Kenny Keller (HelicopterGround.com) presents Day #299 in a daily helicopter training tip series focused on autorotation technique and study resources. The core flying tip: when practicing 180° autorotations, always "enter abeam your spot" (start the turn when abeam the intended touchdown spot and adjust turn rate for wind rather than altering the entry point). Keller promotes a spiral-bound Private Pilot Study Guide by Brian Rutledge (described as >80 pages and >400 questions) used by students and a community college program; he notes that as of August 2023 training references are still based on the PTS.
Chapters
You recording? Pop it like it's hot. 290 Day 299 and I have a positive attitude. Live to fly another day. Helicopterground.com Day 299 copy with Kenny. Hey, we're bringing you some tips daily about stuff we're seeing out training our customers. Our HOGS members have been traveling up here to fly and do their final approach courses. Just bringing up things that I've been seeing all along as a cfi. But they're fresh because we're out there banging out these checkrides and everybody usually has some of the same problems. And we're going to show you a clip on the helicopter, what I'm talking about here in just a minute. But first, the private pilot study guide. There's a link for this down below. I got to Remember now, over 400 questions, over 80 pages put together by Brian Rutledge. The people that have members that have used this book, love it. We've had some examiners make comments. They're using our training down at Madisonville Community College in Madisonville, Kentucky. HOGS courses are their official curriculum for their private pilot, commercial pilot, instrumental pilot, and certified flight instructor. They're using our courses in their college as their main ground. And they're using our quizzes and our FAA written test prep in their permanent college record. In the FAA written test that's also available for wings credit is their final exam for each semester, whether it's private, commercial, CFI instrument. And one of their instructors down there, she was like, oh, my God, I gotta look at that thing. Cause we sent them a copy and they were like, we freaking love this. And we've had some examiners make comments on it as well. Brian Relish put this together. Over 400 questions you could possibly be asked. And we have people using it for commercial instrument and CFI as well. Because every examiner's gonna always cover all that stuff with you. Every check ride, they're still gonna say, what do you have to have on you to be current? What do you have to do to fly at night? They're still gonna cover that stuff. Even on a 135 Checkride EMS, they would ask that stuff. So anyway, I'll just roll the clip. All right, so I want to start my countdown. 3, 2, 1. Before I get parallel to 7 or a beam, 2, 7. So that when I enter, I'm actually entering a beam to seven. Not before, not after. So we're getting ready, looking outside, looking back at my instruments. I'm going to go 1, 2, 3, enter. So the point of the story is all of my really good stuff I've stolen from somebody else. Everything that I'm teaching and all these little tricks of the trade and things I show you in these videos. I'd love to take credit for all of them, but I was flying with somebody other day and I said, you know, all my best stuff I got from somebody else. And, and this was a fellow instructor and he said, yeah, me too. Right. So you fly with different people around the country, different aircraft, you fly with different people and you pick up things that you like or you don't like. And I saw a video that inspired this whole train of thought right here. When I was a brand new cfi, I watched a video from one of the guys at Bell. I don't remember his name, but he talked about how people struggle with the 180s, 180 autos and a lot of time the problem is they're trying to enter. Like instead of doing just to beam your spot every time and adjust in your turn, they'll go, oh, well, I'm going to. Because of the wind, I'm going to enter early. Or because of the wind, I'm going to enter past my spot. And he said, don't do that. Always, always enter a beam, your spot. And let's say you're practicing at an airport and you're going to use 2, 7. Always enter at the same spot so that you're coming up, you know that's your spot. Start your countdown. 3, 2, 1, enter. When you're a beam. Because if you start counting, obviously a beam, then you're going past your spot. So be prepared. Get everything nice. Like we talked about yesterday in 298. Get everything nice. Take your time, get set up. You have a nice setup going. You're watching your numbers and you go, three, two, one, enter. Start your turn. Adjust your turn for the day. His thinking was it's easier to adjust your turn for the day than it is to try to guess. I'm going to enter early, I'm going to enter late. And I've been seeing that in the last four checkrides we've done. These guys have struggled with that a little bit for the most part. And I've said, hey, just try this, right? And again, I love to take credit for it, but I learned it from a guy at Bell. Always make your entry spot for your 180 the same place to enter. Adjust your turn accordingly for the day to make your spot. I think it's a great little tip I think you should try it. As with most of our tips, some of these things might work for you. Maybe they don't, but I've adopted that. I like it and I think it is perfecto. Subscribe for Day 300 because we're going to give you another auto rotation tip. Still along the same lines, what we're talking about. But you know what, when people come up here, they're coming up here with their requirements done and they're putting a checkride together or we're helping them put a checkride together and it always turns out when they go, oh wow, hey, you know, I show them a few things like that. It's not like we work some great magic. It's just usually somebody, if you just show them a little trick, a little different way to look at something, they'll go, oh, hey, wow, that's kind of cool. I think I want to adopt that. So most of the times when you have a problem, usually we can figure those out for you pretty quick. So come back tomorrow, subscribe so you can come back for day 300. Another auto rotation tip. Don't forget about the private pilot study guide right here. Guaranteed. And of course like everything, we have money back guarantee, we've sold hundreds of them and I think we might have had one or two people return them, which, you know, any product and service that happens, you won't be disappointed. And here's what Brian and I decided to do. We made it in a spiral bound notebook. The reason is we want you to be able to open it up on a flat table. Sometimes when you're working through like written test prep, you're using a question bank out of a book and then you have to open another book to go look at images and you're fighting the binded part of the book, right? So we built this spiral bound flat out on the table and you have all the sections of the PTs, certificates and documents, aerodynamics, on and on and on. Each chapter has a series of questions for you to answer with spaces provided to write in your answer. Then in that same chapter it's duplicated with the correct answer. The idea is you sit down at a table, you open this dude up, you go through a chapter, write in your answer and then you can go check it out. How close is your answer to what we have in their answer for you? I'm telling you this thing is badass. And the people that have used it go, it's a monster. And Brian Rutledge again, I'm going to give Brian credit for this Brian went through the practical test standards. On a note, our examiner says we're still a ways away from the ACS. Just so you know, as of August 2023, everything's based on the PTS. Brian is the most detail oriented pilot I've ever met. Or at least one of them. He spent three months building this and putting this together. We'll put a link down below and you can grab it. All right. Keep a positive attitude. Come back for day 300. Peace out. Drop it. Lucky rule. Live to fly another day. Helicopterground. Com.
