Autorotations, do YOU love 'em or hate 'em?
Kenny Keller walks through autorotation training from safety checks through flare technique, covering stabilized entry, airspeed management, and collective control. Quick-stop drills build the muscle memory pilots need, and the debrief covers how instructors gain confidence teaching autos.
Live to fly another day.
Helicopterground.com okay, we're gonna take you along with us for some auto rotation practice. And first thing we're gonna do is warning, caution lights are out, gauges in the green. We got fuel timers running. Everything looks good. And we are gonna do some quick stops just because quick stops are a really nice maneuver to just do a little practice before you go out to do autos. Because it's very similar to the flare in your auto. I like using 40 and 40 for standard. It could be any airspeed, any altitude, but 40 and 40 or so. 1, 2, 3, quick stop, down collective, right pedal aft cyclic. I'll just keep flaring, keep flaring, keep flaring. Wait till the speed's almost gone. Forward cyclic, raise collective. In an essence that is your flare in your auto rotation. So I'm going to do another one and back as a new cfi Had a, had a bad auto and I was, I was scared to teach them as a brand new cfi. So I had a high time CFI come in and help me. Let's do some ground, let's do some quick stops, some straight ins, 90s and 180s, then we'll see how you feel. We spent a couple days on that. Here's our flare. Keep flaring, keep flaring, keep flaring, keep flaring, keep flaring, keep flaring. Keeping the same altitude. So I'm kind of looking out towards the horizon and fixing something I can use. Now I'm going forward, cyclic, raising collective and adjust some pedals. So back to my story. That was a very valuable lesson from a 4000 hour Robinson pilot when I was new. And he just said, you know, we worked through it and then I felt better and went back to teaching autos. But we broke it down and he said, can you always do quick stops first? And I met a guy 20 years ago that had a handwriting the Rotorcraft flying handbook or the helicopter flying handbook. And he was like, Kenny, as a new CFI you should always teach quick stops before doing autos. It's great advice. So warning, caution lights are out, gauge is green, timers running. I'm looking for traffic over there. I don't see anybody, don't hear anybody. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna go around and do a nice setup. Because any maneuver, a good setup maneuver will probably be good dinner. It's sloppy, it's probably gonna be sloppy. So I'm gonna go around, set it up a little above 70. I want to be about 500 AGL I want to be in trim, no rate of descent. And count it off. 1, 2, 3, enter. So right now I'm climbing to my 300 AGL. Before I start my turn, I want to get stabilized on my downwind. I got 70, I got zero rated ascent. I need to climb up another hundred feet. So we're going to keep flying along here. My raise, a little bit of collective. Just because I would like to get to 500 AGL. And again, I'll set the maneuver up nice. Set it up nice. It'll be nice. Set it up sloppy. It will be sloppy. That's how it works. So we are helicopter line ground school. We have our link below for our website. Check out all our memberships. Helicopterground.com Private pilot, commercial pilot, instrument pilot, and certified flight instructor. And then we have the professional pilot. Like I said, two of the three guys coming are pro pilot members.
Okay?
So let's just get in the mindset of a hotter rotation. I don't see anybody. Let me make a radio call. Warsaw traffic, helicopter 181Mike Bravo, left downwind for Runway 18, Warsaw. So again, I've heard my examiner that we've used for 22 years, the one that's going to be doing the check rights for these guys in the Robinson, I've heard him say it over the years, for 20 years, if it takes you 10 minutes to get set up for an auto, take 10 minutes to get set up for an auto, he'd rather you take the time, get set up nice and execute a nice auto. And people argue all the time. They go, well, that's not real world. Well, no, but you have to train to a standard. So, yes, you want to go out with your instructor and do more real world scenarios, different airspeeds and altitudes, but for training, we need a standard. All right, there's our clutch light should go out. Yep, went out almost right away. There's 70 on the speed. I'm gonna pull up. Just a hair collective overshot my Runway just a little bit, but that's okay. So I'm gonna enter with the 18. The number's 1 8. A little bit above the top of the dash. So we got our 70, we got 450. I'm gonna go with it because we're at zero. We're in trim. I'm liking it. So let's just see how far we can judge after this one. What's the wind doing? So we're gonna go 1, 2, 3. Enter Down Collective right pedal half cyclic, roll up the throttle. All right, we got 70 on the speed. Looking good, looking good. Get it in trim. Rpm's looking nice. I'm gonna raise just a hair. Keep that 70.
Ooh.
We're gonna be pretty close to the 1.8. Looking good, looking good. There comes treetop. Start a gentle flare as I get closer. Make it a bigger flare. Bigger flare, bigger flare. Race collective roll, throttle in and I like that one. Not bad at all.
Awesome. Auto rotations, do you love them or do you hate them? I know that many people love autos and just think it's the coolest thing ever. There's a lot of people that are training to become a pilot or already pilots and they don't really like auto rotations. And what I want to relay to you is some people are surprised when they talk to me about it. And I go, you know, honestly, I got scared in the beginning when I was a brand new cfi almost, you know, lost my life teaching in auto. And it took me to probably 500 hours of flight time before I finally actually started getting comfortable for teaching auto rotations. So if you are one of those people that you're just a little bit squeamish about it, you don't necessarily like it. Know that with more practice and more time, it will get easier. It's a necessary maneuver that you have to learn to pass the practical test to become a pilot. And in the event the engine ever fails, you need to know what to do. Your instincts will kick in and you'll go back to your training and if it ever happens to you, you'll know what to do. So if, if you're nervous about them, don't be. Learn as much as you can. Be as knowledgeable as you can. Make sure you're doing some good ground with your instructor on the autos and know that the more you do them, the more, the better off you're going to get. So this is the last day of the Hogs 12 year sale and we got a special for two Pro Pilot memberships and these have to be purchased. When does the. I guess by midnight. By midnight tonight. If you've been on the fence about a pro pilot, you've probably seen me wearing these in the videos. I bought these for us. We have not sold these. They have not been open to the public. This is a really, really nice jacket. I just recently started wearing the Live to fly another day hoodie because this thing is so warm and the weather's warming up here now to where I put this thing on. And pretty soon you're going wow. So this is a warm coat. It's not just a little light windbreaker. This thing is a high quality. We spent some decent money on these. A very nice, more like you could call it almost a business dress jacket. Really, really nice. We have one large and we have one extra large. And that's it. I was saving these for a special occasion and I decided, you know what, it's too nice of a jacket to be laying over there in a box. Let's give away two with ProPilot membership. And after you purchase, Heather will reach out to you. She'll keep track. There's one large in one extra large. That's all we got. So that's what you're shooting for when you sign up for ProPilot. So I'll lace over here, let the girls fold that back up because I can't fold to save my rear end. Twelve years online, this is it. This is the last day. I don't know what to tell you other than we're grateful that you're here. Grateful you're still watching this video. We wouldn't be here without you, our audience. And this is a YouTube video. And YouTube has been our a number one. The majority of why we're alive and we're here is through YouTube, whether you just consume our free content. Thank you. You've become a member to one of our programs. Thank you. You've made a click. You've clicked like you've clicked dislike. You made a comment down below. You came back, came back and watched the video. You are why we're here and why we been able to do this cool thing called HOGS for the last 12 years. So the big sale ends tonight. Reach out TO Hogs Customer Service 574-767-1797 with any last minute questions and something else kind of cool. Ask Hogs.com we have this new clone, we call it Kenny's clone. Has 12 years of my knowledge uploaded into it. And it can answer your questions better than I can and it speaks better than I can. Doesn't stutter. Well, maybe it does. I don't know. But it's a. It's a pretty neat deal. Scary and cool all at the same time. Something fun to just kind of mess around with, get your questions answered. You can ask it basically anything about helicopter training and you're probably going to 95 chance of getting a really good solid answer. As it gets smarter with time, it gets better. Once in a while, it'll say something a little bit silly or off that might not be 100%, but the information in general is pretty darn dead on, and we've been really super impressed with it. So ask hogs.com go find helicopterground.com somewhere on the video, sign up and we'll see you on the inside. Peace out.
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