Helicopter instructor Kenny Keller explains why beginner lessons should stay under an hour. After about 60 minutes, learner performance and retention drop off sharply. Longer lessons like 1.5+ hours waste money and don't stick.
I want to talk about the one hour flight lesson. This is a huge training tip because the human brain can only handle about an hour of any new skill. And when you're learning a new complicated skill, like learning to fly helicopters or doing helicopter ground school, keep it at one hour. Take a break now. I'm not talking about later. If you're doing a long cross country or doing checkride preparation once you've got a little more time under your belt. But in the beginning, when you're training, your flights really ought to be at an hour. If it's any more than that, you're kind of wasting your time and money. Before I was a helicopter instructor, I was a police officer and a firearms instructor, and I went through an instructor development course was the first thing. And back then they said anytime you have somebody in a classroom or you have them out in the field, after an hour, give that person a break. Five minutes, 10 minutes, get up, leave the classroom, go get something to drink, grab something to snack on. Same thing in the helicopter. In the beginning, you need a break after an hour. The first 20 minutes, you're kind of getting warmed up. The second 20 minutes, you're doing really good. And that third 20 minutes of that hour, you start to drop off a little bit on your learning. Your learning curve starts to drop off, and after an hour, it just goes downhill. I've done this video before, but it's been a while and it's that important of a message that I wanted to put it out there again. Keep your flight training to one hour. If you're going to a flight school and a guy's flying you, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, and this is your third, fourth or fifth lesson, they're stealing your money.
