Kenny Keller explains why guarding the collective control matters in helicopter flight training, sharing what he learned teaching student pilots. The collective is one of the trickiest controls to master, and mistakes with it can quickly turn dangerous.
Day 96. Gotta head out, get some coffee and head to the airport. I want to talk to you today about guarding the Collective. And we'll do that as soon as we get to the airport. First I want to talk about my ground school member. We had our seventh flight yesterday and he did really, really well because I decided I needed to just shut the up. And I'm kind of joking, but what I mean is there is a point with a student where, you know, you harp on them and you harp on them and you're trying to mold them and shape them and polish them. Then every once in a while I like to just do a flight where I say, you know what, I'm just going to ride along. I'm just going to enjoy and look around and have some fun. Take me out and show me a normal, show my normal pattern. And students will do really well. Sometimes when you do that gives them some progress or gives them some, you know, confidence in their progress, makes them feel good. And he stayed to me, said, yeah. He goes, you've been doing this a long time. You kind of know about how far you can push somebody, you know. And he didn't mean that in a mean way. He just, he meant that, you know, I've been harping on all these things that I want him to do and I got him doing most all of them. And it's getting polished and nice and it's fun when we as instructors sometimes up and just let you do what you do and it's really cool. Ah, the world is right again. Coffee and my member got a treat yesterday afternoon. He got free flight time. We went flying out around the northern Indiana, checking out airports. Hogs may be moving up. We shall soon see. It was fun. He had a good time. The one airport we checked out, putting up a brand new big hangar and office. And that airport manager was super welcoming and pretty excited about that maybe becoming our new home. So exciting stuff. This is gonna be kind of sad. It's been my home for 10 years. But hey, everybody. And everything's on their way to somewhere. And there's Heather. Hi. Say welcome to day 96. Welcome to day 96. There was another airport we stopped at. It's got a really nice hangar that's maybe open. Looking at that one too. Alright, so what I want to cover with you is someone is always guarding the Collective. Whether it's the student or instructor, one of us is always guarding the Collective. From the time we go with engine start until everything's shut down. Someone always has their hand on the collective. I was taught that way in the R22 and in the instrument especially good because this has a spring in it and if you're not careful in the right moment, engine running, blade spinning, you take your hand off that collective, that collective can come flying up on you. And trust me, it's happened to me and it is not cool. So it's just a good habit to be in to always be guarding that collective between the two of you in the aircraft. One person always has a hand on the collective. Always, always, always. There are so many bad things that can happen in so many different scenarios. In the theme of the add on pilot videos we've been doing, it's very common with a fixed wing guy or girl to get in and be very relaxed about guarding the controls. Just because in the airplanes there is a lot more time where you can kind of relax and not be on the controls versus what you can do in a helicopter. So it is different for a lot of fixed wing pilots when they're transitioning the helicopter with the amount of time that we have to spend keeping our hands on the controls during run up shutdowns and also during flight. So it is a change. So cheers to you Mark for doing a good job. We do appreciate having you come up here to fly with us. Can get confusing, huh? Yes they can. People are talking over everybody. We appreciate all of you too. And all of our HOGS members haven't showed the HOGS well in a little while. Check that dude out. We just got a couple more pictures sent in. More new member checkrides. When you send them in, Heather will handle printing them off and getting them up on the wall. So like subscribe, leave your comments down below. Oh yeah, don't forget about helicopter checkride top 10 checkride tips. Go below. We bought the books for you. Heather will ship them to you for just shipping and handling. That link's down below. There's also a link down below for helicopterground.com you can take our 24 hour test flight, go in, check it out, decide to keep the training or remove your credit card from settings or end it in PayPal and We Parties, friends, you're welcome back anytime. Instructors remember, every once in a while you gotta shut the up. We're gonna bleep that. Yeah, that's where I got that. That's where it's from that commercial where they're going, that was that hilarious video. They do videos like every Friday. Friday. I like that. Let's just shut Thursday for All right, peace out. Like subscribe comment down below. We'll see you tomorrow.
