Helicopter Check Ride Part 6 Student Failures

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So we'll walk over here, check see if we got any more questions. See anybody popped up since I walked away? Sorry about this. Repeat question after you get your commercial. Is there a restriction on what weight helicopter you can fly or are there certain training hours you have to do for heavier, larger aircraft? That's a great question. Seat weight goes by manufacturer. So the different helicopters have different seat weights. The smaller helicopters, of course, are going to have a lighter max seat weight. A larger helicopter can accommodate a heavier seat weight. There are a lot of people that know going into the training that they have to lose a certain amount of pounds to get the job that they want. And that's not to be disrespectful to anybody. That's just. It is what it is. The manufacturers have seat weights, so it depends on any specific manufacturer of the aircraft. And then the company can have a max seat weight for a pilot. Sometimes the max seat weight for a pilot is less than what the manufacturer allows because like for example, in an EMS environment, they have so much equipment on board, they gotta allow so much for a patient, so much for a nurse, so much for a medic. So weight is specific to jobs in aircraft. There's certain training hours you have to.

Do for heavier, larger aircraft.

Not until you get to £12,500 or above, which not many people fly those. Most helicopters are below that. There's nothing for a twin engine helicopter. There's no additional rating for that. So in general, a helicopter is a helicopter until you get to £12,500. Now there are specific regulations for our 22 specifically and for our 44 that don't apply to an instrum or a Schweitzer. So kind of gets complicated there again too. Depends on the aircraft, depends on the situation. What's your opinion on training?

Both rotor and fixed?

Haven't started any training yet. I think if, hands down, if you want to be a helicopter pilot, you need to do all helicopter because when you go to get that first job, all they care about is how much helicopter time do you have. Nothing wrong with airplanes. You can do airplanes first and then switch to helicopters. But if you want to be a professional helicopter pilot, I would get in helicopters and stay with those. Do airplanes later. That's what I did. I added my airplane later after I was a helicopter cfi. So it depends on any one individual what you want to do, what's in your gut. Do you want helicopter or do you want airplane? Are you going to do it for fun? Do you want to do it as a profession? So there's those other things to weigh in there that will help you decide, you know which one is right for you. You can do both. There's nothing wrong with that. You can do one and then add the other. But I wouldn't confuse the two. I've had people go, well, I'm taking airplane lessons right now too. I don't think that's a good idea. Focus on one, get that license, then focus on the other. I think that's just smart because there are certain inherent things that are different between the two aircraft that if you do some airplane things that are instinct in a helicopter could kill you. So not a lot, but there's a few things that are different. Although there are many things that are similar, there are a couple things that you can do in an airplane that you cannot do in a helicopter. So that's I think for your own kind of, for your own personal benefit.

There, I would pick the one you want.

Airplane is cheaper. So if you wanted to get flying and money's kind of a problem airplanes, you could definitely get started quicker. Alright, looks like I'm caught up there. So I'm gonna go next to chapter six. Helicopter Checkride student failures. I've been doing Checkride since 2001 and I have hundreds of checkrides successful. I've only had three fail and those were all prior to 10 years ago, more when I was a new instructor. The first one was my very first student, 2001 and the other two were within that first five years. I haven't had any over 10. So I put those in the book because out of all the checkrides we've done and all the preparation, all the work I've done with people, for those three people to have a failure in my mind, it's like these are pretty important because it's the only time I've seen somebody fail. So I talk about those things so you can see specific firsthand the kind of things that could trip people up. So thank you, thank you for the question, Richie. So I am going to roll that now. The three times that I have had students that had failures, we'll roll that video and we'll be back just shortly.

And today I want to share with you the three checkride failures of students that I've had over the past 13 years. Number three coming up again, out of all the hundreds of people I've sent for checkrides, only had three people fail on the first attempt. So I thought out of all those checkrides, these are three good probably tips to cover for some quick checkride prep on what I've seen, you know, this trip people up over a number of years. Number one was my very first student that I ever sent for a checkride anywhere, and it was in a Robinson helicopter. And these three failures, one's a Robinson, one's a Schweitzer, and one is an Instrom. So again, number three, the three failures have all been in three different styles of aircraft. So this first gentleman was an airplane cfi and he was really sharp individual and he was really well prepared. And he got to the checkride and he was busting through the oil stuff and he was doing great. And then the examiner asked him to figure how to figure pressure altitude, and he couldn't remember how to do it by hand. He wanted to use a chart or use his fancy electronic E6B. And the examiner said, no, you have to be able to figure pressure altitude by hand. For example, you're in an aircraft, you're in a helicopter, and you're going to divert and go land at an airport where you hadn't planned at landing. And maybe it's a higher elevation and you need to know how to hover when you can get when you get there. So you need to be able to take the current pressure setting for that airport vigor pressure altitude by hand in order to work the performance chart. And he could not do it by hand, so the examiner failed him. So that's one that I've always made sure over the years, 100%, hands down, make sure my students know how to figure pressure altitude by hand. Number two was a student of mine back in Cleveland when I was a fairly new instructor a few years under my belt, and it was in a Schweitzer helicopter. And this one was on a steep approach. And this was a female student that was going for a CFI checkride. And she was excellent on the ground. She was a great ground instructor and was doing really well with all the ground stuff. And the fly in was, you know, could have been a little bit better.

But wasn't too bad.

And on the flight portion of check, right, of course, aces. The Oral part, they go out to fly. Fifteen minutes later, I see him flying back in or hovering back in. I thought, oh, I know this can't be good. So when they get in, basically we all sit down together. And he says, okay, on your steep approach, you started it, and you told me it was too steep. And then as she continued the the approach, she kept saying, oh, this is too steep. This is too steep. But she continued the approach all the way down. And when she got to the end, he said, well, what do you think? And she said, well, that was too steep. And he said, that's right. And you had the opportunity to go around because it was too steep at the beginning. So at the beginning of the approach, when she first started it and said, this is too steep, she had the option to go around. She could have went around, took her time, got set up again there. She'd had the go around done, because that's a maneuver for the checkride, Went around, take a big deep breath, set it up again, and try it again. But she started too steep, told the examiner it was too steep, and then continued the approach. So we all know selling the power is a big deal, and that's why the steep approach is a big deal. And you got to use good technique. And if you think it's too steep, go around, and you have to catch it early. You can't wait till you're three quarters of the way through the approach and then say, oh, I'm going to go around. Now, that's not the point. If you start out a little bit sloppy and you think it's a little bit too steep at the beginning of the approach, when you're up several hundred feet, you could ultimately go around and save yourself busting the checkride. So remember, a steep approach is 15 degrees. If you're coming in and you're getting real steep and you're getting real slow, happen to have the wind off your tail or off the side, you're really in danger of sliding with power. So 15 degrees for a steep approach. There's guys going out and flying them, trying to fly them at 45 degrees.

And.

And that's just very, very difficult. So steep approach, 15 degrees, and then the third one was in an angstrom, and it was during an auto rotation. And in this instance, this gentleman entered his auto rotation a little too early or a little too late. I can't remember which one it was. But he missed the spot. The checkride was going pretty good, but he missed the spot by like 60 or 70ft. So you know, like an example for this picture, if this is your spot right here, here's an arrow. Your auto rotation, you want to come out and you want to flare. Pretty much spot. If you missed it by 10 or.

20Ft, is that a big deal?

Probably not. You're probably going to be okay. But if you go and miss it by 50 or 70 or 100ft, not going to be acceptable. So in that one, like the others, we had to do a little additional ground and go out and do a few maneuvers and then they all three of these people came back and aced their checkrides the second time after their first failure. So on the other rotation, you got to get good at estimating at when to enter. So that depending on whether is it a windy day, is it a calm day? You got to come out pretty close to your attended spot. If you're shooting your auto to the numbers 2.8, you want to be starting your flare before 2.8 and leveling out right at the numbers or pretty darn close. A little bit of run on speed is okay, but you want to flare and level out over your intended touchdown spot. So if you have any comments or questions, put them in the box below. If you're interested in help with preparing for your helicopter checkride, you can always go to helicopterground.com we have a wealth of information there about our online ground school. We're now two years online and we are having more and more checkride success all the time and it's really turned out to be a neat deal.