Short interview (YouTube) where Kenny Keller speaks with Tim Tucker (Robinson Helicopter) about choosing a helicopter for flight training. Tucker argues that helicopter type matters little — training outcomes were similar across disparate types in his Army experience — and that the flight school and instructor quality are far more important factors.
All right, Kenny, with Helicopter Land Ground School. I'm honored today to get to talk with Tim Tucker from Robinson Helicopter. We've been going around the show talking to lots of people and all of you know that people all the time ask us, hey, should I fly the Robinson or should I fly the Schweitzer? I'm looking at this flight school, that flight school. So many questions, people comparing one helicopter to another. So we asked Tim if he'd like to do a quick interview and let us know about the Robinson helicopter. And he's gonna give you some insight on that. And I just want to mention I'm honored that I get to do this. I took my CFI check ride with Tim Tucker back in 2001. So a lot of stories that you guys hear in the ground school that I've been doing for seven years, a lot of times I tell Tim Tucker stories from things that I Learned in that 8 hour oral for the CFI check ride or close to that. So Tim, just go ahead and whatever you got to say that you want to relay about Robinson.
Okay, well, you know, Kenny asked me about this, you know, what helicopter people should learn to fly in that type of thing. And I really have to use my own experience to answer that question because I don't think it really matters at all which helicopter you choose. And I go back to my training. I learned to fly in the army back in the Vietnam time. And during that time the army had two training helicopters. They had a small little Hughes 269 to 300 now. And they had the army oh 23 which is a Heller 12. So you have one helicopter which is small, light, nimble, low inertia rotor, articulated system. The other helicopter is a big, slow, two bladed, semi rigid system. Two totally different helicopters. And the way the army decided which one you flew was the short guys flew in the TH55 and the tall guys, I think 6ft was the cutoff. The tall guys flew in the OH23. So I was in the TH55. But what they did is afterwards they compared, they took a five year period and looked at all the students as they progressed through their phase of training in the army at that time there was about, I think there was about eight phases of training. So obviously the first phase is the solo phase. So they looked at do guys solo earlier in the TH55 or in the OH23 and at each phase and they found no difference at all. So they looked at after initial flight training and moving into bigger helicopters. Was there any real difference? In the guys who learned in the little helicopter versus the guys that learned in the big one, and they found nothing. So I think that experience tells me that it really doesn't matter what helicopter as long as it's typically used for training. You know, under a Robinson, a 300, an Enstrom, a G2, I think anyone would work just fine. Most important thing is the school, and maybe the school and the instructor. So I think a school, certainly a school that's a 141 school, is good. I think schools with multiple helicopters, you know, if you go to a little school and they only have one helicopter, when that helicopter breaks, all the flight training stops. So I think the school is important, and also the instructor is obviously important. People should understand that in this world of instructing, a lot of the instructors are there for no other reason than to build time to move on to something else. And so, consequently, you do have a certain percentage of instructors out there that. I mean, they're there because they have to be there, not because they want to be there. And it's a difficult thing for a student to sort out, but, you know, one on one with the instructor, I think you can get a sense of what side of that street the instructor's on. So I think the school and the instructor, by far and away, more important than the type helicopter. I really don't think the type helicopter matters at all.
That's a great answer. That's pretty. It's a pretty awesome feature.
Well, I think it's accurate. At least from my experience, it's been accurate.
That's a lot of what we've been telling people. You know, you got to pick what's right for you, but you hit all the points that we talk about. I don't know what else to say.
All right, good.
I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us in your busy schedule. I really, really, really appreciate it. A lot.
Of reals. 66 reals. Let me know.
Awesome. Thank you very much. All right, there you go.
