YouTube video by Kenny Keller (Oct 1, 2024) giving helicopter pilot training tips focused on interpreting airport rotating beacon colors/patterns during daytime preflight and checkride preparation. Keller explains that a flashing green-and-white beacon in daytime can indicate IFR conditions at the field (prompting a re-check of weather and tower contact), promotes a Private Pilot 101 helicopter training resource, and includes a brief secondary tip about refusing flights when pressured.
Chapters
I want you to come out here, I want to show you something. Prepping people for checkrides. Here's a great question that our examiner always ask. Let's say you're out with the helicopter, you're getting ready to go fly. What do you do have to do? Minimum, you have to at least look outside. As far as a weather briefing, at minimum, you got to look outside. So a day like today looks pretty decent, but looks like it's IF or vfr. But what I want you to look at and I don't know if Heather can zoom in and see, try to zoom in on that green and white flashing light over there, Heather. Okay, so you, you see that green and white light flashing? The examiner could say, what does that mean? It means that the field could very well be IFR below our basic weather minimum, which you have to know. That basic weather minimum for VFR is 3 miles visibility in a thousand foot ceiling. So during the daytime you walk outside, you're getting ready to go fly and you're thinking, ah, is it vfr? Ifr? If you see that, then you need to go back in and check the weather again because it's very possible the field is ifr. These are programmed like at this airport to come on when it is ifr. But there are times when for whatever reason the light could be on and it's clear blue and it's maybe malfunctioning or whatever, but you need to check. Always look at the tower if you're questioning is it VFR or ifr? If that's flight flashing green and white during the daytime, good possibility that the field is ifr. So that's one really good tip for you for preparing for checkrides. If you'd like some more for checkrides or basic helicopter pilot training, right here's a resource. Private pilot 101 helicopter training blueprint. We Amazon number one bestseller with this. I think it's our fourth Amazon best selling book. The link is below for the free PDF. You can grab it below. You can also get the paperback and you can also get the digital copy below too. Green and white in the daytime could be ifr. 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. Helicopter ground dot com.
