Kenny Keller tells the story of a commercial pilot who showed up to a CFI checkride with no bag, no books, and no materials. Bring a flight bag with the Rotorcraft Flying Handbook, FAR/AIM, and basic supplies from day one. Show up to lessons even when you can't fly so you can do ground school instead.
A guy who I helped get his commercial. And he shows up, calls me up, hey, I want to do my cfi. I said, okay, great. And so we make a date and a time, and he comes and he walks in and he sits down at the table, and he looks at me, and I kind of look around, and I don't see a book or a bag or anything. And I'm like, hey, how you doing? Good. We start talking. I said, so, you ready to do your instructor rating? And he said, yeah. I said, okay, well, where's your bag? And he's like, oh, what bag? I said, your bag. That your stuff in? Oh, well, I don't have one. And I said, where's your Rotorcraft Flying Handbook? Where's your FAR aim? Oh, well, I think I got the Rotorcraft Flying handbook in the car. I'm not sure where my far aim is at. This guy was going for a cfi. He ended up getting it, and he did good. And he was a sharp kid and he did great. But I had to back up. Here's a guy at a commercial level going for CFI who didn't show up ready to go. So what I'm going to show you here is a good friend of mine when I started flying 15 years ago, gave me this cool bag. And this thing's traveled with me all over the United States, been in tons of aircraft, and it even survived the helicopter crash I was in. Got tossed out onto the ramp. The point I need to make is you need to have a bag. And you can start out in the beginning and be a small bag. As you continue through the training, you're going to realize you need something bigger and something even bigger. And if you go to cfi, CFI checkrides, instrument checkrides. I can remember my examiner saying, when I showed up for my instrument checkride after I was already an instructor, I walked in with all this gear. And he says. He just laughed and says, that's the way a CFI checkride and instructor checkride should look like. So bottom line, from the start of your training, get yourself a decent bag that you can carry your books in. Get yourself a marker, some pens and pencils, a decent tablet, a decent notebook. We'll be talking more about notebooks later. But the point of the story is when you go to your helicopter lesson, have your stuff with you. Always have it in the car. And don't just cancel your flight. Oh, the weather's bad. I'm not going. Always take your bag with you. You go to the airport, you take the time. You've got the appointment set up, you get there and the aircraft doesn't start, or you guys find something on pre flight and you can't fly. You can go in and do ground for two hours. What happens? Student shows up, you can't fly. Well, hey, let's do some ground. Do you have your stuff? Oh, no, I left it at home. Anytime you go fly, take your bag with you. Get what you need and always have it there. Because we all know. I shouldn't say we all know. That's why I'm doing this ground school. A lot of it is I've taken care of a lot of people that maybe didn't get the best instruction somewhere else. So the point is, instructors don't make you do ground. That's why I'm here. I'm here to help fill that void. So get yourself a bag, show up for your flight lesson. If the weather's bad, don't cancel. Go in for your flight anyway, and the weather's bad, you have a maintenance issue, do ground school.
