A short instructional YouTube video by Kenny Keller giving a mnemonic — the "Five Cs" — to impress an examiner and handle getting lost on a checkride: climb (gain altitude to orient), communicate (call ATC/UNICOM), confess (admit you’re lost), comply (follow ATC directions), and conserve (manage fuel/endurance). The clip includes a brief in-flight example (climb 500 ft from 1,800 ft) and closes by promoting Keller’s "Private Pilot 101 Helicopter Training Blueprint" (paperback and free PDF).
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If you want to impress your examiner on your checkride, really any checkride. What are the five Cs? If you get lost and if you think about it makes a lot of sense, number one is climb. And in our instance here, we're flying along at 1800. If I was trying to figure out where I was at, I could climb up 500ft and go, oh, there's that lake I was looking for or there's that water tower, whatever the case is. So climb up. Number one, still don't know where you're at. Communicate. Which you could call a local unicom. I've done that when I was a little bit lost. You could call a tower, you could call an approach, anybody that you could talk to, communicate and then confess to them. So communicate to them that you're not sure where you're at, you're lost, confess that you're lost, comply with what they tell you to do. And I can tell you that's worked. When I've called for help, they gave me directions to get me where I needed to be. And then conserve your fuel. So basically slow down to the speed or manifold pressure setting, whatever that works best for your aircraft for fuel endurance. Use that so very simply, what are the five Cs? Examiner will love it. Climb, communicate, confess, comply and conserve. 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 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.
When you feel the pressure to fly, but know the right decision is to stay on the ground, hit the hogs. No go and live to fly another day. Helicopterground.com.
