Kenny Keller explains how to prevent tail rotor strikes during throttle reductions. When you roll off the throttle, add pedal input immediately to counteract the loss of torque. A student's helicopter spun unexpectedly on ice near fuel pumps because he forgot this step.
I'm surprised at how many times people don't give some pedal input when they split the needles to check the sprag clutch. Here we are sitting on ice. Yes. I split the needles by rolling throttle off quickly. If you don't add the correct pedal, you're gonna go spin it. With the student one, he rolled off throttle very quickly to do the power or do the sprag clutch check. And I wasn't ready for it. He just did it. And we were sitting next to the fuel pumps, and it scared because the whole aircraft rotated and we were so close to pumps that I thought we were. We almost hit it. And I actually popped my door open to look back to see how close we were. I mean, we were farther than what I thought. Yes, it did scare me. And it's all because he rolled that throttle off to split the needles. You got to add pedal when you do that. Just for this exact case. Here we are, we are sitting on top of snow and ice. Yep. When I rolled off today, I added left pedal and we didn't rotate. But if I would have rolled quick, that rolled that throttle off fast and didn't add any pedal, we could have turned the whole aircraft. I see that a lot with people that I don't. That I don't train. They never add that pedal. And it's just something easy to do so you don't rotate the aircraft. I am going to back that up.
Exactly what you said 100%. There's people that just haven't been shown this. Luckily, I was taught early on, you do it all year round. You always add pedal when rolling throttle off. Depending on which model left or right pedal could be. When you roll throttle off, always add the proper pedal so the aircraft doesn't spin.
So you get it counteracts that tor. That takes that torque away. When you take that torque away, the aircraft's gonna spin. So if you just add that pedal, it's a nice easy way just to keep it straight. And you're right. I do it all year round because it's a habit for me. And I'm sure I picked that up from you because you're my instructor. But it's amazing to me. I mean, this is a prime example. I don't know. Hopefully our viewers can see it, but.
We are.
Sitting on ice right now. So, I mean, this is a prime example of us is gonna. We're gonna slide a little bit maybe when we start to get light on the skids. But when I rolled that throttle off, we definitely wanted to add some pedal today because that aircraft will twist. And I and I'll tell you what, I that I'll never forget that time. And I do have it on video. I show it every once in a while.
Nice. You'll have to give me a clip of that.
Yeah. It's just one of those things where I wasn't ready for, because I usually talk him through it. And it just happened. It twisted the aircraft. And I thought for sure we were going to hit the protection markers that are by the fuel pump that we're up next to.
So maybe if you train in the Southern states, you never deal with ice. Maybe that's coming up.
Could be part of it. Yeah. And you're right. I mean, maybe they don't deal with that stuff at different.
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