Kenny Keller shares three helicopter checkride failures he witnessed over 13 years. A candidate couldn't compute pressure altitude by hand. A CFI candidate continued a steep approach instead of going around. Another pilot's autorotation missed the touchdown spot by 60 to 70 feet. All three passed on their second attempt.
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, I've 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, and he got to the checkride and he was busting through the oral 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 or in a helicopter and you're going to divert and go land at a, at an airport where you hadn't planned it 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. 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 checkrides, of course, aces the oral part, the they go out to fly 15 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 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 had the go around done, because that's a maneuver for the checkride. Went around, took a big deep breath, set it up again, and tried again. But she started too steep, told the examiner it was too steep, and then continue 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. 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 that's just very, very difficult. So steep approach, 15 degrees. And then the third one was in an instrument, 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 check rate 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 over your 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 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 are 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. So give us a like leave comments. Please share and let us know what you think and we'll see you in the next video.
