Kenny Keller explains why R44 pedals feel heavier than R22s and says footwear matters more than most pilots think. He recommends trying different shoes, practicing hovering square patterns, and keeping inputs simple. His final approach course costs $6,800 for R44 training with limited spring 2025 slots.
Questions this video answers
Three days of training; Day number four is the checkride.
$6,800.
$5,300.
Three hours of flight prep and one hour for the checkride.
Chapters
Sim racing, pal. They say that they have 103 hours total with 14 hours in R44 and the remaining in R22. They have no issues with their pedals in the Robinson 22, but they struggle with the R44 pedals. They're too heavy. Any suggestions?
Here's a. What may seem like a silly answer, but what are you wearing on your feet? I say this not only for R22, I say it for any helicopter or R44. I know when I started, I can remember one of my instructors, I was struggling one day, and I had. I was a law enforcement officer at the time, so I liked wearing the boots that I wore when I was on duty just because they were, you know, Gore Tex and super comfortable. And the dude's like, hey, man, you got that big, bulky boot on and you're struggling with those pedals. Come back with a more of a comfortable shoe. And I did, and it eliminated those problems I was having. And as an instructor, many times over the years when somebody's told me they were struggling with pedals, I've said, try a different pair of shoes. And nine times out of 10, over all this 24 years, somebody's come back and said, that did it. That did the trick, right? I've also wore some, like, hiking boots at times. And in the instrument, there was a way that, like, a fin on the edge of the thing would get stuck in my hiking boot. So what you're wearing on your feet can actually make a big difference. Other than that, I can remember at a point in the R44 where I felt like the R44 was more squirrely than the R22, which doesn't really make sense with the R44 being bigger and heavier and what should be a more stable aircraft. And I don't know if that was just something that was going on with me. Weird, mentally, it was when I had low time in the R44, because now that I've been flying them for a while, again, I haven't really noticed that same problem. But I did for a little While in the R44, remember seeming like it was just, like, getting really squirrely, and I was over getting really wild on the pedals and just thinking, why? What's going on with this thing? You know, what's weird about this? So that's about the best I can tell you on that. Try some different shoes and keep working through it, right? Just go out there and practice something I've done. When I feel a little, maybe a little bit like I Need to struggle my skills or I'm struggling a bit with the pedals or something. I'll go out here in a big empty area and I'll do what we call hovering square pattern. And people love this. And I was going to grab my helicopter, but I keep moving it. I was doing ground over there earlier. You just set up square in the field or on a ramp or anywhere. Set it down, pick it up, move over here, set it down, pick it up, turn, come over here, set down, pick it up, go all the way around the square and then turn around and go back the other way and go real slow all the way around, back their direction. So think about it. You're getting a wind on any given day, you're getting it from four different directions, going one way, same thing, returning, and again, each time you pick up and move, throw in a turn, right, and do all that both ways. That has helped me tremendously. Anytime I felt like my skills were a little behind or I was struggling a little bit too much with the pedals, I've said, you know what, I'm going down there for half an hour and I'm just going to take my time and really think through the pedals. The other thing I can think of, if you're moving the pedals too much or you're struggling, you're probably thinking about them too much and you're probably even looking down at them too much. You know, I remember one instructor when I was struggling with pedals going, just push it. Just push the damn pedal, would you? Right, like, get over this. Whatever problem you're having is just look outside. You want the nose to go that way, push the pedal. And as simple as that sounds, that's got me through pedal issues as well in the past. So hopefully that helps. This is PD Private Pilot 101. I think I'm trading Blueprint. The link is down below to get a free PDF. So you sign up with your email and you'll immediately be able to download the free PDF. You'll also have an opportunity to purchase the paperback if you would like. So that link is down below along with a link for ask hogs.com if you're new to us, we have a clone 14 years of my digital contents piped into it. You can ask it questions 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Here's a tip on the clone, though. It's got a lot of content in it, but we've had some people asking specific questions, like with a, you know, can I fly into this specific airport Can I do this right? Like we haven't fed the clone actual supplement charts. So asking it things like how many miles from this airport to that airport is not going to have that information. We haven't loaded it with that kind of information. We've loaded it with all my videos, podcasts, you know, blogs, paid content, free content. It's all in there. But you know, we don't teach, you know, that that whole sectional chart part of aviation isn't loaded into the clone. So it has its limits on what you can ask. But you can ask anything helicopter flight and ground related related directly to learning. So there's 19 of you previous. Oh, sorry, 18. We have our 19th coming in just about a week that we're going to finish up. So we have a few spots left for the spring of 2025. So you got to get in now if you want one of these. Because of course as we're moving into spring, people are talking, they're calling. So we've got like three spots left for the spring if you want to get in. We're going to put a link down below this video. We've got a short questionnaire to see if you qualify for the final approach course. Go through that at the link below, answer the question and we'll get back to you. If you look like you're a good fit or we're a good fit, get you finished up. We got three spots basically for the spring so we can make you number 20, number 21 and number 22 on the Hogs Wall of Fame. And these are limited because I'm just saying I'm not sure exactly how long I'm going to continue this. I got some other things I got cooking, so I don't know if you wanted, if you want to get finished, you need to go below, fill out that form, answer the questions and we'll get back to you right away and we'll look and see if we can get you set up to get your rating finished. So you have two choices, R22 or R44. And the way this works, we do a minimum of three days. So we're going to work together doing the flying and ground for three days. Day number four, take a checkride. So three hours of flight prep, one hour for the checkride. Again, this is minimum. And we'll have you finished and send you home. So you have two choices, as we said, R22 and R44. So the minimum for the R44 is 6800 for the minimum package to get you finished again. If you need more time, we can always work something out. Or if you want a VIP package, then on the minimum for the R22, it's 5300. Again, that is the minimum. But if we didn't tell you, we've been working with this Same examiner for 24 years. We've completed 19 of these. You could be 20, 21 or 22. Get finished up for the spring, get on the schedule now. So go down below, fill out that questionnaire, and we'll get back to you, see if we can get you finished up. So I got peace out. When you feel the pressure to fly, but know the right decision is to stay on the ground. Hit the hogs. No, Go and live to fly another day. Helicopterground. Com.
