Kenny Keller walks through what you need for a helicopter checkride: aircraft documents, POH, maintenance records, view-limiting device, E6B, charts, flight logs, chart supplement, Helicopter Flying Handbook, AIM, ID, pilot certificate, medical, Form 8710, IACRA login, knowledge test report, and instructor endorsements. Missing any of it cancels the ride. Bring paper backups and be ready to log into IACRA immediately.
Okay, for all you numb nuts that can't seem to show up to a checkride and have everything, right here's the key. It's in the airman certification standards and it's called practical test checklist. Applicant, this is the list of everything you have to have the day the checkride and if you, the instructor aren't going through this, you're a frickin slacker. Students, applicants, I recommend you go through this as well. You guys should be working through this together. If you don't have one of these items the day of the checkride and you can't get it put together in time, everybody goes home. Examiner's not happy. Student, customer's not happy. Instructor's not happy, Nobody's happy. Look at the time and effort and the money you got into this, but you didn't take the time to go through here and make sure you have everything. Need not that difficult. Aircraft documents, we got them right here. Everything. Certificate, registration, certificate. We've been through them, we've looked at them, they're valid, they're good. Operating limitations. Those are right there in the pilot's operating handbook inside aircraft maintenance records right here. In this day and age, everybody wants to have them locked up in a safe. Then the day of the test, you don't have them, you can't find them. You're ringing people's phones, chasing down fricking logbooks when you're supposed to be taking a checkride and getting the thing done and over with. So right there, we've been through them. We know all the inspections are done. We've looked through them all, we've tabbed them all the time. They're all there. Do you agree? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Good answer. Next. Pilot's operating handbook we just mentioned. It's right there. View limiting device. Probably won't need it on the pry for initial, but guess what it says view limiting device. It's required for the test. Right there it is. Computer and plotter, E6B. Computer, because guess what doesn't need batteries. Not that hard to use. Everybody whines Guys, guess what? It's not that freaking hard. You pull the thing out and if you had to use it with the examiner, everybody's nervous. But you know what the key is right there? How to figure time, speed and distance problems in gallons per hour. You got the right arrow. Not that tough to figure out. If you can't figure out the E6B, you probably had not to be flying helicopters. Not that damn hard. And if you actually had to do A wind correction, step by step on the back tells you exactly how to do it. Everybody whines and makes a big deal out of it. But it's so easy to use. And then your standard plotter is right there along with it, laying there below it. So computer and plotter. Yes, we're doing electronic stuff for this checkride, but we're also trying to have a paper backup of everything. Current aeronautical charts. We have a brand new one. His present today arrived special order. I rushed it here. We opened it brand new. What did I do with it? Is it here? Right here in front of my face. Sectional chart. And everybody says, well you can't get him anymore. Baloney. Jump on sporties. You can have the thing in three fricking days. He's going to have this in the cockpit with him using foreflight for his flight planning. The good old paper copy is going to be all nice and neat folded underneath on the knee board and it'll be right here on his leg. If this iPad freezes during his first portion of his cross country with examiner, guess what? He's going to go. It's okay, my iPad just froze like they do and causes checkride failures. But bam, there's the chart. Continue on your flight. Good to go. No batteries, 10 or 12 bucks. Oh my God, I can't find a chart. Go on Sporties and just order the frickin thing. You need a backup in the aircraft. Oh well, I'm going to back up with another iPad. Great, that's what you want to do. Have two iPads go dead. I don't give a shit. Flight plan form and flight logs, we have those right there. Again, we've done it in Foreflight, but we have paper as a backup in case that fails. Chart supplements in here. Chart supplement is in Foreflight. We've updated Foreflight. Everything's in there. Chart supplements in there. Airport diagrams, same thing inside foreflight. Appropriate publications, printed or electronic. I highly, highly, highly recommend the Helicopter Flying Handbook. He has his laying there all battered up. Look at that. Look at that thing all battered up. That's the way your helicopter flying handbook should look. Look at that. That means you've used the damn thing and opened it up and read it. Hot damn. Somebody actually opened the Helicopter Flying Handbook and used it. Can you freaking imagine that? Current aim right there it is 2025. Current aim. And he even checked and he can use that? Yes, even though we're at the end of 2024. Government issued ID right there it is. Pilot's license right here is A student pilot certificate. Right here is his medical certificate. He could have a basic med, but he doesn't. He has an actual medical certificate right here. Not a copy. Original. You must have it for the CheckRide. Completed Form 8710. We've done that. It is in your training record right over there that we could pull it up if we needed to, because let's say Internet was down, we might need that, but otherwise 8710 is done. It's completed. The examiner's already looked at it, he's approved it. So we expect no problems on the 8710 tomorrow. He walks in, gets on the WI fi, opens it up, starts the test on the computer. You have your password. Grab that real quick. You have your password inside of here. Inside. He's got his password for. He has his password for Iacra. Password and username. That's one of the very first things examiner is going to do walking in the door. And if you can't get logged in because you forgot, you could be on the phone for an hour and a half with trying to get access to freaking Iacra and nobody's happy. He's got it right there. And then we determined that you haven't. Oh, Airman, test knowledge report. We determined. We have. You have your original. We have a copy in your records over there. And we don't actually need it for the test because it's in the iacra. It's already been verified by the instructor. Verified by the examiner. And we used to have to have the written test on the table. We no longer have to. Airman's logbook with appropriate instructor endorsement. We've been through it. We've been through this logbook every day, all week. Every single signature that we need is in this book. Until tomorrow. The examiner goes, hey, what about this? And we go, oh, my God, can you believe we forgot that we're 99% positive that every single endorsement is in there. And correct. Notice of disapproval. You do not have because you have not failed. Letter of discontinuous. You do not have because you haven't taken the checkride before. Approve school graduation certificate, if applicable. And you don't need it for this part 61 checkride. There is everything that you need to. To be ready. And acs. The thing we're reading out of, it's not listed in there, but you should have a copy of this. Instructors. You're not always using them with your students. Shame on you. You need to be students. You need to have your own copy and you need to be studying going through it before your checkride. Any other questions, ask hogs.com There you go. Peace out.
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