Airspace Review Helicopter Online Ground School
Aug 01, 2018Hello, I'm Kenny Keller the creator of Helicopter Online Ground School and Author of the Amazon No. 1 Best Seller Helicopter Check Ride.
Airspace Review Helicopter Online Ground School
Hello. I'm Kenny Keller, creator of Helicopter Online Ground School. Welcome to our first new live event with our new software that we have. We’ve done live events in the past but always struggled with internet connection and all the normal problems that people have. Now, we have a really fast internet connection. Hopefully, this is going to go a little bit better than a lot of ones we’ve done in the past. As I already stated, we all struggle learning airspace. Very common problem. Most all of us struggled learning airspace in the beginning. Then, you get out in the real world and you start flying. Let’s say, you fly for a year or so and then you go back for another rating. Then, you're back studying the airspace again or you're just going to get ready for a flight review. You got to go back and review airspace. It is hard to learn in the beginning. It’s something that takes review so that you can keep up on it. It’s very important to stay up and stay good with your airspace knowledge because airspace violations, they tell us, is the number one reason people get in trouble with their ratings, is by busting airspace. Then, they get some type of enforcement action taken sometimes against their license. We all spend too much time and money to make some stupid move and end up losing our license over busting to the airspace, or I should say busting through airspace that we don’t have permission to bust through or something along that lines. First, I want to talk about what is airspace. Then, we want to break down between controlled and uncontrolled. Airspace means the portion of the atmosphere controlled by a country above its territory. Controlled airspace exists where it is deemed necessary that air traffic control has some form of positive executive control over aircraft flying in that airspace. Uncontrolled airspace is airspace in which air traffic control does not exert any executive authority, although it may act in an advisory manner.
Airspace Review Helicopter Online Ground School
We have Class A, B, C, D, E, and G. There is no F. Let’s start off with Class A. All operations must be conducted under IFR or Special VFR. All aircraft are subject to ATC clearance, which is air traffic control. All flights are separated from each other by ATC. Here, you can see the US airspaces at a glance. You have Class A at the top, marked in red. Eighteen thousand MSL up to flight level sixty thousand. Then, you can see Class B, Class C, and Class D in their order in size from left to right. Class B is blue. Class C, magenta. Class D is blue again. The pinkish areas down low in the bottom is Class G. Then everything else you see in the green is Class Echo, Class E. The Class A you see at the top, most of us that’s helicopter pilots are never going to be in Class A. It could happen if you're instrument-rated than IFR aircraft on IFR flight plan. You might but for most of us, we’re probably never going to be there. Next, let’s talk about Class B. Operations may be conducted under IFR, Special VFR, or VFR. All aircraft are subject to ATC clearance. All flights are separated from each other by ATC. Some memory aids for the Class Bravo are big, blue, busy, and I use an example O’Hare in Chicago and LAX in Los Angeles. The Class Bravos are the big airports around the country in the major cities. Whenever I'm teaching airspace, whenever I'm sitting with somebody doing airspace, I always bring out a chart and I show the Chicago area, because most people are familiar with Chicago. A good example between the Bravo, Charlie, and Delta for the airspace class is for towered airports. O’Hare is Bravo. Midway, pretty good-sized airport, not as big as O’Hare, that’s a Class Charlie. Then, a smaller airport, Gary, which is in northern Indiana but close to Chicago, that’s a Class Delta. Most people afford of Gary Indiana. You’ve got the big ones like O’Hare for Bravo, medium-sized airport or not quite as big as the Bravo like a Midway is a Class Charlie, and then Class D for smaller towered airport, Class Delta as in Gary. Again, you can think of those examples as there's the big one, Class B, Bravo O’Hare. Class C, Charlie, Midway. Class D, Delta, Gary. Class Charlie, operations may be conducted under IFR, Special VFR, or VFR. All aircraft are subject to ATC clearance. Aircraft operating under IFR and Special VFR are separated from each other and from flights operating under VFR, but VFR flights are not separated from each other. Flights operating under VFR are given traffic information in respect of other VFR flights. Some memory aids for the Class Charlie are magenta, not as big as a Class B airport, Midway again in Chicago, then another example would be Akron/Canton in Ohio. If you're not familiar with the Ohio area, there's a Class Bravo in Cleveland. Akron is not quite as big as what Cleveland has. They have a slightly smaller airport that is a Class Charlie. You can see there again, Class Charlie in the middle, middle-sized airport as far as the three towered airports goes. Next, we’ll talk about Class D. Operations may be conducted under IFR, Special VFR, or VFR. All flights are subject to ATC clearance. Aircraft operating under IFR and Special VFR are separated from each other, and are given traffic information in respect of VFR flights. Flights operating under VFR are given traffic information in respect of all other flights. Memory aids, not as big as a Class Charlie. It’s a little smaller. Gary again, Gary in Chicago for an example. Burke Lakefront in Cleveland, which is a smaller towered airport right along the lake. There, you can see the Class D again there in respect to the three sizes of towered airports. Class D being smaller of the three. Class E airspace. Operations may be conducted under IFR, Special VFR, or VFR. In Class E, aircraft operating under IFR and Special VFR are separated from each other, and are subject to ATC clearance. Flights under VFR are not subject to ATC clearance. As far as is practical, traffic information is given to all flights in respect of VFR flights. Another way to think about Class E is everywhere else. Anywhere that is not A, B, C, D, or G is Class E, Echo. Again, you can see, the green areas there are all Class E. I put these silly little blue dots all over the green, trying to highlight the green. Everywhere that’s not A, B, C, or D, or G is Class E. Next, we’ll talk about Class G. Operations may be conducted under IFR or VFR in Class G. Air traffic control separation is not provided in Class G. Traffic information may be given as far as is practical in respect of other flights. Class G are the small uncontrolled airports. It has little small magenta dots, circles as you see, scattered all over a sectional chart. In this diagram, you can see the Class G. All along the bottom there, underlying the other classes of airspaces. The towered airports plus the Class E. That’s our review of the different airspace classes.
Airspace Review Helicopter Online Ground School
Now, I want to talk about basic VFR. I want to hit this next because I’ve seen a lot of people have trouble with this. Even add-on pilots, when they come back later, they struggle remembering this. Also, people on checkrides struggle a lot with basic VFR. I think it’s because it is very easy, but in the heat of the moment, when you get talking about airspace classes and requirements for each different class, it can be confusing. For basic VFR, you have to have a minimum of three miles visibility and a ceiling of at least a thousand feet. Doesn’t sound that tough but trust me, I've seen people have this mistake on checkrides. It’s happened more than once. Again, maybe a guy walks in. He's an airplane pilot. He’s going to do his add-on and we’ll start doing some ground. I’ll say, “Hey, what's basic VFR?” You’d be surprised at some of the things you hear but not everything [inaudible 00:08:21] an airplane pilot because it’s just the way people are. Helicopter pilots are same way, coming back for a flight review. I've just seen people struggle a lot with basic VFR. You have to know what it is. You got to commit this to memory. Some other important things on airspace that you need to be fresh on, things that we have to keep fresh in our minds. Special VFR, if you want to get into a controlled airspace and it’s under IFR conditions, you have to ask for a Special VFR. Interesting fact here is you have to request the Special VFR. Air traffic control will not offer it to you. I can tell you, working as a new commercial pilot, my first CFI job, I studied this and I knew this but I’d never asked for Special VF. I went to go flying into Class Delta airport that’s along the lake. There was a little bit of a cloud layer but I could see the airport. I didn’t think it was a big deal. I didn’t check the ADIZ. I just thought, “Oh, the weather looks okay other than that little area of clouds.” I call up the tower. The tower comes back and says, “Helicopter, such and such, field’s IFR, state your intentions.” I pause for a moment and I’m thinking, “Oh, okay. It’s IFR. Now, what am I going to do?” Real timidly, I go, “Well, can I have a Special VFR?” He’s like, “Clear. Special VFR, proceed as requested, da, da, da, da.” It was that easy. They cannot offer it to you. If you need the Special VFR, you have to ask for it. IFR is instrument flight rules. If the field’s IFR and you want to get in there, you have to get a Special VFR or at least request a Special VFR. If you see no SVFR, that is for fixed wing aircraft. If it says no SVFR, fixed wings can’t get it. Helicopters can still request it. They don’t have to give it to you but even though airplanes can’t get the special, we as helicopter pilots can still request the Special VFR. Then, we have Special use airspace and we’re going to break some of these down in the next live event. I’m going to go through and do some more airspace and do it more in detail. We are going to review alert areas, military operations areas, warning areas, restricted areas, prohibited areas, controlled firing areas, national security areas. We have some other airspace areas, airport advisory areas, military training routes, temporary flight restrictions, flight limitations and restrictions, parachute jump aircraft areas, emergency traffic rules and ADIZ air defense identification zones. That gives you a clue why we all struggle learning airspace.
Airspace Review Helicopter Online Ground School
That’s a review of some of the basic airspace information that you need to be familiar with and have to have fresh in your mind. I see a couple of questions from some of our members inside our site where we’re transmitting this live and it was live on YouTube as well so I see some questions there about our membership. I’m going to roll a video now on our different membership levels and what we are offering as of right now. We’re going to roll that video now and we’ll be back to wrap up in just a little bit.
Airspace Review Helicopter Online Ground School
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