Helicopter Check Ride Part 4 Flight Training Tips

Alright, we're back. I had to cut that one off. That's it, that video. I've rebuilt that video a couple times. That one is pretty old from way back when I first started with that little flip video camera. I had it out earlier. You know, I started making videos with that thing a long time ago. I got to turn this volume down here, give myself some feedback. So I have a couple of newer videos on the cost per commercial pilot license and you can just search those, they should come right up. Commercial license 50 to 100,000. Again, it depends on what aircraft you fly, how long it takes you. 50 is probably on the cheap side, 100 would be on the high side. But this goes back to one of Luke's questions. You know, these things are just hands down expensive. If you're in a Robinson and you're flying at 250 an hour, you know, you can kind of do the math on 150 hours total. If you're flying at Enstrom at 400 an hour, again, do the math. So it depends on the aircraft you're flying, depends on what instructors charge. One way you can save some money is with our helicopter on land ground school. By the way, the more you learn on your own, the less time you'll have to pay your instructor. So I'm going to try to catch up the questions here and let's see, do I remember where I was at? Yeah, Luke, the money is always the problem. It's the problem for most everybody. You got to find it. Find a rich uncle, beg, borrow, steal is what I had to do. Took me four years from off the street to instructor because it's just tough, it's just tough to find the money for almost all of us. Fox Deuce asked about people on the radio. You know, I don't want to touch on that. Just a minute. I know that I struggled with the radio when I first got started and it doesn't make a lot of sense. I had law enforcement experience, 13 years. I had a towing service for 10 years where I was on radios, I was on the fire department and these jobs kind of intertwined. So I was in the business of being on the radio all the time. But when it came to getting in the helicopter, when I first started learning, I couldn't speak, I couldn't talk, and it took me a while to get over that. And I thought that was really dumb because I had experience talking on the radio. I had experience being on the radio, drinking a cup of coffee, smoking a cigarette, running lights and sirens, going to an Accident, but I get in the helicopter and I couldn't talk. You also mentioned a lot of people not using radios, like in the class G. Happens a lot in the class G. A lot of people don't have a radio at all. They're flying an older aircraft with no radio. A lot of people just don't turn it on. A lot of times it's students on the wrong frequency. So I think those are a lot of the common reasons that we see, you know, people not talking on the radio. Tyler asked about if we were FAA accredited. We're working on that now. Actually, Gary, my new chief pilot, is working on getting some type of an actual accreditation, which is just something nice to have. I mean, we've been doing this for over five years now. It's very comprehensive. We have hundreds of testimonials from our members that I don't even call them testimonials because they just. They're all excited when they get through their checkride and they want to share with me how our ground school has helped them. And in five years, we've helped ton of people and it's just been awesome. I'm continually impressed by how well our ground school has done. Fox Deuce also said, why are people so scared to talk to atc? You know, I did a video called the Almighty Tower God. And I can remember the same thing going to my private long cross country. And I was chicken to talk because I chicken to talk to the tower because I was going to be by myself. And we had the trip all planned out. And my instructor's like, what is your problem? You know, he's not the Almighty Tower God. The guy gets in there, puts his pants on every day just like the rest of us. He goes, just talk to him. Tell him who you are, where you are and what you want to do. So I had that same fear of ATC in the beginning. Now I've been doing it enough years. I know it's no big deal. I also had another really good tip. When I was a new cfi, I went to work in Cleveland and I had about 300 hours and I was working some really busy airspace. We had Bravo, Charlie and Delta all.

In the same area.

One where I worked, we were in class Delta. There was class Bravo, and there was another Class Delta there, and a Class trolley to the south. And this whole timer that I flew with, Nice guy, he taught me a lot of stuff. Vietnam pilot. And he taught me, he said, you know what? When you're not confident on the radio, pretend just sound Confident. And he said, you'll go a long way if you just do your best to take a big deep breath and sound as confident as you can, even if you're not. And he was right. That's what I did. I just tried to not let that nervousness come out in my voice and just talked real clear, short, sweet, like I learned in law enforcement. And it didn't take me long to get comfortable with atc. And it worked. And that's one of my biggest tips for anybody struggling with atc. You know, the guy puts his pants on like the rest of us listen to, you know, get on one of these apps and listen to frequencies, listen to some towered airports and, and you just kind of pick it up with time, you know, you'll get better at it. So sounding confident on the radio is a big one. Let's see, what else do I want to try and make sure we get everything. The 50 to the 100k on a commercial is not out of line.

Luke.

What else we got? One from Bastion. He said, I have little problems. I would love to become a helicopter pilot, but I have a very small form of color blindness, green and red. Do you think it's still possible to become a pilot? And the answer is yes, but you need to contact an aviation medical examiner. And I believe I covered this in the video that was playing a little bit ago. You need to have. Anytime you have an issue with a medical or a possible issue, we tell people to go ahead and make sure that they contact an aviation medical examiner. Plenty of time ahead of time. Because before you go spend the money, it's best to find out if you have some kind of a medical problem and find out what that medical problem is, find out what kind of treatment there is or whether it's going to be allowed. I know I have a medical examiner I use, he's a flight surgeon. And he said less than 3% of people ever get turned down for a medical. So it's not real frequent that people get turned down for them. So there are a lot of reasons, a lot of things that people can have certain medical problems that allow you to still be a pilot. So anytime you have trouble, not trouble, anytime you're concerned about something about a medical, get in, you know, make a phone call, talk to one on the phone at minimum, or go ahead and make an appointment and go in and see them before you start spending the money on the helicopter training. So that's another great question. Talked about how we're full fledged ground school, five years, it's everything's on the PTS. Everything we do roughly 112 in the instrument. My instructor says I'm still not ready for the checkride. Should I try a different school? Is that 112,000 in the instrument or 112 hours? And are you going for private? What is the. What exactly is your situation? Took me 88 hours to get my private because I jumped around. So a lot of things can cause why it takes you longer. So give me a little more on your 112. Are you going for private? You're going for commercial. Is that one aircraft? What is the 112? Luke says, I'm starting to get very discouraged from going this route. Hey, it's a problem. I mean, finding the money is the problem. And there's no easy way around it. There's no cheap route. It's going to be expensive. Hands down. You got to want to do it. You got to be committed and willing to find the money, save the money, borrow the money, whatever you got to do. But it is frustrating. I know it took me four years because I would fly a little bit and run out of money and I would work real hard, save up. Then I'd go back and fly some more and then I would sell something and then my dad gave me some money and then I used credit cards and I did every trick in the book to find the money to buy a little more time and a little more time. So it honestly, it's just part of it. I was not higher class, Trust me, I was. I'm just normal Joe Blow, like I said. Luckily my dad gave me a little bit of money. I ran up credit card debt that took me a long time to pay back. I kind of ruined my credit and I rebuilt it over time. But it's tough if it's going to ruin you financially, I wouldn't do it. Save up some money and do it when you can, but try to break it into. Here's what I would do. I wouldn't worry about doing it all.

At the same time.

Worry about the private first. Focus on I got to get this much money for private. Get through that, then start working on the commercial. Then go for your cfi, possibly work on the instrument rating between private and commercial if you can. But try to break it down and just take a step at a time. That's what I did. I didn't have all the money up front. I just did what I had to do as I was going. Okay, so my answer is, Bastian, what about saving and investing what's the best way to find a CFI job after finishing training? I was mentioning this earlier to Luke. It's being the best. Study hard, work your butt off, be good in the aircraft, and study harder than everybody else. Because there's a lot of bad instruction going on out there. And I see it across the country, and I see it frequently. I'm telling you, if you work hard at it, it's not that hard to be better than the other guy. It's not that hard to be better than everybody else. If you apply yourself and it's like any other job or career, you don't just get a license and people are just going to give you a job. Any profession, any career, you got to sell yourself. You got to go after it. You got to work your butt off. That's life. You can do it, anybody can do it, but you've got to put your mind to it. I've had good luck, but I've worked my butt off. And I had a struggle a long way. Like everybody, I had financial struggle. I failed my first private, you know, and I can remember my instructor going, hey, it was easy. Everybody would be doing it. And I would drive two hours one way for every single lesson. Private, commercial, cfi. I would drive two hours there, two hours home, two hours there, two hours home. And I had one buddy who ended up. We got our commercials and CFIs together. In the end, he said, kenny, I'd have never done it if I'd have had to drive as far as you had to drive and go through what you had to do, because I would have gave up. I wouldn't have even done it. So, you know, it's not easy, but if you want to do it, you can get there. You have to find a way. How are you supposed to build hours on Turbine? That's another good question. You find it wherever you can. I got lucky. I got a flight school, my second job. They had a Jet Ranger. And I would instruct full time. But whenever I had the opportunity, I could jump the Jet Ranger and go along on news flights. And after about a year, I had about 80 hours logged with one of the owners. And then she got pregnant and had to take some time off. And they said, well, you got 80 hours. You want to take over flying the Jet Ranger. I got lucky. So, again, getting out there and selling yourself, getting those turbine hours is always the tough thing. Everybody wants Turbine time, and they want you to have Turbine Time to get a job. But if you can't get a job, you can't get turbine time. So for fixed wing are the same way you're always figuring out, how can I get that turbine time. Another way to do it is you can look around for ferry flights and you can save some money to get turbine time. I know there's some opportunities, like in Los Angeles, where you can go along with instructors for news reporting for a discounted rate. So you have to search those things out. How was your first experience teaching with the cfi? Scared me to death. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't believe I had a license. I And I just did it. I just kind of took a little bit of everything that I learned from people. Because when you get that new CFI ticket, you're surprised you even got it. You're like, oh, my God, they're going to really let me be a cfi. So you just have to go out there and start doing it. It's a license to learn. And we tell people that all the time. They told me that it really is a license to learn. Man, I love all these comments. I'm hopefully gonna get caught up here in a second before we can roll another video. Pretty tough to maintain altitude heading knots in the kidnappers. We're trying to switch a new frequency just now. Coming on comms myself. I'm gonna do a video on that. But depending which aircraft you're flying, like in the instrument we pic from the left. So you can just basically leave the collective alone because it will normally stay. You can't friction it. Do this, move your hand over, do what you got to do, and come back in the Robinson, you would put your lock your collective, take your left hand, do what you got to do, and then get it back on the collective. So it depends on which aircraft you're flying. I can't go super specific because whatever aircraft you're in and a flight school might want things done a certain way. Some aircraft you can fricture the collect, you can friction the collective while flying. Some aircraft you cannot add collective friction while flying. So it also depends on the manufacturer whether you're able to lock that. Friction. A lot friction on the collective. So a lot of different things are involved in, you know, how you move your hands around. But that is a new video we're doing for our online ground school. One of our members just requested that, and that is on the list of new videos that we're going to be doing inside the ground school for our members. Listening to AS before leaving the airspace to get the correct AS code to give the ATC the next airspace. Yep. Always listening up. Being ready is going to flight school straight out of high school. Smart idea. Should you wait to do something else such as college or work first or young pilots less likely to get hired? I say get college if you can and then do helicopter pilot. Nobody says you can't. I have one of my success stories. The kid's out flying helicopter tree saw now and we tried to. His parents came to me when he was at the end of high school and they wanted to go to college and he was gone on. He started out and he got tired of it and he quit and started learning to fly. I don't recommend that. I think in this day and age, as time goes by, more and more helicopter jobs are going to require college. So if I was young now in high school, I think my best advice would get a degree, go two years or four years, get something else, fly in the summers, start building your time and work on getting that helicopter job later because it might end up being a requirement. It'd be a bummer to get all the ratings and then you can't get the job because you don't have any college. I personally don't have college, but you know, I started a little while ago and it wasn't that tough at that time. Not that many were requiring college. Everything gets harder the older you get. Yep, more commitments. I would like to say a pilot's license is more valuable than a degree. As far as salary, it is a trade. Yeah, it kind of goes either way. It could depend, you know, any one person has to look what's right for them financially, you know, your work, your family. To become a helicopter pilot, you're going to be a road dog jumping around the country, going different places to build time in different aircraft. It's not, you know, necessarily an easy life, but it sure is interesting. And you know, if it's, if it's your dream and you want to go for it. I still say go for it. I mean it's, it's just something. Flying helicopters is absolutely incredible. I mean, I can't think of, you know, I've been flying them 20 years and I still enjoy it just as much as now as I ever did. They're still just plain a blast to fly. Alright, I'm gonna go ahead and roll the next video. I'll get more on that instrument question when I get back. I need to take a little break here. So we're going to roll the next video.

Another tip would be choose the aircraft that's right for you the main helicopters out there being used is the Robinson, the Schweitzer, the Enstrom. They've all got good qualities. Every helicopter has pros and cons to it, but they're all helicopters. So essentially they all fly the same. Some characteristics are a little bit different and numbers are a little bit different, but they're still all helicopters. Don't let one particular school tell you, oh, you've got to fly this helicopter for this exact reason. Look at the different helicopters out there and see what's right for you. If you're a really tall individual, you might want to go into the one to the larger aircraft. If you're a small guy and every hour is what's the most important is the cost, then you're probably going to want to be in the Robinson. Schweitzer is kind of in between. They've all got really good characteristics. They're all great helicopters.

Do a little research.

It might be worth your time to maybe drive a little farther to be in the aircraft that you should be in versus the one that's just closest. Spend a little time researching the different aircraft and pick which aircraft's right for you.

I want to talk about the one hour flight lesson. This is a huge training tip because the human brain can only handle about an hour of any new skill.

When you're learning a new complicated skill.

Like learning to fly helicopters or doing helicopter ground school, keep it at one hour. Take a break now, I'm not talking about later. If you're doing a long cross country or doing checkride preparation, once you've got a little more time under your belt. But in the beginning, when you're training, your flights really ought to be at an hour.

If it's any more than that, you're.

Kind of wasting your time and money. Before I was a helicopter instructor, I was a police officer and a firearms instructor, and I went through an instructor development course was the first thing. And back then they said anytime you have somebody in a classroom or you have them out in the field, after an hour, give that person a break. Five minutes, 10 minutes, get up, leave the classroom, go get something to drink, grab something to snack on. Same thing in the helicopter. In the beginning, you need a break after an hour. The first 20 minutes you're kind of getting warmed up. The second 20 minutes you're doing really good. And that third 20 minutes, that hour, you start to drop off a little bit on your learning. Your learning curve starts to drop off and after an hour it just goes downhill. I've done this video before, but it's been a while and it's that important of a message that I wanted to put it out there again. Keep your flight training to one hour. If you're going to a flight school and a guy's flying you 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, and this is your third, fourth or fifth lesson, they're stealing your money.

Next training tip, which I think is the biggest of all is your self study and your dual time with your instructor. Depends on where you're flying. A lot of places give you lots of good ground. A lot of places, not so much. The thing that I've seen over the years is everybody's almost always lacking on the ground. School people don't usually fail from the flying portion. They usually fell the oral. Everybody wants to fly, nobody wants to do ground.

That's just the way it is.

The flying is the fun part. The study is not. You got to force yourself to study, study, study.

Do it with your instructor.

Time at home again, I believe 75% of it is the ground school, 25% is the fly in. So you have to commit yourself to making study priority one. And you want to study a lot in the beginning because it makes it a lot smoother. Process of getting your license. If you start early, hit the books hard, get the training down, get the ground training in the beginning of the flying and then continue to keep brushing it up as you go so that when you go for your practical test, you can spout these answers off to the examiner.

Boom, boom, boom.

The ground is truly the biggest part, so you have got to commit yourself to study.

And the next one I want to hit is Helicopter Flying Handbook. I checked online for one today, it.

Was around $17, so it's going to be right around 20 bucks depending on where you get it. Don't let the book overwhelm you.

Just start out kind of easy with it.

Helicopter controls, helicopter maneuvers. If you dive into it and start really reading the aerodynamics, you can read.

It and it can scare you away.

Before you even get started. The aerodynamics aren't that hard. Once you start reading it and you.

Get some help from your instructor, you'll.

Find out it's not too bad. So just get the Helicopter Flying Handbook and learn the basics so that when you go for your first couple lessons.

You already have a good idea of.

What the controls do and a little bit about how the helicopter operates.

Grab yourself a copy of the Helicopter.

Flying Handbook and we'll see you on the next one.

Next tip, start thinking about Your written test. Early on in your training, you're doing your duel. One thing that we like to say is try to have your written test done prior to solo. Not many people do it, but the guys that I've trained over the years, the ones that you could get the written done early, like prior to your solo, man, once the solo time gets there, you can get your requirements out of the way, get your duel done and get to the checkride. Which is why we're here. We're talking about getting from day one, getting you to the checkride and getting your rating. So very important, get a written test, prep early on in the training and start studying for that written test. The sooner that you get that written test out of the way, the better off you're going to be because the written test is always a hassle. There's been many times that we've had guys that they get down to a week before their check ride and they're still trying to get the written test done. So they're working on last minute requirements, paperwork, flying written tests, and I'm telling you it's a pain in the butt. Get that written done and out of the way.

When you have a scheduled flight, even if the weather's bad, show up and do ground with your instructor. Students are horrible about, oh, I'm not going today because the weather's bad. There's so much ground to do. The ground is 75% of it, 25% is the flying. And time and time again guys will cancel because the weather's bad. Don't cancel, Go in, sit down with your instructor, do some ground school. It's a common issue that happens over and over again. So if you want to save time, save money, get through the rating in a decent amount of time just because the weather's bad, don't cancel your flight, go in and do ground school. Another helicopter training tip along your timeline of getting from off the street to rated helicopter pilot. Another important thing in the beginning is make sure that you drive with your instructor, somebody that you want to fly with, and that you get along. If there's some type of a personal issue or you just maybe plain don't like the guy or you don't like the way he teaches, Find yourself another instructor. You're spending a ton of money and a lot of time and effort to get from day one to rated helicopter pilot.

Don't be afraid to ask for another.

Instructor if you're at a bigger school or even change schools if you have to. If you're going somewhere small. And if you're having personal issues or.

Personal conflicts with the guy you're flying.

With, it's going to drag out the training and it's going to cost you a lot more money. In the long run, it's not going to be a good thing.

Learning plateau is something that you're probably going to hear about when you get started with your training. Know that almost everybody ends up hitting a learning plateau. You don't want to get discouraged. If you're say you're flying a lot, maybe you're studying really hard and you have a couple lessons where things don't start going so good, you feel like you're not making progress, a lot of guys will keep pushing on and you kind of end up wasting your time and wasting your money. When you hit that learning plateau, a lot of times it's a good idea to just take a break, take a few days off, even take a week or two sometimes and maybe you won't be able to handle it. Flying helicopters is addicting. Maybe you can't go two weeks without flying, but a lot of times take taking a break. When you come back, you will fly better than you did the whole entire time you've been training. So know that you're going to have a learning plateau that's going to come up. Kind of plan for it or be ready for it. And just know when it happens.

Don't let it freak you out.

Don't get too discouraged. Just say, hey, I guess I've hit my learning plateau. Take a few days off, take a week off. Go relax a little bit, go hang out by the ocean, chill a little bit and then go back and hit it again.

I want to talk about aircraft. Checklist, checklist, checklist, checklist. You have to use the checklist.

Whether you're just starting out or you're.

Working on an advanced rating. You have to use the checklist for your pre flight, your all different phases of flight you want to be using the checklist.

It's something that you're going to have.

To do no matter what. Whether you're taking a checkride with a.

Designated examiner, FAA examiner.

If you become a career pilot and later you're flying with a check airman for a company, every single one of those guys is going to expect you to use the checklist. And the one thing that I can.

Tell you over the years of training.

Is if you don't use the checklist.

And then you try to use it when you go to take your test.

The examiner is going to catch it. He's going to know that you haven't.

Been using it because he's going to know you don't have a good flow as you're going through it.

So it's very important to use the checklist.

It's also even more important because if.

You don't use the checklist, you're going to forget something. A lot of us over the years.

Have think we get good enough that I don't need the checklist. I've done this so many times, I.

Know how to do this. And every single time that you try to sneak one time without using the checklist, you forget something during that startup or your pre flight or whatever the case is.

And then later you're going to end.

Up paying 4 it.

So you have to use the checklist wherever you're flying, no matter who you're flying with.

If they're not making you use the checklist, you better start using it on your own.

So all the way through your training, start to finish your entire career, you.

Got to use the checklist.

I have another helicopter training tip that I think is absolutely crucial no matter what you're flying, wherever in the world. Hover pre takeoff checks. There's a lot of guys out there and a lot of schools teaching hover pre takeoff checks before every takeoff. And that's a great thing. There are some guys that are teaching that and that's not necessarily the best option for your helicopter training. You want to do the hover pre takeoff checks because you're giving that engine a chance to spit spot butter. Miss, quit running, start acting up. You're given a chance for temperatures and pressures to maybe go out of the limitation. You're checking to see how much power you're using for the day so that you know how much available power you have, what you're pulling. In a hover, there's a lot of reasons to be doing a hover pre takeoff check. It's keeping you safe. It's making sure you got everything set where you should, making sure that the.

Aircraft is ready to go.

One little thing that you miss could be total disaster by not doing a hover pre takeoff check. So hover pre takeoff checks, if you're not doing them, start doing them. You need to do them every single time prior to takeoff. I want to talk about clearing turns. Now, clearing turns is one that a lot of people don't want to do every time because they think it's too redundant and they get tired of doing it and they think, ah, there's nobody around us well, there's a fact that I've had several times where I've had not only a tractor come up beside me underneath the rotor system, I've had cars go past, fuel trucks. When you think nobody's around, these vehicles come out of the blue and so do the obstacles. There's EMS pilots out there that have thousands of hours and they make a simple mistake and don't clear their tail and they stick their tails into poles and wires and hangers and all kinds of stuff. So you have to clear the tail every single time you go to turn the aircraft, make sure your tail is clear, look out your side, make sure you're clear. If you flying with somebody else, an instructor or passenger, before you turn their direction or the tail in their direction, make sure they look out and clear the tail for you. The clearing tails. The clearing turns are very, very, very important part of safe helicopter flying. And these safety things we teach you, they're not just for you to get through the checkride and then throw them out the window and never fly with them again. These are life long basic things that we're teaching you to keep you out of trouble. So do the clearing turns and do them every single time you go to move the aircraft, clear that tail and make sure it's clear.