A short instructional video by Kenny Keller explaining the procedure for a normal helicopter approach. He describes setup at 300 ft AGL (60 knots, 300 ft above ground), initiation of descent, control inputs (collective, pedal, cyclic), staged airspeed reductions to 50→40→30 kt, and the key safety rule: keep rate of descent below 300 ft/min before letting airspeed drop below 30 kt to avoid settling with power (vortex ring state).
So here I want to talk about normal approach. Key to a good approach. It's a good setup. Here we have our 60, 300ft above the ground, zero rate of descent. We have everything set up nice. I'm going to start our approach at 300. And in this video you can see that these trees right here. If we come over those trees at 1100ft by our altimeter, we know that we're 300 AGL, set up for a purpose. Nice normal approach. Come over there. We start our descent with a little bit of down collective, a little bit of right pedal and a little bit of aft cyclic, then going to start gradually slowing the helicopter down to 50, down to 40, down to 30. It's a slow, smooth, gradual process of slowing the helicopter down all the way in, all the way down to the Runway, keeping that angle the same, controlling our angle with the collective, controlling our speed with the cyclic. And if you look here, I'm pointing out, we're waiting till we get below 300ft per minute before we let that airspeed get below 30. That is the general safe rule for keeping you out of settling with power. This one we can't beat enough. A lot of guys get into trouble getting coming in too fast, too high a rate of descent, let their airspeed drop off, get below etl, and that's when they get into selling with power.
