Episode 362: Do You Know What Drives Me FKN Crazy???
22 Nov 2025 · 4 min
Kenny Keller rants about helicopter pilots leaving panels and doors unsecured during pre-flight checks. He shares a story of an accident caused by loose cowling and hammers home one rule: always latch every panel before you walk away, even for a second.
Chapters
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 gotta go to the bathroom, oh, I gotta 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. His 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. Same thing 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 hangar 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 freaking 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, 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 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. 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 a new another day. Helicopterground. Com.
I can't stand it when people walk away from helicopter. Oh, about everybody, really. Half the people I know fucking do it. Just leave the shit open. Walking around, fucking doing whatever.
More from Kenny
Episode 399: DPE States "Applicants Struggle with Stuck Pedal, LTE, and Tail Rotor Failures"
Episode 395: Top 10 Reasons H.O.G.S. Is the Best Place in the US to Ace Your Helicopter Check Ride!
Episode 409: "What is the Best Way to Reinstate Helicopter CFI Expired License?"