Kenny Keller and Todd Ketterman explain why helicopter checkride candidates must study the FAA Practical Test Standards. Examiners test to the PTS, not personal standards, and must cover special emphasis areas. The PTS covers maneuvers, preflight, hovering, and other required content.
All right, so you're getting ready to head up here for your CFI in just a few days. So we've got a little bit of time here before you arrive to hit tools of the trade. You know, I've already been harping on you that the examiner flat out stated people showing up weak on the fois. Right, so you've been studying the fois and we'll touch on that a little bit. Before we get to that, though, I want to know, and I'm going to give you my Input from the CFIs I've done this summer because I've done a bunch of them. Getting ready to another with you. What is the number one most important book for your checkride pts, exactly?
The Practical Test Standards.
And what is the.
A number one page important inside that book, the examiner's checklist.
Because what do I say, what do I continually see? People show up, they don't have it or they have. It's the bottom of their bag, they've never looked at it, people aren't using it. And if you're going for CFI and you're not using the pts, then you are doing yourself a great big huge disservice. So what I want to know is we have some tools of the trade and that pts we just talked about, have you got one handy do?
So I want you to grab that.
And I want you to give me.
A quick impromptu three minutes on why that book is important.
Be done in five. I want to know what are you going to relay to a student about this book?
So the PTS is where we start. PTS has everything we need. The reason it's important, it's because all the standards, everything that we learn, everything we're going to be tested on is right out of the pts. So whether it's a private commercial, flight instructors, you know, cfi, it's all here. So, you know, the, the important thing from that is that we can go into it. It's. It's available to us, which is great. And look, and look right in and know exactly what we're going to be tested on. We're going to be tested to the, the pts, Practical Test Standards. I've been told by dpes, I'm not testing you to my standard or his or her standard. I'm testing you to the practical test standards. So the great thing about that is that everything we need is right here. It explains it in detail. Everything you're going to be tested on, all the different areas, all the different, you know, for instance, I open this right up to this is a helicopter, private pre flight preparation, pre flight procedure, airport helicopter operations, hovering, all the maneuvers, everything that you're going to be tested on, all the test prerequisites, responsibilities. It talks to me about exchange of controls, use of distractions, everything that the DPE is going to be doing during that test as well as there's a chart here that talks about any of the add ons. So if you've got an existing rating coming in, it talks to you about what is it that you're going to need. I was a airplane pilot, so it told me exactly. I had an ASEL aircraft single engine land rating and it said here's what you're going to need going into that as an add on.
There's a really important area there in the front of that book. Before you get to that part, there's another one you haven't mentioned yet. Yes, tell me about that.
Well, these are great, the special emphasis areas and it's something that we, we need to know going into any of these tests. And it says right in here, examiners must place special emphasis upon areas of aircraft operation. And in that it's positive. Must, meaning must.
They must.
They're directed to go over those. So how can nobody tells me about the special emphasis areas. Correct. So this is great. And this is, this is just good stuff to know. This is the, this is the important stuff. I mean we all go out and learn to fly helicopters and, and you know, learn all the knowledge. But this is the stuff that's gonna, you know, very, very important for us anytime that we go flying to understand these things. So positive aircraft control. Yep.
Here's my take. People aren't using it, instructors aren't using it. And you all should have, you should all get, you know. Okay, so I had to cut the end of that video off because the Hogs crew told me it wasn't appropriate what I said about people not using the pts. And they were probably right. Probably would offended a few. Point is if you're not using it, you should be. If you're a student and you're not using it, instructor hasn't showed you. Shame on your instructor. Get one start looking through it. If you're an instructor not using the pts, shame on you too. So that was an excerpt for Todd Ketterman coming up to do his initial CFI heading up this weekend. He'll be the fifth CFI we've done this summer. So that's been kind of the flavor of the summer. We've been coming in, finishing up ratings. We've done seven. Todd will be eight. We come in here and we got the cool hangout area, we got the screens for presentations, we got the R44 for doing your checkrides. We have a couple spots open for October. Get ahold of us 574-767-1797 by call or text if you're interested in having us help you finish up your rating. If you need any help with any ground school topics private through commercial not topics but courses. We have full fledged courses. Those are all down below@helopterground.com Use that PTS. Peace out. Live to fly another day. Helicopterground.com.
