearing turns, the taking your time, slow, smooth, methodical. With this gentleman, everything I was doing with him the last three days he's been here have all been slow it down, slower, take your time. And that's a common theme over the years. It's kind of like the right pedal thing, right? Where there's a point where I just go, right pedal, right pedal. There's also a thing of when I'm training someone, it's like, slower, slow it down a little bit slower, not so fast slower. You know, a lot of the resistance that we get on this channel and things people say, well, in the real world this, in the real world that, and blah, blah, blah. Well, you know what? There is the real world part of things. But I'm a trainer, okay? And you have to train to a standard. That. That's why we call it the practical test standards, which will soon become the airman certification standards. You have to have a standard for training. And the basics of what we learn from day one will keep us safe throughout our careers. Hover pre takeoff checks, clearing turns, slow, smooth, methodical. I'm going to be flat out honest when I judge someone. I watch some other helicopter come in, some transit helicopter. If I see a guy coming to the ramp and he's like, wait, slaps it down. Sure looks cool on tv, right? But I'm just usually in my mind or, you know, kind of shaking my head to myself and I don't say much, but when I see a person come in real nice and slow and they come in and they stop and they clear their tail and they go over here and they clear again. They turn into the wind and they set it down nice and smooth. I go, yeah, that guy knows what he's doing. I'm gonna tell you something else that's kind of weird that I thought for years, you know, when I was younger, I was a hellraiser, right? And like to drive fast and get crazy and do all kinds of crazy stuff. So now later in life, I'm still a Hellraiser at heart. But in a way, my way of raising hell is being the slowest, the smoothest, absolute everything just like to a T. In a way that's kind of like my way of raising hell, if that makes any sense to you at all. Anybody can fly like a hot dog. Anybody can show off and fly fast and impress people. They go, ooh, that guy's a great pilot. So many videos you see on YouTube, pilots doing really stupid shit. And you'll see comments. This guy's skill is awesome. This guy's pilot, he is so great. Well, showing off, flying fast, doing crazy stuff. Okay, if you're a trained aerobatic pilot and you're an air show, that's different. I'm not talking about those guys. I'm talking about everyday Joe Blow, weekend warrior that comes barreling in a helicopter to somebody's ramp somewhere and flies in and slams that thing on the ground. Not impressive. Alright, I am Kenny Keller, as I mentioned earlier, creator of Helicopter Online Ground School. We've been online seven years. We have private pilot, commercial pilot, instrument pilot, certified flight instructor, and we have a big professional pilot package. And today I'm gonna throw you out a code just because you stayed to the end of this video. This code is ongoing. It's my special code that I created for myself. It's called KK 25 off. And that KK 25 off will get you 25% off the yearly membership or that big professional pilot membership. That's a huge savings. That's an ongoing coupon. It's there because you hung around and listened to me for 5, 6, 7, 8 minutes and hung around to the end of the video. You use that code in the coupon box at checkout and then that will reveal the discounted price for either a yearly membership or or the professional pilot membership. The professional Pilot does not expire. It's going to be there as long as you need it. If you go for the yearly, remember it's a yearly subscription. So a year later, don't go. I didn't know it was a subscription. It's a subscription. It's per year. Here's what you do. You want it for a year. You sign up. You got a whole 12 months to remove your credit card from settings. Or you have a whole 12 months to go into PayPal and end your subscription to PayPal. If you want to keep it for year number two, you're more than welcome. Don't do anything and you'll be billed the second year. But you have a full 12 months to enjoy the training. Use it and when you're done, you don't want to renew. Make sure you go in and remove your credit card and settings or go into PayPal or email us and we'll handle it for you. We can do that as well. So our Helicopter Online Ground school does also come with a 30 day money back guarantee on any package. 7 years online we've helped hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of members. It's amazing. We have our whole what we call our Hogs Wall of Fame Helicopter Online Ground School Wall of Fame where we put up pictures of our students, our members, after passing all sorts of check rides. This has just turned into something truly amazing. Absolutely love it. Love what I do. Love the daily video. As long as you guys keep commenting, guys and girls, keep commenting and liking. We'll keep coffee with Kenny going. Keep liking. Keep giving us a thumbs up on the videos please. Please subscribe to the channel and click that bell. That way you'll be notified of the daily video each day. So thank you again for tuning in and we'll see you in day 95. Don't forget, click that bell and subscribe. Do. It.