#134 HELICOPTER CROP DUSTING | How many hours to be safe as PIC ???

Hey, welcome to day 134 Coffee with Kenny. I'm pretty sure the neighbors across the street are watching. They're going, why is this guy out in the garage in his pajamas doing a video? Too funny. Not sure if they have a clue what I really do or not working. I set the coffee. So today, pretty good question. I don't think we've ever talked about crop dusting. And I got an interesting question. I thought a lot of people that are interested in doing this can relate. And the question is, can I have a question about crop dusting? The consensus is that insurance company wants a pilot to have 1,000 hours before the policy rate is cost effective enough for a company to hire them. Kind of funny that at 997 hours you wouldn't be, but at 1000 you would be, right? I just giggle because the industry kind of does that. And you know, to be at these certain levels, you got to have so many hours and there has to be a standard. And I get that. But I can also say there's pilots with, you know, 200 hours that are great, there's 800 hour pilots that are great, and there's 8,000 hour pilots that fly like dog crap, you know, so I understand that the standard. But you know, you can't help but think, why isn't being hired based on your skills, your knowledge? Because across the board that varies. A person's skills, their knowledge, how much they've applied themselves, how much they really know, that's really how the system ought to work. But hey, you know, system is what it is. So he says. So I suppose if a pilot wanted to start his own spray business after he got the commercial rating, got part 137, he could spray crops. So if this is true, then how many hours do you think a pilot should have before they attempted to create their own business? Well, you know how I feel about businesses. If you've watched any of my videos, helicopter business is very tough. You better have some money in the bank if you're going to venture out and start trying to do your own helicopter business. Not saying it can't be done, they can be profitable. But everybody and their brother wants to start a helicopter business. A lot of times they do it before really doing the research again, if you want to do it, great, hopefully you have the money and I hope you're a great success. But helicopter companies go out of business all the time because it is a very tough business. So for any helicopter business you're getting ready to start, I would research the hell out of it, and I would make sure you got the money to back it up. Okay? So then he says, do you think a person should go the long route, or is there a safe and effective way to be proficient and capable of gaining the needed skills needed for agricultural helicopter work? Thanks as always, Gator. Back to the thousand hours. Any one person. Again, back to the blanket statement. I can't say, oh, people are going to be great for ag spraying at 200 or 1200. It's going to depend on any one particular individual. I can tell you that I do not fly ag spraying. Never have. I have trained a gentleman who I'm going to call here in a minute just for the heck of it and see if he answers. He's an ag sprayer and he did his certified flight instructor rating with me after he was already an axe sprayer. And I can tell you that taking him and molding him into a CFI was, let's put it interesting, because everything we teach you to be a safe and prudent pilot and not do, you then go out in the ag spraying world and do a lot of the stuff that we tell you you should never do. Now, again, from a training standpoint, that's my specialty. That's what I do. Train people to a standard to get a license. Going out in the real world, things need to be done differently sometimes. So of course the things you're going to do in an ag spraying world are going to not fit into that realm of testing for ratings. So I cannot tell this one individual that he's going to be good at 200 hours, 500 hours, 800 hours, 1200 hours, I have no idea. It's going to again, depend on any one particular individual. Could you be safe before 1000 hours? I'm sure, especially if you tried really hard, you study really hard, you're better than the average guy. You have the knowledge and you stick to it. And understand once you get in the axe braying world that there's still the basics, you know, lte, selling with power and making sure you know these things through and through so that you can be a safe and prudent pilot in the ag spraying. Because again, I have an idea what they do. And the gentleman I'm talking about, he took me out and showed me what they do in the spraying world. And it was an R44, so he couldn't actually take the spray rig and me because it was too much weight. But he took me out and showed me and it was fun, right? It was cool. And I could see where ag spraying would be very, very exciting and very cool and very fun. So anyway, I'm going to give this gentleman a call and see what he thinks on it. Let's just see if he'll answer on a Sunday and if he answers. By the way, there's a video called about oil fracking, so we call each other Frackers. Hello? What's going on?

Fracker, Fracker. What are you doing? Fracker, Fracker.

I got a question for you as you as an expert ag spraying guy, and just so you know, you're live right now with 20 million subscribers in 160 countries, so be careful what you say.

How many you got now?

20 million? Just answer. Just answer the question. So there's this gentleman who says, okay, I want to be an Axe sprayer. And he said insurance companies normally want a thousand hours. Okay, sure. Insurance companies always have what they like to see, right? He says, should I take the long route and get the thousand hours or do I start my own ag spraying business? And how many hours would I be safe to become an ag sprayer on my own?

How many hours does he have an aircraft?

I think he's just working on his ratings right now. He's looking to the future.

Gosh, Kenny, what. What was I. I was probably a hundred and one hundred eighty hours rotorcraft and I. I was able to achieve my certificate, my license for the state and my 137 certificate and was able to get insured with a $550. Okay, so 50 hours. Well, 25 to 50.

Okay, so a total of 180, 25 to 50 of actual. You were out training with someone teaching you ag spraying and you were. And you were able to do it?

Yeah, I did.

Awesome. Would you. Would you recommend it?

You know, everybody's different. It just depends on their. Their demeanor. Depends on, you know, their response time. You know, are they able to multitask? Yeah, because they're gonna have to be running a truck. You know, they really. They really need.

They need to be that. They need to be the best they can be. They need to study really, really hard and really know what gets them into trouble, right?

Oh, yeah, yeah. Settling with power, man. Low rotor RPMs. Big, big, big stuff.

All right, so do you want. Do you want national attention to your spray business? And are you still willing to teach people that want to learn the ax spring?

You know, Kenny, I've been trying to, you know, start an ag school for helicopters. And I don't know, just. There's just so Much other stuff going on. Yeah, I would love to give Max. Especially if I could make a living doing it, I'd love to give back.

Okay, so I'm actually going to put this information into a video. So do you want me to mention you and what your company is and where you are and that someone could contact you about learning to become an ag spraying pilot?

Yeah, you know, yeah, probably we ought to re. Go back on the hours. You know, everybody has so many different scenarios of where they are in their hours. Some of several six wing rated. Some of you know how to, how to fly the light bars. They already. They might have 1500, 2000, they might have 10,000 hours airplane. You know, those guys should transition. Really. That's what I did, right? Yeah. You know, well, I didn't have any fixed wing time, but, you know, coming from an ag community, which I don't know if that played a whole lot in it, but, you know, I had a really strong desire to be part of an agricultural community.

Sure. Before I called you, I said, you know, there are guys with 200 hours and 800 hours that are really great pilots and there's guys that have 8,000 hours that can't fly worth dog crap.

Well, you could.

You.

You have a testament to that, you know.

Right.

You know, I got H1 and H2 and I got you, and you know, I haven't flown with a whole lot of people. You have, you know, you, you've got a lot more background in that arena.

Right. But you're kind of backing up what I actually said.

Yeah.

Okay. So.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know why. What do you got up your sleeve? Just continue.

I'm actually putting this in a video. So I just. Since I called you randomly on a Sunday morning and I thought you might answer, I just wanted to give you the opportunity if you want me to send people your way.

Yeah, yeah, send them my way and I'll. Let me see what I come up with.

Awesome. Well, hey, I'm actually, I am shooting a video, so I'm going to wrap up the video and then I'll call you back and we'll shoot the breeze for a minute.

Okay.

I got some good stories from H1 about you. Okay, I'll call, I'll call you back about five minutes. Okay. All right, bye. There you go. That worked out kind of cool. So coming from a guy who's ag spraying kind of agreed with what I said, so. You know what? There's not a blanket statement across the board. It really would be about your own skills, how hard you try, how hard you apply yourself. Here's a gentleman that just did it. And you heard him maybe hopefully you could hear what he said. He said, I just had the desire to do it and I just wanted to do it really bad. And this guy is kind of a jack of all trades. He's a fabricator, he has a welding shop. He's on the eastern shore of Virginia. So he does some different styles of fishing and harvesting. He has his hands in a lot of things and he's a true entrepreneur. And you know, again, jack of all trades. The guy can do about anything. And I've been to his shop and I've trained with him. He's done some amazing stuff. So going to wrap it up. That turned into a long with the phone call but that was funny that we caught him. I was hoping he'd answer. So I am Kenny Keller, Creator Helicopter Airline Ground School. This is day 134. Subscribe and click the bell so you can be notified of these daily videos. And down below I'm going to put a link to two of my Amazon number one best selling books. One I did by myself, the other I did with 2018 Flight Instructor of the Year Dan Taz Chrisman. Very proud of both those books. Those books links. The book links are down below. This video go down there. We ship you those books for just shipping and handling. We also have Helicopter Airline Ground School which I created and launched in 2012. Seven years later we have members all over the world. We have hundreds of happy satisfied members. We have what we call the Hogs Wall of fame that we're rebuilding at our new shop. We just moved from a different airport, we're rebuilding that. We have pictures, videos, we're legit and we have private commercial, CFI and instrument. You can take any one of those courses for 24 hour test flight. Meaning go in, check out the training decipher right for you if you want to keep it. If not, just remove your credit card info before the end of that 24 hours or end your subscription and PayPal if you build nothing or keep it month to month, keep it as long as you like. Cancel anytime. You can unsubscribe yourself simply again by taking your credit card out of the information within the site or go into PayPal and end your subscription and then you're welcome back anytime. We have many members that are now over the past couple years. They come in, do their private for a few months, take a break, unsubscribe, build their commercial time come back and join the commercial for a few months unsubscribe. Then when they're ready to work on their cfi, they come back again. That's become very, very popular. And that's why the monthly option is awesome. Because you can keep the training as long as you like. You can cancel anytime and you're welcome back anytime. And to wrap it up, there is a 100% money back, no hassle guarantee I've had in place for seven years. In the beginning people said, you're crazy and I said, no, I'm not. Any good business has a good warranty or guarantee. I just drafted or followed. Some other very successful companies, they had a 30 day money back, no hassle guarantee, meaning you ask for a simple refund. We don't argue, we just refund. Your money has to be within the 30 days, not day 35, not day 39, not day 562. 30 days to check out the training after your 24 hour free test flight. It's a great deal. Subscribe and click the bell for day 135. Judas Priest British Steel. Hell yeah. All right, we're gonna check out. See you in day 130.