Short video by Kenny Keller (Fort Wayne Helicopters) answering a member question about doing helicopter training in the US while living in the UK. Kenny advises that flight training and ground school are best done together — ground knowledge and flying practice reinforce each other — but acknowledges split/trip-based training across visits can work if the student studies fundamentals between visits. He emphasizes FAA ground-knowledge requirements before solo flight.
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Hello, this is Kenny with Fort Wayne Helicopters, and I want to answer a member question. She posed a really good question that relates to something that I haven't talked about for a while, and that is she wanted to know, she's in the UK and if she came to the US to do some training but had to do it in several attempts and had to go back home, how would that work? And that poses a good question because people ask about, well, helicopter flight training, helicopter ground school, can I do one before the other? And for you to make the best progress doing the flying and doing the ground portions together is the best way to train. I had somebody one time that said, well, I want to do all the groundwork first and then I want to do the flying. Well, that doesn't really work too well because it's hard to do all the ground school first without getting in the aircraft, to do the practical part. And when you're in the aircraft, the things you're learning on the ground make a lot more sense. And I also had somebody one time that said, well, I want to do all the flying first and then I want to do the ground school. And I told him that's not going to work because you're never going to solo the aircraft because there's a certain amount of things that you have to know set forth by the faa. There's a certain amount of ground knowledge that you have to have before we can sign you off as an instructor. And if you don't sit down and do ground school and you don't study, you're not going to have the ground knowledge you're going to need to go do the solo. And in turn, to make your training in the aircraft go better, you need the ground knowledge. So they really go hand in hand. So to answer her specific question, if you were going to do something like that, travel to another country to train for a while and go back home to take a break and then come back again, I would say do as much studying as you can, basically on the fundamentals, knowing that some things are going to be maybe a little bit hard to understand until you get into the helicopter, do the practical part. So I'm not saying it can't be done. Of course it can be done. It's just not the most recommended way to do it. So that would be my advice to her, would be learn as much as you can knowing that some things are going to be a little iffy until you can get in the aircraft, and then you'll have the aha moments and go oh, okay. Now I understand what my instructor was talking about. Now I get it. So thanks for sending in the question. That's an important message to put out there. And we'll see you later.
