"should I use any other study material" HOGS Member No. 2 Question

Hey, it's Kenny with helicopter on ground school. I'm in a good mood today. I've been staying busy, man, staying off social media, watching a little bit of news from trusted source, maybe every other day. I'm telling you, best way to get through this, Stay busy, find stuff to do right. And I've been handling a lot of things that I've just needed to get done for a while, been procrastinating on and it feels really good. And I'm going to get to the question today about what else I should use. But I want to say, you know, lost a good friend yesterday. I don't know the details for sure, but I have heard that it was possibly suicide. And you know, when you get depressed, there's a lot of little tricks you can do. And just the one I was thinking of today when I was driving in here was pick a room in your house, your home, your apartment, wherever you live, and clean it to the best that's ever been cleaned. Don't try to clean your whole living space because then you will get overwhelmed and depressed. Pick a day, pick a one room and work on that room until it is completely done. And you'll be amazed at how well you feel. And then maybe the next day or a couple days, do the next room. But a little key when you get a little down and especially if you're home in this crazy world we're living in, there's a little tip for you to get through depression. And I've had my bouts with it over the years. And either you sit in a corner and wad up in a ball or you take it day by day, step by step and get through it. Great question. This is straight from Brian Rutledge, our operations manager. He's now in his third week full time, almost complete his third week. He's been talking to many of you people have been calling and texting our customer Service line at 574-767-1797. You can call or text that number. Brian's been talking to a lot of members, which is what I wanted him to do, right? Get to know everybody. He's been part of ground school for seven years, but he's now full time and has been the last three weeks. So I asked him, what are members asking you right now? So yesterday we covered the first question, today is the second question and straight from Brian. This is super short. Second most question has been should I use any other, any other study material? I tell everyone to use the HOGS videos in conjunction with the helicopter Flying Handbook and use the ASA test prep. I know you cover this in the videos, but I'm guessing people are not paying attention to it and there's a few hahas on there. Okay. I preach this all the time. And if you're one of our private pilot members and you go through every video in lesson one, I cover the required minimum books and give some suggestions for those of you that aren't members for the general public or a member that maybe hasn't maybe skipped over that video. I like what Brian had to say. It's exactly what I would say. Okay, let's cover some mandatory things and then we'll cover what else you might want to use. Okay. Mandatory Helicopter Flying Handbook. This was updated in 2019 to show the difference between what was called, formerly called Sling with Power, now called Vortex Ring State. That's in here. This is the book you need to be using. Private pilot, commercial pilot, CFI examiners. The FAA says this is the book you should be using. A lot of questions come up over the years like, well, what about the Military Helicopter Handbook? Or what about this book written by. So. So. And I'm not going to say anything bad about any other publication because most of them I don't even know anything about. There is one particular one written by an interesting individual who I've met and known as Neat guy, but. And his book goes so deep into stuff that if you like to go really deep into the physics of aerodynamics, I mean, there's lots of publications and things you can use out there. So you're welcome to use whatever you like. But this is the one you need to be using. Helicopter Flying Handbook on your checkride, which ultimately is why we do this, right? Everything you do leads up to the day to get your checkride done and get your license or going for your flight review to be signed off to fly a couple more years. Right? This is the book you should be using. This is mandatory. You can buy it, you can download it free on the FAA website. If you don't want to spend 20 bucks, I highly recommend the hard copy. I do often jump online and just use the PDF from the FAA when I want to look up something up real quick. And I don't have this handy. Everybody learns in different ways. Some people like a PDF, some people like the hardcover book. I'm still kind of a hardcover book kind of guy, but I do use both. Mandatory. You got to have that helicopter online. Ground school is laid out to follow this. So you can be reading through this and if you're having a little trouble. If you're going through the videos, we're going to help you make sense of these things that you will read in here. Overwhelming book. When you get, when you first get started learning to fly helicopters, this is overwhelming. But once you work through it with a little bit of time, pretty soon you'll understand every single concept and it will all make sense to you, especially once you start flying. So there's required material. Number one, I agree with Brian again, you're welcome to use whatever you want. I'm giving you my opinion. Next. Far aim just got mine for 2020. I do use FAR AIM on my iPhone. I have it on my iPad and I have the hard copy. All right. I'm still almost faster because I've been doing this 23 years now. I'm faster looking stuff up on here than I am my iPhone. I'm sure there's a lot of you that could do it a lot faster on an iPhone or iPad or tablet. Use whatever you like. But you must be using the FAR AIM manual. Okay. And there's a little study list in the beginning. So what do I look at? No, you don't have to know the whole book. But you know, an examiner told me many years ago, you need to know how to use it. You need to know how to look stuff up, and you need at least go through the suggested study stuff in the very beginning of the book. Anybody can figure it out. So there's two mandatory, okay, pts mandatory. You got to have a copy of the pts. Whether you use the free download from the FAA or, or you spend 10 bucks and order your own, the PTS is a must. You got to have it, you got to be using it. It will be soon. Turning to the acs, we don't know when, but in the future it will. But here's the thing I got from Taz Chrisman, who's an airplane instructor and a helicopter instructor. And he said, kenny, the pt, the ACS will have all the same elements. They're just going to add some scenario based to it stuff. So don't worry. It's not like the ACS is going to like, oh my God, now we gotta change everything about what we've learned. It's not like that. Right? And Tas said, kenny, you've been doing scenario based, scenario based training all along with your hogs and the way you teach. So don't worry. We got you covered with helicopter on ground school. Okay? Those are mandatory. Next would be an option. Brian said the ASA materials for written test I like ASA myself. Use whatever you like. We have FAA written testing inside helicopter online ground school that's also available for FAA wings credit. We have that there for you to use and utilize. We recommend using ours to practice test yourself. And we recommend the ASA test prep manual. Again, that's just what I like. ASA sends you two books, they send you the questions, and then they send you a booklet to open up the figures. And I'm sure by now they probably have some online resources. I've just always liked asa. You know, use what you want. So some written test prep, prep practice is mandatory. What you use. We recommend going through hogs using our stuff, using our written test questions that are at the end of each course, and use the FAA test questions if you like. They're all FAA questions, but one test is just for practice. Another test is for FAA wings credit. It's there for you HOGS members. Another book that I like and I recommend, not mandatory. I like the Jefferson Private Pilot Manual. Mine's still tucked away in a box. You can find them online easily enough. It's what I like to use. I'll still open that dude up 20 years later. Like when I'm wanting to look up, I don't know, cross country planning or airspace, different things. I really like that book. Just a suggestion. Another suggestion. Poh. I just took this out of the instrument. If you've got the money and you want to spend the money, I recommend getting a POH for the aircraft you're flying. Not mandatory, but it's a great idea. If you have your own copy, you can have it at home, you can put in your flight bag, you can take it with you, and you can study the POH on your own. You know, if you're going to your flight school, it's most of the time appropriate to use the one out of the helicopter. But the problem is sometimes it gets taken out and doesn't get put back in or the one in the helicopter gets beat up. Too many people going through it. Hopefully your flight school has one available that's just for like studying in the office. But you can find some of them online. Some are for free online, some you got to pay for. But I highly recommend a POH for the aircraft that you're flying. Just because. Just nice, right? You're sitting at home. You want to look up something up about the engine, the horsepower. You want to look up emergency procedures. It's nice to have your own copy of the PoH. Not mandatory, but it sure is nice to have. I want to Use an example of one of our members. Sam Daughtry has been here several times. He took me up in the Bell 47. He's like a 747 captain, sends a picture of the hog shirt hanging out the window. He did all his additional ratings. He's already commercial pilot flying a 747, or maybe it might be 727. I forget which big jet he's flying, but airplane CFI, very experienced pilot. He did all of his ratings, helicopter add ons. And he said, kenny, all I used was helicopter align ground school, the things I just mentioned, you know, of course, FAA publications like the Helicopter Flying Handbook and the FAR aim. And he said, pretty much other than that, that's about all I needed and about all I used. So there are some ideas, couple on what's mandatory. There's some ideas. And of course you're welcome to use anything you want to use. I'm not telling you, you know, don't use this course. Don't read that book. It's not what I'm saying. I want, I do want to tell you though, when we went to do our CFIs, two of us go in there together and we drag in piles of stuff, right? And we have print out after printout after printout. We got, I mean, we got every single book under the sun. We walk in there loaded for bear, right? And the chief pilot looks at us and he's like, wow. He goes, I know you guys are going CFI for cfi, but you guys got way too much stuff. And we're like, what? You know, we thought we were doing the right thing, walking in with mounds and mounds and mounds and mounds of information. And this gentleman's advice was. And this gentleman actually works for the FAA. Now, recently saw him, but this is 20 some years ago, he said, guys, tone down what you got. You know, you need the Helicopter Flying Handbook, you need the FAR aim, you need your aviation instructor's handbook. Kind of went through some of the basics, but he's like, you know, having things to study and look at are good, but you can also go overboard and overwhelm yourself with way too many things. So that's my best advice is yes, check out the different resources that are available for you. Use what you like, electronic copy, hard copy, but try to just not go overboard. And I know how some people are. They do pile up just like I did. And I'm guilty, right? It made a lot. It made it a lot easier for us to study and get through the cfi. Once we kind of toned it down and went. You know what? We realized we did have way too much stuff, right? We had way. I'm talking a stack of stuff like this. I mean, it was unbelievable the amount of stuff we had. So hope that helps. Rock and roll all day party every night I party every day Wish I could party every day Party every night I do try to rock and roll every day subscribe to the channel, click the bell. Been going live every day in April or doing a premiere. Either way, going to try to do them every day at five for the rest of the month. Just so you know when it's coming, people go, well, I'd like to know when. 5pm Eastern, 2pm Pacific. That's what we're going to do for the rest of April. Remember, you can email us. Those emails are down below with your needs. You can also call or text our member support line at 574-767-1797. So thanks for tuning in. Keep your heads up, keep pointing to the wind. Stay busy, limit social media, limit the bad things you read. We're going to get through this. We're going to get through it. Keep your mind busy, keep your mind active and we will see you in the next video. Peace out.