Using A Kneeboard in the Robinson R-44 Helicopter

All right, we're gonna do a quick video on kneeboards. Not sure if I've ever done this, and I've had quite a few people asking me recently. At this time, Hogs has no paid endorsements. However, this person sent me this and I should try to go find the email. It was probably three years ago. Somebody sent me this, and the website is moagear.net so that's who it was sent. They said, hey, would you try this out and let us know? So I'll see if I can find the. So for kneeboards, I used one as a student pilot. Found it very, very useful. So again, this is one that someone sent me. I'm sure there's all kinds that have been sent since I've had people tell me, you know, this one's great and that one's great, but this is what I have here to use. So you strap that thing on. Heather asked me if one leg's better than the other, and honestly, I can't really tell you. I've always had it on my left leg. That's just been my experience and what's worked out for me. And the first thing that comes to mind is where a knee board helped me in the beginning was I can remember as a student getting lost on my startup checklist. And I remember one of the instructors kind of getting on me and going, hey, you need to go out and sit in the helicopter and go through it in practice while you're sitting there because you're spending money and it's taking a lot of time during a startup because you're losing your place and you're unsure of yourself. So that's one tip. I did do that. I did go out, sit in the helicopter with battery off and practice going through the pre flight. So that did help. And then the other thing that helped me was what I did. I don't remember somebody told me to do this, but I just started going, you know what? Make this a little tighter.

Here's what I would do because as.

A student I was nervous. So I just go, seat belts, boom. Do that. Fuel shut off valve, do that. And so I could just keep sliding my checklist up with my left hand as I completed the checklist. And I know for experienced people that go, oh, yeah, wow, you're a dummy. You know what, it helped me in the beginning just because it's easy. If you're trying to do this handheld and you're doing stuff and you set the checklist down and you back up.

And you go, okay, where was I. Where was I?

And you're bebopping around. So that helped me. Or anytime I've been in an aircraft where I'm not familiar with that specific aircraft, just been really nice and always helped me. Okay, so there's the first use. And then of course, you can put your charts in here. You got this handy, dandy little strap here over the top, strap down, whatever you've got, and a little clip here so you can slide stuff in, whatever kind of notes you want to take with you, your chart, whatever. And then this is cool because it has a spot for your iPad. So this you could just flip over, I guess, and lay it down. Or you could take the thing completely off, you know, put it in the back or somewhere out of the way. That's not going to cause your problems. And boom, there is your iPad on your kneeboard. And this is just a very simple little strap here, which I thought was really cool. You know, pretty basic, but I like simple and basic. So just put your straps around the corner like that and feels good. I think I'll tighten it up a little bit more. We're actually going to go fly here in a minute, take you for a little flight and see how, how it works when you're flying. And I could probably go a little tighter to make it more secure, but I feel pretty good about this. I'm going to put the top back on because even like today we'll just be going out in the pattern and bumming around. So I don't really need that iPad. So let's strap this dude back down. And again, just to see how it works, I do think I want to tighten this thing up just a little bit. All right.

Because of course, I just did a.

Video yesterday about doors off flying, which I love to do, but there was that fatal accident we talked about where a knee board went off of a instructor that was in the left seat and it went into the tail rotor. So in this case, I'm sitting on the right hand side, pilot side, and we do have both doors off. But I feel good about this. I feel good. This is not going to come off. Going to keep track of it. I'm confident that's not going to fly out the left hand side of the aircraft. So now I do want to note that what I have always taught, which is the way I was taught, is during a hover, we don't take our hand off the collective. So this is a situation where you're going to want to get your knee board set, have everything fixed, ready to go. And then you could, at some point, once you're in flight, you're in stable flight. You could remove your hand from the collective, move a chart, whatever you got to do. As long as your collective is safe and it's not going to drop on you. Depending on what aircraft you're flying, you may be able to put friction on. Maybe not different aircraft are different, but you'll figure out what your stable flight is. I would not recommend messing with this in a hover or ever taking your hand off the controls Unless you have a rated pilot or instructor beside you who can take the controls for you, mess with your. With your knee board, and then get back to the controls.

All right, first thing I did, moved away from the hanger so I could.

Do a hover check.

Get stabilized. So the kneeboard as of right now, I do feel my fingers kind of brushing up against it right there beside the cyclic. But I'm going to move cyclic a little bit left. I can move my leg a little bit if I need to. I got an inch or two there between the knee board and the center part of the cyclic. Move back to the right. Warning, caution lights are out. H is in the green. And I want to note we're doing a takeoff while I was in a hover. If I would have wanted to adjust something with that knee board, I would have sat down, rolled, throttle down.

Got it.

You know, lock the collective. Taking the precautions. I wasn't going to mess with the knee board during a hover. Just not good practice. Okay. Now that I'm up and what I'll say is stabilized flight, almost 500ft AGL, got some nice big open areas below us. My hand I can take off the collective. I feel good about taking it off up here again. 500 AGL. I got 60 on my airspeed. I can increase that a little bit. And this collective just sits nice right where it's at, not jumping up or down. So I could, at this point, if I needed to adjust something with the kneeboard, I could do it like if I was turning over a piece of paper. I can operate this. I wouldn't want to get too crazy trying to adjust it right now. I think if I wanted to adjust something differently, I would land and do that. Just because I haven't given Heather a for real lesson yet, so not quite ready for her to grab the controls. All in all, doesn't appear to be hindering my movement. Okay, so now that I'm on the ground, I'm rethinking what I just Said when I was coming in on approach I did feel myself kind of clunking between the cyclic in here and a person could probably get kind of used to it but just didn't feel super handy. I think the one I originally had was a little bit narrower than this. So I think I'm going to investigate and see this one for this specific size. Just feels a little bit bulky to me. Again, this was sent to me for free. I thought let's go out and give it a try.

Okay.

So what I just did, I exposed more of my white leg and slid this thing farther up on my leg. So we'll try that. That feels better. Because at least I'm not going to be. If my leg goes this way. I'm not going to be clinking it into the cyclic. It still might be kind of hitting my hand here. But we're going to go give it a try just to see actually in flight how it feels. Alright, so now I'm up. I picked up into a hover up to readjusting. So let's do a hovering turn here and we'll just see. If you were dealing with turbulence this would be something to think about. We just brought this back five hours from Tennessee and we had some pretty good wind coming over top of some of the mountains. And I do have to wonder about how uncomfortable I'd be if I was getting beat around with a lot of wind. How uncomfortable this thing would be. However, right now for these intents purposes, not too bad. So let's go around the pattern again. Warning caution lights are out. Gauges green. Here we go. Alright, so now we're on a takeoff. Feels pretty good in this position. Don't think I mind it too much. We'll go around, shoot an approach, see if we get a little bit of. A little bit of wind and get squirreling around a little more here and see how it feels on the approach.

Oh yeah.

We're trying out a new camera on our strut today so when we land we'll get to have a chance to check out that footage, see how that's coming out. Should be good. My idea is that you'll be able to get a better idea in some of these training videos of what's going on with the aircraft. Be able to see it parallel with the earth. Alright, so now we're going in for a landing. Feels much better now. I would just say I might investigate a little bit now that I'm on the subject. I know people have asked us about kneeboards so I might investigate see if I can't find one Just a little bit narrower. I would be happier. So not gonna say I'm unhappy. It just feels just a little bit bulky to me. So subscribe to the helicopter line ground school channel. That's where you're at. And click that little bell. Give us a like on the video because we're gonna be doing some more of this kind of stuff. Oh, big news. Geronimo reached out to us today and asked if we'd like to do a review of their app. And I said, absolutely. Let's talk some more about that. So we'll have that coming up for you amongst us. Some other things. So you can go below for helicopter on ground school, we have private pilot, commercial pilot, instrument pilot, CFI links down below. We also have a professional pilot package that's available. Those links are down below. You can text or call Heather. It's 574-767-1797. Did I say that already? 574-76717 97.

Yep.

All right, see you next video.

Peace out.