Kenny Keller warns helicopter pilots to always close and secure panels, doors, and cowling before stepping away, even for a moment. He shares stories of a door nearly torn off by rotor wash, an unsecured cowling that led to a fatal crash, and a tower call about a flapping cowling in the wind.
You want to know what really drives me absolutely 100% freaking crazy? I'm going to show you something like this and this and this and this. And somebody's out here pre flighting doing their thing. Oh, and Joe comes in, oh, hi Joe. And they go over here and they bullshit for 10 minutes or oh, I got to go to the bathroom, oh, I got to go answer my phone. Whatever the case is, when I walk in, if the helicopter looks like that and there's nobody standing there, I go freaking nuts. Drives me absolutely crazy. Here's a resource for a whole bunch of freebies. This is our helicopter, Private Pilot 101. Go down below for a free PDF and you can also order the paperback or the Kindle version on Amazon. Link below. So as a student place I'm flying instructor, name was Brad and again I'm a student. He's like, hey Kenny, when you're pre flighting, always shut whatever it is you have open. Shut it when you get done. Even if you're only gonna, you're gonna come back in a minute, you're gonna walk over and grab a tool or you're gonna go to the bathroom or whatever. You open a door, do what you got to do and when you're done, close it. Sending over here, you're going to check in here and you're going to look at what you're going to look at when you're done, even though you, oh, I need my flashlight, put it back, snap it in. He taught me you just want to always be in the habit of anytime you're going to walk away from a panel, close it now. I'm not talking about if you're a mechanic and you're doing maintenance and the helicopters in the maintenance shop, that's different. I'm talking about every day student training. Whether you're going for private or you're even coming, let's say here for a commercial or a cfi. Drives me insane when they open up all the panels and they just go walk around and doing whatever. Well, there's good reason for that. So you could argue, oh well, there's nothing wrong with doing that inside in the hanger because it was inside out of the wind. That's not the point. If you're trained and you get in the good habit of always securing everything back up, it's a good habit all the way around. Because when you're outside, the problem is you have things open, you're doing different stuff. A door's open, things start flopping in the wind. Number one One of the first times that happened to me where I made a mistake flying a Jet Ranger and I'm excited. I finally got my job flying a turbine aircraft. Doors open on the Jet Ranger. I'm doing something. I didn't close it as I walked away. I'm still right there. But a Sikorsky comes in and lands beside us. Damn near rips the door off the frickin Jet Ranger. Luckily it wasn't damaged, but you know, I had to grab it, get it secured. And then there's multitudes of other problems. Like in ems, they talked about how a cowling came loose, it wasn't secured. When it flew up, it actually pulled off the helicopter window rotor blade and there was a fatal accident over it. I took off once in an instrument, one of my first jobs. And the tower's like, hey, Three Bravo Lima, you're one of your cowling doors is flopping in the wind, right? Had to go land and secure it. Point is if you're always making sure you open this up, you got to do something here. Oh, I'm gonna go run back inside and check something. It's secured. Instead of, oh, I gotta go check weather. And you go walking off. It doesn't look good, it looks sloppy. And then again there's the problem of the wind. Whether it's another helicopter landing or a gust of wind comes by. Multitude of reasons why it's a good habit to get in that you're always latching whatever it is, even if you're just walking back to the tail and you're going to come back. Does it take that long? No, you're keeping everything nice and secure at all times. Checking oil. Oh, I forgot a rag. I got to go back and get my rag. Boom, walk in, get my rag, come back. So there's a tip for you and here's the resource for a whole bunch of freebies. This is our helicopter Private Pilot 101. Go down below for a free PDF and you can also order the paperback or the Kindle version on Amazon. Link below. Come back tomorrow for the next video. Peace out.
When you feel the pressure to fly, but know the right decision is to stay on the ground. Hit the hogs. No, go and live to fly another day. Helicopter ground.
I can't stand it when people walk away from helicopter. Oh, about everybody. Half the people I know do it. Just leave the open, walking around, doing whatever.
