👉 It’s Not the Hard Stuff… This Is What Fails Helicopter Checkrides

44 checkrides completed yesterday. So today we're going into our 4th year. We've had it officially, this is going into our 4th year. So this is May 1st, 2026. We started May 1st, 2023. So we've completed 44 checkrides since we've started the R44 final approach courses. And it's kind of cool, I think, that we've done 44 in the first 3-year period. Like I said, new insurance policy starts today. 44 checkrides down. And I want to share with you what we've been seeing in the last 3 years. I've been teaching for 25 years. If you're new to our videos, I'm Kenny Keller with Helicopter Online Ground School. I've been teaching for 25, but in this video today, I want to tell you what we've seen for the last 3 years. The last couple of days as we were prepping the last 2 people, number 43 and number 44 completed yesterday. For the last 2 days, I'd been thinking, you know, what have we been seeing the last 3 years? So I've been, I'll be honest, I use AI every day. So I'm talking the whole time going, hey, I want to put this in a video, or put— I want to talk about this, I want to talk about this. Everything I can think of over a couple of days, I just was thinking since we've had the R44 and doing what we call the Final Approach Course. If you don't know what that is, people are coming from around the country and around the world actually. We've had people from 22 different states, which is kind of neat. 44 Checkrides in the R44 final approach courses, 3 different countries, completed as of yesterday. So these final approach courses, we help people from around the country. They're somewhere else trying to finish a rating, and for whatever reason, they just can't get done. Lots of reasons. So it gives us an interesting perspective because people are coming from different states, different flight schools. So we see a common theme, right? Like just What goes on with people? What happens at their flight schools? So again, I'm just talking about the last 3 years. So I'm going to go right to the list so you're not waiting any longer. We're going to go right down through here. I'd love to hear your comments down below because there's more. This is just a portion of what I've been notating and put together as a draft because we're moving our, you know, into our 4th year for the final approach courses. So we want to qualify people a little better before they get here and help with some of the issues that arise when they do get here. We go, "Well, we pre-warned you, but you didn't do that," or, "This reg is not fixed," or, "This endorsement's not right." I want to try to help with some of these things. So they can help you no matter where you're taking a checkride. It doesn't matter whether you're coming here or anywhere you're going. I'm sure other instructors in flight schools see a lot of the same issues. Number 1, when you're here for a checkride, or you're going to any checkride anyway, it's time for you to operate like a pilot, not as a student. And I get it, you've been operating in a student mindset for 3 years or 3 months or 6 years or however long it's taken to get your rating. And I feel like just a lot of applicants are getting babied too much at the flight school. And they arrive here and they— everything's a question back to me. Like, we're in our final prep. We're going to do 3 hours and send you to a test. And they're still asking me questions like they're a student. And I'm going, you got to get in the mindset here. You've got to be ready to take charge and answer questions. Because if you're always doing that with me, then with your sitting over there with the examiner and he says, asks you a question, you go, da da da da da da, like that, and like you kind of like ask him, he's going to dig deep and your checkride's not going to go as well as if you just answer the question. If he says, what's the max gross weight of the R44? 2,400. Well, if you weighed 2,405, you had a little tiny extra fuel on there, could you lift at 2,405? No, sir. Why? That'd be illegal. Exactly. Not, well, I think I could, or I could, right? Never pose a question. We recently on a checkride had a guest instructor here, and during the end of the oral portion, they're getting ready to go fly, and I had another instructor here to sign him off, and he's trying to make his weather decision. He comes upstairs and asks me. And I'm like, this is your weather decision. That's part of being a private pilot is making a decision. He goes, well, I know, but this is going on outside. And I'm like, I can't— it's not my place to make this decision for you. That's why it's called the no-go decision. That's as a private pilot, you have to decide. And he says, well, the instructor told me to discontinue. And I'm like, how are you talking to the instructor? He's like, well, I was texting him. I'm like, you're texting the instructor that signs you off during the oral portion of the checkride? Are you kidding me? And he's like, yeah. And I go, he was— I just asked him if I should go or not. I'm like, number one, you shouldn't be asking anybody. You shouldn't be texting anyone during a checkride, and especially not asking for help. And now you're upstairs with me. Wrong. Shouldn't be happening. You should be making this decision on your own. That's just one example of how I'm trying to build people's confidence up last minute because they're acting like a student. So anyway, get that mindset of you got to be confident, and you get through confident by having the knowledge, having the proper training, and being confident in what you're getting ready to do. You're going to be a private pilot, you need to act like a private pilot. And I hear many other examples I'm not going to bore you with where they're asking the— to the examiner, and he'll always say the same thing. Well, I don't know, you're pilot in command today. So you can't be asking the examiner questions. You have to be confident and tell him what you're getting ready to go do. Next one up. Slow, smooth, methodical. I preach in my videos all the time, and I know not everybody watches my videos, I get it. My point is, I don't care where you're coming from, it doesn't matter what rating you're working on, private, commercial, CFI, it doesn't matter. Everything you should be— should— everything you're doing should be slow, smooth, methodical. That includes preflight. That includes your weather decision. That includes moving the helicopter out of the hangar. That includes doing your walkaround, fueling, startup, your first pickup, your whole entire flight. Everything from the start of the day to the end of the day should be slow, smooth, methodical. And I'm— this is my big complaint about flight schools. They want the helicopter blades spinning. And they come here and we get in the helicopter and this applicant's rushing through the checklist. And I'm like, what are you doing? And they'll always say, well, what do you mean? I go, why are you rushing? They say, well, that's because of how they want it done. I go, who's they? Well, my flight school or my instructor. And I'm like, OK, well, when you get to the EMS level, flying a $6 million aircraft, they want slow, smooth, methodical so you don't wreck the aircraft and kill everybody. That's in a professional environment. So in a training environment, you should never be hurry, hurry, hurry, go, go, go. It makes no sense. If your instructor or your flight school is pushing you, you need to question it. You should never be rushing anything in the helicopter ever. Ever. Ownership over excuses is the next one. Oh my God. I recently had a final approach member who there was an excuse for everything. Like, it's a constant excuse. Just fess up if you make a mistake. Fess up if you forgot something. Fess up to whatever it is. Don't give me— constantly give me excuses. I hate excuses. I hate it. You know, earlier in my life, I was the same way. I made excuses. All right, I get it. And I'll be honest, after, you know, early in my 20s, you know, after losing— the death of my mother, I went through depression. And but I also It was like I blamed everybody and I blamed the world around me for everything. And after going through counseling and kind of turning my life around, I learned that I had to quit blaming myself. I had to quit blaming everybody around me for everything. As a pilot, you need to take ownership and you need to fess up when you make a mistake and just work to improve it. Don't give excuses. I don't want to hear excuses as your instructor. The examiner doesn't want to hear excuses. All right, ownership over excuses. If you're one of those people, you need to knock it off. Excuses get you nowhere. You forgot something, tell me, I forgot it. You're late for certain reasons, fess up to why you were late. You overslept, whatever. Don't blame everybody else. Ownership over excuses. You got it. This goes back to being a pilot in command, going for a checkride. You're pilot in command, you need to be able to make decisions. And don't make excuses. It's horrible. Alright, for our final approach course that we do, this is for people who are checkride ready. If you want to come here and do a checkride with us, that's great. But that's not— this isn't to help you finish your training. If you want to come with us and you want us to help you finish up some solo time or finish some requirements, okay, that's one thing. You can come, we'll help you prepare everything, get it ready, Point A, section 1, chapter 1, we get you ready. Chapter 2, now we move into the final prep, the oral testing, all everything we go through for the checkride. So that's how we do it. And that's what you should be doing at your flight school. In flight schools, I'm telling you, if your flight school is not using the ACS, your instructor's not using the ACS, shame on them. In the last, I told you this is for the last 3 years. This is for the last 3 years. It's also for the last 25 years. This is a common problem over and over again. If you, the applicant, are not using the ACS, shame on you. If your instructor's not using it, shame on your instructor. If your flight school's not using it, shame on them. That's the checkride. Biggest disservice to yourself is not using the ACS. Not finishing requirements or learning basics. They're right here. Okay? I have it printed right here on the table. This is for private pilot. I am amazed at the people that show up and something on this list is not completed or it wasn't long enough or it missed a leg or they did the flight and they don't have the endorsement. It's not that hard, people. This is private pilot right here on one page for your aeronautical experience. Open up the FAR/AIM and look at it as an applicant. Your instructor is responsible to make sure he goes through this list with you and make sure everything is done, but you can't trust your instructor. I'm going to say it, you know, this video isn't pussyfooting around. I'm not trying to worry about hurting anybody's feelings. We continually see every week here, every single week, the amount of horrible instruction going on in our industry is fucking ridiculous. The stuff that we see, people showing up where their instructor says, oh, you're prepared. It's not the applicant's fault for the most part when an instructor tells you you're ready and you're not. But you can avoid that by yourself opening up the ACS and going through it and opening up the FAR/AIM and going through that list and checking these on your own when you're at home without your instructor. Make sure your instructor is right. You should know the regs. You need to know I can go to Part 61, that's how I get my license, and you can go to Private Pilot and you can look up aeronautical experience and you can check check this stuff. If you're not capable of checking these requirements with the FAR/AIM, with your logbook, then you're not ready to be a private pilot. You should be able to do this. And we see this over and over and over and over again. I swear to you, cross-country is wrong, solo's wrong, endorsement's not there, endorsement not dated. It's not fucking rocket science. It's go through the— it's going through the regs. And checking. Telling you. God. Alright. Written test completed. Oh my God, written test. I love talking about this one. This is the same stuff I harp on all the time, but I'm repeating it because this is what's coming, this is what we're seeing, right? In our final approach course now, when somebody calls, "Oh, I got everything ready, but my written's not done, but I'm doing it next week," or, "I'm doing it next month," Heather knows now not to even bug me. Like, if they tell you the written test is not done, tell them to thank you, get that written down, call us back. Be happy to help you. If you're going to call and say, well, I'm going to do it next week, I'm going to do it next month, well, I'm working on studying, then get it done. We don't accept you if your written test is not done. And this is for you no matter where you're training. This isn't just for coming to HUGS. This is If you are doing your flight training at some flight school and you're nearing the end of your training and your written test is still not done, go get the damn thing done, okay? It drags out your training. If you get that stupid written done early on, then you can focus on checkride-specific stuff. Because there's things you're going to study for the written test. I'm going to be honest. I know the FAA wants you to know all that information. Some of that information you're not going to actually use in the aircraft. And it might be because you got to learn a piece of equipment that you don't have in your— in your helicopter, so you're not going to actually use that piece of information, but you still got to know it to be a private pilot. That's what I'm getting at. Once you get that written done, there's still a lot of knowledge to know, but you can focus your knowledge now on the ACS and what's required, not all this stuff you got to know for the written. Telling you people, get that written done early on, as soon as you can. I heard a good, good rule years ago, a good rule So have the written done prior to solo. I know people argue with me, "Oh my God, that's a lot of work before I get to—" I get it, but do you want to advance through your training, save time, save money? Get the written done early. I've had— this year I've had 3 people come here with over 100 hours, didn't have their private pilot. I'm just telling you what works, and I'm telling you what doesn't work. It doesn't work when you drag this damn written test out. Another one I know and love: all endorsements complete and correct. And I know if you're an applicant, I'll tell you how you can check it. You can go get this thing called AC 6165-K, free to anybody on the internet. It has every single endorsement there is, is in there. Now, it's your instructor's job to give you those endorsements. It's instructor's job to make sure those are correct. If you really want to go full bore, you could double-check your instructor and make sure those endorsements are right. Free PDF, AC 6165K, as the making of this video. You can go find those endorsements and you can check them in your book. Make sure your instructor signed them, dated them. I know it's not your job, but you can't trust instructors. I'm telling you, and I don't care who I piss off, endorsements over and over and over and over again, a problem. They're trained during their CFI training how to properly do this. The examiner has tested them on endorsements. They know how to do this. It's complete laziness when they're not doing it in your logbook. Our examiner, he's been doing it 37 years and he complains about this all the time. How instructors, they all make stickers and pass stickers around, but nobody really knows what the hell any of them say. You need to understand the endorsements. Instructors need to understand them and use them. So Any doubt, AC 6165, they'll tell you exactly what endorsements you need. Make sure they're correct. SBAR 73 awareness training. I'll tell you what, we all know it, we've all heard about it, and most of you get it when you go to fly in Robinson, and it's good training, but it's mandatory training. We recently had— this year we had a guy who showed up, had over 100 hours, had his solo time done, had all all his stuff done, and he didn't have the SBAR 73 signed off in his logbook. And when I questioned it, he said, oh, my instructor gave it to me. I said, he did? Really? And he said, oh yeah. And he explained to me what SBAR 73 awareness training was, and I knew he'd got it, right? I go, OK, but your instructor has to give that. It has to be in your book because your training is not valid. And he was like, oh, well, I don't want to— man, I hate to ask him now because he's going to be mad because now I'm here flying with you. And I said, Screw him. It's his job to put that SBAR endorsement in your logbook, and now you're here to help me, me to help you finish because this guy ran you over 100 hours and he couldn't finish off your rating. And he couldn't even do the simple thing of giving you SBAR 73 awareness training endorsement. That's mandatory. The guy screwed you, okay? Go back there and make him sign the damn logbook. It's simple. That's required. That instructor needs hung up by his ass. Ridiculous. ACS, read cover to cover. I'm telling you, read that damn thing. Go online, get a free copy, download it to your iPad. You don't have to spend any money. You're better off just buying the damn book and going through it. ACS, over and over and over, I'm telling you, if you're not using it, you are doing yourself a disservice. And good luck getting through your checkride if you don't know the ACS. Sorry if I'm getting a little feisty, but you know what, I don't really care. I'm not here to make friends and influence people. I'm trying— I'm here to try to help you get through checkrides. I'm trying to help our customers who use Hogs to learn the knowledge. I'm here to help the people that come here. But these are the basic things that we harp on over and over and over and over again. And you know, it's a lot of it— this isn't— I'm not always— I'm not necessarily mad at you, the applicants. I'm mad at instructors. And I met at flight schools that can't do their damn job. It's horrible. It's so horrible. What else we got here? That's good stuff. Put your comments down below because there's more, I'm telling you. Again, I'm hitting, I'm hitting ones right off the top. Things, things keep coming up. No excuses, ownership only, no hand-holding, sufficient Self-sufficient pilots only. No rebuttals. Follow the Hogg system or follow your training system. No rebuttals. Rebuttals is, well, my instructor says, well, our examiner where we're from says, well, our physdo says. You know what? I don't care. I don't care. What they do and what we do are two different things. I got my 25 years experience. My examiner I've been using for 25 years has his 37 years of experience. This is how we operate. This is how we do it. This is what we expect. This is the way it's going to happen. If you spend half of a day telling me how well you do it at home, well, it's just wasting time. You're paying me for a full day, and I guess if you want to pay me all day to just tell me stories, then go ahead. But you're wasting your time getting to your training and getting through the rating if you're constantly telling me a story every time I tell you something, or you're giving me a rebuttal. Well, but Yeah, but, well, but, no, it's no but to it. My dad used to say, yeah, but you're a yabbit. If somebody says but, means they're not listening to you. So my dad always said, he said, if somebody tells you but, means they're not listening. I kind of agree with that at this point in my life. If you're giving me buts all the time, that means you're not listening to what the hell I'm trying to tell you. Aircraft, aircraft applicants must move aircraft and operate independently. Let's talk about aircraft and going in and out of the hangar again for a minute. I mentioned it earlier. There are so many ways for people to get hurt. Aircraft get damaged, people get hurt. Somebody could even get killed over a stupid hangar mistake. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. Rushing in and out of the hangar. I don't care where you're flying, for anybody, anywhere. It's so important to learn a good technique moving the helicopter in and out. And you should be able to do that when it's time for your test. You shouldn't be calling on your instructor for every little thing. You're pilot in command. You should understand how to get a helicopter in and out of a hangar safely. And maybe your flight school won't let you. If they won't because line service moves it, there's no control of it for you at that point. I get that. But most places don't have that luxury. Most of the time, the instructors are wheeling the thing in and out. Jump in and help them. Learn how to do it. Know how to properly move that aircraft in and out of the hangar and do it safely. And again, I'm telling you things that are real world. In EMS, they told us— they did a study at the company I was with, a little company called Omni Flight Helicopters. They were in business for 50 years. And they said, "The helicopters are getting wrecked. Our tailrotors getting turned into buildings, wires, trees, hangar doors, fire trucks, police cars, service vehicles all the time. Tailrotors getting either in flight turned into something or tailrotor getting damaged by something moving a helicopter around. Happens all the time." Preflights. No improper preflights. I recently had a guy, fixed-wing pilot, helicopter add-on, actually been flying from helicopters for 30 years, flew in another country but wanted to get his US license. And I asked him, where's the steeda— where's the pitot-static port at? The night before his checkride, we were driving to pick up the helicopter for maintenance, and we're just in the car, and I'm like, so where is the static port? Oh, Yeah, it's got one. I go, I know it's got one. Where is it? The examiner asked this on pre-flight, or yeah, on your checkride. I'm not sure is what he said. I'm like, okay, it's on both sides of the helicopter behind the passenger door. Examiner's not going to be impressed if you don't know where the static port is. I recently climbed up to check the rotor head and it was one of our applicants here, good customer, has been here 3 times for 3 different ratings. And when I climbed up to check the rotor head, he goes, you're the first person I've seen climb up and check the rotor head off the side of the helicopter. And I said, are you serious? And he's like, yeah, I'm not kidding. He was here for his commercial at that time. He'd been here private, was there for commercial. And he's an airplane CFI, and he's doing his add-ons. He was doing— he was back for his commercial. I said, nobody at your flight school climbs up and checks the rotor head? He goes, nobody. And I'm like, well, that's part of the preflight. Whether you use a ladder, you climb up the side of the helicopter, climb up there, check out what you need to check, grab everything, you know, check all the rods, fill stuff, fill the boots, look down the blades, check all the bolts. That's part of a pre-flight. Apparently there's flight schools not teaching a pre-flight. They're not teaching where a pitot-static port is. They're not teaching how to properly climb up the side of the helicopter. Know the aircraft. No matter where you're going for a checkride, know the aircraft and know the full pre-flight and know it properly. You can always go to the POH for any aircraft and figure out what needs to be checked. And if your instructor's not doing it, you can find it and question them. Why aren't— why didn't you teach me this? Where's this at? Why didn't you show me that? Because again, you want to be good at this, you want to be successful. Don't— you can't trust 50% of instructors out there because 50% of them can't do their damn job. Know what kind of oil goes in it. Know where the oil is at. Know how to add oil to the helicopter. If it's the day before your checkride and you don't know how to put oil in the helicopter, you're not ready to be a private pilot. That's basic maintenance. You need to— if you go on a cross-country flight and you got to stop and the helicopter's a little low, you need to know how to add oil to it. It's part of being a pilot. Must have exposure to all CS maneuvers before arrival. That's, that's for us. If you're not getting all the maneuvers— let me tell you, people, there— people are not getting the maneuvers. They're showing up here and, oh, I've never done a 180. I'm like, you've been training, you got over 100 hours, you've never done a 180? Nope, my instructor doesn't do them. I'm like, it's in the ACS. Really? Okay, well, you've never looked at the ACS, have you? 180 is a basic function that should be in private pilot. Never done it. I have a buddy that runs a flight school in Florida who recently texted me. He's like, Kenny, do a video on Governor off and low RPM. He goes, I got CFI applicants showing up, they've never done low RPM and never done governor off. And I'm like, you have Robinson applicants showing up to fly your R44s and they've never done low RPM, they've never done governor off? He's like, no, I'm serious, Kenny. I'm telling you, they're not doing it at certain flight schools. And I'm like— If you're flying a Robinson at flight school and they haven't done governor off with you and they haven't done low RPM with you, recover with the horn on, Jesus Christ, change flight schools. That's horrible. Stick with the checklist. People come here from all over and they have things they do differently because the check— you know, like, well, I do this. Well, why do you do that? Well, that's what my flight school says to do. And I go, okay, so your flight school knows better than Robinson Helicopter? Well, yeah. Oh, really, they do? Yeah. I'm like, okay. All right, well, you're getting ready to take a checkride with an FAA-designated examiner, and he expects you to do it by the checklist. You don't want to be in the helicopter during your checkride explaining to the examiner why you do it away from what the factory checklist says how to do it. Most examiners aren't going to be well with that, right? There's a reason why the factory says do this, do this, do this, do this, do this. And well, my flight school says, well, you know what, let me tell you about that. I know somebody high up at Robinson, friend of mine, and he flat-out told me on the phone, and he was right here one day, and he was on speaker and even knew it, and the girls were here and they heard it. And he said, you know what pisses me off and what makes us mad? When an instructor says, well, I like to teach— well, what I like to do, that's shit that nobody's ever taught, that Robinson's not teaching, that they're coming with all the kinds of shit. And I'm not gonna go into it because there's all kinds of things you see on YouTube and Facebook. And watch this, watch me do this. Yeah, and that's where the people that go out and get hurt and get killed and bad shit happens. If you take a Robinson helicopter and you fly it the way it's intended to be flown and you follow the proper maintenance, you're probably never going to have a problem. You know, we got Robinson haters out there, always going to bitch and whine and moan and complain. Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. You know what? They're going off what they've heard. They don't know anything about the aircraft. Robinson's a safe aircraft if you fly it the way it's intended to be flown and you fly it by the aircraft checklist. You do it right, probably never going to have a problem. People, people, people. Starting a timer when you start the engine, shutting off the timer when you stop the engine. Every single time. You need to be tracking your engine time, your flight time, your fuel. Needs to be something you're doing every single time. If you got a timer in a helicopter, engine on, start. Engine off, stop. Or if you don't have a timer, it's 1:28, jot that down. When you land, it's 2:27. Okay. Halfway through the flight, you know, oh, I started at 1:28, so it's 2 o'clock. Okay. I know I've burned half an hour of fuel. People not doing that. That's a bad thing. That's bad. Hover pre-takeoff checks. My examiner has been saying it for years. There's a lot of flight schools and instructors out there aren't teaching hover pre-takeoff checks. And I see it here every time somebody comes here. I'm not— All right, let me correct that. We have people that come here and do it religiously. We do. And thank you to those who have been taught properly in their flight schools that taught them properly. Thank you. A hover pre-takeoff check is mandatory every single takeoff. You should do it before you pick up off the ground. You should do it before you move away from the hangar or your parking. And before you take off. Every single time for that entire flight. I don't care if you take off 10 times. Every time you get ready to take off, hover pre-takeoff checks should be done every time. My examiner says instructors and flight schools aren't teaching this enough, and that's a bad thing. That's a problem in our industry, is instructors and students not teaching hover pre-takeoff checks. Log every flight immediately, no exceptions. Your flight school early on is going to be doing this for you. But as you get closer to becoming a private pilot, you need to know where are the aircraft logbooks at. Do you have a sheet to sign in the helicopter? Do you have it in the hangar? For our case, it's over here. You got to be in the habit of keeping track of the time. And that's part of being a good pilot is documentation. Documenting your flight. Not coming in and, "Oh, I'll fill out the book later." No, you walk in the door and you fill out the book. I'm talking no matter where you at, who you're flying. Again, in the beginning your instructor's doing it, but learn how to do it so at a certain point you can do it. Because when it comes to solo time, you need to fill that out. Documentation's big about becoming a pilot. If you don't learn it in the beginning, then it's going to cause you problems later. The FAA doesn't say, oh well, you know, oh, your instructor always did that for you. He— your instructor held your hand. And you just violated the reg, it's okay, we're not going to fine you because it was your instructor's fault. No, it's your fault for not having the proper documentation. If it's not logged, it didn't happen. I learned that back in law enforcement. So that goes along with also your flights for passengers, for carrying passengers, day, night, and everything else. If it's not logged, it didn't happen. Attention to detail is so important, and you have to learn that, and you have to abide by it. All right, first 10 minutes. 10 minutes of any checkride to me now at this point, I've always said for years, it's about the presentation, it's the first 15 minutes. I've narrowed it down to 10 minutes for us. And I think you can use this anywhere you go. When the examiner walks in the door, we have this table right here, it's over there at the end of the Hogs Wall of Fame, right by the entrance door. And when he walks in, hey, how you doing? No rush today. Where's your documents at, right? And the first thing he wants to see, aircraft documents. We have the airworthiness and the registration sitting on the table. He has to check the aircraft in first thing. Once he checks that in, I put those back. He looks at your license, your medical, endorsements. They have to be, we put them so they're out in the open. Endorsements have to be ready. Endorsements have to be right. He looks at those. He logs into IACRA, gets everything started. You have to have your login and ID, or your login and password ready to go. We write them out and put them on this table. Right here I have the Wi-Fi code for the examiner, and we put the password right here so the applicant can be right there. And we also print off the long cross-country because the first thing he starts before even sitting down is he'll say, "Where'd you go on your long cross-country?" And instead of a student having to go find their book and leaf through pages, We have it printed from ForeFlight so you can see all 3 legs, for example, for the private pilot, all 3 legs for their long solo cross-country. We have the distances put on there so he can look at it and he'll go, "Great." And then he moves on. That is a super important 10 minutes. You don't have the license, you left it at the hotel. You left your logbook at the hotel. Oh, this endorsement's not signed. Whatever the case is, starting on a bad note, that just makes everything go downhill from there. If you can start off clean, and that IACRA login, we talk about that all the time. If you haven't heard of this yet, if you get locked out of IACRA, you have to get on the phone and call them, and that can delay the checkride 2 hours. It's a mess. No examiner anywhere on the planet appreciates if you can't log into IACRA and you need your info because he logs into it or has you log into it on his computer. You gotta have that, you gotta have that right there and ready to go. That first 10 minutes is crucial. As soon as he sits down, he'll look at the actual, the long cross-country, he'll look, he'll have you point it out where it's at in the logbook, he'll check the endorsements, he's gonna ask you where'd you go and do your towered your towered takeoffs and landings. Know where that stuff is. Be able to point to it right away. And if you can satisfy all the documentation via ACRA with your login stuff, all of your documents, the aircraft, your long cross-country, where did you go for your towered environment, pick them out, show them, you're off to the races. And that first 10 minutes, so stinking important, and I'm telling you, we've proved it in the last 3 years. I've seen it for 25 years, but for the last 3 years, because we're so picky about the documents to start, and like I said, we have them right there on the corner, and then we have 2 couches and a small table where we do all of our ground getting ready. So at least when you take the check right here, You are taking the test where you've been all week doing ground. The helicopter's right here. So you're comfortable. It's where you know. And on the table we'll have all the rest of the information that you need. And here's the other big tip. Almost nobody knows this. Inside the ACS at the back there's a list of everything you have to have. All of that stuff needs to be on the table. That way you can start with the examiner, you have everything you need. And I promise you, that's the best way to start your test. Being prepared. Having all the documents. Having everything right. And it sounds pretty easy, but there's an art form to it. To truly having every single thing dated, signed, documented, everything. There's a lot of work to it. And what I want to say is, checkrides are a pain in the ass. Alright? They are an absolute pain. Pain. Every single time. You alleviate some of that pain by doing all this stuff in the beginning correctly. Having everything you need, all endorsements, all the requirements done, makes it go so much easier. It's still a pain in the ass, however, this is why people travel here from all over the country. Because we're willing to put up with it. So I've been doing it for 25 years. I know what it takes to get started on a good note. I know what it takes to go through the ACS. I know what it takes to go through the FAR/AIM, and all of you can do the same thing. Every one of you out there can do the exact same thing we do here. There's no secret to it. It's go through the ACS, go through the FAR/AIM, check the requirements, all the endorsements, make sure it's all 100% correct. Any of you can do it. But flight schools don't. They don't want to go through the hassle. They want you in the aircraft. They want to get your time. They want to get your money. They want to get hours in the logbook. Pilots want to get hours in their logbook so they can move on to the next job. They don't really want to do the work of going through the actual day of the test because it is a pain in the ass. That's it. I'm telling you, it's a pain in the ass. You have to try to alleviate it. And that's why we do it here, because we'll put up with it. We're willing to do the work and make it freaking happen. And our, our reputation is proven. It's not in question here, trust me. Ask around, you'll find out. If you want to come here and do a checkride with us, you have to be willing to be photographed, be on the Hogs Wall of Fame, and we have to be able to share your success. That's what we do. Our whole business is based on our Hogs Wall of Fame and sharing our customers with the world, sharing their experiences. And we had a guy recently who, "Oh well, you can take my picture but you can't post it anywhere." And I'm like, well then, you know, in my mind I'm like, "Then why did you come here? That's what we do. We want to share your experience. We want to show the world. You're proud of it, we should be proud of it. It's part of it for us here." Unprepared applicants. I'm going to go more into this in another video. There's a term for this and there's actual science behind why people have trouble preparing and I want to end this video, I want to go into that in another video and we'll do that. So put your comments down below so that we can continue this, I don't know if I'll call it a series yet, but I wanted to touch some more on this because this is good stuff. I'm telling you, this is good stuff. This is probably going to be a video that's going to be required to watch before you even come here to do a course with us. If you want to finish. Because this stuff is so important. I keep saying it, it's the simple stuff that gets people on checkrides. It's not the hard stuff. It's the simple little stupid things that you go, "Oh my God, how did I miss that?" I'm telling you. I've seen it for 25 years and I've seen it for the last 3 years and the last 44 checkrides we've done here. Alright, well this should create some higher success for you out there. And for people coming here, whichever you're doing, everything I've talked about today doesn't matter whether you're coming to Hogs or going anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world for that matter. I don't care. These little things are so stinking important. So put your comments down below. Let's have some discussions on this stuff. And I'm going to keep working on this and we'll bring up some more. I don't know what to call the name for this series or these topics or whatever, because it's all good, good, good stuff. So comment below, subscribe, see you in the next video. Peace out.