Kenny Keller talks with Steve Bush and David, who own a Robinson R66 helicopter with 55 hours on it. They're headed to Michigan and impressed by the R66's power, avionics, autopilot, and synthetic vision. Mark just passed his private pilot checkride.
About 55 hours.
Lago Vista, Texas (just north of Austin).
lonestarheli.com
Oh, will the recording hear this?
Yeah, it'll hear. It's okay, though.
It's.
Kind of a.
Kind of a non event.
It is a non event.
It's.
All right. We're rolling. Gotta do this in a hurry today. Big day, Mark. We've been mentioned. We called him Add On Guy for three months. Add On Guy. Add On. I finally started calling him Mark a few days ago. Third day we finally get. Did it. He's passed brand new private pilot. Private pilot out on. What do you got to say about your checkride today, Mark?
Hey, smooth as silk. Couldn't be more pleased about it. And I fully endorses Kenny's ground school. I'm telling you, it really helped out on the oral.
In reality, we really didn't do much ground, did we? We did a little.
We did a lot of ground by me watching his videos. Right, Right.
So I started asking him questions just when we were flying. He's like, nailing this stuff. And I'm like, I'm not gonna just sit and do 20 hours of ground with him. Oh, yeah. Because he watched my videos, so a good instructor, too.
So he brought me back to proficiency. I had a helicopter 10 years ago and hadn't flown since then and wanted to finish getting my license. So that's why I. That's why I came up. See Kenny.
Awesome. Well, thanks for coming up, Matt. I'm glad we got you done well.
Thank you too.
And Mark wanted to hang around before he takes off. We have two guys. I'm going to pull over here in front of the camera. Met these guys at Heli Expo this past year. And I was sitting out in the hallway, tired from a big day, and Taz was off somewhere, I think in the bathroom or somewhere, and we started shooting a breeze. And they're like, well, hey, have you guys. Have you really talked much to Robinson? I'm like, no, not really. They go, come on. Made me get up and drug me in there. Which turned into the video we did with Tim. Tom. Tim Tucker from Robinson Helicopter, which was awesome. And they mentioned they'd be coming through this time of year on their way to Michigan and want to know if I want them to stop. And I'm like, heck, yeah. I'd love to see an R66. I've only seen them at the factory and at Expo. That's all I really know about them, except for a little bit I've read. So if you would just tell everybody watching who you guys are and tell us a little bit about the R66.
All right. My name is Steve Bush. I own Lone Star Helicopters in Lago Vista, Texas. It's just north of Austin.
Awesome.
David and I are headed up to Michigan for his vacation. We picked up his R66 here back in April. It's got about 55 hours on it. It's an awesome machine. This one's fully loaded with everything except heated seats which they actually offer now.
Don't need that in Texas.
No, don't need that in Texas. But anyway, what do you think of the helicopter? David owned a 44 before.
Yeah, we had a 44. We had an R44 before. We had a Latour company in Austin, Texas called Hilo Austin. I have a construction company, Douglas Construction Co. That operates in Austin, Texas. And we decided to take a little cross country trip and visit my family farm, my family who has a farm in southern Indiana, and then stay with my sister last night in Greenwood and come up and visit Kenny on our way to Northern Michigan. So the R66 is an amazing machine. I cannot believe the sophistication of the electronics with the autopilot and the synthetic vision. It is truly amazing. I'm surprised how incredible that is. But so much more power than the R44. So much more control, 200 pound engine. What can you say? It's pretty incredible.
That's awesome. Hopefully I'll get my chance. They just offered me a chance and I got a. I got to get out of here in like a half an hour. So I'm not, probably not going to have time. But we're going to get them some fuel. I got to thank them again for stopping. Thank Mark for coming up. We're all busy.
We gotta get your lessons on helicopter online. Ground school. It's really helped all of us a lot. And I'll be working on my commercial on my instrument again and I'll probably use some of those again to that. And Steve, I know has been beneficial from that as well.
Awesome. Well, give us another plug for your, for your flight school. What aircraft do you have and what do you guys do?
Yeah, so we're Lone Star Helicopters out of Lago Vista, Texas. We have an R22 Hughes 500 and an R66. We do utility work and tours and things like that. All my students, I recommend that they sign up for hogs and every one of them has since then. And anyway, yeah, if you want to come out and see us, it's a beautiful time to fly in Texas. We're right there on the lake. We've got probably the cheapest Rates around Texas.
How do they get ahold of you? What's your web address?
So we're@lonestarheli.com. you can also find us on Facebook and Instagram.
Nice.
And then we have hilo austin@hiloauaustin.com. just do tours.
Awesome. So there you go. If you're looking for some of that, I'm gonna wrap it up. It's coffee with Kenny, but I just had to have a water. I've been drinking coffee all morning. Waiting on the checkride, the oral and flight. And. Yeah, we'll talk about some more about a little bit about checkride tomorrow. I got a few things I shot while I was up there waiting. So thanks, all of you.
We're on to Michigan.
Yeah. Awesome.
Thanks.
Good to see. Thanks, Mark, Heather, come over, say hi real quick. Heather's still here. She's back.
Thank you for coming, guys.
Thank you.
All right, peace out. See you in the next one. All right. Yeah.
It's.
Any final words there, Kenny?
How was your ride today?
Mark is done. Yay. Mark got him done. Hell, yeah. And it turned out all good.
All good.
Oral was good. Flight was good. We were there on time. We were there hour early. Almost as I always complain about. Sweet. We get back R66, stopping to visit us a couple members I met at heli or heli expo.
Yeah, the weather's beautiful.
And here they are again. I can't see, so I don't know if they're in the shot or not.
Those are hard to get.
Those are hard to get.
All right, I'll go ahead and cut then.
All right.
I even got a minute to breathe.
