In this instructional video, helicopter instructor Kenny Keller examines complacency as the second element of the aviation "Dirty Dozen" human‑factor checklist originally created by Gordon DuPont. He defines complacency as the tendency to assume safety when repeatedly performing the same tasks, and explains how it leads pilots to rush or skip critical pre‑flight and hover‑pre‑takeoff checks, ignore subtle changes in aircraft behavior, and abandon checklists. Keller shares personal anecdotes from his 30‑year career, including a costly overspeed incident that resulted in a $20,000 loss because a checklist was not restarted after errors. He emphasizes the importance of a thorough pre‑flight inspection—using a flashlight, climbing the R44’s rotor mast, and performing a disciplined hover‑pre‑takeoff check—regardless of familiarity with the aircraft. Keller also discusses his rigorous maintenance approach, such as early 100‑hour inspections, to keep the R44 in top condition. Throughout, he stresses that even experienced pilots must return to basics, use checklists every time, and adopt a slow, methodical operating style to avoid the hidden danger of complacency. The video concludes with a call for viewer engagement and channel subscription.
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One of the most dangerous things a helicopter pilot can say is, "I've done this a thousand times." Complacency kills helicopter pilots. Complacency. This is number 2 in this series of videos that we're doing. And again, I want to give credit to the original Dirty Dozen concept created in 1993 by Gordon DuPont, a human factors specialist with the Transport Canada Civil Aviation. So these 12 are still used widely in aviation, and I'm just going to go through and use my 30 years of experience to kind of just put my take on some of these things. It may not be exactly the way it was originally intended, but I'm just giving you my food for thought. And we'd love to hear from you down below. Anything regarding these 12 topics, we'd love to put you— love to have you put a comment down below. So, complacency occurs when people do the same thing over and over again and just assume things will always be fine. Pilots become very comfortable with a particular aircraft, airport, or routine operation that they do all the time. Some examples include rushed or incomplete preflights, assuming weather or power margins are fine, ignoring subtle changes in vibration or sound, skipping checklist item because the task feels routine. Helicopters demand constant attention to detail even during familiar flights. I know that when I got started, I heard a comment from someone that said, the more a pilot gets comfortable with an aircraft, the less he preflights. And I'm going to be transparent. I think over the years, there's been times where I got a little lax. I have fallen into that trap myself. And now at this point in my career, I'm more back to basics. I'm more about the proper preflight every single time, taking the extra time to do the proper preflight because I get it. When you get comfortable with aircraft, especially like our R44 that's down getting 100-hour right now. It's been a great aircraft for over 500 hours. And I spend the money, the time, the effort to make sure the maintenance is done. We don't like anything broken on the aircraft. I don't want anything at any time that's not working. If something is wrong with it, we want it fixed immediately. And we even go overboard with maintenance. It's like the 100-hour I'm doing. I did it early so that we can get ready for a bunch of flying this month. I go the extra effort to make sure our aircraft is 100%. But even though I do that, a lot of times I go to pre-flight it myself and I'll be like, it's tempting just to give it a quick look over and go, ah, it's fine, push it out. But I force myself to grab the flashlight, go through step by step, actually climb up on the side of the helicopter, grab a hold of the rotor system. Recently, we had a CFI applicant here and he was— I climbed up on the side to reach up the rotor mast. And he's like, you're the first person I've actually seen that climbs up on the R44 and checks the rotor head. And I'm like, so the school you come from, nobody does that? And he's like, no, nobody. And I'm like, well, not a proper preflight then, is it? So again, I understand how this can happen. So I want to point out, that's one of the big ones, is doing a preflight, a proper preflight every single time. If you're new to this, just take this as something to be careful of. And those of you who have been flying a while, some of you know that this happens at times. So, this is just one thought of many on this topic. Another one I want to mention, helicopter pre-takeoff checks. We know there are a lot of pilots that don't use a hover pre-takeoff check. Where I come from and the flying that I do, hover pre-takeoff checks are mandatory. You want to do them every single time before you take off. The examiner that we use expects that. That's just what we do in this neck of the woods. Hover pre-takeoff check before every single takeoff. And I was just discussing this with our last applicant last week that was here for a commercial add-on. And we were talking about this and it came up in conversation. And it was a good conversation because He made the comment about, you ever notice that sometimes you'll do a hover pre-takeoff check, but you're just kind of going through the motions and maybe you really didn't look at everything as you've stated. And I thought, you know, I've never really openly discussed that with anybody, but I'm guilty of that where you get in a repetition, you do it over and over, and sometimes you're just going, warning, caution lights are out, gauges in the green, timer's running, we're out of the yellow. Temperatures and pressures are good. It's easy to even just kind of say that and even glance over them without really physically looking at each one of them and making sure that they are exactly where they need to be. We'll take this discussion a little bit farther. A lot of times on maybe repeated flights throughout the day, well, I did that check before. Well, I did that last time. And people have a tendency to skip things on a startup because they've already done it. And here's what I have found firsthand. Anytime we deviate from the checklist, we're asking for trouble. And I have another perfect example on this one that cost the business here about $20,000. When I, in my first year of operating the R44, I did a video on this where we had an overspeed. And basically I was doing a third flight with a helicopter add-on guy. And he was a little rough on the controls, and he knew that. And during the startup that day, he was having a lot of trouble. And I even commented and said, next flight, I'm going to have you use a kneeboard and try to get you a little more organized where you can try to keep better track of your checklist instead of setting it down and picking it up and then keep losing your place. So I'm taking full responsibility here. I knew that I should have just went, you know what? We're halfway through the checklist. We're making mistakes. Let's just shut it off. Let's start over. From square one. We didn't. And I'm not going to bore you with the whole story here because I've talked about it before in videos. Well, we ended up having an overspeed, and the overspeed happened because we didn't go back and start over. We were making too many mistakes on the checklist. So skipping things on a checklist is never a good idea. And then here's another one. A lot of times people will get comfortable in aircraft, so they stop using a checklist. And I'll be transparent on this one. Over the years, there's been a couple times that I've tried it just because I was flying the same aircraft over and over and over. And even when you do it without a checklist, half the time you still will forget something. Even though you've done it 1,000 times, you will still forget things. I've had those experiences. So now, an example of the R44 we have, we put over 500 hours on this thing. And every time I get in it, I pull out the checklist and I go through it step by step by step. It doesn't matter how many times a day I fly it or whether I flew it yesterday, I flew it a week ago. I use that checklist every single time. And I know that there are a lot of people that don't use a checklist. And I think that's a bad thing. So, this is a really big topic. I'd love to see you put some comments down below on this particular one on complacency. You know, I preach all the time. Even just going in and out of the hangar, how many times somebody's been hurt, something's been damaged, you know, getting fuel, just getting ready to go, moving in and out of the hangar alone, a lot of things happen, which in turn is why we try to operate with the idea of slow, smooth, methodical. Every single thing that we do. Anytime that you start rushing or you start skipping things on a checklist, You're definitely asking for trouble. So hey, do us a favor and subscribe to the channel. I'm trying to get to 50,000 subscribers. We're almost there. I'm like just over 200 away. We're almost to 48,000 as of today. Help us get there just as a personal favor to me. I'm not going to win anything. I don't get a button. There's nothing going to happen other than I just think it's cool. I've been working at this for 15 years. Right now is our 14-year online celebration in March of 2026. And I just want to hit the 50,000 just because it sounds cool and I can go, finally, took me 15 years to get to 50,000 subscribers. So do us a favor, subscribe the channel, click the bell, give us a like on this video, and leave us a comment down below, and we'll see you in the next video for the next topic. Peace out.
