Kenny Keller discusses why helicopter pilots must use checklists for pre-flight, startup, and shutdown. Common mistakes include taxiing without completing checks. Training and EMS culture enforce the habit to prevent missed steps and damage.
18 chapters.
Videos on the first 14 chapters.
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Checklist usage.
We got a harp on checklist over and over and over and over through training. People don't want to use the checklist. You got to use checklist for startup, shut down. You'll forget something if you don't and it could be dangerous. Check in questions still the question on rotor and fixed wing. Alright, so no questions that I can see there. Nothing new popped up so we're doing the video chapters. There's currently in my. I just cut the version of the book down a little bit because it was a little bit long. I'm getting ready to cut it down again and turn into a couple different books. But for right now we are at 18 chapters. I have videos on the first 14 chapters. I think I might have the others but I don't know if I ever got them uploaded to YouTube. They're inside ground school. So this is my Amazon best seller Helicopter Trek Ride. I'm really proud of it. You can get on Amazon just search Amazon Helicopter checkride. On Amazon you get the Digital copy for 99 cents. We do free giveaways occasionally when Amazon allows us to. You can get the paperback version on Amazon as well. So that was checkride failures. Now we're going to go to checklist usage. This should be a short one, so we're going to roll that and I will be back and we'll take some more questions if anybody has any more questions. So we'll see you after the next video.
Tell me about checklist usage and what you know, what you do, what you've seen and what's important about it.
First of all, it's very important to use a checklist for everything, especially for going through doing your pre inspection. You could miss something without checking your checklist that could be broken or something that could make the helicopter unworthy. So using the checklist and sometimes it gets redundant when you continue to use the checklist from front to back. So after a while you might want to switch it up. Start it in the middle, go to one side and then go back and start to the other side, start it reverse, just change it up a little bit to keep your. Keep it going and keep everything fresh and different. You know, that's for like doing an inspection and then you got the startup and shutdown which is important too because you might skip a step in that and might make damage to the helicopter or damage to the engine or some sort. So always use your checklist. They're there, that's why they're there. There's no need not to use them.
They're there.
Use them.
Okay. Be honest. How many times have you skipped the checklist on a. On a pre flight?
Number one, probably. I don't think I've ever have. That's the first thing I do, is go in and grab it.
All right, good boy.
Because they're right next to each other.
How many times have you done a startup without the checklist?
Never. I've always. I always grab it. Yeah, I always, I always grab it just to have it. I mean, I know it. That especially the. The shutdown, but you always have it in your hand.
How many pilots have you flown with in helicopters specifically that, you know, don't use it at all or skip it part of the time or. What's your experience with other pilots that you've seen or airplanes too? What's your experience?
Well, in our situation at our airport, the fuel dock is farther away and they don't have any fuel tanks or anything to bring the fuel to the helicopter. Where the hangar is after the lesson, we usually go over, shut it down, get fuel, and then at that point we would start it back up and just tax it back around to the hangar. So that's when it gets really lax. We just started up. You don't do any of your checks or anything, and you just taxi back. And I see people in that situation just getting it back.
Right.
Do you think that's appropriate?
Probably not. I mean, anything could happen.
Yeah.
I mean, Even though you're 5, 10ft off the ground and you're. You're just taxing, something could happen. Okay. And I think that kind of like, get back. Itis, you know, like, just get it back, no big deal. You know, you're not gonna be up high and you're just taxing it.
My take on this is I'm amazed at the amount of people that don't use them, skip them. Have I ever skipped a checklist? Yes, I have. Have I ever skipped it on a pre flight? Yep. Have I ever skipped it on a startup? Yep. Do I do it in general? No. You know, I've had those times where I've gotten laxed and then gotten bit by it because I didn't do it properly. And I tried skipping. And I've done it in a simple aircraft, and I've done it in the more complex aircraft. You know, I was very by the book for the long. For a long time. And then, you know, you get 500 hours, a thousand hours in a certain aircraft. And yeah, it's redundant. And I can tell you that when you decide to do it without the checklist. It can be one simple switch as a, you know, boost pump. And even though the lights on, you don't see the lights on. You did a pre takeoff check and you somehow you didn't catch that that boost pump was not on. Every time I've really tried to do it, I've forgotten something. I've never had anything bad happen. I will forget something almost every single time. So I kind of, I've been through the cycle of being really good and then I've played the game of getting a little laxed and then I've learned my lessons over doing stupid stuff and now I'm back to use the checklist every single time. And in the real world, in the training world, I see people do it all the time. And I'll give you the air example. In the EMS world, you know, professional pilots, they told us, guys, when you go back to your base, when you're out pre flight in the helicopter, there will be a time where someone from our company will be in the parking lot or they'll be in the office. If you're inside a hangar at some point, you will be observed pre flighting the aircraft. And if you do not have your checklist in your hand, you will be told to go home. And they said, we don't care. When you're climbing up on the, on the top to get up and check the rotor head, that checklist needs to be in your hand. When you fall down to the ground, you better be holding that checklist.
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