A short instructional YouTube video by Kenny Keller emphasizing the necessity of performing clearing turns in helicopters during hover and before turning the aircraft or tail. Keller uses anecdotes (vehicles, fuel trucks, poles, wires) and appeals to experienced pilots’ occasional mistakes to argue that clearing the tail must be done every time for safety.
Hello, Kenny. With four wind helicopters, I want to talk about clearing turns. Now, clearing turns is one that a lot of people don't want to do every time because they think it's too redundant and they get tired of doing it and they think, ah, there's nobody around us. Well, there's a fact that I've had several times where I've had not only a tractor come up beside me underneath the rotor system, I've had cars go past, fuel trucks when you think nobody's around. These vehicles come out of the blue and so do the obstacles. There's EMS pilots out there that have thousands of hours and they make a simple mistake and don't clear their tail, and they stick their tails into poles and wires and hangers and all kinds of stuff. So you have to clear the tail every single time you go to turn the aircraft. Make sure your tail is clear. Look out your side, make sure you're clear. If you're flying with somebody else, an instructor or passenger, before you turn their direction or the tail in their direction, make sure they look out and clear the tail for you. The clearing tails, the clearing turns are a very, very, very important part of safe helicopter flying. And these safety things we teach you, they're not just for you to get through the check ride and then throw them out the window and never fly with them again. These are lifelong, basic things that we're teaching you to keep you out of trouble. So do the clearing turns and do them every single time you go to move the airc. Clear that tail and make sure it's clear. Thanks for stopping by and we'll see you on the next one.
