#117 HELICOPTER UTILITY INSPECTION PILOT | Holley Gardel | CROSS COUNTRY STOP

All right. My first HOGS members stopping to see the new hangar. Hell yeah. The jet ranger. Hey, day 117, coffee with Kenny. Have Holly Gardell here. Come on over. Holly. Many of you know Holly from online ground school. You've seen her. Her airspace video is very popular. Slope landing video is pretty popular. We did her CFI several years ago. She traveled out to Indiana and did her CFI with me in the instrument that's right behind us here. All beauty and shined up. So this is the first video from. You might recognize the table. Luckily, this was a good stop here at the HOGS hangar. Let everybody know what you're doing now and how you ended up here.

Well, I have been working as a utility inspection pilot for last year and a half or so and doing power line and pipeline inspections, which I really enjoy. It's awesome. The right kind of work for me and getting to see a lot of the country, traveling around quite a bit. I'm on a rotation, 21 day rotation. So I'm on 21 days and off 21 days. Which means when I'm working, I'm working pretty hard. And then when I'm not working, I get some playtime. So that's a great schedule for me, actually. I like it a lot.

That is a neat schedule.

Yeah. And it also works to have a schedule like that and be married when your spouse doesn't want to leave your town. So we get to stay at home and kind of be settled and then I do my gypsy thing and come back and forth. So, yeah, that's what I'm doing. And right now what I'm doing is bringing an aircraft across the country. I went to go pick up a helicopter, 206B3, in Montana, and fly it back to the East Coast.

It's hiding back there in the background. You can just see the top of it.

Yeah. Nice to have hangar space as I've been running from storms from day one. So kind of sandwiched between storms chasing one and getting chased by the other for days and miles. What was supposed to be a two and a half day ferry, I'm now on day six. So that's kind of how this stuff works. Especially springtime weather is really unpredictable. You don't really know how that's gonna go.

Absolutely. Yeah, we have. She just took a shot of this from her iPad and sent it to me so we can put up on the screen for you just to see what she's dealing with today. So it's still cool, though, that she's here and at Least, you know, friendly place with a friendly hangar. The Hog Studio. It was cool last night. I was trying to work out to get back to the airport when. When she was going to land and I told her to look for the jeep. And just as I come around the corner, I mean, boom. I look off and here she is on approach to the hangar. And it just, it gave me goosebumps. It was so cool that, you know, I'm rushing to get out there thinking I'd beat you. But I. But you knew, like, what hangar to go to or it looked like you were on approach to them. Like, wow.

Well, you said north end of the field. And then I said to my friend who's traveling with me, we're looking for a jeep. And then she looks over and she goes, oh, I see a jeep. So we just followed you over. Perfect.

That was exciting for me, just, you know, knowing she was coming and then just to watch her approach in the Jet Ranger, which is my. Still, my favorite helicopter. I still love them. And it was just a blast. It was a blast having her here. It's good to see her again. We did see her at heli Expo. We didn't have a lot of time to talk at Expo.

Yeah. Always good to catch up.

We've been. I said, let's just get on quick, let people know what you've been doing and just give them a quick rundown on. This is what happens on ferry flights or cross country flights you plan on two or three days can turn into six days, could turn into more, but.

It will turn into more, I'm sure. As it turns out. Yeah.

Because she's making good weather decisions. And fly when the weather's good, stop when it's not, and just wait it out. So I'm glad that this happened to be the place where she ran into that ugly mess.

Yeah. Got in right before it stopped. I dodged, went around a thunderstorm. Not a thunderstorm. Went around a rainstorm to get here. And then as soon as we landed, I said, there's one coming. We should probably get it in the hangar. And we figured out that you can actually get a Jet Ranger in this hangar. So if you have one.

Yep. Just won't work on the dolly. We know that now.

It definitely will not work with the.

Wheels by pushing it in. But dolly would have never worked. We never made it inside.

Yeah, but we got it in. As soon as we shut the hangar door, it started dumping. And low ceilings. Been low ceilings all day. This actually is an improvement. The last time I looked, it was all pink, all pink and red. And so we've got a little bit of movement, Things are starting to lift a bit, but the forecast is not good. And the great thing about the company I work for is that they don't push with weather. So safety is the biggest priority, and that's also mine. So I have felt no pressure to get anywhere because, you know, of course, the goal at the end of the day is for the passengers and the aircraft to arrive safely to its destination. Right. So the great thing about flying across the U.S. of course, you have your plan right. These are my planned fuel stops. This is my overnight whatever. But you have to stay really flexible, particularly in weather like this. But when you look at that, if the plan was to get to Columbus, look how many airports are between here and Columbus. If things aren't looking good, which is what happened yesterday, I ended up diverting along my route prior to getting here just because ceilings were coming down. You know, things would clear, but it was really iffy, and I just thought, you know what? There's an airport. Put it down. We'll wait it out. 45 minutes or an hour later, things lifted again, and we were able to get over here in time before the next wave. So I'm pretty conservative when it comes to weather, and I watch it really closely. And, you know, it's great that there are always options, because even if those airports don't have jet fuel or whatever services you need, crew, car, anything, it's still a place to get on the ground, tie your blades down, and just wait. You know, that's always an option. But once you're in it because you think, oh, I can just go a little bit further, then you're in it, and then things can get rowdy. And now you're having to scramble and try to figure out what to do, or, do I turn around or do I put it in this pasture or how to make that happen? So better to evaluate your options and make a safe decision prior to getting to that point.

Awesome. All right, well, give us a comment down below. Say something to Holly for all of you that, you know, they're working the dream, struggling to get there. Holly had her struggles like everybody else, but proof that you work hard at it, and if you want it and you go after it. But you gotta apply yourself, and you need to apply yourself like Holly did, who I've said over and over, and I'll say it again, when she showed up for cfi, she was prepared. She worked her butt off before she got here, made the Training a breeze, because we could just focus on prep, flying, doing the full downs, transitioning to the instruments. So just apply yourself, people. You know, be better than everybody else, and you can get in the industry and you can go to work. And now she's out doing cool stuff. I mean, I'm jealous. I mean, that's an awesome career point for her to be at. And.

Just a point addressing what you just said. I definitely don't think I'm better than anybody else. However, I'm a pretty determined little turd. So there have been so many times when I thought, okay, you know, you may have a milestone and you get to celebrate for a hot minute. And then you're like, okay, now what do I have to do? Because you're still not there. And there's been so many steps along the way where I felt like, you know, maybe even giving up, but it's just not my style. So I just, you know, yeah, I didn't give up. And then. And that's the thing. Don't give up. Just keep doing it. Just keep working at it. Whatever the next goal is, whatever the next check mark is, you have to get off the list. Just keep doing it, because eventually it will pay off. But the patience is key, and none of this comes easy. So, you know, working at it and just staying focused and determined, you know, everybody has a different skill level. Everybody is. You know, some people are better at some things than others. Some people study harder. Some people get it better. Some people have to spend more time learning. You know, we all are at our different level. But I just think that staying focused and not giving up is the biggest step.

Hey, your proof. And I know you've relayed that to me when you were trying to get your first job, which is always the, well, you had it. It's always that first job. You know, it's getting your start, but you stuck with it. And, I mean, I'm impressed. I was like, oh, man, I was excited. I had goosebumps. I've been doing this 20 years, and I had goosebumps when she was landing in the Jet Ranger. And I'm just going to. God, I love those aircraft. You know, And I'm jealous, actually. I'm jealous. I love the here. But I do hope I'll get a point where I get to fly Jet Ranger again. All right, we'll wrap it up. We've been talking for quite a while. Day 117. Come back tomorrow for day 118. Like, subscribe comment down below. Any last words.

We might have to do that again.

Nope, we're leaving that in. Let me give you a handshake. Glad she stopped. It's awesome.

I'm so happy to be here. This is so cool. You know, coming to train with you a few years ago, never would have imagined like somewhere down the road be like stopping in and staying in your hangar and getting to catch up again.

So. Well. And that's why I told her this morning I met her and her friend for breakfast and after I sent her to the wrong place, 15 minutes the other direction, but we sat down and had breakfast and I said, you know, this is just fun to me. It's just, it's fun having him here, having him come stay at the hangar, be our first guest. This is just fun. And I go, you know what's fun is meeting people from all over the world and all over the US and we become friends all through this ground school crazy thing that I started. And then you make these connections and connect with people and then we become friends, right? And it's happened. You know, we got stories after story after story. We are a community, you know, and we do help each other out. Hogs members help each other out and we help them and you help us. And I do want to mention the Hogs Wall. We did take down the Hogs Wall before we left our last airport, but we had to because there was no choice. And Heather's going to rebuild it with brand new pictures. She played with some paper and she's going to rerun everybody's picture with new paper and the pictures will be better. So the few like Caleb and Charlie Keys and a couple others have stopped to sign them. You're just going to have to come back to the and visit the new Hogs Hanger and resign your picture on the Hogs Wall. So we're going to attempt to put that back up when we get these portable walls that I'm going to go look at in the next couple days and hopefully one of those will work out for the new Hogs Wall. So everybody that was on the Hogs Wall, your picture is going to go back up with a new picture and we will be reinstalling the Hogs Wall Wall of fame here at Hogs Hangar. So that's a wrap. Peace out. Like subscribe. See you in day 100.