A YouTube video by Kenny Keller (creator of Helicopter Online Ground School) explaining FAA-related ground knowledge endorsements for helicopter ratings (private, commercial, and CFI). Keller covers pre‑solo endorsement requirements, instructor sign‑offs needed for FAA written tests (private/commercial require instructor endorsement; CFI written does not), and the instructor’s role in verifying knowledge before a practical test (checkride). He also describes using his online ground school and contact info for further help.
Chapters
Hello, I'm Kenny Keller, the creator of Helicopter Online Ground School and I want to answer some basic questions about the ground knowledge sign offs for the helicopter rating and I'll kind of go through the different ones, private, commercial and cfi. And I just had an interested member ask is this a true FAA part 61 approved flight school? In other words, if I purchase your online private pilot course and complete it successfully, will I receive a certification endorsed by a CFI and is it acceptable to the faa? Rotorcraft ground school hours required so if you're new to this, the first endorsement you're going to have to have is the pre solo as per the FAR AIM manual, which this means during your flight training before you can solo, your instructor has to go through a certain amount of things with you to make sure you have that knowledge before he can let you go solo. Whether it comes from your own study, it comes from our ground school, or or it comes from time one on one with your instructor, he has to verify that you have that knowledge before he can let you go solo. So that applied just to the private pilots. Now for the private pilot and commercial and CFI for the FAA written test for the instructor rating, you can take those written tests without an instructor endorsement. So you don't need them for the CFI written test for the certified flight instructor written test. But for the private and the commercial, yes, you will need a sign off from an instructor whether it is the instructor flying with or we could do it as well. We have progress tracking with our online ground school for the members and we also have tracking for us on our end. So you have to go through the entire course and watch all the videos. Whether it's private, commercial, doesn't matter. You'd have to review all the videos and then a quick say a Skype session where I could evaluate your knowledge, make sure that you've retained the information that you need. I could give you an endorsement for that written test, but you could also get that written test endorsement from your instructor so you're flying somewhere. Maybe not doing a lot of ground school, but once you're ready, you could tell your instructor, say hey, I've been doing this online ground school course, I'm ready to take the written, can you give me the endorsement? He could take a little time, review your knowledge, make sure you're good, and then give you the sign off. Then there's the sign off for the practical test, also known as the checkride. Now the way this works is whoever sends you whatever instructor is going to send you for your checkride, he has to verify that you have the knowledge. Doesn't mean he has to teach you every subject area you can learn on your own at home studying by yourself with all the books. If you want, you can go through our online ground school and get the knowledge. You can sit one on one with your instructor and gain that knowledge. You can do all three if you'd like to. But the instructor you're flying with has to evaluate your ground knowledge before he can send you for your checkride. Now, if your knowledge is good, he may only spend an hour or two with you and say, hey, you know, he's asking you questions and you're just hitting it left and right and you have the knowledge, he can sign you off to take the checkride. When your knowledge is there, number one and number two, your flying is there. Almost everybody struggles with the ground. It's not usually the flying that's the hold up, it's usually the ground knowledge. So hopefully that covers the questions that a lot of you have. Depending on which rating you're working on on the sign offs as far as the ground school that you have to have for the certain areas. Of course, if you have any questions, put them in the box down below. We'll get a conversation going about it. But that's kind of the basics of how the sign offs work for the ground knowledge and for your checkride. So if you're struggling with the knowledge like I did, I failed my first checkride many years ago. That's why I created Helicopter Line Ground School from the overwhelm of trying to learn all the information, go to helicopterground.com go to the link in the description box below or near the video. We have information@helopterground.com for all of our levels. Private, commercial, CFI, plus our aircraft specific areas that you can add to those free memberships. So click that link down below. Go to our website, check that out. Please give us a like and a share and we'll see in the next video.
