#128 The PILOT SHORTAGE IS REAL | First hand from Airline Transport Pilot

Hi, Kenny. Just wanted to give a great big thank you to helicopter Online ground Schools. Today's a red letter day for me. I soloed a helicopter for the first time, R22 beta. Of course, the bulk of the credit goes to my absolutely awesome flight instructor, Rene Parlier, JR Aviation here in Sellersburg, Indiana. But a good part of the credit goes to you. When I started this back in December, we had some maintenance issues for a while with the helicopter and then winter weather here in southern Indiana, Ohio Valley, it didn't cooperate. So I had plenty of time to do ground school and I used helicopter online ground schools. I did everything in the private commercial and CFI series and I felt like it more than prepared me for the flight training that was to come. I have to say that I'm as exhilarated today as I was in 1975 when I first soloed a Cessna 150. I'm doing a helicopter add on to my commercial certificate. I've been around the aviation industry a long time and your product is as good as anybody's. It's a quality product. You've got the human touch and I've thoroughly enjoyed it. I'll continue to use it as we press on. We have more solo, we have cross countries, and hopefully before too long, I'll be sending you a video with a commercial certificate in my hand. So until then, thank you, Helicopter Online ground schools. You're the best.

Here we are in day 128. We are rolling. Have Sam Daughtry here today. This is Kenny and Sammy. Coffee with Kenny and Sammy. I'm gonna let Sam introduce himself to you. Longtime HOGS member. You saw the video that he opened up with. We have another video that we're gonna roll at the end from his second commercial checkride. He already got one shirt for the first video and we sent him a shirt for his instructor as well. He talked very highly of his instructor at JR Aviation down Southern Indiana. I haven't had the opportunity to meet anybody down there, but I have heard good things about them over the years. I know they've been around forever. So I want him to plug his flight school as instructor today because he's always talked very highly of his flight school. So I'm going to give him another shirt for the second video and we should probably give him a third shirt for being here today. Our first HOGS member to visit the studio. I'm so thrilled and I'll let you tell him kind of why he's here. And I talk too much, so I'M just gonna turn the mic over, let them know they know your HOGS member, they know you've done a couple of checkrides. But what I'm impressed with is your background in aviation and your years flying. So I'd like you to relay to everyone what you do for a living and how you got there and however much you want to share about your aviation career. I'd really love for you to share that.

Well, it started when I was in high school. I was in Civil Air Patrol and took a few flying lessons. They paid up through solo and then after that couldn't afford it. So I stopped flying until I went in the military and went out to a local airport, started taking flying lessons and pretty short order got private certificate and on through CFI and then decided to leave the military and stay at a local fbo. And I flight instructed and flew charter and did just about everything there was to do in general aviation up until 1988 when UPS started an airline. Applied for that 1989, began flying as a airline pilot for UPS. Started out in the D.C. 8, 19 years doing that and then for the last, you know, coming up on 30 years now, 7.5 and 7.67. What I missed out on along the way is I've always had an interest in helicopters, even in the military. Flew in helicopters all the time, had an interest, but just life got in the way. Never got to it until here. Recently, with the urging of my wife and a son who has an interest in aviation now, went out to the local flight school, JR Aviation in Sellersburg, Indiana, and started taking helicopter lessons. Took a period of time, weather got in the way, maintenance got in the way, but over time we managed to get all the training done. Did a commercial add on to my certificate, my fixed wing certificate, commercial helicopter add on to prepare for all this. The ground schooling was all hogs. Found you on YouTube, which started watching your videos, which led me to your website and then I signed up, bought the package and did all of my ground school training. Between hogs, the helicopter flying handbook, the FARs and the AIM, that was all the groundwork that I did. Renee was rather impressed with it. I want to give a shout out to my flight instructor, Rene Pourlier of JR Aviation. Just a phenomenal flight instructor. And this is from someone being a former instructor myself, being in the industry for quite some time, really is a very talented young lady. Anyway, she took me through, did the commercial add on back in September, I suppose, and now we're working on the cfi and once Again, all my preparation is through hogs.

Awesome. Well, that is, I love the feedback about your flight school. Put some feed down back below in the video today, YouTube followers and ground school members. Sam got here this morning and we just spent actually two or three hours talking about everything and there are so many things we could talk about and we just kind of came up with a couple little things here and one of them is the pilot shortage. And you've been hearing me talk about it for several years. The things that I'm hearing and I'm seeing, I've been flying 20 years, okay? So and I have my limited knowledge of the helicopter side of things now that Sam's in the helicopter things. But coming from the fixed wing side of things, we discussed this this morning at length and I said let's talk about this today because I want to hear from someone other than just me, right? Because I'm saying all the time what I hear. So I want to give Sam the opportunity to tell what he's seeing. And we're going to talk about the pilot shortage for both airplanes and helicopters and the future for pilots. And this is a big subject. So again I'm going to let Sam have the mic and let you hear what he has to say and what he's hearing and seeing out there flying in the industry.

I'll tell you from my perspective, the pilot shortage is real. There is, I'll have to say in my career when I started, the industry was, had bottomed out and was sort of on, on the incline and I got in at a good time. Back in the early 80s as industry was on the climb and it goes through its cycles. Well, we're now at a cycle. When I first got in the industry, all the Vietnam era pilots were starting to exit the industry. The World War II era guys were all aging out. Industry was in a big resurgence. So I caught it at a good time. Then it peaked down into a valley again. We're now, right now for a young person just getting in the industry, I haven't seen in my lifetime a better time to get in. Everything is on the upswing. Guys like me are now timing out and aging out. Yet the industry continues to grow. There are, even though we no longer have the three seat airplanes, it's two man cockpits. Airlines are continuing to grow. The cargo industry is continuing to grow. And even on the helicopter side, I see it at the flight schools and different operators, whether it be EMS or agricultural, they're all looking for pilots. And I mean other than to say that there's not been a better time for a young person right now. The opportunities are out there, but the thing is, you've got to be prepared for it. You can't just sit and wait for the opportunities to come and knock on your door. Back in my day, one of the things we talked about, I put off getting a multi engine rating early on because I wasn't going to have any use for it. It was a lot of money to get the rating, but nobody would hire you if you didn't have the rating. But once you got the rating, nobody would hire you because you didn't have the experience. So I went ahead, took the plunge, got the multi engine rating, and it was just amazing that opportunities began to crop up, probably opportunities that have been there before. But because it didn't have the rating, I couldn't take advantage of it. And it's the same way now. You have to get the training, you have to get the ratings. Be prepared because when that opportunity comes up, you'll be ready for it. If the opportunity comes knocking, you can't then go get the ratings. You have to be ready.

Now, I love that that you brought that up because we did discuss that this morning and I relayed Sam's story kind of to. You could relay that in the helicopter side of things like the turbine time, because we only have single engine, we don't have twin engine. But the helicopter industry, where do I get my turbine time? If you don't have any turbine time, they don't want to hire you. Or if you have a little bit of turbine time, it's not enough turbine time. So I think the airplanes and helicopters kind of share that in how do you get to that next level? And what Sam said was get the rating anyway and just like getting some turbine time. And he's right. You still have to pay your dues. And for anybody looking for the easy route, nothing in life is easy. Nothing good is free. You got to work for it. But by taking those advanced ratings, grabbing a turbine spot, paying maybe a discounted rate or whatever you can find, and he's right. That's how these opportunities happen. And man, we could go on and on. But you know, sharing our stories this morning, that's the common theme is we won it, we went after it, you do some extra things that open up other chapters. You know, one door closes, another one opens. So you can get there, you can do it. And I like this video because again, we're kind of going against the naysayers of oh, that's bull. There Ain't no pilot shortage. Why is it that we see it and feel it and we see it everywhere, every day, all the time?

It's true. It's there. It's a real thing. I know that my company is hiring as quickly as we can. We would hire faster, but it takes time. You know, there's only so much time that's available in the training center. You only have so many instructors. So I see it every day. There's a shortage everywhere in flight schools, at airlines, and there are even opportunities. Now. I know I have a family member who is a military pilot, has no fixed wing time at all, and has become aware of opportunities through commuter airline that is actually hiring these folks, paying them to get their fixed wing ratings, which they can earn relatively quickly because they're experienced aeronautically anyway, but paying them to get the ratings and then paying them a bonus with a contract to work for that company because they can't get experienced pilots otherwise.

And we also talked today about how most people getting their ratings now are still older that we don't see. We know there are younger people flying and out there, a lot of the flight schools. But what I see and what we see and his instructors at his school.

Are seeing is most people are still.

Getting ratings, are older. So the opportunity is still there. The dream is alive. And those of you that want to go after it should go after it. Because here's the gentleman telling you they're hiring. There are not enough pilots.

I want to add one thing too. I know one of the things that hangs people up is the cost, the expense. It's expensive. Well, I can say this, Kenny. It's always been expensive. Even back in my day, if I were to pull out my flight records and showed what I paid for an airplane and instruction, you know, we'd laugh today how inexpensive that was. But at the time, just like it is now, it was expensive then. I remember having to save up every penny, nickel and dime that I had to take my next flying lesson. I even sold my beloved Volkswagen Beetle, the best car I ever had. I sold that car for $800 because I needed that to finish my training. It was a huge sacrifice at the time. I wish I could go back and buy that car now. But even back then it was expensive. It is now. But if you dedicate yourself to it, you will find a way. One hour at a time. Yep.

And we've all had those things. We've sold. We've given up. You got to sacrifice for your dreams. And I got to mention, I gotta Shake Sam's hand for coming here today. He has been a very active Hogs member. We've heard from him many times over the past few years. And today he emails her yesterday, hey, I'm going to be in town on this layover, waiting on this next flight. You know, I'm going to be coming by Plymouth. You mean do you need some help moving? And I'm in my email I said, ah, we're done, we did it, we moved.

Boom.

How to get it done? He goes, need me to stop picking anything up. You know, HOGS is a community and it's turned into this. We've been talking about that all this morning. How what I designed and I built seven years ago and what it's turned into beyond my wildest dreams. And it's more than just a ground school. And I could go on and on. I'm not go down below. Helicopterground.com you can take our training for 24 hour test flight, be billed nothing. And if you decide it's not right for you, just remove your credit card and not be billed. It's that easy. If you like the training, keep it month to month, cancel any time, take a break, come back, work on an additional rating and there's a 30 day money back guarantee on top of that. So we're going to throw one more video in here from Sam from his commercial and you're probably going to see him again around here, I'll just bet you because he's offered to show up before and it was always something else going on. So thank you again for coming in. Last minute words for the viewers and.

Thank you for your product. I mean it's not only just a good training tool, but I think you're doing a tremendous service for the industry.

Thank you, I appreciate it very much. Put your comments down below like and subscribe if you want to see more cool stuff. Like me going to Enstrom Helicopter, me going to CHP to fly with the CHP guys, me going to fly with NYPD Aviation Unit, me going all these other places that I'm getting invited to go. So you want to keep track of some cool stuff going on? Subscribe, click the bell comment down below, give us a thumbs up. And Sam mentioned earlier, he goes, hey, I like that twice for the dislike button. He asked me about that this morning. I said, yes, please do. If you don't like the video, click Dislike and then just click it again. That way you're double, you're given the double negative because that's just a good thing to do. I mean, that's the way it should be. All right, day 128, coffee with Kenny and Sammy. We'll see you in day 129. Peace out, Pantera. Hell, yeah.

Hi, Kenny. Sam Doherty, Sellersburg, Indiana. Just want to say thank you. As of Last Saturday at 2:00pm, I'm a commercial helicopter pilot. Used all of my ground school training was your product, helicopter online ground school, and of course, my awesome flight instructor, Rene Pourlier of JR Aviation here in Sellersburg. But all my ground preparation was done using your product. I was scheduled for my checkride two weeks ago. We got weathered out. So in the intervening two weeks, I went back through all the videos one more time, and I felt like I was more than prepared. When we sat down, interesting happened. Interesting thing occurred while I was sitting with the examiner. He was asking me about ground resonance, and I gave him all the causes and effects and I mentioned that I'd seen a video of a fellow describing a ground resonance in a skid type helicopter. And he jumped right in and went, can he kill her? I went, yes. And he went, okay, tell me about it. So I think that's also a wonderful thing that you did, was to describe your accident so we can all learn from that and if we had more of that, it would benefit all of us. I hope I never have an accident, but I think it's important that we share those experiences so that others can learn from it. Bottom line here was I passed my checkride on Saturday and a big bulk of the credit goes to helicopter online ground schools. You do have a quality product and I appreciate it. So probably seeing you here soon for the cfi. So keep up the good work and thank you.