https://www.listennotes.com/e/aa801dc0759640ca803776d5efda7dda

Let's debrief our first, very first advanced auto rotation course. CW, you came out here two weeks ago approximately. Yep. And we, Houser and I laid out as an initial advanced auto rotation course. We laid out a plan on what we thought was gonna work. You came out, did the first day. Day number two was looking like, well you came in day two but the ceilings were If I and part of this auto that we're gonna talk about this course one thing is Hauser wants to do is get up at different altitudes different air speeds and do different things that people don't get to do so we decided you decided to go ahead and go home and come back a couple weeks pick a better day today you got blue skies Yep, so you could go out to whatever altitudes you wanted and and do day number two So let's run down what we initially did is we figured three flights for this advanced auto rotation course. And then we decided to give you an extra flight. So today you got two flights. So let's just debrief for ourselves because we're recording this and we'll transcribe it and AI will put it together for us in a nice form and we can evaluate in chapters and titles and the whole course. So there's so What did you guys do for flight number one? Either one of you go ahead and jump in.

Well, in my case I hadn't flown in quite a while. So basically what we did is we came out and we did some quick stops to get familiar with the helicopter again. And then we just did the basic straight ends and 180 autos. and then that was the first hour just kind of getting back into it. Whereas if somebody who had flown recently or whatever, they might have moved a little faster in that first hour. And then in the second hour we concentrated on maximum glide, minimum glide, just going along and suddenly the engine cut and being aware of situational awareness. where you might have to go to when you weren't expecting it, which reinforces that you should always be looking for a spot and backing up. And then what was planned for the next day, which we actually did today, was because of the weather and I made the decision a no-go. We came back today and then what we did in the first hour, again, some quick stops. Straight in 180 and then we worked on, let's see here, I gotta try and remember here now.

S-turns.

S-turns and stuff. And then, and one of the things that if you haven't done an S-turn before, done recently, and one of the things you should be aware of, because initially on my first S-turn, I turned right and and then Chris pointed out afterwards, it might have been better to go left because of the direction the wind was coming in. And when we went and did the second one and went left and then right, it actually worked better. So, you know, not doing them all the time or whatever in that whole quick process of going into an auto and doing an S turn, you know, I failed to think about the direction of the wind. So that was a good learning point for me that, you know, now I can be a little bit more cognizant the wind if I got into one of those situations. And then after lunch we went out and we did 360 autos and we did zero speed autos and both were really enjoyable, never done them before. You know the main thing is you got to watch your spot and your speed and your RPMs and you know on the first one, I kind of was, I think it was a little bit too slow, no too fast on the speed, so that ended up, I went a little bit long for my spot, but on the second one I had better control of it and I got closer and then on the zero autos, really they were kind of exciting. Once you get past that initial, you know, zero speed and you, you know.

Go.

Collective down, right pedal, everything is almost like you're frozen time. Nothing seems to move. If you're doing everything right, you just keep coming down, nothing's moving, everything's good. And then at about 300 feet or whatever, that's when you want to push forward to get your speed back on, to come into your flare to do your power recovery. And then after that, the last thing we did was straight in, full down autos, which I had not done in several years. And again, that was a good experience remembering just to, you know, just keep going and make sure at the end you push forward so you come down and keep the pedals right so you can be straight. So overall, I think it was a great experience. And as the first one, I really think if you're coming out here, you should think or give your own evaluation to Chris or Kenny as to how comfortable or how experienced you think you are, because that might determine whether you need just three hours or is it really important to do that fourth hour. And then the other thing too, depending on the time of the year, you know, just have in your mind a backup plan. What if the weather, goes bad? Do I want to, am I prepared to stay another day or is it better to come back, you know, another time or, you know, if you made this appointment two weeks ago and two weeks from now the weather's kind of looking, work with Kenny and Chris to say, hey, you know what? You know what you guys are expecting of the weather, is it really worth for me to come and only do part of it or depending on your schedule, can you block me in? another time, you know, so you get the best bang for your buck.

Is there anything that you guys did that CW didn't think of to mention while he was going through that? Anything else?

No, I think he hit it pretty good. One thing I would like to not stress, but just make it important that we want to tailor this course to the individual, right? So he kind of touched on it. so CW, when he came here on the first day, he hadn't flown in several months.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, so you've got to learn to, to crawl before he can walk. Right. So there's no, so we wanted to make sure, hey, let's make sure that the straight ends and the 180s are good before we go into the advanced stuff. Right. And I'm always going to do that no matter if you're flying at all. So, I mean, a student or someone that's coming here, we're always going to do straight in 180s first because I want to see what, you know, what you're used to or see how you do it or whatever. But in CW's case, I think, and it's nothing to his flying. I think we just spent, we took an extra maybe 20 minutes or half an hour spending on straight ends and fold or, I mean, straight ends and 180s because he hasn't flown for a while.

Right.

So what I'm getting at is we tailored it to CW, and that's why he took a fourth flight so we could get everything that We wanted that we had discussed what we wanted to make this course about so he could experience it all. A person that might come in here that's been flying a lot and used to, or maybe even an instructor who's been used to teaching 180s and straight ends or whatever and is used to the autos, he may come in here, Hey, show me straight in, show me 180. Hey, perfect, great. Let's move on to the next thing. And he might be able to do it in the three hours or whatever. so I think it's, well, we will tailor it to that person. But it's like he said, that you, you two things, you know, one, weather. So if you're thinking, you know, we offer, I think it's a two day course, right? Well, you know, exactly what happened to CW is I want for the, for the 360 Autos and the zero speed. I like to have more altitude so we can play with the Glide, right? I mean, I'm not saying that that's where you will fly at, but that's what we wanted so we could play with the Glide. And on that day, that second day he was here, I mean, we had 400, 500 foot ceilings. Well, that wasn't going to work for what we. So, you know, someone needs a plan on, okay, maybe an extra day in case of weather, and then maybe plan on a day, maybe an extra hour of, if things don't go, you know, I'm not saying bad, you know, the first hour, but just maybe we want to spend a little extra time on on something.

So, and you might have somebody that comes in that's always been 44s and you only have the 22 available or vice versa. That could also impact that, you know, that extra hour or whatever.

And I, but overall, I think we structured it.

Yeah.

Let's cover that. What did. So our original plan was two-day course, three hours, probably one to two hours the first day and then one to two the second, depending on how weather played out. Your first flight, I remember you said just what you've already told us, go out in the first flight, cover the basics, quick stops, straight ins, 180s, just as a warm-up, because when somebody comes here, they're flying with different instructors they probably never flown with before, they've never been to this airport, different aircraft. So let the person get warmed up number one. And then what was your plan for step number two, flight two?

Flight two would be stretching the glide, minimizing the glide. I think what else do we have planned in there? Oh, we did going out and just, I don't think a lot of times when you're, because like we've said before, when you're training, you're training to a standard, right? Straight in 180s. Well, you don't go off, you know, when you don't go out and just kind of play. So stretching the glide, minimizing the glide. and then, hey, we're just gonna go fly and I'm just gonna say auto.

321 or picking random altitudes and airspeeds to give people out of the box something they don't get to normally do.

Directions, right? We might be cruising with a direct headwind. Okay, auto 321 and then we're straight in, right? But we might be cruising along with maybe a right crosswind and I'll be like, auto, now what? You know, you'd be amazed a lot of times I have done that with some people and they just do straight in. Well, where's the wind coming from? Oh, it's coming off my right. Well, why are we not turning into the wind? Oh, I guess I didn't think about it. So we, so that's something that, that we want to do. And it might be a tailwind. So we, and we might be over, you know, maybe we were over an open field and now we're over woods with a tailwind. And, and I say engine failure. Well, we got to get turned around and, and because our spots this. So that was flight number two was working on Max Glide, Min Glide, and then just going out and, you know, we might be at 500 AGL and engine fails, or we might be up at cruise altitude with cruise airspeed.

And one of the good learning points I got is because not being familiar where the area and when we did go into the auto, you know, and it was one, I got closer that I realized there was the, what, the irrigation line or whatever, which from when I went in, I wasn't, so I kind of had to change, you know, kind of towards the end there, 'cause I didn't pick up on it. So that's another thing too, is to be, you know, really thinking about whatever or, yeah.

And it's one of those things too, where I don't think people, practice that because they're not they're just all about you know practicing for the rating but you know who's to say you don't get down in that field and in the last hundred feet you might have to make that turn you know because you saw the irrigation system late and I'm thinking okay, what are we gonna do? And we just kind of kept going, okay let's make a turn, let's make a turn and then we turn you know so that was flight two hour two and then hour three Today for him, but for our three would be the 360 autos, the zero airspeed autos, and then the fold downs.

Okay? All right, so that was our plan. You did all of that stuff. Is there anything you would like to add on the next one that you didn't cover?

You know, I was thinking on this last one that I mean, we're doing Autos, right? Maybe we should incorporate a couple different hover Autos.

Yeah.

Meaning, because most of the time we're training three to five feet.

Right. And into the wind.

And that's how we do it. Right. Well, who's to say that, you know, your engine doesn't quit as we're, you know, hover taxi.

Hover taxi would be good. One.

Do it or you're at a higher altitude. I'd try to show that at least once when I'm with a student, be like, okay, say we're, for some reason, we're hovering at 10 feet and we have an engine failure. Well, what's most people say? Well, just do a rudder. Okay, yeah, we could if you time that right. But I would suggest let's push forward and basically make it a run-on.

Yeah.

That way the forward, the skids can take forward movement.

Right.

So that will cushion our landing. Plus we can time it. If we don't time it right from 10 feet, we're gonna, we're gonna split the skids.

Right.

But if you push forward, adds a little bit of momentum. Those skid is just like a run-on.

Right.

So, so I'm thinking maybe adding some hoverados.

Funny we never thought about that first time around.

I don't know, yeah, I don't know why.

But, little, maybe higher than normal. And absolutely during a hover taxi.

Hover auto during a taxi. We should absolutely do that. And then with the hover taxi, I mean, I just teach, don't try to, you know, you think of a hover or a hover auto, right? So who's to say that someone doesn't try to come to a stop and then do the hover auto. Just, if you're three to five feet and your engine quits while you're hover taxi, just continue to push forward. just run it on, cushion it with.

The other thing too might be a suggestion is basically you have like a ABC plan. A's R22's, B's 44's and the C is one of each. You know, some student might want to, you know, just see the difference between, you know, same procedures, but what it's like to fly the two different frames.

So I'm thinking, you know, add maybe hover autos in there if we can.

Yes.

And then I'd like to hear if anybody out there has a suggestion, see if there's anything that they would like to see that we could, I know we mentioned, I even hate to mention it, but I'm not all up on the no flare auto. I know there's a couple videos out there that they talk about that. I'm telling you right now, I've never done one, never practiced it, so we're gonna keep that out of it for right now until I can actually speak with a person that has knowledge about it and how they would. So we're not gonna do that right now.

Then there was one that you and I discussed, I don't know if you did, 'cause we talked about we wanted to go out and practice it a little bit first, and we will. is engine failure on takeoff.

Right.

Like at a lower altitude. Did you do any of that?

We did not do that. And part of that reason, that is in my back of my mind, but I have not gone out there myself and done it at a really long time. So I don't really want to go out there and, you know, I would like to have a few under my belt with just me doing it first before I actually, I mean, obviously it can happen, right? You can be 300 feet off the ground and transition and you could lose it. So what are you gonna do? You know? So, that's something that we will, you.

And I'll go out and do and we'll do on our own or together and just go practice that. I feel comfortable doing the R44. I wouldn't be as much be comfortable doing that in the R22. But we'll work on that and I think we should add that. Maybe it might be 300 AGL, but it's stabilized takeoff, you're going if there's runway, engine failure.

So I think we should add that as well. And as far as for any of the helicopter pilots that are thinking about coming here, there's plenty of hotels, reasonable prices, there's good places to eat, it's very easy to get from whatever hotel you're at to the airport. Hogs is very customer friendly. I mean it's gonna be you and the staff and they take care of you. That's it. They take good care of you and.

You get fed, right?

And you get fed.

And.

I really see where, you know, you won't say, hey, it wasn't worth it.

Yeah.

So those watching, put down below what you think you should see. If you didn't hear us discuss it, what would you like to see out of an advanced auto rotation course? Is there anything since we've went through everything you guys did, what we'd like to add? Is there anything else you can think of? that this.

Well, overall, as being our first person, how was it in your experience? I mean, I heard you say that you haven't done the 360s and the zero. You've never done those, so that was a good experience.

Let's see, much more out of it than I expected, you know. Obviously, when you're gonna do something that you haven't done before, you're kind of wondering, you know, just, But personally, I like the way the stepping flow was. You start, like you say, crawl, walk, run. And after today or whatever and having done it, I feel much more confident that if I ever got in a situation where I had to do a 360 or a zero, I know what to expect now. But again, I plan to come back in the future to do the R44 because it wasn't available today. Just to see the difference.

For our audience, you are a CFI.

Yes.

You are a CFI with 500 hours?

400 hours.

400 hours. So it's stuff that you haven't got to do anywhere else that you train.

That's right.

And if you're new to the video, you might come along this video and don't know what we're doing. We're trying to get people out of the box things that you don't get to do at your flight school. And it's, we understand training to a standard. And example, I like doing autos, nice, clean, real smooth, lower and roll off. Hauser likes to do at airspeed, like you're going cross country, real world, and roll the throttle off and then deal with it. So that's kind of what this course gives you is everybody has to train to a standard. And you got to do the straight in, you got to do the 180. And we worry that if that's all you ever do, then that's what you're only going to think of when this shit hits the fan, you're going to go, oh, straight in or 180. Hauser calls it a training scar. And I agree with it. We're both ex-law enforcement. We know from our training, when the stress, stressful event happens, you go back to your training. You immediately go back to the way you were trained. So with this course, we're trying to give people a chance to do things that you don't get to do at your flight school. So we're not saying your flight school is bad because they don't do these things with you. People are trying to save money, get done in minimum time. So the flight school takes you and does the standard, everything required by the FAA, and that's all you get. So this course is giving you an opportunity outside the box, different airspeeds, different altitudes, different things across the board. So again, There's that stupid word, so. Put down below if there's anything you'd like to see, you know, and we'll consider it. We won't do anything that we're not feel comfortable with, just like the takeoff. We'll go out and play with that a little bit.

As time goes on, we're going to tweak this and we're gonna, you know, do some things. And the main thing, I think, for this course is that it's exactly what you just said. You've been training either for your private or commercial, and you've been trying to, all you've been doing is straight into 180s, right? Yep. Come here, like you say, we're gonna take you out of the box a little bit. We're gonna test you like a commercial pilot. Like you are out there doing a job for someone. Like I set up what was our scenario for the zero airspeed? Well, you got a photographer in here taking pictures and all of a sudden our engine quits. The only spot we have is, I mean, like you can barely see it through the nose bubble, right? So that's the scenario, you know? Yeah, we're just gonna, we're gonna have fun doing it and we're gonna make you think. I think I made you think a couple of times out there about, 'cause as you being a CFI, I would ask you, okay, how come we didn't hit our spot? And you would be sitting here thinking, well, we kept our airspeed up. That's why we didn't. Or okay, well how come we got low rotor RPM? Well, it's because we had collective up to control the rotor RPM, but then when we leveled out, we lost all that. So we needed to get the collective back down. so it's, it's going to make you think a little bit. But we're here to have some fun, and hopefully you walk away with learning something.

And another thing, too, you might want to do as you advertise this, is if when you put it out or you have on your Hogs, like a little two minute, three minute, just a quick, you know, this is a zero, you know, it just, you know, it might be the person, you know what I mean? That's, that's on the fence and they, you know, they see, you see a demonstration, you know.

You're gonna be Hogg's new PR guy.

Okay, well I'm trying to make, I want Kenny to retire to a nice island where there's plenty pina coladas, you know. But, you know, I have something, that might be, you know, something that'll help the person that's on the fence or whatever and say, well, I can, yeah, I think I could do that.

Or yeah, I'd like to learn that. Again, just a suggestion. See at the bottom, CW's personal phone number.

You can call him if you're on the fence.

Yeah.

I'm thinking of, I'm trying to behave here, because I was gonna make a wisecrack.

Don't put that on the video.

You know, the one thing that I can't quit thinking about, just since in the last five minutes, we go out and train out of ground effect hover, and as commercial pilots, we go do it, and you might hover for hours doing photos at all kinds of events, and private pilots are allowed to go out, and hover out of ground effect and take pictures of their buddy's house or whatever. So it does make you think, since this is something that we actually teach people how to do, is go out there and hover out of ground effect as a normal thing in a helicopter that's perfectly accepted why we've never been shown zero airspeed, unless just like we're doing here, right? We're offering it to people and go, this isn't in a normal course of training. It makes you wonder, why is it not? Shouldn't pilots be introduced to at least they know if the engine failed while you were doing an out-of-ground-effect hover, should at least experience it.

Well, maybe at most places where they practice, there's always open areas, right? So you just learn to push forward and build your airspeed and then find your spot. Maybe that's it. Maybe, because no one's probably doing a lot of training in downtown Indianapolis or downtown Dallas, whether or wherever, right? Where there is no, I mean, where you have to put it on top of a parking garage or put it in a ball diamond, you know, or whatever. I don't know. It's just what I want people to know is it's just not, like you said earlier, it's just another tool, right? It's another tool in your toolbox that you could use. Like I was telling you, like I was flat out told CW that I don't, I'm not a big fan of the S-turns we show it. And I think the book actually talks about s turns. Yeah, but I think there's too much going on in s turns. You got to control rotor RPM, you got to make your turns, you got to make sure as you get lower, you got to make sure you don't run into something. And then you got to keep your spot in view. I just, I just, I'm not a.

Big fan of s. I mean, me personally, I felt I actually had to think less about the zero and the 360 than they did about the s turns.

Yeah.

Well, I'll reiterate what you said a little while ago. We put down the initial course a couple days and three hours, but we realized people are all going to be at different stages. So there's always the option to adjust for any one individual. If you're really current and you just want to do some extra stuff, then we could do a one day thing. It wouldn't have to be two day, but we put out what we thought would be good for the first time around. And the two days is like you.

Said, it is three hours, but it's, you know, you show up your first day, you're going to sit here, we're going to introduce, we're going to talk, we're going to find out what your background is, we're going to do that. So there's There's your morning there, then there's lunch, and then you can maybe take, you'll do a flight in the afternoon. So there's day one. So then day two, you show up, a lot less talking, a lot more flying, right? Right.

All right, well, I guess we'll wrap it up unless we can think of something else. Hayden, as of the making this video, we're 13 years online. So we have 50% off all of our courses to the end of March. Lucky 13. So 13 years online, lucky 13 is the code. 50% go down below and you get, I won't run after them, you get the Hogs ball cap or the Hogs badass kneeboard or Hogs backpack on Professional Pilot. So let us know down below what else you might want to see in a course and subscribe to the channel. Click that bell too. That kind of helps.

And also you'll get to meet Heather when you come here.

There you go.

The workhorse behind the Actors.

Well, we're-- But she didn't have cheeseburgers here ready for us today, so I don't know.

You had another employee, but I-- oh.

Yeah, there was-- There is another one, but we don't know. Randomly, oh, I just have too many unimportant things to do today.

That person is MIA. I don't-- Make sure she gets that.

Copy of the video.

Oh, she's gonna edit this video, so she'll get to hear it at the end. Unless I get tired of waiting because she can't make it another day and I have to do it.

Stuck in a train. Anyway.

All right, peace out. Peace out. Nice.

Sweetness. Good job, C-Dubs.

Thanks.

10 o'clock tomorrow then.

Uh-oh, this turned red. Is that good or bad? Did that turn red 'cause you stopped recording or did that turn red because it's probably--.