Helicopter Check-Ride Preparation Tips Online Ground School

Do you need help preparing for your helicopter checkride? Are you overwhelmed by the amount of information there is to know? Most likely you are. That's most likely the reason why you're watching this presentation right now. One major key is the practical test standards. That's what it's going to take to get you through your checkride. Knowing the practical test standards, also known as the pts. Surprised over the years how many people never pull out the PTS and really use it. I can HARP and harp, but a majority of the time I cannot get helicopter students to use it and I don't know why it's so important. It's all laid out right there for you. There it is, the practical test standards. This is your checkride laid right out in front of you. And after training a bunch of guys over the years, Jed, Danny, doctor, Nick, Gary, Justin, another Justin, I can tell you guys do not want to use the practical test standards. I don't know why, they just don't want to do it. The practical test standards. So let's talk about your checkride day and your appointment with examiner and what I think is the most important page of all applicants. Practical test checklist for helicopters. When I first started training a long time ago, when the company sent me out to fly a little bit with the designated pilot examiner that we were using on the way out to the aircraft, I said, so as a new instructor, give me some tips on, you know, how to prepare people and how to be a good instructor. And he said, I have a lot of problem with people showing up and not having what they need. And that was it. He said, make sure you go through the PTS and everything that's in there. You have, and I can tell you 12, 13 years later and doing a ton of check rides with the same examiner, I've seen it happen over and over again. I can give you a horror story after horror story. You got to go through the checklist in the PTS and make sure that you have everything and don't pull the old well, do I have to have this? Do I have to have that? Well, why do I have to have this? If it's in that checklist, make sure it's there and with you and start preparing a couple weeks ahead of time. Don't wait to the night before to be trying to round this stuff up. I can tell you it's major pain. So let's talk about some of the things in the checklist, like acceptable aircraft and what do you have to have in there? Of course, the aircraft documents, airworthiness Certificate, registration certificate, operating limitations and your weight and balance information. Every single checkride you take in your helicopter career, whether it's a checkride to get your license or a 135 check ride later, when you're flying professionally, the examiners always ask this question because you have to have these things in the aircraft. They've got to be valid and in there. Every examiner is going to ask you anytime you're on the ramp, if the FAA walks up, they're going to expect to have these things. And it's easy for some of these things to get misplaced sometimes, like say somebody goes, grabs the PoH to do a little bit of training and they forget to put it back in the aircraft. Whatever the case may be, you have to make sure you have this stuff with you ready to go. Another big one. Aircraft maintenance records. Logbook record of airworthiness inspections and AD compliance. I can tell you again, some places you might not have this problem. Other places have a lot of problem with keeping the maintenance log books with the aircraft. It's very common. If you're getting your maintenance done somewhere else, you take the maintenance records down for the mechanic to fill out and he says, I'll finish this up and get it to you tomorrow or next week or whatever the case may be. And then checkride day comes and you're screwing around. You're running around trying to find the aircraft log books and you don't have them. Well, you're not taking the checkride again. It's these simple little things that can trip up a checkride and cost you huge headaches. Pilot's operating handbook. FAA approved. Also known as the helicopter flight manual. This has to be in the aircraft and accessible to the pilot. Another favorite checkride thing in Enstrom's guys would take the POH and put it in the baggage. Well, that's not legal. It has to be in the aircraft and has to be accessible by the pilot during flight. FCC station license only if you're flying out of the country. Personal equipment, current aeronautical charts, computer and plotter, flight plan form, flight logs, current aim, airport facility directory, inappropriate publications. And as far as I know at this time, you still have to have all this stuff. There's a lot of people asking, well, can I use my iPad or my iPhone or can I use this electronic gadgetry? Unless something's changed I haven't heard about yet, you still have to have the afd. It's a six dollar little book. You got to have it, got to have the far, a manual, everything on this list have the hardback form and again, make sure a couple weeks ahead of time, you're starting to get this stuff ready to go. Make sure you have it because it's. I've seen it time and time again. The night before, 9 o' clock at night and you're trying to figure out where to get a chart. There's nothing worse. Getting ready for a checkride last minute, rushing around, trying to put everything together because believe me, I've done it, I've been there and it is not fun. It's stressful on the student, it's stressful on the instructor. It's just plain not cool. Personal records, identification photo signature ID, pilot certificate, current and appropriate medical certificate, your completed FAA Form 8710 Airman certificate and or rating application with instructor signature. Got a quick story on this one. One of my very first checkrides, sending my first couple students. Both guys were real good. They were in good shape. The one guy was an airplane pilot, just got done doing his airplane proficiency checkride and was all good to go. And a businessman that really had his act together. And then five minutes before the examiner's set to show, he said, all I have is just a copy of my medical. And I said, that's not going to work. The examiners are not going to be happy. And he said, well, it's just going to have to do. Well, guess what? No, the examiner was not very happy. Luckily, the other student was ready to go. So the examiner takes him and gets started with him while the other guy takes off and goes back to his office and scurries around trying to find his medical. In the end, everything came out okay. But talk about a bunch of stress right off in the morning, two guys ready to go and the one guy doesn't have his medical. So again, you've got to check these things as yourself, as the student and as the instructor. You got to make people think, physically take this stuff out of their wallet. Do you have this with you on a daily basis? Pull it out. Let me see it. Here's another good one. Airman written test report. I know a guy who flew from Cleveland to Toledo with his instructor, goes to take his test and he has a. He was going for an instrument check ride and he had a written test report for the written test for an airplane instrument rating, not the helicopter. So a whole day wasted, hours of aircraft time, hundreds of dollars because the guy took the wrong written test. Again, all these little tiny things take a lot of time, weeks in advance, going through the pts. Going through the checklist and making sure you have everything. Pilot logbook with appropriate instructor endorsements. As a new instructor, I was helping a guy do an add on helicopter rating. My first student, he was an airplane CFI and he told me always over endorse and I've always done that and I've never had a problem. It's better to have too many endorsements than not enough. As the instructor, it's his responsibility to make sure it's signed. But you as a student, you need to do the same thing. Look in that, make sure you understand what he's endorsed, where that endorsement is at and make sure it's the right one. Because the examiner is going to check these things right at the very beginning of your test. And just to avoid problems, make sure you have all the right endorsements. Notice of disapproval if applicable. I had that once. I failed my first private pilot checkride. So I went back, I had to have the little pink form that says I failed the first time approved. School graduation certificate if your school has one. Not all of them. Do an examiner's fee. Depending on who you're taking it with, there may or may not be a fee. Make sure you know how much the fee is. And does your examiner, if he's a designated examiner, does he take checks, does he take cash? How does he want to be paid? Alright, let's talk about a little more about the pts and some of the areas in there like emergency operations. Power failure to hover. Doesn't matter what aircraft you're flying, there's a tolerance to how far the nose can be to the right or to the left from the degrees where you started depending on when you're going for private or commercial. There's so many degrees that the helicopter can be from where you start when you enter the auto. When you're on the ground, knowing these things helps you in your training. The pts you should be using from day one all the way up to the day of the checkride, you should be going through this thing over and over and over and over, giving you the tolerances for all this stuff. You can be kind of prepared for what's coming up. Power failure at altitude. It's explaining in there that sometime during the checkride the examiner is going to give you a power failure. You're going to need to know where the wind's at. You're going to need to be looking for a spot. You need to get your auto rotation established. Start turning towards your spot. It's all in there. System and equipment malfunctions Selling with power. One of my favorites. I love talking about when you're going into confined area and it's high, hot, humid. There's a lot of things to consider to keep yourself out of settling with power. And again, doesn't matter what aircraft you're flying. Selling with power across the board is something that wrecks a lot of helicopters. And you can be sure the examiner is going to be making sure that you know your stuff. Low rotor RPM recovery. Is there anything else more important than rpm? Pretty much. It's priority one, especially flying the smaller aircraft with the lower inertia rotor systems, knowing and understanding the cause and effects of dynamic rollover, how it can happen, how you can avoid it, what to do if you start getting into it. It's all in there. And here's another one I just started talking about recently, ground resonance. And I'm going to go ahead and show you here a picture from August 5, 2005 and the aircraft incident. Accident, accident I was involved in. We got into ground residence and I can tell you, years later, after five years of answering questions and going before a room full of attorneys, I can tell you that I'm glad I understood ground residents and I knew exactly what it said in the Rotorcraft Flying Handbook about ground resonance causes effects, how you get into it, how you can prevent it. Really going through the PTS now and going through your flight manual helicopter flying handbook, you want to know this stuff? This is probably a good time to go ahead and just really expand on what I'm trying to tell you about knowing your stuff. When I failed my first private pilot checkride, I struggled through the oral. I didn't get the fly because I didn't pass the oral portion. I took it with an FAA examiner. Guy was tough and I knew he was tough going in it. And in the end, he said after he stopped the test, he said, it's pretty obvious you're struggling. We even took one break where we went outside and talked for a little bit and went back and hit it again. And he said, you're really struggling here and I want you to know your stuff. He said, I don't want to be investigating your accident. When I ask you what ceiling of power is, I want to hear rate ascent, 300ft per minute or greater using 20 to 100% of power, airspeed less than ETL. You got to know this stuff, he said, because if you're struggling sitting here in the room with me, then how good are you going to be when you're out there in the aircraft under a stressful situation. And I can tell you now, after living through this mess, my law enforcement training came back to me. The will to survive. I was trying everything and anything to stop that aircraft from destroying itself to the point of I bent one of the foot pedals trying to stop the spin. And I find a certain amount of comfort in the fact that I understood ground resonance. I knew causes and effects and I knew corrective action. And in this particular instance, last numeric damper that failed and that blade was so far out of phase, there was nothing we were going to be able to do. This is another point where I like to talk about the bad judgment chain. I'm a firm believer in the bad judgment chain. When you investigate an accident or read about an accident and there's all these different things that led up to the accident where the pilot probably along the way, should have aborted that flight, it's not usually just one thing, it's usually a series of things that happen that lead up to that accident. When I first started training many years ago, I watched a special on the JFK junior Crash. And there was so many reasons why he probably should have never went that day. Or at some point he probably just should have said, you know what, we're gonna wait and go tomorrow. On the day of our accident, everything was fine, the weather was beautiful. We did a pre flight, two pre flights we did left on time. The weather was beautiful. Everything was picture perfect before this happened. So even though I understand the bad judgment chain and believe in it, things can also go bad on the very best day. And knowing your stuff is the a number one thing that's going to keep you alive and keep you out of trouble. Yeah, we're talking about checkride preparation and you want to get the license and you want to go out and be a safe and prudent pilot. But a number one, you want to stay alive and you want to be able to get out of trouble. When you do get into trouble, things just happen. And being very familiar with your aircraft, with helicopter aerodynamics, helicopter emergencies, general helicopter safety knowledge is power. The more you know, the safer you're going to be. And maintaining a clear head or trying to stay calm, I can tell you too, I think is, is really truly one of the biggest things I know in our, in my five years with EMS flying, we had training, we did every quarter, computerized training. And every time we went through the survival part of it, they made it very clear the biggest way to survive an emergency is by staying calm. And I'M a firm, firm believer in that.

So, moving on.

Low G conditions. Here's a bit right out of the Robinson poh. This is right from our presentation on the Robinson Right roll and low G condition. Gradually apply aft cyclic to restore positive G forces in main rotor thrust. Do not apply lateral cyclic until positive G forces have been established. Everybody needs to know this. No matter where you're flying and what you're flying, night operations, physical aspects of night flying, there really is a lot of stuff to night flying and it really is, as you say, the difference between night and day. It's amazing the difference there is in flying at night. And it is definitely one of those skills that you need to exercise to stay proficient at night. That's why we have the different rules and regs that we do as far as night flying lighting and equipment for night flying. Lighting is huge. So lots of little silly things to know. Like if you're flying late in the day and you're going in the night, don't forget about the dial for the dimmer switch. Sounds kind of silly. I've personally done it. I'm flying along, starting to get dark. I turn on the panel lights. No panel lights. I'm getting all paranoid. Pretty shortly I figured out dimmer switch. For some reason, I think in helicopters, they like to just vibrate themselves off post flight procedures after landing and securing. I know early on one of the mechanics where I first worked, the guy said, you learn more from post flight than you do pre flight. And, you know, you could almost go along with that because after you get done, you're putting the aircraft away. You're looking, is the aircraft got any fluids leaking? Has anything changed during that flight? So post flight can be just as important as a pre flight. Okay, now I want to back up a little bit and expand a little more on the pts and a couple things that I've said. I want to back up to the first few pages of the pts, because I think there's some stuff in the beginning that's really important. I know from experience that guys, when they do use the pts, they skip over some of the stuff that I think is important in the beginning. So I want to cover a few of the things in the beginning of the pts and I want to interject a couple stories. A lot of you that's followed us on the Internet know Danny Martin and Danny argued with me when I kept saying everything's in the pts. He kept saying, no, it's not. Not everything's in the pts. What I'm getting At is the PTS is a guide that you go through prepping for the test. Yes. You still have to resource other materials. Not every answers in there, but every subject area and all the things you're going to do and all the tasks are in there. So when you're going through the pts, you're going right through the list. If you know something, great. If you come across something and you think, hmm, I'm not so sure about that, I need to look that up, then you're going to go resource your other materials, whether it's your POH or the Helicopter Flying Handbook or whatever other source of information you might have to go to to make sure you understand that information. So I understood Danny's point, but he always wanted to argue and say, well, not everything's in the pts. No, not everything, as far as every single word you need to know. But the PTS is your test and if you go through that, there won't be any surprises on your checkride day. So then I want to go to this guy Jeff, who I rented a room from when I was a new instructor and we hung out all the time. So he got the benefit of me being around all the time to help him through his ratings. We did his private commercial and cfi. And on his private, the examiner said, in all the years that I've been teaching or doing checkrides, that's one of the top checkrides I've ever given. And Jeff, because we were together all the time, hanging out in the evenings, talking about helicopters, talking about all the different stuff, he listened to what I told him and he understood the importance of the pts, worked through it step by step and had one of the best check rides that this examiner had given in 15 years. So the point is, use the PTS, work through it step by step, and if you know the subject material, great, move on. If you're not so sure about it, then you go to your other resources and use whatever tools you need to make sure you understand that information. So let's move on and talk about use of the practical Test Standards book. This is the first like 10 or 12 pages of the book and I think this helps with just preparing mentally for the checkride. Private pilots shall be evaluated in all tasks included in the areas of operation of the pts. The examiner shall also emphasize wake turbulence avoidance, low level wind shear in flight, collision avoidance, Runway incursion avoidance, checklist usage, and if you look down through there, it makes complete sense. These are all really important things that get people into trouble. That's what the examiner is doing. He's not setting out just to purposely fail your checkride. He wants to make sure you're going to be a safe and prudent pilot. And we know through experience over time what gets people into trouble and what gets aircraft direct. So the examiner is evaluating to make sure that you're going to be a safe pilot. Can you make a mistake on a checkride and maybe answer a question and not exactly the way he wanted to hear it? Yes, as long as you understand the concepts of everything. They expect terminology sometimes to get messed up a little bit, but you got to understand the concepts. Some of these other simple steps. Private pilot practical test requisites. Pass appropriate private pilot knowledge test. Obtain the applicable instruction aeronautical experience. Hold at least a third class medical certificate. Be at least 17 years of age and written statement from a certified flight instructor, meaning he assigned you off to take the test aircraft and equipment required for the practical test. The private pilot is required to provide an airworthy certificated aircraft for use during the practical test. We talked about this already. You got to make sure everything is good with the aircraft. You have all your maintenance manuals, everything's been done. You got to go through and check the maintenance manuals yourself as the student instructor needs to check. It's very easy to miss one little thing like a transponder check or something along those lines. You got to make sure the aircraft's ready to go, have fully functioning dual controls. Examiner is going to want to maybe show you something during the checkride. Maybe he'll say, hey, that's pretty good, but let me show you something else. And also he needs to have controls there in case things get ugly and he has to take the controls, which we'll talk about that again a little bit. That's where we get to that point of maybe not passing the checkride. Be capable of performing all appropriate tasks for the private pilot certificate. So again, he's evaluating you on everything that you're doing the whole entire flight. The test actually starts in the morning when you get there. Here's when I want to throw in another point. If your check rides at 8am, get there at 7, get there an hour before. Have all your stuff laid out nice, neat, organized. Get everything done, be prepared. Showing up, being on time and having everything you need is half the battle. If you can start the checkride out on a good note, you're probably going to have a good checkride just like setting up for a normal approach. What's the key to a good normal approach? A good setup key to get through your checkride, be early, have all your stuff be there and ready to go when the examiner walks in. Positive exchange of flight controls. During the practical test, there must always be clear understanding of who has control of the aircraft. Most likely your instructor is teaching you this. It's very easy, though, when you get flying with somebody in the beginning. As instructors, we're real careful and worried about somebody trying to kill us, and you get more comfortable with somebody with time, and you start to trust them. And as instructors, sometimes we, you know, have to back up and go, hey, you know, this is still important to make sure we understand who has the control. So you have to use the positive exchange control, flight controls, the whole test. Hopefully you're already doing it. If you started slacking off, polish those skills up, and make sure that you're using good exchange of controls. There should never be any doubt as to who is flying the aircraft. Use of distractions during the practical test. Is he going to give you a distraction? Most likely, yes, he is. Many accidents have occurred when the pilot has been distracted during critical phases of flight. The examiner will cause a realistic distraction during the flight portion to evaluate the applicant's ability to maintaining a safe flight. Again, the guy's not out trying to fail you. The guy is just evaluating to make sure you're going to be a safe pilot. Don't get freaked out over a distraction. Another story. I failed my first check, right, as I keep saying. Then when I went back to take the second one, I did great on the oral. And then on the flight, I screwed up and I got lost. I could tell the examiner knew that I was lost. He didn't say anything. He sat there. I turned around when I got my bearing straight, and he said, kind of screwed up, didn't you? And I said, yeah, I wasn't sure where I was at. And he goes, what are you gonna do now? I said, I'm going back to the airport and I'm starting over. Went back to the airport, turned, got on my correct course and got on my way. And he said, okay, there, I'm buying on that one, but don't screw up again the rest of the flight. So the pressure is on. Then we go through the test, he gives me my distraction, I handle that, okay? We go back, I get my license, we go to have supper next door, and we're discussing everything after the fact. And he said, you know, I almost failed you when you got a little bit off track. He said, but I just sat back and watched. What is this guy going to do. I kept calm, I turned around, I went back, got started on my trip again, and then did everything within the standards. And he said, at least I know that you can have an issue and you can think through it. And he said that is huge. When a guy smokes the whole entire checkride, he goes sometimes as an examiner, you wonder, well, the guy did great, but how's he going to do under pressure? So again, staying calm, being prepared, knowing your stuff is truly key. Applicant's Use of Prescribed Checklist the applicant is evaluated on the use of the prescribed checklist. While accomplishing the elements of the objective would be either unsafe or impractical, especially in a single pilot operation. Again, we harp checklists all the time. Hopefully you're already using it. Use it on pre flight, startup cruise flight, pre landing shutdown, securing the aircraft. It's very easy for some people to get sloppy and think, I don't need the checklist for that. Use the checklist. You should be using it on a daily basis for all phases of flight and for your checkride. If you get through the oral portion, when you go out to pre flight the helicopter, have that checklist in your hand the whole time you're pre flighting that aircraft. Checklist usage is huge. Flight Instructor Responsibility an appropriately rated flight instructor is responsible for training the private pilot in all subject matter areas, procedures and maneuvers included in the task within the appropriate private pilot. Practical test. Standard instructor should exhibit a high level of knowledge. Applicant must be able to perform safely as a private pilot should be competent to pass the required practical test. The instructor is responsible for emphasizing the performance of effective visual scanning, collision avoidance and Runway incursion avoidance procedures. Again, still falls back to being aware of your surroundings, paying attention to what you're doing, taking your time, clearing your tail, pre takeoff checks, good visual scanning, all this stuff is very, very important. Examiner Responsibility the examiner is responsible for determining that the applicant meets the acceptable standards of knowledge and skill of each task. To avoid unnecessary distractions, oral questions should be used judiciously at all times. The examiner shall test to the greatest extent practicable of the applicant's correlative abilities rather than mere rote enumeration of facts. Throughout the practical test. Throughout the flight portion of the test, the examiner will evaluate the applicant's use of visual scanning and collision avoidance procedures. Are you seeing a theme here? Again, all about being aware looking around you? I've always liked pointing out the correlative abilities rather than mere rote enumeration of facts throughout the practical test. Meaning do you have to know everything word for word by the book, the way the book says it. Understand the concept. He wants to make sure that you're not just spouting off the three things that get you into selling with power, with not understanding how it really applies to you in fact flight. So the examiner is checking to make sure you understand the concepts and how these things that you've learned in the book, how they apply to you when you're flying the aircraft. Satisfactory performance. Satisfactory performance to meet the requirements for certification is based on the applicant's ability to safely perform the tasks specified in the areas of operation for the certificate or rating sought within the approved standards. Demonstrate mastery of the aircraft with successful outcome of each task performed. Never seriously in doubt. Demonstrate satisfactory proficiency and competency within the proof standards. Demonstrate sound judgment in ADM and demonstrate single pilot competence. If the aircraft is type certified for single pilot operations. Unsatisfactory performance. If, by the judgment of the examiner, the applicant does not meet the standards of performance of any task performed, the associated area of operation is failed and therefore the practical test is failed. This goes back to years ago. I think the story that I was told was an examiner went out and they were given a checkride and a guy didn't perform a maneuver correctly and the examiner gave the guy a chance to try the maneuver again and the aircraft ended up crashing and I believe killed the occupants. So they're very serious on this. You have to perform the maneuver right the first time. You don't get a second chance. When you're out there performing the maneuvers, does it have to be by the book? Exactly. On every single right to a tee, on the airspeed on the limit, this and that? No, but it needs to be close. If you're starting to get a little bit out of a tolerance. As long as you're catching it and getting it back where it should be in a reasonable amount of time, it's not going to be a problem. If you keep making the same mistake, then that's going to be a problem. Just don't freak yourself out over the fear of failure. The good news is during the checkride you get through the oral portion, you go out and fly, and let's say you're having a pretty decent checkride and you do mess up a maneuver and he has to failure for that maneuver. You go get some additional training on that particular maneuver and when you come back you get credit for the things that you accomplished correctly the first time so not all is lost. You want to get through the checkride the first Time some of us fail. In my case, it was the best thing I think that ever happened to me right off in the beginning, which is what made me really sit down and really learn and study and working to just get the knowledge where it needed to be. In my mind, you do get credit for what you perform correctly. Perform all the maneuvers within standard during the test. He can't let you retry something because you messed it up the first time. Areas of unsatisfactory performance. Any action or lack of action by the applicant that requires corrective intervention by the examiner to maintain safe flight. Failure to use proper and effective visual scanning techniques to clear the area before and while performing maneuvers. So if things get scary and he has to take the controls away from you, that is a failure. Some more things that can get you into trouble. Consistently exceeding tolerances stated in the objectives, which I just mentioned that a minute ago. Small issues, as long as they get corrected aren't a big deal. If you keep making the same mistake over and over again, then that's a problem. Failure to take prompt corrective action when tolerances are exceeded. If disapproval notice is issued, the examiner will record the applicant's unsatisfactory performance and tasks not completed in terms of area of operations. Spend a little bit when you first start using the book to read these things in the beginning because I think it just helps a little bit with kind of getting in the proper mindset of how the checkride is going to go. All right, now I want to shift gears a little bit and I want to talk about three failures. I know, I love the number three. We learn from our mistakes. In 12 years. I've done a ton of checkrides, sent a lot of people, private commercial CFI. There's three times I've had people fail in that 12 year period on checkrides. Now this is prior to online ground school, so don't get confused with Nobody has failed yet any of the members of our online ground school. But of my past students prior to online ground school, I've had three times that people failed. So I want to just walk you through those because what do we know works and what do we know doesn't work? Number one, back in 2001 sent a guy in a Robinson up to get his checkride. He was my very first student. He was the airplane CFI talked about sharp individual. He was really good airplane cfi, newest stuff. He flew up to a different state. Our close examiner wasn't available when this guy wanted to take a checkride. So he wanted to fly Somewhere else, went by himself. And when the examiner asked him during the oral how to figure pressure altitude, he couldn't do it. Now, especially as a cfi, the examiner knew that he should be able to figure pressure altitude. You need to be able to figure pressure altitude by hand. Not using your phone, not using your iPad, not using some fancy calculator. You have to figure pressure altitude by hand. And the reason is, if you're flying somewhere and you're going to make an unplanned stop and you're at a higher elevation, you need to know, can I hover when I get there? You got to be able to figure this stuff on the fly while you're flying without electronic equipment that doesn't include batteries, something that can fail. You have to be able to figure pressure altitude. So he failed on that stupid little item. Not going to call it stupid, because it's important to know. And it's just something I didn't cover with him. I figured, airplane cfi, he knows how to figure pressure altitude. No big deal. I didn't go over it with him. That was my fault. You have to know how to figure pressure altitude by hand. Number two had a female student going for a CFI rating, and she was a great instructor. She had 10 years of teaching experience. Her ground knowledge was awesome. She was taking checkride in the Schweitzer, and they take off and they go out, and within 15 minutes, they're heading back in. And I know, oh, something went wrong. Well, prior to your checkride, I said, if you set your steep approach up and you start to fly it and it's going to be too steep, do a go around, but do it early. Don't wait till it's too late. We talked about steep approach. We practice steep approaches during her checkride. He says, okay, show me a steep approach. So she starts to do her steep approach, tells him, oh, this is too steep. Oh, this is too steep. And what does she do? She continues it all the way down to the end. So of course he says, okay, we're going to have to go in and talk about this. So he came in, we sat down, he explained what she did. She knew she messed up. I knew it. We did our additional training, and she took the checkride again and got through.

It the second time.

But that could have been an easy fix. When she first set it up, when she knew it was too steep, she should have went around. You can't wait to the last hundred feet of your approach and then decide you're going to go around. If you set it up in the beginning. A good setup is a good approach. Doesn't matter, steep, normal, whatever you're doing. If your setup isn't good to say, I'm going to go around and set up again, that wasn't good. I believe most of the time that's going to be appropriate. Again early on in the maneuver, not halfway through, three quarters of the way through. If your setup's not good, do a go around. The number three was an auto rotation and what he did was he missed his spot. Let's say he was going to the numbers 2, 8. Examiner says shooting shoot a straight in auto to the numbers two, eight. He misses two eight by like 100ft. So Sandler says that's not acceptable. They go in, we talk about it, we do our additional training. Comes back aces it. The second time he was nervous. He had kind of a rough oral, didn't get through it very well. He was an add on guy who didn't study as hard as he should have. Oh, I'm good. I know this, I know that well. My fault for not just making sure that he knew everything as well as he should have. I was still fairly new instructor at that time. The point is, if you're shooting straight in auto and he says shoot to the numbers 2.8, you want to be flaring pretty close to that spot. You can have a little bit of run on and go past a little bit, but you want to be pretty close. So again, be as close to your spot as possible. You miss it by 20ft, is that going to be acceptable? Probably. You miss it by 100ft. Not going to be good enough.

Are you struggling with all the information there is to know to become a helicopter pilot? Discover the number one helicopter training system on the web. Now you can attend helicopter online ground school from the comfort of your own home, at your own pace, 24 hours a day. Experienced, certified and passionate. Let Captain Keller guide your online instruction to help you succeed in obtaining your helicopter pilot's license Only at helicopter online ground School.

Hello, I'm Kenny Keller with Fort Wayne Helicopters and the creator of Helicopter online Ground School. I help people prepare for their helicopter checkride so they can get their helicopter rating and go do the fun stuff, the flying. Have you or are you struggling with all the information there is to know? Well, I feel your pain. Back when I got started back in the late 90s, I failed my first private pilot check ride and man, did that hurt. And I know I studied hard and thought I was prepared, but I just wasn't prepared as much as what I should have been. After my failure, I went home and didn't go back for six months. And then when I decided to go back and try it again, I sat down and started gathering all my notes up. And I went down to the local drugstore and got a big, thick notebook. I wrote down everything from all the notes that I had scattered all over the place, from the different places I'd flown, the different instructors I'd been with, and the different books that I had, because I thought, you know, I wanted one place to study. And I studied really hard. And when I went back to retest, I smoked the second time around. And the examiner said, well, how come you had so much trouble the first time? And I said, well, I didn't know my stuff the first time around like I do now. So that was my solution at that time, was to basically create my own training, my own one central place to study. And then I get onto the helicopter world and start training. As an instructor, I'm a big believer in the pts and would always use the PTS to prep guys for checkrides. But then, like the last test before sending a guy, I'd take them through my notebook and if I could ask questions out of my notebook and they could answer everything, I knew they were ready. And people would say, well, you should write your own training manual. And we kind of laughed and joked about it.

I had a lot of students that.

Would say things to me like that, and it was always just seemed kind.

Of like a joke.

The cool thing, now it has turned into my own training manual of sorts. It's online helicopter training. I found my own solution. I built my own solution. When I was trying to study, there was nothing for helicopters out there. Lots of stuff for airplanes, but almost virtually nothing for helicopters. And what you do find for helicopters is almost always a supplement. It's some flight, airplane, flight school that has a helicopter supplement. So when I was training, there wasn't much available. You know, the old world ways was just go pay your instructor 30, 40, 50 bucks an hour for every hour that you needed, and then go home and study, study, study on your own. Or some places you'd go, they would just say, ah, here, here's the book, read it. So that's kind of the old way. Now in our world, we have laptops, desktops, smartphones, iPads, all kinds of stuff, all kinds of ways to consume information. You know, a popular myth would be that you're just going to lay down at night and put the study manuals underneath your pillow and that all this knowledge is going to come into your brain. Or go pay your instructor 50 bucks an hour for the next 50 hours to help you get through all the ground knowledge that you need to know. And what normally happens with helicopter training, not always, but a lot of times a guy's flying will get ahead of his ground knowledge. That's what happened with me. And it happens to a lot of people. You fly, fly, fly. Flight schools want the blade spinning. They want to be in the helicopter. Instructor wants to put time in his logbook. So the focus is usually about making money for the aircraft and putting hours in the instructor logbook. That's reality. That's what really goes on a lot of the time in the helicopter world. Don't get me wrong, there are schools out there that have great ground school programs. It's not everywhere, but a lot of.

Places, not so much.

So our training is for those that want some extra help or that maybe just aren't getting virtually hardly any ground at all. So I stayed really busy as an instructor for a number of years, and then I got into EMS flying and flew the BK117, the EC135. But I always stayed active as an instructor while I was doing these other jobs. And whilst flying ems, I met a young man named Nick Logan who came to work where I was working at at the EMS base. And anytime a new pilot starts out, it's just normal procedure that he flies with everybody for a day or two just to kind of get their take on the area and how they operate and the way things go. And I hear Nick Logan in the next room talking about marketing. At that time I'm flying ems, I own an instrument helicopter, I'm running a business on the side with my own flight school. And I say, hey, tell me about this marketing I heard you talking about in the other room.

And he says, well, you should be.

Blogging and doing videos. And he got me started blogging and doing videos. And then pretty soon it turned into a, hey, you should start an online ground school. Well, at first we kind of joked about it, and then it became reality. March 1, 2012. And I have to say, we are December of 2013 right now. And I just launched this new PTS section in site online ground school that completely and utterly rocks. I spent a bunch of time loading the content into the PTS section, getting it all set up, but I'm always at a desktop or a laptop, and when I actually sat down with the tablet and brought it up and scrolled through it, I thought, wow, this is incredible. Do you need help for preparing for a helicopter checkride? Well, check this out. I've been bragging up how our online training will work on any device. Well, I just got done for the first time taking a look at how the PTS section, the practical test standard, works out on a tablet. This is cool. You simply log into your device and in this case it's a tablet. Go here to the PTS section and we go right down the list. Pre flight preparation, pre flight procedures, airport heliport operations, hovering maneuvers, takeoff, landings and go arounds performance, maneuvers, navigation, emergency procedures, night operation and post flight procedures. So let's say you're just starting out. You want to start the beginning pre flight preparation. Click on it. Then we work down through pre flight preparation step by step. So the first section here is a quick 1 minute intro video explaining how we have a full 2 hour MP3 download for pre flight preparation. And then each other section has its own individual mp3 download. So after the intro video says start here. So it brings up that section, has a video, has the MP3 download below the video, click play no matter what.

Aircraft you're flying, Robinson, Schweitzer and Stroud.

And the video starts to play. In this case it's a three minute video, just an intro to help get you started. And then when you want to move on, you just over here to the left. This is what's so cool. It goes down the section step by step. So the first time going through, of course you're going to want to hit every section, work down the list. Then when you want to come back later and let's say you want to hit weather, you're struggling with weather, click run the weather tab.

Welcome to Helicopter online ground school.

And there's your 20 minute weather video with MP3 download below. It's coming out way better than expected. I was actually surprised when I actually checked it out on a tablet for the first time. It's pretty cool. So now that you've had a look at how that works, I have to say I am super proud of this training. It is really cool and I've had awesome feedback so far. The original TED modules I built, they were okay at the time, but it made it kind of tough because it was random following my notebook, which is good checkride preparation especially for VFR flight. For anybody that maybe flies a lot of IFR and they're doing an add on and they haven't flown VFR in a while. It's really great as like a flight review with the new PTS section I'm going through step by step, taking you all the way through basically the beginning of the pts, all the way through the oral portion, the flying portion, giving my tips, things I've seen, the mistakes I've seen people make and pretty much just putting everything I got into this and giving you the whole checkride preparation thing that I've been doing for years. We're building R22 and R44 training. Part of that's up. We've got all kinds of extra stuff coming out. It's really turning into a neat deal. So don't make the common mistake of letting your aircraft flying get way ahead of your ground knowledge because ultimately it will cost you more money in the long run. If you have to slow down the flight training because you're behind on the ground, then you need more time in the aircraft once you get the ground knowledge where it needs to be and it just turns into a big mess. So if you're ready to start with our training today, you can click the link below. You can also request a test drive. Go back to our home page@helopterground.com shoot me an email. Just give me a quick short version of where you're at and you're flying and what you're flying, which aircraft and I can set you up with 24 hour test drive to go in and look at our training. Right now we have the 10 original modules on DVD. So there's two packages, the online package and then the online package with DVD. So as of right now, December 13th, we have like six of those left. So that's all we have at this moment. I am going to come out with a new dvd. After these are sold out, then we're going to work on something new. But then the pricing structure is going to change and it's all going to be different. So if you're interested in the DVDs as well, the first original 10 modules, we still have six sets of those. As of December 13th, we have a new online classroom. They've been working one on one with students getting ready for their checkrides and that has had rave reviews as well. It is really pretty darn cool. We can go into this online classroom, we can upload video. My presentations that I already have built, I can build new presentations. We've had four people in there at one time, including me around the country. I've done training one on one with a customer from Mexico.

I just did some one on one.

Training with a customer from Canada and that was cool. He had his laptop projected onto 150 inch screen on the wall. So I'm looking at him in the classroom and where I'm seeing him, I can see me in the background inside the online classroom on his wall. So the tech stuff is getting crazy, but I'm trying to stay on top of it and I'm just super thrilled and excited with where this whole online training program is going. So again, if you're ready to get started with us now, if you go with the online membership or online with dvd, once you purchase you'll get immediate access to the training system. It will send you an immediate login. If for some reason it doesn't, just shoot me an email@fort wayne helicoptersmail.com and I'll get to it as fast as I can. Normally the system works really good, but once in a while there'll be a glitch and somebody purchases. If you don't get within a few minutes, email me and I'll get the email as soon as I can and I'll go in and manually reset it for you. Most of the time there's no issue. So that's about all I can think of for right now. You can click one of the links below or I have something else that I'm going to tack on the end here. I've been getting the question a lot about well, how does your training compare to sporties and or king schools? And I shot this video the other night for a customer and you're welcome to hang around and watch the rest of this video and hear kind of how I talk about where I'm going with the online school and how it.

Compares to all the other training out there.

So thanks for stopping by. Send me an email if you have any questions you're having any trouble and we'll see you all soon. Come up with something new. I just got a great question that's popping up more and more as time goes by. I'll tell you that it's now December of 2013 and I'm getting questions like this more and more often. So I'm going to address this and then when somebody else asks, I can shoot them this video, shoot them this podcast and help kind of answer the.

Question instead of typing out a big.

Long email every time. But I got an email from a fixed wing pilot. He's flying an R44 and working on his rating and he's flying, getting along with his instructor well, but he wants some added help on the side for his ground training, which is cool. That's what we do Here. And he says, I've considered buying the commercial prep DVDs from Sporty's or King schools to help with the knowledge test, but don't really fill the they will help specifically with the R44 training. I'd like to hear your take on this subject matter coming from someone who doesn't know a lot about what he's doing and I can appreciate that. So starting off, I want to say no disrespect to Kings or Sporties, but quite simply what I do is a lot different than what Kings and Sporties does. You know, as far as Kings go, they've been around forever. When I was a young pilot, I used King videos for instrument training, as most all of us have. And I recently used the King schools to renew my cfi. And the training that I purchased from them I was very happy with it, was very easy to use, did about six hours online and had what I needed to renew my cfi and it worked real well and I was very happy with that training. As far as Sporty's training goes, as far as I know, it's really like a two hour video covering a lot of different things about learning to fly helicopters and aerodynamics. And I haven't seen the entire video, but it looks like it's pretty good stuff. But as far as I know, it's a two hour video. What else they have, I'm not really sure. I don't slow down enough to really look at what the other guys are doing because I get this question a lot about certain things and I am just doing my thing the way I like to do it, the way I want to do it. I don't have time to research what everybody else out there is doing. I do what I want to do and that is help people prepare for a checkride, help learn the information that.

They need to know.

Then there is one other online helicopter training school out there. I've never purchased it, I haven't seen it firsthand, so I really can't say a lot about that one. I do know that last I checked, their training expired in six months. So you buy their training, six months later it expires. That's why when I designed my training, I decided lifetime membership, membership's good as long as I'm current and flying and in the helicopter industry, which I intend to be for quite some time. I've only been flying since 1997 and I'm now in my later 40's so I got a lot of good flying years left and I completely plan on staying with my flying career and continuing on. So again, over the years, I've seen a lot of people that they come in, they want to work on a rating and oh, I want to be done by January, I want to be done by March. Well, that's all well and good, but life gets in the way, work gets in the way. All kinds of different things play into getting your rating done. And most of the time, if a guy wants to do it in six months, it takes him a year or he wants to be done in a year and it takes a year and a half.

The scenarios are endless.

There are guys that get done really quick and girls, I should say there are people who get through the training really fast, but a lot of the time you don't get through it that quick. So I don't think it's fair to charge somebody a lump sum of money and then say, but you got to be done in six months or you'll have to renew your membership. I just don't think that's the way I want to operate. And with my training, for anybody that's watched what I do or any of our members know that I am continually building training, I am continually adding training, I'm continually taking older training that I built two years ago. Now I look at it and go, oh my God, that audio was horrible on that and that video was horrible on that. But it's a learning process. So with time moving forward, my work does get better. I do add new programs. I'm super proud of the new PTS section. We have the practical test standards. Basically, I'm just going through the practical test standards step by step by step by step and walking you right through the list of everything that's going to happen during a checkride, the kinds of things that the examiner is going to ask you, kind of what you can expect. A lot of that content is new and some of that content is from the original 10 modules. That original 10 modules was cool when I got started back in years ago, basically. March 2012, hey, it was an idea, something I did and we realize now that, you know, the random training out of my notebook, it was great for checkride prep and some people still really like it. Some guys love the DVDs, they love the 10 modules, especially guys that are instrument pilots, fixed wing instrument pilots working on a helicopter add on and they've flown instruments for years and they haven't done anything VFR in a long time. Those guys are the ones that love the original 10 modules. So what's cool about the PTS is I have it all broke down. The content that's good from the original 10 that I want to keep. I can move right over to the PTS section. The things that are older and the audio wasn't so good or video is not so good, I can update those with new presentations. And now that we have the new PTS section, it's very easy to go in and say, oh, I need a new weather video or I want to add something to one of the maneuvers, I can go right to that section of the pts, go in, fix what I want to fix or update what I want to update, and boom, it's ready to go. So the whole search works better inside of our online training. So this new PTS thing is awesome and it's really cool and it's working out really, really well. I just last night actually sat down after working for about a week loading content into the PTS and getting it all set up. Then when I sat down with a tablet and started going through it, I thought, wow, this thing is incredible. The way it lays out. You go to the video, you can watch the video, you can download the MP3 file and then look over to the left hand side and go right on the list of different things you're looking for. So the PTS is coming out really cool. The R22 and R44, those projects have been vamped and revamped and I'm getting ready to make another big revamp again because I'm building this 141 flight school program that's just killer. And at this time December 2013, the world has not seen it. Nobody has seen the content that I have built for this 141 program. And honestly, it's going to be some of the coolest R22 and R44 training on the planet. I wanted to get the PTS done first because I had that promise to customers. I've got that under control and about finished up, other than going back later to do updates, be adding a few things here and there, but it will be much easier to work on and keep going. We have the R22 and R44 sections. I'm going to get those finished up and streamlined.

So where you just have the basic.

R22 and R44 training built on the pilot's operating handbooks for both those helicopters. And then the 141 program is going to be a whole separate training section. So the membership we have now will stay the same. And then I'm going to add the 141 training as a different project. I haven't worked out all those details yet, but I'm going to get to that here in the very near future. So that's my mission. Right now the PTS is looking awesome. R22 and R44 is going to be done very soon too. Going to start banging out the 141 program. And I've also got content for the Schweitzer and Nstrom modules too. There's not a lot in there now, but that's going to start getting in there too because I promised that to customers and I'm going to live up to my promise and get that training in there. That training I can build a little bit faster, a little bit easier because a lot of the instrument stuff I already have in other forms I just haven't put it into the ground school form yet. So there's a lot of cool stuff going on there. That answers the question on how my training is different versus Kings and Sporty. So again, we all have our place and I think what I do is quite different. And the other thing that I told this gentleman that was interested in my training, I basically said my customers deal and interact with me. So I don't think you're going to get that with Sporties and Kings. I don't think you're going to have John King on the phone with you for four hours the night before your checkride, talking you through last minute this.

And that and everything else, getting ready to go.

So that's kind of the gist of it. I'll probably just kind of stop there. That's a good idea of kind of where we're at and where we're going. Oh, online classroom. We haven't talked about the online classroom yet either. We go through the PTS section and I've started adding links for past classes from the online classroom. I've now worked with about 10 different people on checkrides, getting on the Internet on our online classroom and working with them one on one and putting presentations in there and then those are recorded and customers can go back and view those recordings later. So we're moving those links into the appropriate section of the pts. So if, say you're hungry for more information on the difference in lift, you don't want to hear just the definition. You want to go in more depth. Right now we have some classroom on difference of lift where I was going through with these two guys working on their instructor ratings and I was showing them how I teach the symmetry of lift or difference in lift and just giving them an option on how you could teach it. That works great for anybody that wants to learn more. They can view that and see basically one CFI interacting with two soon to be CFIs and talking about the ways it's going to be taught or the ways it can be taught. So the online classroom is a whole other thing on top of what we do that, as far as I know, you're not getting that with any of the other programs out there either. You're just buying a set program, a certain amount of information. They're not working with you online one.

On one, helping you through specific subject areas.

So that's where we're at in December 2013, getting ready to bring in the new Year and crank out a bunch of new training. So thanks for stopping by and we'll.

See you all soon.