A conversational YouTube video (Day 158) by Kenny Keller documenting Ray’s Enstrom transition training after a 20-year flying hiatus. They recap prior days (instrument work, high-wind flights gusting ~30 kt), review maneuvers practiced (autos, quick stops, straight-ins, 90°/180° turns), and discuss how autos in the Enstrom felt compared with Ray’s Robinson R-22 experience. The video highlights Ray as an example for older pilots restarting flying, references an Enstrom seen at Heli Expo 2018, and ends with a call-to-action (comments, links to training materials, subscribe) and plans to continue on Day 159.
Questions this video answers
Day 158
About 20 years
Gusting around 30 knots
Heli Expo 2018
Day 159
Chapters
Hey. Day 158, coffee with Kenny. I'm Kenny Keller, creator of Helicopter Line Ground School. Have Ray here from Colorado been doing some training in the instrument for a couple days now. If you've been watching the videos, you kind of know where we're at. If not, he showed up a couple days ago from Colorado. We went over the instrument the first day, talked about all the little nuances. Then the first day we went out some high winds, gusting 30, 30, almost 30 knots. And after 20 years of not flying, he did great. Then yesterday we went out, hit everything we did. We were busy, busy, normal takeoffs and landings. But then we went right into autos. Quick stop, straight ins 90s, 180s. Yeah. What would you like to share with everybody, Ray, about whatever you want to talk about. Our flight yesterday, it was awesome.
Well, you know, after 20, 20 years you're, you know, you're hesitant about doing anything. But especially like autos, you know, there's a lot of technique, a little bit of technique there that you have to kind of bring back. And obviously I got some good coaching from Kenny here. So we did those and I was pretty happy. I still have a lot to go and like we were flying, you know, around the pattern quite a bit too. And Kenny's telling me, right pedal, right.
Pedal and maintain riding around all day. Right pedal, all right pedal, keep altitude.
You know, so a lot of things are going through your head trying to make it all come together. So you try to fly the perfect pattern every time. And I felt good a lot, a lot of the time.
What did you think of the autos after all that R22 time, getting your rating? What'd you think of the autos in the instrument? Because everybody wants to know, right?
Yeah, yeah. Well, ottos are joy. I mean, basically it's a non event. You enter into the auto and you got time to think about what you're doing and you know, you do your flare right treetop there and I could see, you know, no problems if you really had to do a full on auto.
So yeah, you'll be able to walk away from it. So Ray's an inspiration for those of you that maybe got a rating a long time ago and then didn't do anything with it for a lot of years. And then Ray decided heck with it and he bought a helicopter. He has a beautiful NSTROM that I had basically jealous of. I saw it at Heli Expo 2018 and, and I didn't know it wasn't a new helicopter. I thought it was Brand new and.
It still looks new.
At the show I was like, if I was in the market, I would be taking this helicopter home. So when he told me he wanted to come out and fly and he told me the one that he owned, I was like, you're kidding me. You own that instrument. It's a beautiful aircraft.
I was gonna interrupt and say, man, if you've been putting off flying a helicopter or if you've flown a little bit, you know, I recommend going with the hogs classes and the online stuff and get going. Just go out, go out and do an introductory front flight and man, I think you're gonna find out you wish you would have done it earlier.
Absolutely. So they're getting the theme of flying in our 50s, 60s, 70s, people are doing it. People are finishing ratings that have been working on them for many years. Guys like Ray that got a rating and maybe didn't do much for a while are finally jumping out there and a lot of them are inspired by the videos we're doing every day. So.
Yeah, and I'm not saying go out, you don't necessarily have to go out and buy a helicopter.
Right, right.
Caution you on that one, but at least get some training and go and enjoy that. That aspect.
Exactly. If you want to fly, do it. Get out there and do it. Quit putting it off, just go do it.
You're not too old, you can do this.
Exactly. Well, we're getting ready to go fly. Anything else you want to add?
That's about it. I'm Jones and I'm ready to go.
Are we flying again tomorrow yet too?
We'll fly tomorrow too and.
All right, put your comments down below. If you have any questions for Ray about what he's experienced so far, transitioning R22 to Enstrom after 20 years and and or any other questions for us, go down below. Take our 24 hour test flight for helicopter line ground school. You can also grab our number one best selling books down there. There's a link down there where we bought the books. We ship them to you like and subscribe to the channel and we will see you tomorrow on day159. Perfect. Like subscribe, comment below. See you tomorrow.
