A YouTube video (Kenny Keller, Nov 28, 2022) discussing how to spot impending engine/power failure during helicopter private pilot checkride practice. Speakers describe examiner cues (hand movements toward collective), recognizing control effects (nose/right yaw, needle split), selecting landing sites (fields, check for wires/trees), and immediate actions (collective full down to preserve rotor RPM, trim, flare techniques).
Chapters
This might be a good time to lead into the power failure at altitude, right?
Why in the heck would I want to do that?
Oh, power failure. Look at that going into this field. Now, when we go into a field, we're looking for wires, looking for trees.
I'm adjusting my turn just a little.
Bit to give me a little bit more room. There's my treetop level. Little bit of a flare, Flare a little bit high. I let the aircraft settle a little bit. Roll and throttle back in shock.
There it was. I was not prepared for that.
That's what the PTS requires. They require a power failure at altitude, and that's what the examiner is going to do.
Jerry Ventrella, I talk about him all the time. Legend in the industry. I remember him saying, just be prepared. Anytime you see the examiner's hand kind of moving down towards the collective, and you're flying over an open field like we are right now, just know that there's an impending engine failure coming up. But with this examiner, you least you knew. And I could tell right after doing a couple checkrides with him, I learned that. I could see that he. I could see him adjusting the seat a little bit, and I'd see the hands start going down. I'm like, okay, I know what's about to happen.
This would be like toward the end of your training, you know, we're get.
We're in checkride prep.
We're in those three hours that you. That we're just going over the maneuvers.
Just over and over and over. Make sure that you're honed in on.
You know, and I may say, hey, okay, let's head out to where we do our confined areas.
Let's do a. Let's do a confined area.
Maybe on the way out there, we may just. I may just roll the throttle off. The main thing there is, I want them to recognize that during an engine failure in the G2, that nose is going to come to the right. And when that happens, my eyes immediately.
Go to the instrument panel, and I see the needles have split.
Feel that nose to the right, and you see that needle split.
Engine failure.
You got to be thinking, engine failure. And then what does that mean? That means collective full down. So the blades will flatten out.
So you have that rotor rpm Remember.
RPM is life in a helicopter.
We've discussed that before.
Yep.
For two guys just cruising cross country, just joking about life and having fun.
And all of a sudden, oh, there it goes. All right, I know I'm going to the left, get my scan going. I got a field picked out.
Luckily, in Indiana, we got nothing but fields.
Get my scan going. I'm making my turn into the wind a little bit out of trim there. We'll get the trim. Come street, top level players gonna get more aggressive the more I come down. Pulling throttle back on because we want that.
And there we go. Okay.
Check for wires.
Check for anything out here.
Clear on the left.
It's just like in law enforcement, we train for real life. Right. So you're. However you train, that's what's going to.
Happen when you're under that pressure, whether the engine failure or whatever that emergency is.
Right?
Yeah.
Tell me what I'm doing wrong because I can already.
I already see what I'm looking.
Doing my scan that I'm out of trim a little bit. My speed is kind of not where exactly where I want to be, but.
You know, here's what it is, right. That's.
I'm sure we'll have some second.
What do you call them? Armchair quarterback. Yeah, that's all right. I like talking.
