Kenny Keller, a helicopter instructor with 25 years of experience, breaks down the setup for a safe approach: get established 300 feet AGL at 60 knots with zero descent rate, trim the aircraft, and finish pre-landing checks before final. A solid setup makes everything that follows easier.
About 300 feet AGL.
60 knots.
Zero rate of descent (level/neutral vertical rate).
25 years.
So over and over in this video, as we talk about a good setup, somebody might say what is actually a good setup. So like right now we're on downwind getting ready to turn base and final or south traffic. Helicopter one, Mike Bravo, right, base turning final. I'll be landing taxiway parallel 27. So when I say good setup, I want to be about 300 AGL when I intercept my approach angle. So I'm going to start working down my descent down now to be around 300 AGL. And in my case I want to start my approach at 60 and I want to have zero rated descent and I want to be in trim and have all my pre landing checks done. So as I'm turning it on final here, I can look down here Now I got 60, I got a rate of descent going because that's I'm still coming down and I want to get down to about 300 AGL. All right, so I got us down now. We did a quick little edit there to 1150. So I got my 60, I got about 1050 is 300 AGL and it's showing just a small climb. So I'm just going to make a few adjustments so that I have 60, zero rated ascent, 1000 or 1150. I want to be in trim with the strings and that's what we're talking a good setup right there. Just above 60, zero rated ascent, really close to my altitude in trim. That's a good setup. Now we can continue the approach on down. So key to a good approach and that works for anything whether it's a normal approach, hover auto, straight in auto. If you set it up nice, it's going to be nice. If you set it up sloppy, it's going to be sloppy. As for my 25 years of teaching, I see it all the time. Set it up nice, it'll be nice. Set it up Sloppy. Got to be sloppy. 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 a got all a ton of free information in it about training tips and all kinds of different topics. 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.
