A YouTube video by Kenny Keller addressing helicopter safety during disaster relief (criticizing pilots who exit running aircraft and stressing that pilots should shut down before unloading unless properly trained crew are present). He warns private/low-time pilots against unsafe relief operations, notes that FAA and public scrutiny matter, and announces a November 11 book signing in Las Vegas with Taz Christma plus related books (Private Pilot 101, Top 10 Checkride Tips) and free PDFs; he mentions a planned helicopter flight to Las Vegas departing around November 3–4, weather permitting.
Questions this video answers
November 11 (year spoken in video).
Around November 3 or 4, weather permitting.
Chapters
So we got a fun box to open up here with some cool stuff in it. I want to mention real quick, before we get to this, and a big, huge announcement about what we're going to be doing with the helicopter this fall and winter, starting in about a month. I want to mention real quick, obviously, horrible disaster that went on down south, and there's a lot of helicopters down there helping people out and delivering supplies and rescuing people. And that's obviously something that helicopters are designed for and it's something that's needed. But I wanted to mention real quick, especially if you're somebody who believes in our training, uses our training, or if you're just first to getting around helicopters, one thing that shouldn't ever go on, or at least 99% of the time, a pilot should never exit the aircraft until the blades are done moving. There are some professional environments where that might take place. People train a proper way, and that's in their regulations or their own standard operating procedures. On national television and on YouTube, I've seen private pilots landing, getting out, nobody at the, at the controls, nobody guarding the tail rotor. And these guys are carrying supplies over to people. They're standing there waiting, and there's people wandering everywhere in that environment. Not acceptable. Please shut the aircraft down. And when people do this on YouTube and they do it on national news, they give the wrong impression to what helicopters do and what they should do and what they shouldn't do. So just a word of caution, because remember, Everybody's watching, the FAA's watching. Whatever you're doing out there, if it's on video, people are going to see it, people are going to critique it. And it's very. Not only just unprofessional, it's dangerous. And if you think about people needing supplies, you know, they may be without food or water for days, people are going to be excited when you show up. If you don't have any trained crew members there with you to keep people away from a tail rotor, getting out and starting, unloading supplies and taking the people. Blade spinning, tail rotor spinning, engine running. Negative. Not a good idea. Shut the aircraft down. And if a pilot stays at the controls and they've got trained crew members with them, where somebody's watching the tail, somebody's loading and offloading, people are briefed and know what to do. But it's a serious risk when people get near a tail rotor, especially untrained people. And if you are a private pilot or an owner and you're low time, just use caution when you're out there doing some of these missions because you know, we've seen and there's talk about this already going on in the industry. There's some very low time pilots going out there and doing jobs that are should be reserved for a professional pilot, a search and rescue pilot, someone who's been trained to do those kinds of operations. So you know, it's a horrible thing that went on and all the people that want to help and are helping, that's wonderful because helicopters are needed. People need food, they need water, they need the supplies. Just remember people are watching, the FAA's watching. So use, use some, use some good judgment when you make decisions of what you're going to be doing. So we just got another load of top 10 checkride tips and also our newest, newest book, well they're buried down here somewhere. The Private Pilot 101. We'll put links down below for these. Both of them have free PDFs to make a big announcement. The fun part of it, Taz Christma and I are doing a book signing November 11th in Las Vegas. We're gonna put out some more information here shortly. So stay tuned in the videos coming up in the next few days because we'll have a sign up list where you can sign up with your email to be notified of the location and time of day and more details about the event. But that's going to happen. November 11 book signing in Las Vegas. Taz and I with our top 10 checkride tips, something we've wanted to do since we put the book out and it just never happened. And we finally decided, you know what for this fall and winter season we're going to take the helicopter down to Vegas. People like to go to Vegas. Cheap flights, people can gamble. Figure it'd be some good marketing and some great attention. So we're going to be flying with people down there. We've already got like three people scheduled to fly in Vegas after we finish up three checkrides we have this month here in Indiana. So stay tuned for more information coming up because we're going to send a box looks just like this down to Taz in Vegas. So the books will be there ready for November 11th takes off November 3rd or 4th, weather permitting. Taz and one of our time builders are going to take off from here shoot to Vegas. And that's why we're going to make the book signing the 11th. So we give them a few extra days for weather to get down there. So stay tuned for lots more to come and go down below for private pilot 101 or top 10 checkride tips, free PDFs and you get the paperbacks. And I believe we'll now have audiobooks on those as well. 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.
