Kenny Keller explains why helicopter pilots should hover for at least 10 minutes after maintenance to warm the engine and spot problems before flight. He shares a story where hovering caught an issue that would have caused engine failure during takeoff. Don't skip it or rush it.
About 10 minutes.
As much as 30 minutes.
Private Pilot 101 Helicopter Training Blueprint (free PDF or paperback).
So we'll say we just pulled out of maintenance here in one of these hangers. When you first take an aircraft out from a hangar from getting your maintenance done, it's a really good idea to plan on hovering for a little bit. I'd say even a minimum of 10 minutes after maintenance. Some places say hover as much as 30 minutes. And the idea is you've had it inside, mechanics have done some work to them, you've pre flied and you think it's ready to go, but you want to get it out and just spend some time hovering. And I did that of my first jobs. And when we would depart, we would take off over Lake Erie. And I remember the boss saying after maintenance, hover about 10 minutes or so before you take off. That's what the boss want us to do. So I'm out there one day, I hover for about 10 minutes or close to it. I'm getting ready to go and I thought maybe I'll hover here another minute or two. And about that time, believe it or not, coincidentally, the engine quits. If I would have taken off, the engine would have quit taking off going over Lake Erie. So at that particular school, they had a hover 10 minutes. That was their rule. Like we want you to hover after maintenance 10 minutes just to make sure everything's good to go. So just a good tip. A lot of people just sometimes go to helicopter pick a helicopter up for maintenance and they're in a big ass hurry and come on, we got to go, we got to get home before the storm comes, whatever. Try to plan out your day a lot better than that so that you got the time after maintenance, just hover around, get the engine good and warm, you know, have the load on it and just make sure you're going to see how it's going to act, what it's going to do and how it's going to perform. Hope you've been enjoying these daily tips. We have another tip for you right here. Private Pilot 101 Helicopter Training Blueprint. This is our Amazon number one bestseller. It's a got all a ton of free information in it about training tips and all kinds of different topics. So there's a free PDF version or the paperback. There's a link around this video somewhere. Check that link, download the free PDF and we'll see you in the next video. Peace out.
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