Kenny and Chris break down helicopter pilot training, arguing that 75% is knowledge work and 25% flying. They stress committing to self-study with apps and practice exams before taking the FAA test, and say modern online resources make passing achievable if you actually put in the work.
Questions this video answers
January 19, 2021.
They state roughly 75% groundwork (knowledge/study) and 25% flying.
They mention it costs $150 to take the test.
About 450 questions.
He aimed to be scoring about 80% or better on practice exams before taking the test.
Chapters
Foreign. Welcome to day number six, Hogs Daily Flight brief. Flight brief. This is one that Chris came up with this morning. He said, you know what a good question is, talking about commitment to study. And to elaborate what he meant, he said, you know, people think, oh, just gonna go fly the helicopter. There's so much more to getting a helicopter license than just flying the aircraft. I've talked about this a thousand times in 10 years, in 900 videos. Give me your take on that, Chris.
So I think it's part of, I think it's part of how enthused you are, how bad you really want to fly. For me, I wanted to fly since I was a kid. You know, I saw my dad flying and that's what got me the helicopter bug. So I wanted to know everything I could possibly know about flying. Right? So I, during my training, I read, you know, I would read the chapters, I would watch videos, I would, you know, whatever, whatever. I could read books, you know, read the, you know, the private pilot knowledge. But whatever it took, you know.
And he was a good student too, by the way. He's not, he's not, he's not bibbing you.
Well, thank you, but I, you know, you do have those people too that be like, you know, they never really thought about flying until one day they drove past the airport, like, oh, that'd be kind of cool. Maybe I'll check it out.
Right.
And you know, no offense to those guys, you know, they end up being good pilots. But a lot of times people just see the glory of flying and they don't see the back part of it where, hey, I need to sit at home at my kitchen table and read for an hour.
Yes.
And don't get me wrong, we can spoon feed you as instructors. We can spoon feed you, but it's going to cost you a lot more money. It's going to take you a lot longer to do it.
Yep.
If you show up where you read about, you know, say we're learning autos today and you read the chapter about auto rotations and you, you know, read this part and you looked at videos of auto rotations. You know, you just, you just become more knowledgeable in the subject. And that's what's good about, you know, that's what's being a great student examiner or instructors like to see, because they see that you're putting, you're putting more effort into it than just being with the instructor for that, those two hours that you're with the instructor and whatever, you're actually going home and I understand that people get busy and they got lives and family and work and that kind of stuff. But you know, if you're spending 20 grand, you know, don't you, you would think that you'd want to put a little effort into it about being at home studying and no offense to these people, and I hope I don't make any mad, anybody mad. But to go take the knowledge test with all the information that's online where you can just watch videos, watch hogs read, you know, there is absolutely no reason why you should not pass a private knowledge test. You're right. You know, you're spending $150 to take that test. There's absolutely no reason why you shouldn't pass it.
Exactly. And you said this morning, let's talk about the commitment people have to study. And you're right. Whether you use helicopter line, ground school or you use, you just read the books on your own, you do a lot of one on one and then you go home and do self study. There's apps out there, there's a multitude of training items out there for however you want to consume information. But it's about your commitment to sit down, like Chris mentioned, at home at night, whether it's an hour a night, an hour a, you know, 45 minutes a day, or you hit it real hard on Saturday, whatever it takes, a commitment. And what I've said for years, 25% of getting your license is flying the helicopter, 75% is doing the groundwork, learning the knowledge. And then you'll find once you start flying as a career, you spend way more time talking about flying and training and all the stuff than you actually do flying, it's just a part of it. So the commitment that you have to have is pretty big, but you can do it. And like Chris was saying, you're just gonna be half assed and just try to get through the license. People do it and then they end up failing and get frustrated and then they spend a lot of more, they spend more money than they needed to because they didn't want to study. Very common problem in the training industry, I'm sorry, is study. However, method, whatever method you choose.
And not to interrupt, but like you said, there's really no reason. There's apps, there's Internet where you can plug in. You know, there's a website where you can go in there and do practice exams. You know, back when I was studying for my stuff, hogs wasn't around. So, you know, I'm gonna plug ASA here. I bought the ASA test prep. And I went through that book five times at least before I. And it had like 450 questions in it. I went through that book five times. And then when I was, you know, when I was pretty confident that I knew the answers and I could get like an 80 or better, that's when I went to take the test.
Yep.
And there's, you know, like I said, I would do online exams too. And same thing, you know, I, if I only have a half an hour, you know, I get in there and I would log in and I would do 10 questions real quick. And if I got an 80 and I was consistent doing that, then I would schedule the test and go. I mean, there was really. But it's on you. You have to, you've got to be committed to do it. It's just not about showing up at the airport and flying with the instructor or flying your solo flight. You got to do some work at home.
Exactly. And I like ASA products, always have. And like you, I did my ratings. I used ASA test prep for all that written stuff. I used it. Now we have written prep inside helicopter line ground school for private commercial, CFI and instrument. We have written test practice based on FAA questions and those tests are available for FAA wings credit. So we didn't have that, you know, when we had the ASA to use back in the day. Now, along with your membership, you get that faa, that test prep inside helicopter only ground school. So go down below and you can sign up, take any of our courses for a 24 hour test flight on the monthly memberships. Also below, we'll put a link for a free PDF of top 10 checkride. And do us a favor, give us a thumbs up on the video, subscribe to the channel, click the bell, let us know down below what you want to see for upcoming daily hubs, daily brief flight videos, and we'll see you in the next video. All right, 49 minutes. Still got lots of fuel.
Oh, yeah, I've got a low power thing in.
So that one's still going. Is this one still going? That one's still. All right, I'm just gonna.
