Class Bravo Airspace & HOGS Member Check Ride Updates

Yo, walking this one over for Heather to finish as I'm tearing it apart. Finish this end of the Hogs Wall of Fame.

Pretty cool. This one filled up fast.

It did. We have added a bunch of pictures just in the last couple weeks. Today she's posted eight. This is the helicopter online ground school wall of fame. The other day on Facebook, some guy said, oh, what'd they pay that guy for his picture and his testimonial? And I went, ha, have you seen our Hogs Wall of Fame? You think we're paying for every one of those?

Not.

Alright, Heather, we're gonna finish this in before we do the Class Bravo.

Here.

All right, very nice. So we're going to roll the Class Bravo and then we'll be back. Heather's going to move over and we're going to start a new panel down there. So enjoy the Class Bravo from our operations manager, Brian Rutledge. Let's roll that now.

This presentation is going to be on class B airspace, Class Bravo airspace. As a pilot, it's very, very important that you understand how to operate within various airspaces, classes of airspace. You've already learned about, you know, what's uncontrolled and controlled airspace. Kenny has done a video on the basics of what class B airspace, Class Charity airspace, and Class Delta airspace. Looks like this is going to go a little bit deeper into more of the requirements that you have to be aware of. We're going to get started. So what is. Well, it's airspace to protect some of the busiest airports in the world. This is the biggest area, concentration of jetliners, smaller jets, you name it. I mean, corporate flying, small, private pilots coming in and out with their smaller airplanes. I mean, you get a big congestion of a variety of aircraft flying in Class Bravo airspace. Air traffic control itself constantly monitors and provides separation for all flights in this airspace that is very different from class Charlie or class Delta airspace where airports are located. In Class Bravo, as a VFR pilot, you will be provided separation throughout the entire flight as long as you're within Class Bravo airspace. Air traffic control also controls everything that a pilot does within Class Bravo airspace. When you see Class Bravo here, Class Bravo airspace, you need to think big, busy and blue. So there you go. This is just a representation of Class Bravo airspace. A lot of people do like to say that it mimics an upside down wedding cake and it does. It's got multiple layers. Other airspace, such as class Charlie, class Delta, you're not going to see the layers like this. So class Bravo, big busy and blue Blue is just the color on your VFR sectional chart. So how are you going to identify Class Bravo on the VFR sectional chart? So we're going to get into that and we're going to cover the thick blue line. I'm going to show you several different Class Bravo airspace locations and show you the differences. The shapes are going to be different just due to other airspace in the area, mountainous terrain, or nearby airports. So the Class Bravo airspace will be tailored to what's around it. Additionally, there's going to be the magenta ring surrounding it. I'll show you what that is here. Shortly, we're going to go on foreflight and look at all this. This is the mode C veil, and it's located 30 nautical miles from the primary airport. So let's go ahead and switch over to foreflight. So here in the center of your screen, I'm going to highlight the airspace and bring out the color a little bolder. So there you go. This is Chicago o'. Hare. This is one of the examples Kenny likes to use. You can see the blue circular areas. And off to the left side of that, you'll see where the circle kind of jets out and you've got like this long rectangular section. Again, depending on the, the location of the airport and other airports is going to determine how they. They build the airspace. Now, you'll also notice that outside of the outermost blue ring is the magenta ring that we talked about. This is the Mode C veil. Let me zoom in here for you. So right here in the middle of your, you see Mode Cvail. So that is located 30 nautical miles typically from the primary Class Bravo airport. How do we know that it's 30 nautical miles here? I'm going to go ahead and measure it on the screen for you. So if I drag out to the magenta ring and to the center of the airport, you can see that we're sitting right at 30 nautical miles. Okay, so. And that goes all the way around the entire. The entire airport. Now, I said that some of the Class Bravo airspaces shaped a little differently. So let's move over to the San Francisco area. Again, only the dark blue outlined areas. See, that one's not really shaped circular. It's got some rough edges to it, some turns, more smaller sections within it. Because there are a lot of airports around San Francisco, Oakland, Hayward, San Jose. There's a lot of airports in there that, that offer instrument approaches. So that's why this one is designed that way. We'll move over to another one. Let's Go down to Southern California and you'll see Los Angeles. Again, the blue outlined areas in the center, not circular, a lot of hard, sharp edges. Again, just due to the way the instrument approaches and all the various airports that are around. That's how they decided to build Class Bravo in this area. Then we'll look at one more. Let's go over to. We'll look at Las Vegas. Here we go. Las Vegas. More in line with the way Chicago o' Hare is somewhat circular. You'll notice on the left side that Class Bravo is cut off. It does not continue around. That's just due to the mountainous terrain. So again, varying shapes of Class Bravo due to other airspace in the area, mountainous terrain and nearby airports. So how do we identify the vertical limits in Class Bravo? We've identified the. We'll call it the horizontal limits. That's what all the dark blue lines are and how they're cordoned off into areas. That's going to be your horizontal limits. But what about the vertical limits here? We'll just stay here at Las Vegas and we'll go in into what these numbers mean. In each one of these different sections of the Class Bravo airspace where it's cordoned off. So the vertical limit itself, there's going to be two sets of bold blue numbers. The top number is your ceiling and it is in hundreds of feet. And the bottom number is going to be your floor of that airspace. Of Class Bravo airspace, it will also be in hundreds of feet msl. Another one that you'll see is sfc, and that indicates Class Bravo begins at the surface. You're going to see that right next to the primary airport. So as we zoom in, you will see SFC with 100 over it. That is telling you that Class Bravo starts at the surface and goes up to and includes 10,000ft MSL. So now let's move out just a little bit. Let's go to the left and I'll highlight it with my marker here. This is telling you this. In this area, the floor of Class Bravo begins at 4,000ft and extends up to and including 10,000ft MSL. One more to the left, you're going to see 55. So that's 5,500ft is where Class Bravo begins. It goes up to and includes 10,000ft MSL. So all throughout the Class Bravo, you're gonna see this set of two numbers. One's gonna be the floor, one's gonna be the ceiling, and it is in hundreds of feet msl. What is that mode? Cval. We were talking about. We'll give you a little bit more detail on that. So it is not part of Class Bravo. So this magenta ring that says Mode C veil right here goes all the way around the airport or around the Class Bravo here. It is not part of Class Bravo. However, it requires that when you're operating within 30 nautical miles of the primary Class Bravo airport, you have to have a couple things. One of those is altitude encoding transponder. So a transponder in your aircraft that can put out altitude information and you have to have ADS B out, automatic dependent surveillance broadcast. And it has to be out from your aircraft so that ATC can see your speed, your location and your altitude. Other aircraft that have ADS B in can also see that information. Now we have a separate video that covers all of ADS B. What it is, why we have it. But think of it this way. It is an added layer of protection for air traffic control and other aircraft to see you and for you to be able to see them if you have ADS B in. But the big thing is everybody has to have ads B out. If you're operating within 30 nautical miles of a Class Bravo airport from the surface up to 10,000ft, that's where you're going to need these two items. The mode V. Like I just said, Mode C veil, it does extend from the surface to 10,000ft. Now, what are your requirements to enter Class Bravo airspace? First and foremost, the most important, you must hear the words cleared to enter class B airspace or you'll hear clear to enter Class Bravo airspace. If you don't hear that, maybe you hear standby. So you've requested to enter Class Bravo airspace and you hear standby or you hear something other than cleared to enter Class Bravo airspace, do not enter that airspace. You will violate the airspace. Very important. Cleared to enter Class Bravo airspace. What equipment do you need? You have to have a two way radio. It's the only way you can request the enter. It's the only way they can tell you that you're cleared to enter. And then you have to maintain radio communication with air traffic control the entire time. Remember, they're going to provide you with traffic separation which you're not going to find as a VFR pilot. A lot of the times in Class Charlie or Class Delta because they're only required to provide separation for IFR traffic, traffic that's flying on instrument flight rules only. But in Class Bravo they provide it for all aircraft. So you got to have a two way radio, you have to have a Mode C or Mode S altitude encoding transponder. We talked a little bit about that. The same thing for in the Mode C veil. And you have to have ADS B out visibility and cloud clearances. So there are some things that you have to be aware of here. You have to have at a minimum three statute miles of visibility, but you can remain clear of clouds day or night. Now, what is clear of clouds, you could fly right up to the cloud, but don't touch it. That's clear of clouds. Now, a prudent pilot would want to have much more distance from a cloud if possible. But when you're in Class Bravo, you got to remember they're providing traffic separation for all aircraft within the Bravo area. That's why sometimes a VFR pilot is told not to enter that. They can't. They can't handle you right now, so they won't even let you in. But if they let you in, they have to provide that traffic separation. So because of that, you have an extra set of eyes that's looking out for you. That's the other reason you have to have the ADS B out all aircraft so they can see every single aircraft on their radar screen, that is that they're in charge of. That's inside that Class Bravo. So visibility three miles and clear of clouds. Now, we still have to remember about basic VFR even when we're operating in Class Bravo. So in Class Bravo, air that starts at the surface, you as a VFR pilot can fly when the ceiling. Cannot fly. I'm sorry, cannot fly when the ceiling is less than 1,000ft AGL or visibility is less than 3 statute miles. That is basic VFR. So if you're trying to depart from Class Bravo and the ceiling is less than 1,000ft or the visibility is less than 3 statute miles, then you can't fly. However, they do have special vfr. And we talk about this in other video, what special VFR is. Anytime the basic VFR weather minimums are below, you can request special VFR in Class Bravo. However, there's no guarantee you're going to get it. So if instrument approaches are being used at the airport where you want to either get special VFR into or out of, you're probably not going to get it. Now, there is a list in the FAR AIM manual that specifically says airplanes are not allowed special vfr. And it's a long list of airports. Now, that's airplanes, but that's how serious it is. They don't have the time to allow somebody to fly in when basic VFR weather minimums are not being met and it's shrinking the see and avoid opportunity. So the lower the ceiling and the smaller the visibility or the shorter the visibility, the harder it's going to be for aircraft to see and avoid. Now, there are some speed restrictions. Now, as a helicopter pilot flying all the helicopters I've flown, I would never even come close to making it into airspace at these speeds. However, you need to know that other aircraft, airplanes in particular, what are they allowed to do? So if they are, if you are below 10,000ft MSL, the speed restriction is 250 knots or less below 10,000ft. So the jets and all those, they're slowing down to below 250 knots or less if they are below Class Bravo. So remember we told you there's a floor of Class bravo, say that's 4,000ft, or say it's 6,000ft and the ceiling is 10,000ft. When you're below that 6,000, or an aircraft is below that, they're restricted to 200 knots or less. Why? Because it's very, very constricted with so much activity, aircraft activity, flying going on, that in order for people to see and avoid other traffic, they need to slow these faster airplanes down. Now, up at the flight levels above 18,000ft, you get jets flying 300, 400 knots. Well, they can't do that below Class bravo or below 10,000ft. They have to be slowed down so that they can see and avoid other aircraft and other aircraft can see and avoid them. Student pilots in Class Bravo only allowed in certain Class Bravo airspace locations, not all of them. And if it's an airport in Class Bravo airspace and you're in training and they do allow it, then your instructor has to train you in the operation and the requirements to be in Class Bravo airspace must take you and physically fly with you in Class Bravo. You then must have an endorsement from that instructor that allows you to fly into Class Bravo airspace as a student pilot. There is a long list of airports that do not permit solo students or sport pilots or recreational pilots. And that's in appendix D to Part 91, Section 4. And if you're curious what that is, let me just pull it up here real quick for you, show you where we find it. So if you go to part 91, look on the left side of the screen, part 91, go all the way to the very end of Part 91, and you'll see Appendix D to Part 91, and we'll go to number four. So it says locations at which solo, student, sport or recreational Pilot activity is not permitted. You got all these, these airports, Atlanta, Georgia, Boston, Joint base Andrews, Chicago, O', Hare, Dallas, Fort Worth, Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, John F. Kennedy, LaGuardia, San Francisco, and Ronald Reagan National Airport. So there's a long list of those that student pilots are not allowed to fly in. That sums up what you need to know about Class Bravo airspace. The big, big takeaways from this, you must hear the words cleared to enter Class Bravo. If you do not hear those words, do not enter, you will violate the airspace. Become proficient with all of the airspaces. You need to understand these not only for your written test, but for your checkride and for your oral examination. During your checkride, but once you become a private pilot, you really need to understand what you can and can't do in different airspaces. And so we hope that you will take the information that you learned here. Apply it. We will see you in the next video.

All right, now we're ready for Heather's picture on the other end of the Hogs Wall of Fame. And here we go. And there we go on the next panel. So do us a favor, subscribe to the channel for more great helicopter content. I'm gonna roll the camera by real quick of everybody she put up today because we want to make sure we acknowledge everybody when they do send in their picture. So subscribe the channel, click the bell, leave us a comment below and you can go check out helicopter land ground school@helopterground.com link below this video. 100%, no hassle, 30 day money back guarantee on any course.

Wave bye Christmas 35.

Yeah, so if you're catching on, I forgot, Christmas special off of any membership. 35% off if you hung around at the end of this video. There you go. Good till January 1, 20, 21. So if you're clear here at the end, after that point, you'll have to wait for the discount at March for our big nine year celebration. So, yeah, Xmas 35, all caps, no spaces, that's 35% off until December 31st at midnight 11:59pm actually is when I set it. And that's 35% off any membership. And normally we only give that for the first month on the monthly, but we did something special on this one. This 35% lasts as long as you keep that membership. You won't be able to use that code and come back. But if you sign up before the 31st with Xmas 35 on, say, private pilot monthly, you save 35% for as long as you keep that membership. So we threw that in as an extra. We don't normally do that. We've always just done give you a discount in the first month. But this is a running discount month to month. So enter that code in the coupon box during checkout@helopterground.com when you click Apply, it shows you what you'll pay per month. You can keep it as long as you like. You can cancel anytime and you can unsubscribe yourself anytime. Just go to Settings, upper right hand corner. Depending on what device you're on, go to Settings, click the credit card and you cancel the payment. Or if you sign with PayPal, you click PayPal takes you to your PayPal account and you go in there and find recurring accounts and find the one you want to cancel, which would be Helicopter one, ground school. Click that and that's how you unsubscribe anytime you like. So one last shot for the Hogs Wall of fame.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

See you in the next video because we're weird.

Okay?