Full Down Autorotation

Hey, it's Kenny with Helicopter Land Ground School. Gonna have some fun today and I'm gonna roll some videos for you on full down auto rotations. I am Kenny Keller, creator of Helicopter Land Ground School. So auto rotation is a great subject. Whether you're a brand new student just getting into this and you've heard about the autos but you haven't seen them yet, or if you're preparing for your cfi, or let's say you're a private pilot and you've never had the opportunity, which that's kind of unfortunate. We don't do full downs most generally in private training. And then of course, that all depends on any one individual flight school. Some flight schools may be able to show you a full down and do full downs with you. Sometimes they're restricted by insurance. Insurance companies do not like full down auto rotations. And the reason they don't is that is one of the reasons why helicopters get cracked or get wrecked is autorotation practice, and specifically full down. And you'll hear people say a full down is actually easier than a power recovery. And once you get used to the full downs, you'll find out that's actually kind of the fact. The really interesting thing is when you're coming down from a practice auto and you're going to recover, you got to pull the collective at the right time, do the right thing with the pedals, get the engine where it should be, adjust the throttle. And that can be kind of difficult. Once you learn to fold down, you realize that actually because you're going to keep the throttle all the way off, it's actually easier to do or can be easier depending on what aircraft you're flying. They all have their different characteristics helicopters do. As far as auto rotations, the videos you're going to see today we did in this aircraft right behind me. The NSTROM is, if you haven't heard, has one of the best auto rotations of any helicopter in the industry. It's just an amazing, easy auto rotation. My longtime examiner has even said you really got to screw up kind of bad to screw up an auto in an instrument because they're just that easy to do. So I'm going to have Heather cue up the video number one. And just to give you a little backstory, this was Holly Gardell with me in these videos where we did her certified flight instructor training. So we took some excerpts from that training and these are in our helicopter online ground school certified flight instructor membership. And Holly did an excellent job. I was really proud of that girl, she came out here with her knowledge rock solid. When she got here in two weeks, we transitioned her to the nstrom. She'd never flown one, and within two weeks, she was taking her checkride and heading back home to Colorado. So Holly was a phenomenal student. And, you know, people ask all the time, well, how can I be good, you know, how could I be, you know, better than the other other people in the industry? Holly's a great example of before she showed up for her CFI training, she studied at home with instructors who worked with her and had her practice doing lessons. And she practiced and practiced and practiced and practiced. And so she showed up super prepared, and it made her checkride go really, really easy. Okay, Heather, if you got that first video up, let's roll that first one, and then we'll be back. And we're going to give away some books. Talk about a special Labor Day sale that's going on. So we'll see you back here in just a few minutes.

Okay, so we're going to go around, and we're going to set up a straight in auto. You know how to set them up? You know how it should look?

Yeah. And airport elevation here is.

So yesterday, the pull downs were challenging because we didn't have much wind. Today we have wind coming almost right down the Runway. I think you're going to notice a big difference in the auto pull downs today versus yesterday. So we're going to make good use of this time because we're here where the checkride is going to be. We got the wind coming down the Runway yesterday. We kind of got comfortable doing them and just got the feel, got the look. We know that the really nice entries was giving us the really nice pull down. You nailed a couple of them right to the numbers.

Clear. Right.

Clear on the left. You had lots of practice deciding when to enter, how to enter, how to do a nice entry, how to have a good setup.

So.

We'll come around and I set up. Count it off. 1, 2, 3, enter. Once we enter it, if the entry is good, the glide's nice, and we like it. Then go ahead and just roll your throttle all the way off. Not chop it, but just smoothly roll it the rest of the way off. Maintain your minimum of 60. At TreeTop, we're going to start a gentle flare or a little below treetop, start a gentle flare. As we get closer to the ground, we'll make it bigger, make it bigger, make it bigger. And the wind today, you're going to notice how it's Going to happen slower. The flare is going to be slower. We're going to have more time to react, and we're not going to have the run on that we were having yesterday.

Are we going to go. Where do you want to go? That first intersection.

I want to go to the number nine.

Oh, on the number on the Runway.

Yeah.

Okay.

Unless some airplanes come in, then we can move over to the taxiway. But again, I like to focus. I like it when we have a. We have a solid. We know right smack dab there. That's where. That's where we want to go. That's better for student and instructor. When you're clearly defined spot, you know exactly where you're going.

All right, so let's get everything stabilized here before we make our turn. Going for 1500 and 65 to 70. Now I'm going to go out just because I can give myself lots of time flicking clear on the right, on the left.

And I'm going to do my best job, my best job that I can at keeping my hands off the controls, which is hard for me just because.

Understandable.

I'll do my best.

Plenty of people trying to kill you over the years.

Yep.

And now I'm gonna try to be. Lena, let you be as hands on as absolutely possible. So.

Okay, I'm gonna make a radio call here. All right, Ocean Traffic Helicopter 26 Papa is on final four, Runway nine. Going for engine failure practice to the number nine cushion. All right, we're at 1500. Get that VSI stabilized here. We have a good entry because key to a good auto is a good entry.

A little bit of left pedal.

Just a little rpm's top of the green.

Very nice. Nice setup.

All right. And because we have so much wind, we want to enter a little bit later than we did yesterday.

Yep.

I'm going to get that nine. Pretty much pretty close to the black line there.

Yep.

On my windscreen. Visual.

Looking good. Looking good.

I'd say we're still too far. Do you agree?

Yep.

And I'm going to go 3, 2, 1, enter. Collect it down. Right pedal.

Nice. Good entry. All right.

RPMs.

I'd go ahead and roll the throttle off. What do you think? Okay, go ahead and roll that thing.

Throttle's coming off.

Oh, yeah. Nice. Enter. You decided at a good point.

All right.

You got it first. Yep. Yep. Let her sink before you. Before you level. Pull it off. Yeah, look at that, look at that, look at that, look at that.

Yeah.

Nice.

That's right.

See the difference in the wind? Oh, man. We perfect that flare a little bit, go ahead and pick us up and we'll see how far past we are.

All right, I'm gonna roll it up.

Yeah, I'm liking that.

Good. All right.

I think I pushed you to. I think I was afraid you were gonna level out too early. We could wait later. We could get it even closer.

Okay. Hold that fl.

It still came out good because of the wind. But yeah, I'd hold the flare and get even closer before you level.

Okay. Yeah, it was a pretty decent drop. All right, 3,000. I pick it up in a nice gentle two step process. Managing those RPMs as we get light on the skids, eyes out front. All right. RPM the nose level. I have to trim it out a little bit here. Actually, I'm going to clear my tail. I just want to see really how far we came.

We're probably. That might be 50ft.

Nice. That's not bad. So but there was right over the. Over the number. Yeah, I mean I was seeing it.

So maybe. Yeah, I like it. Maybe enter a hair sooner.

A hair sooner or no. Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yep.

All right.

Just to try to nail that nine. All right, let's go do it again. And your choice, straight in or 180. It's up to you.

Oh, let's do another straight in.

All right.

Get the feel for that a couple times.

All right, so what I want to touch on this one real quick before the next video. Key to good auto rotation is a good setup. Any maneuver, it's a good setup. I've said it 10,000 times probably in 20 years. And I'll probably say another 10,000 before I'm done. And to the objection, people say, well, that's not real world. You're right. You should also go practice real world where you're getting surprised auto rotations. But you have to train to a standard. So for that, that objection of. Well, that's not real life. Well, when you're training for certified flight instructor, you have to train to a standard like in any rating. So Holly said it. Key to a good setup or key to good autotion is a good setup. Absolutely. If it's sloppy, don't set it up. Just set up sloppy. It's going to be sloppy. All right, we're going to go another video here real quick. I do want to mention next Tuesday I'm going to fly with Chris Hauser in the Cabaret. This will be my second lesson in the Cadbury. Did a video about a year ago in the Cadbury with Hauser. I told him I want to come up and do four more hours. So I do technically the five hours a person would need to teach. And I really want to do it just from the benefit of I want to see how comfortable I can get. That first hour was really tough in the Cadbury for me and a lot of people said, oh, I jumping back and forth between them all day. And that's great if it was an easy transition for you. I didn't find it very easy. I found it very difficult. So we're going to, I'm going to go do four more hours with him, see if he can get me comfortable in that thing in the next four hours. So that's going to be next week on Tuesday. So we're going to give away top 10 checkride tips. I authored this with Dan Christman. Dan Taz Chrisman, 2018 Flight Instructor of the year. Great little paperback book. We're going to ship it to you and here's how we're going to do it. Type in the code, all caps American for American 50. We're going to watch here. The first person that pops up will win this book. You'll need to email heatherelicopterground.com give her your address and she will ship out this book for you probably next week because she'll be back probably Tuesday next week. So these will go out next week. So the first person to type all caps, no spaces, American 50 in there gets a copy of top 10 checkride tips. Don't see it yet. I will say this video is going to stay up through the 15th. There we go. Daniel is the first one. So Daniel Fernandez, you got it. American50, you got top 10 checkride tips. Email heatherelicopterground.com give her your address and she will ship out your book next week. Alright, so let's continue on with the videos. Bring up the next video, Heather, and when you let me know. You got it Ready?

Yeah.

All right, let's go ahead and roll it.

All right, enter a little bit center and get that flare closer to the ground before you level.

I'm gonna forget to roll the throttle off without you here.

Yeah, see if you can remember that this time. And how about I won't tell you what to do. How about if I narrate what you do? Okay, so be trying to be doing everything and I'll just be calling out like your airspeed, you know, throttle RP.

Goshen traffic helicopter 26 papa is on final for Runway nine for engine failure practice to the number nine. Goshen all right, so we got 1500, got about 65. Let's get VSI stabilized. Enter just a touch sooner. I've got that site picture pretty well.

And don't forget the little aft when we enter because we've been kind of nose diving. So when you enter just a small aft pull, just a tiny one just to keep it level.

Okay. All right. 3, 2, 1, enter, 60.

Roll off your throttle.

Oh, that's what that was supposed to.

Mean, but that's okay. Let's make use of this, and let's not worry about the number. Let's worry about a nice flare and a nice set down.

All right. Gentle at first.

Yep. Let her sink, let her sink, let her sink, let her sink. Pull her on there. Okay. With this wind, we clean that up, we're just. We need to go. We need to go. We need to flare lower. Keep the flare get closer to the ground before we level.

Okay. All right, 3000.

And we entered about 1400.

Did we?

Yeah, so.

And also, I meant to do it sooner, but I wasn't any sooner.

Yep, it was. You entered about the same time. We'll go do it again.

All right. Take away on that one that you heard us say, small bit of aft cyclic. When you enter that auto rotation, if you don't, the nose drops a little bit and then you'll start chasing your speed and you'll usually be chasing that thing all the way down. So if you can remember that small aft cyclical pull, it's just a little bit. It's not a bunch. That's why I like to set the speed at, say if we're going to shoot the auto at 70 for our Glide, I enter about 75, a little faster than what my glide speed is. That way, when I enter it, just a little tiny aft pull to pull it to 70. And then the instrument. God, you can just sit there and hold that thing all the way down and basically do nothing. It is that cool. So I'll have Heather queue up the next video. Let's give away another book. This time we're going to do helicopter checkride. We're going to do the same thing. First person to type all caps, no spaces, American, five, zero. Heather will ship you my Amazon number one Bestseller helicopter checkride. We have a. Currently have a special going right now on all of our memberships. Links are down below. You can go right to those links below. You don't even need the code, but let's say you come back later. There it is. Dan is the winner. Dan gets the helicopter Checkride book. So, Dan, email heatherhelicoperground.com, give her your address, and next week she will ship you out your copy. We have these in stock and it'll go out on Tuesday of next week. Awesome. So you can go down below 50% off of any membership right now. Any monthly membership the first month. 50% off. Big professional pilot. That's private, commercial, CFI instrument. Altogether, 50% off. It's a good deal. A lot of monthly. Members are stopping there monthly and jumping on the big professional pilot package because it's a great, great deal. All right, got the next video ready? All right, let's roll video number three and see what we got. Let's do it.

Traffic helicopter 26 Papa's on the go.

Off Runway nine after you do your entry. If you like it, you feel good about it, roll the throttle the rest of the way off. All right, let's nail it this time. Enter center roll off throttle, flare closer to.

All right.

All right.

Enter sooner after the entry, roll the throttle off, Flare closer to the ground before you level.

Okay, Cushion Traffic Helicopter 26 Papa is on final for Runway line Runway nine for engine failure practice to the number nine cushion.

Because think about this. You've kind of learned how to stretch it and gotten kind of good at stretching it.

So, yeah, if I enter 2, I can pull it out.

Yes.

It's a more natural feeling to just stretch it a little if you need to. Versus going, ah, man, I should have. I'm gonna overshoot it.

Three, two, one, Enter elected down. Right pedal, little aft cyclic pitch for 60. Watch those RPMs. I'm gonna roll off throttle gently. Okay, let's start bringing in some collective.

Are we gonna make the Runway? I don't think we're gonna make it. Let's go ahead and roll your power in. There you go. See how we'd come out?

Yep, that would be it.

And we know that they say you're better off doing them to a flat surface than, and I don't know that field out there. You know what I mean? If we were on Plymouth taxiway, I'd have said, okay, we can probably go down. But I wasn't sure how level that was.

Okay, too soon.

Need a happy medium between the last two. The last one was too short. The one before that was too long. So think about where you're entering and try to find a spot in between those two places.

Okay, so key takeaway on that one I'm thinking about is, you know, the flare is going to always come out different depending on how much you flare and also, you know, setting that speed is really important. But you can always, you know, lower RPM or raise RPM to stretch the glide or shorten the glide. So there's some little tricks you can do as you're learning to perfect these where you can stretch that glide a little bit. Ultimately you like to enter it perfectly and just go right to your spot. But little tricks you can use when you go to stretch it out. I want to mention Brian Rutledge is in chat. Brian Rutledge is our operations manager. He's been talking to new members like crazy. Yesterday before noon he talked to four and then talked to two more after lunch. People are really enjoying talking to Brian, our operations manager, 30 year aviator. As a new member you get a phone consultation with Brian. Whatever you want to talk about, helicopter training related or the helicopter land ground school website or memberships, any trouble you're having, Brian is there to talk to you. And people have been digging it. And that's also for any member that's been a member for amount of time it hasn't had that consultation yet. Brian's there for you. People have been digging it. So I guess we'll go for top 10 checkride tips. I'm going to do a couple more. I'm on a roll. I like giving away books. A little brain fart? Yeah, sometimes I do. But no, I want to give another one. Holly was such a so much fun to fly with. Gosh, you did such an excellent job. Top 10 checkride tips. Type in the code for the Labor Day sale. That's past Labor Day but the sale goes through September 15th. American five zero, all caps, no spaces. First one to type it in gets top 10 checkride tips. Dan, Taz Chrisman, help me with this book. Dan is a airplane CFI helicopter CFI works for the Air Force. Super, super talented individual. And there is Roger. He gets top 10 checkride tips. So Roger, email heatherelicopterground.com give her your address and she will ship you out top 10 checkride tips next week. Awesome. So there's a link down below for the special sale going to end next Tuesday on the 15th, the day I go fly with Hauser in the Cadbury. It's going to be fun. Might have Heather go with me. We might just go live from the ramp up there with the Cadbury and talk about the Cadbury a little bit and talk about me going for my next flight. And of course we will record that for you and that will be a little series of videos where we'll just kind of see how I do. You know, a lot of people like that first Cadbury video because I was just transparent. That first time I got on there and flew the, you know, clockwise system. It freaked me out. It just, it was very difficult for me after 20 years of flying one way. I, I had, I struggled with it. But we're gonna go back and try it again. All right, let's see if you have the. Or do you have the other video ready?

Yep.

All right, let's go ahead and roll the next video. This is. We got two more for you, so let's roll it.

Alright, clean up the spot. I enter. I'm gonna go between the two, roll off, throttle gentle and I'm gonna hold the flare. Actually almost seemed like the wind picked up a little bit more because as I was approaching 9, it took longer to get there. I don't know if you noticed that.

I didn't.

I almost mentioned it, but been using this road over here or somewhere close to it, which gives me plenty of time to iron things out before I get there.

Yep. So yeah, let's nail that setup. 65, 15000 interim and enter at 65. So you can give that. So you can give that little aft pull so we don't nose dive.

What airport was she at?

I don't know. We'll have to listen.

Yes, ma'.

Am.

We'll be on a ramp in 15 minutes. We're dropping two passengers and we'll be overnight there. There should be a car there for one of our passengers. You guys have the keys? Can you have that pulled up to the airplane?

All right, you got a nail up this time.

Goshen Traffic Helicopter 26 Papa is on final for Runway nine for engine failure. Practice to the number nine. Feels like it's taking a while to get there.

Yeah.

Because of the wind. So after you enter, you know, look outside and try to make the decision early. Yeah, I like this. I like where I entered or you know what, I don't like it because I think the earlier you go around, the better. He's more likely to just be okay with it. If you call it off early and say, you know what, I'm going to recover and I'm going to go around and set that up again.

The car should be under the last name of Grove.

Okay. Three, two, one. Left it down. Right pedal. 60.

Nice. I got a good feeling about this one.

Okay, I'm going to roll it. A little bit slower.

Yes.

That is the rental car for the crew. There should be a Car there. Okay.

Remember to hold your flare longer. Get us closer to the ground for your level. Looking really nice. Looking really nice. Okay, let her sink.

Hold it, hold it, hold it level and pull. And.

Pretty dang nice. Could have been a little better. But to hold it up, hold up just a little longer. But I call that a passing pull down auto. What do you think?

Yeah, Well, I can see nine right over my shoulder. Did I push anything that was straight? Not exactly in the middle of the.

Runway, but I don't think I pushed anything. But I was going lower. Lower. I thought you were gonna. Yeah, I'm just afraid to be leveling out up high then running out of RPM before we hit the ground. And then. But it's still pulled. You still pulled it off. And I'd say that's a passing pull down.

All right. Got some good discussions going on there. And I see, I see with Brian in chat, one thing that comes to my mind is, you know, putting it, putting the helicopter in trim. I'm always pushing somebody during the maneuver to use the trim and get it into trim. Very common. Somebody enters and they. You don't put in enough pedal. If you put in the right amount of pedal, it makes the helicopter come down just a little bit slower. And man, it sure makes that auto rotation nice. If you get the pedal in there and you get enough in there to get it into trim, that is such a huge help. Alright, which one did we do? We did top 10. All right, let's do one more. Got one more video. We'll do one more book. Maybe one more book. After helicopter checkride. Our code for our September 15th, our sale through September 15th is American 50 all caps 5 0. Type it in the box and Heather will send you helicopter checkride. So this was my first book. I did it in 2014. Hit Amazon number one bestseller in 12 hours from its release. And there we go. There's Kenneth. Kenneth got the helicopter checkride. Awesome. Kenneth. Email heatherelicoperground.com Share her your address with her, your shipping address. She will mail out your book next week. Alright. I think the last video is me actually doing an auto rotation. So let's roll it.

One, two, three.

I'm gonna cheat.

I'm gonna put a little S turn in here. All right. Use a little collective. Stretch, stretch, stretch, stretch. Okay, I'm gonna start a flare. Bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger. Let it, let it go down. Let it go. Come down, Let it go down. And I did what you did. I hit the back of the skid.

But yeah. Good. Safe landing.

Good enough. As perfect as I wanted. I traveled farther than I wanted. That's why I did the S turn. So it's not my most beautiful ever, but I made it.

Yeah, it works.

So I'm gonna give you the controls back and you're welcome.

And S Turns. S Turns is another good one that you can use when you're trying to make your spot. Putting those S turns in there can. Can be quite a help, quite a lot of help when you're trying to adjust and make your spot. But you know, I caution everybody to make sure you practice these with a qualified instructor and make sure that your insurance covers you to do it. Again, depends on the flight school. Some places can, as somebody in the chat said, one school teaches even private students. And I think that's great because.

You.

Know, you kind of hate to ship a brand new private pilot out into the world and not let them at least see a full down. I've been able to do them because I've been with insurance that we have through hogs. I can do pretty much whatever I want. So I have been able to demonstrate that for private pilots and I want a private pilot to see it. But again, depends on insurance. May not be possible at any given flight school. One more, then we're gonna go top 10 checkride tips. First person to type in American five zero. That is our code for our September or our Labor Day sale ends the 15th. So the next person type in American50, all caps, no spaces. Heather will send you top 10 checkride tips again, Amazon best seller. The fun thing about this was Taz was at Oshkosh receiving his award. And there we go for jd. He was JD You've been number two a couple times. So good. Glad you got it. Awesome. Nice J.D. you got it. So what I want to tell you about this book, what was really cool, I was home and I launched this thing at home, drinking coffee in my pajamas while Taz is at Oshkosh receiving his award for the FAA Flight Instructor of the Year. The same day we released a book and hit Amazon number one bestseller. So that was a great day for Taz. Right? I mean, I was happy that our book hit Amazon number one. But think about Taz at one of the biggest aviation events of the year, probably in the world, and he's receiving Flight Instructor of the Year and becoming an Amazon number one seller in the same day. Pretty freaking awesome. Awesome. Okay, so book winners, email heatherelicopterground.com she will ship out your books next Tuesday. Our holiday sale ends the 15th. It's done. This is only the second time going on nine years that we've offered 50%. It's only been done one other time. It was for our big celebration at eight years online. And we did it again this time around because I thought, you know what, we've all been through the ringer the last few months, right? This year has been tough. 2020 has been tough. It's been tough for a lot of people and a lot of people have had to stop flying for a while. Some flight schools are still closed, some people have had to put their plans on hold. So we thought, you know what, to get people back flying again, get them back chasing those ratings, getting them back in the helicopter. Let's do 50%. So before we go, I'll explain that real quick. That's off the first month of the, any monthly membership. Heck, you can use it for a couple weeks and unsubscribe. And you got your, you had a month for half off. Private pilot's only 49. So that makes that what, 2950 or 2850. Anyway, that's half off for the first month. And then the professional pilot, that's a savings of $488.50. That is a nice, nice. We're just so proud of it. Brian and I discuss this all the time. Our training is cheap. Well, he says, he didn't, he said no, don't use the word cheap. It's. I can't remember the word he used, but affordable. It's very affordable. For the amount of training that you get that we give you for any one of those courses, it's very reasonable. It's less than an hour a ground doing it one on one with your instructor and you have full 30 days access. And then the big professional pilot thinking half to three quarters of the people that have taken us up are monthly members. Don't you think, Heather? A bunch of them are like, they're happy, they've been on a monthly plan for a while, but they're like, hey, you know what, I want to keep this training. I'm jumping on this now. So a lot of our professional pilot members that have signed up have already been a monthly member and we didn't mention this yet. The new Hogs ball cap. Heather has shipped 11 of these already. Here's number 12 we kept for a prop today I ordered another 24 so that we should have plenty to finish out the sale. Hopefully those will get here hopefully before the end of next week. But Heather will be Shipping. Anybody that signs up for Professional Pilot between now and the 15th, Heather will send you a hat and she will check in on you. Once you sign up for Professional Pilot, well, she'll email anyone. Any course that you sign up for. Heather's going to email you and welcome you. You'll get an automated email for the course immediately. And then within a day or two, Heather's going to check in on you. She's going to email you and say, hey Bob, did you get your login? Are you in using the site? Do you have any questions, anything I can help you with? And she will also offer you the phone consultation with Brian Rutledge, Operations Manager, that's here in chat. She will set that up for you. So we're really proud of the customer service that we got going now since we have Brian full time with Heather, checking in on every single new member, making sure you're logged in, giving that personal touch. People love it. They love the fact that they're getting an email from a real person, not just an automated email. So you get that usually within a day or two, depending on the day of the week. She'll get to you as soon as she can to check on you. And then you get that phone consultation with Brian that I've mentioned. The people are just digging. I mean, you're getting a 30 year experience of a 30 year aviator, CFI and airplanes and helicopters ready to jump on the phone with you and talk you through whatever it is you're thinking about, whatever you got going on, whether struggling or just how to approach your career or you know, what helicopter you're gonna fly. Brian's versed in pretty much all the subjects and that is a 30 minute phone console. I know sometimes it goes a little over, but that's up, that's on Brian. So at minimum you're going to get a 30 minute phone call with Brian. It's a great deal and every single thing comes with a 100% ironclad, 30 day money back, no hassle guarantee, been in place for nine years and we stand behind that. We don't hound you, we don't bother you. If you say, I'd like a refund, boom, we refund, we part as friends and we move on. It's that simple. Burden is on us to provide you the value. So do us a favor, subscribe the channel, click the bell. They'll be notified of our weekly videos. Next week's going to be the Cadbury Video and we'll probably pop up another video or two over the next few days before the end of the sale to see what's up and make sure people know what's happening. So subscribe, Click that little bell to be notified of new videos, and we'll see you in the next video. Peace out.