#95 Hey COLLECTIVE CONTROL USERS | Don't Jerk It Up and Down!

1, 2, 3. Testing, 1, 2, 3. Instructor, stop moving the collective student. I'm not moving the Collective instructor. Yes, you are moving the Collective. Welcome to Day 95 copy with Kenny. Today we want to talk about the Collective. If you are struggling on your approaches, we did this in a video the other day. On the angle, you're probably messing too much with the collective. I also want to talk about a big one. When you're near the ground and if you're struggling, if you're doing this, whether it's on the ground, on the dolly, all these things we've covered. But today I want to cover the collective being the issue many times for many of you. I am Kenny Keller, creator of Helicopter Land Ground School. You can go below to get My book number one Amazon bestseller Top 10 Checkride Tips, co authored with Taz Christman, 2018 Flight Instructor of the Year. You can go below for our 24 hour test flight on our ground school. And you can go below and get the link where we send you this book. We bought it, we paid for it. So back to the collective. In a lot of videos, people say, well, you know, I like to see cockpit footage of that. The movement I'm going to talk about right now is so small, you'd never even see it. Even if you were had a camera on it, you would not see the movement because this movement is so slight. Okay, Most of you know in the beginning, over controlling, okay, we get it right, too much up and down. But when you're trying to perfect this set down, and I'm there right now with this ground school student that's coming in to do his fixed wing add on, we're cleaning up everything and each day he's getting better and getting his bit, getting better and better. But just the other day he said something when he was going to set it down and he gets down there and I feel the collective. You can't see it, but I can feel it going up, down, up, down. And I said, you're moving the collective too much. And he goes, I am. He didn't say, no, I'm not. He just said, I am. I go, yep. He goes, man, I don't even feel it. I go, I know you don't feel it, but I feel it. If you're an instructor, please chime in the comments below because I'd like to hear your feedback on this and how much you've experienced this. But learning that good set down, you know, if you're coming down nice and smooth, which most of you do, and you get to that air cushion at 6 to 8 inches and you start kind of wobbling around. Usually you're going, I'm going to exaggerate here. You're going like this. You're going up and down with that, with that collective. So to perfect this set down, I want to think about even like open handedly, right? If you were, let's say you're coming down, you're coming down, you get to that spot, it just takes a tiny bit, a tiny, tiny bit of downward pressure to push through that air cushion and get it on down to the ground again. Love to hear your feedback on this. And over the years I've had people say, well, but I'm not moving it. And I'm going, yes, you are. And they'll argue me and say, I'm not moving the collective. And I'll go, I know you don't think you're moving it, but you are. You know, these movements are so slight. And the other thing he's doing that I'm trying to get him to smooth out is like he's getting ready to do his pickup and he'll yank up a little bit, like an inch or two to get closer to where you know it's going to start coming up. And I'm like, smooth pressure changes, bring it nice and smooth all the way up. Pause a little bit when you're doing step one to step two, pause, neutralize all movements, then gently lift it up. But don't do this. And the same thing going down. Like, you know, there's that point where a person's down there and they're almost there and then they go, you know, they push it down like that. Everything you should be doing. And I'm going to exaggerate again, all these pressure changes should be smooth. Now you might speed up the pressure change or slow down that pressure change, if that makes sense to you. But there shouldn't be any of this, there shouldn't be any jerky movements. Every single movement should be a nice smooth action. It's just sometimes you're going to have more pressure or less pressure going down. And then another thing in the collective that I like to talk about, a lot of people, let's say they're going to set down just to check something and they set down and they go, well, can I just leave the collective part way? No. Anytime you set down, even if it's only going to be for 10 seconds or 30 seconds or whatever you're going to do, anytime you do a set down this collective smoothly, all the way down lock the collective. If you're going to be changing charts or you got something you need to do or have somebody guard the collective for you. Depends on the make and model of aircraft and what you're allowed and not allowed to do. But don't get in the habit of only stop. You start stopping the collective part way because if something bad happens, something gets bumped, you know, it could end up into a dynamic rollover or some other bad situation. So these collective movements all need to be smooth. And when you set down, go collective all the way down until you're ready to pick back up and then all the way back up. Don't cheat and just stop halfway because you got, you still have your rpm. And if you're at that, at that point where something bad could happen, I'm telling you, collective control inputs, they need to be smooth, they need to be pressure changes. You could speed up the pressure or the amount of pressure, but everything you need to be doing with that collective should still be a really nice smooth movement. And trust me, some of these movements, when you're perfecting things, these movements need to be smooth. I have a ground school member who may do a video on, he's struggling with slopes. He's only about 38 hours and I'm like, I'll probably do a video on that, but give it a little more time, right? You got to have the, you got to have the pick up and set down perfected before you can move into slopes. If you're not 100% smooth with that pick up a set down on a flat surface, you don't want to mess with it on slopes. My members coming in, I gotta hurry up and get to the airport, so I gotta cut this off. Day 95. Did I mention that in the beginning? I am Kenny Keller, creator helicopter ground school. Got those links down below for our test flight. The free book will send you for shipping and handling. So remember, collective changes smooth amount of pressure change amount of speed. But not this exaggerating here, but again, the biggest keen, I've seen this over the years and I want to hear your feedback. People struggle. And this is so common with so many people where they're coming down, they're coming down, they're coming down. And then you get all this going and then they start going up, down, up, down, up, down. Alright, collective users, subscribe. Click the bell. When you do, leave us a comment down below and give us a thumbs up on the video and we will see you in day 96. Thanks everybody. Smooth pressure changes. You got an air cushion at 6 to 8 inches. So you hear, you hear your 3ft, you're coming down, you're coming down, you're coming down 6 to 8 inches. Skid height clearance, you got an air cushion. Most of the time, it's going to take a small, gentle downward pressure with that collective to set the thing nice on down to the ground.