#17 I am 14 and am interested in helicopters what is your advice?

Hey, it's Kenny with helicopter online ground school and this is a good one. And we're getting more and more of this from the younger generation. Just got an email just a couple days ago and his title was I am 14 and I'm interested in helicopters. And this isn't. This is an interesting subject and I'm glad that this young man emailed me because we're getting more and more of this. Ten years I've been making videos. It's always about the older crowd. You know, should I. Should I still do it at this age or whatever. We really. I don't think I've ever done a video about how young you can be. So I want to read this young man's question. His name is Christopher. He said, my name is Christopher. I'm 14 years old and live on a ranch. I'm interested in aviation, specifically the Robinson R22 and R44 helicopters. I had my first ride in a helicopter when I was nine years old. That's awesome. I sure that got your interest going. We were flying around our ranch looking for our coyotes. I also had the opportunity to ride in a Bell Uey while we were doing fire rehabilitation. After I got used to the helicopter, it was a whole bunch of fun. Since then I've been extremely interested in flying helicopters and have been researching the R44 and the smaller R22. I decided that I wanted to become a helicopter pilot since riding in them. I started to research flight schools when I came across your website at my age. What would you recommend that I do to get into aviation? What an awesome question. And Christopher, you're on the right track. Just number one, reaching out to someone and asking the question, it's absolutely amazing. You know, things change in life. Some things don't. When I was 14, I was amazed at helicopters. My parents got me a vertibird. It was underneath the Christmas tree 40 years ago at age 14. I'm going to put a link down below the video where I drug this out of the box and had at the time my young daughter. We got out and checked this thing out and played with it. I still have. It's really cool. So this is a great video. I just dropped my daughter off at school drinking coffee and you know, things don't. Some things don't change. Right? When I was 14, I loved helicopters. Unfortunately didn't start flying until later in life. I wish I would have been more inspired. These are drinking coffee videos. ACDC. I loved it when I was 14. Still of ACDC 40 years later. Just like helicopters. Still fascinated. Right. So for the younger generation out there, and we've been getting more of these, and I've as young as 13. I can't remember really anybody, maybe less than that, but just recently, more and more from the younger, younger crowd. So, you know, the first advice we're going to give or I'm going to give is just like your parents are going to give you or your guidance counselor is going to give you. Make sure you do well in school, apply yourself and be the best you can be so that later in life, you know, you can do the things that you want to do. You know, I slept off in school and it kind of didn't really know that. It really hurt me later, but it didn't help either. When you go to apply for a job, I became a police officer. You know, you got to show them your high school transcript. Well, I still got hired, but I wasn't real proud of that high school transcript. Right. I could have done much better. So if you have this dream, don't you keep your dream alive? Know that you're always going to have haters and naysayers. There's always going to. People tell you that you shouldn't go for your dream. They're going to find all kinds of ways to tell you why you can't do what you want to do. So just remember that. You know, my daughter's 15. I just dropped her off at school. She's getting these things from colleges now. She's trying to decide what she wants to do. You know, I've told her since a baby, you can be a. You can drive a garbage truck if that's what you want to do. Be the president, United States of America. You know, it's all in your dream. So keep your grades up. Talk to your parents about it. It's extremely expensive. Maybe it's something that's within your reach at a young age, maybe not. The beauty is you can start taking lessons basically at any age. You can solo at 16 and get the private pilot license at 17. So stay with the dream. As far as what should you do at 14? You know, obviously there's plenty of information out there on the Internet. We put out videos. We've got tons of free information. I would definitely talk to your parents about, about the future. And at what point could it be possible for you to maybe start taking lessons, to start learning? The average age of a private pilot, I've seen this statistic is like 35. Okay. So a lot of people wait till later in life and it's usually probably because of the money. You know, a lot of younger people, parents just aren't going to be able to afford it. Some maybe, you know, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't mean, you know, know you got the dream. You should keep it alive and you should definitely go for it. And when it's feasible for you, whether your parents can help you do it or whether you can save the money and eventually do it on your own, you absolutely need to do that. You want to never give up on your dreams. People are always going to tell you why you can't do something. Always, always, always. So, you know, just keep learning, apply yourself, you know that you have plenty of time. Again, there's so many resources out there. You know, at 14, I'm not going to try to sell my program to a 14 year old. Okay? We always have our ground school that can help you learn when you get ready to start flying. But just learning as much as you can. Keep the dream alive. Talk to your parents, research in your local area. I mean there's programs depending on where you live. You know, there's civil air patrol, there are other, younger, there's other programs for young people to get into aviation. I know it even at my high school that my daughter attends, they have an aviation program in the school so they can start learning about aviation. They have some simulators, I don't know exactly. I haven't, you know, really researched to see what it is that they have. But I know that going to like, you know, an open house. I know they have a whole aviation section and a class where kids start learning about aviation. One thing cool at the school where our headquarters is based in Plymouth and they just started a new program where there's a flight school there at the airport with fixed wing and they're integrating a new program into the school to try to get young people into aviation and get them out there and get them flying. So research what is in your area. You know, I would do as many free publications as possible. You know, subscribe to our channel, keep watching the videos, keep learning, you know, and never give up the dream. So, you know, at 14 you've got time, but if you're interested in it, you absolutely should research it. Don't get discouraged if it's, if it's unreachable at this moment. I've loved them since I was a kid, but I didn't start flying until I was 32 years old, unfortunately. I mean I loved my parents, but they weren't like go for Your dreams, you can do anything you want. That mentality was just never really wasn't preached as a kid. And I personally didn't think I was smart enough. Didn't figure I would have enough math, which in reality all you need is basic simple math. I thought flying helicopters was this unreachable goal and I didn't go for it until later in life. Of course I wished I would have started sooner, but it's okay, no matter. I'm doing it today and it is my living and I'm glad I did it. Military, another route I should mention before we get off this video. Military is definitely an option for some people because of the cost of flying helicopters is so big. They're just hands down, they're just expensive. That's the way it is. That's never going to change for some people. You know, the money may be out of reach for many years before you could ever save up the money. So military is an option too. At age 14, I would be talking to your parents, looking forward to the future. What's available to you, what programs are available, what local programs are available and the military is an option too. Many, many, many of the helicopter pilots out there today working in the industry are former military pilots. They got their training in the military over the years. When I run into people, they almost always say, so did you train in the military? I'm like, no, I'm just a civilian person. You know, I just waited until the time was right and then I did the beg, borrow, still do whatever I had to do to find the money to get out there, start doing the training. So if for the younger generation, if you're interested, stay interested, go for your dreams, don't give up, you can get there. You know your, you know, things could always change, but if you're that excited about them at a young age, definitely stay interested, learn everything you can and try to get into a local program. So anybody has any advice out there for our younger generation? Pilots that are out there, put any ideas or tips or things that you can think of that could help out our younger generation to get them into get him into aviation. So thank you Christopher for your question. I hope that helps. So please subscribe the channel, click the bell, leave your comments down below, give us a thumbs up and we'll see you in the next video.