Episode 413: "Why is there a Robinson Safety Notice to Never Remove the Left Door?"
22 Nov 2025 · 7 min
Kenny Keller explains why Robinson helicopters warn against removing the left door: an object once fell out and hit the tail rotor. The POH allows doors-off flight, but he recommends removing the right door instead to keep the left door's protection. Cockpit organization matters.
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And then the first question from yesterday, good question. One of our viewers yesterday said, why is it that there's a safety notice that says never take the left door off? But then there's also in the PoH where it talks about flight with both doors removed. And I can help with that one really quick and easy. Basically what they're saying, you know, it's legal to take both doors off, right? That's why there's an approved speed for flight with doors off. The safety notice, you know, is not law. It's not a reg, it's a notice. So the reason they put that safety notice out, and I learned this, I believe when I was at the Robinson factory, there was a helicopter accident where there was a female cfi, had a knee board on her leg and the left door was removed on the helicopter. The knee board came loose and the kneeboard of course came back and ended up into the tail rotor, destroying the tail rotor. And they didn't survive the procedure after the event. So I don't know the specifics of it. I haven't read that specific accident, but an accident was reported because something flew out the window. So basically the safety notice, the way I think of it is if you're going to take one door off, which is something we do occasionally take off the right hand door and leave the left door on because the tail rotor's on this side. So there's a bigger chance if something flies out the side of the helicopter of it going into the tail road. If it flew out the right hand side, less of a chance of it going into the tail rotor. So cockpit organization is key. Working hard to never have anything that can fly out the window. But accidents happen. So that's the reason why there's a safety notice that says never remove the left door. And there's a lot of times where like we want some extra airflow. So if we decide, well, let's just take one door off, we'll take off the right door and leave the left door on. That way you've got some extra airflow coming in, but you have the safety of having the door on. So that's the reason why he sees that in the poh. And that was a phenomenal question. And our clone is located@askhogs.com you can go below and click on the link to go check it out. 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you can ask training, related questions. Flight and ground. 14 years of my contents loaded in this thing. Blogs, podcasts, videos, paid content, free content. There's over 6 million words piped into my clone. It's amazing. Go down below. Ask Hogs.com the clone is free to everyone and the clone is also inside of our HOG site on every video, every page. So you can be in viewing videos. And you can always ask the clone a question while you're at it so you can get an immediate answer first. Right here is free free PDF private pilot 101 helicopter training blueprint. That's why we created this. And let me cover what's in the first chapter. Since you ask and you're at the beginning. 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