Kenny Keller shows what to bring to helicopter lessons. A commercial pilot once showed up for a CFI checkride with nothing, no bag or books. Keller's essentials: Rotorcraft Flying Handbook, FAR/AIM, pens, tablet, notebook. Bring your bag even if weather cancels the flight so you can study on the ground.
Okay, we're moving right along here, and I'm gonna kind of back up just a little bit here. And this is gonna be something for you guys that have already been flying, this is gonna be more obvious, but. And I actually shouldn't say that, because I had a guy show up that was a commercial pilot wanting to do a CFI checkride. That's where I'll go with the story. I had a guy who I helped get his commercial, and he shows up, calls me up, says, hey, I want to do my cfi. I said, okay, great. And so we make a date and the 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 you're going to carry your stuff into or 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's at. This guy was going for a cfi. He ended up getting it, and he did good. 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. And we'll tell a little more on that story again later. But there was also. There's a cool chip in here I'm going to tell a story about, too. About something I'm going to redeem back in Cleveland at some point. But point I need to make is you need to have a bag. And you can start out in the beginning. It can 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 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. He says that's the way a CFI checkride and instructor check ride 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. 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, 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 in the 10 years I've been teaching, 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. So a little bit of what 10 years of teaching has really taught me to really push people to do. So stay tuned. We'll see you on the next one. Thanks.
