Kenny Keller explains the hover pre-takeoff check procedure for the Enstrom F-28F helicopter. He describes a top-to-bottom scan performed every time before takeoff: warning/caution lights, rotor RPM, manifold pressure (to assess available power), engine/fuel/gearbox/amps/oil temps and pressures, and EGT monitoring. He emphasizes waiting briefly after lifting off to observe engine behavior and never taking off without this check.
Chapters
So the hover pre takeoff check that I teach in the instrum and our instrum F28F is pretty simple, straightforward. I start at the top and work my way down and I do that for 4es. It makes sense in a logical fashion to start at the top and work your way down. Every single time we take off, we do a hover pre takeoff check. We never take off without doing this. A lot of pilots do them, a lot of pilots don't. Not a good practice to get into taking off without doing a good hover pre takeoff check. When you pick the aircraft up off the ground, you want to give that engine 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 30 seconds. You want to give it a little time to see how it's going to act, what it's going to do, what are your temperatures and pressures going to do. So for us in the instrument, what we do is we go across the top. Warning, caution lights out, Move down here to the rpm, make sure that the RPM is in the operating range. Move over here to the manifold pressure, See how much manifold pressure we're pulling for that moment in time. How much weight do we have on board? What's the atmospheric conditions that day? So it's good to know how much power you have available. And then we move over here to the small cluster of gauges here which has your fuel main rotor gearbox amps, oil pressure, oil temperature and cylinder head temperature. We just give a quick glance down there, make sure everything's in the green, make sure that they're in their normal operating ranges. And then we look over here to the right hand side. Down here in the right corner is our egt, that's for exhaust gas temperature. In this particular helicopter, we can't exceed 1650 degrees. So we're actually leaning the aircraft a little bit more, a little bit less depending on what you're doing. But we're always watching that EGT to make sure that we have the engine operating under the limit. So that's the hover pre takeoff check.
