#185 Bell 47 flew in for Day 185 Coffee With Kenny!

Good rule. Once you're on the ground, stay on the ground. Because people wreck them when they go to move them, make a mistake, and then roll over to them. Good fight. All right. Day 185. Coffee with Kenny. Had one coffee at home, had another coffee while Sam was landing. And now we're on number three after lunch. You know, Sam, from our video, what we do, Pilot shortage.

Yeah.

Back day around a hundred and something.

And it's never too. You're never too old to start.

Never too old to start. And that was our topic of the day. Sam came back today and brought a Bell 47, which has some great history behind it. As a kid, I was inspired by Dave Latimer, who was the airport manager for the state police. Flew Jet Ranger. Dave learned in this bill 47 years ago. So as a kid running around town on a bicycle, I lived in the county where they used this helicopter. So I remember seeing it. And then I became a police officer inspired by Dave Latimer, who flew for the state police. So I never got to fly in it, never rode in it. Did see it. I know we called it out a few times. Maybe we were, like, looking for somebody who ran from the police or something. And I can remember being on one scene where we were searching for a guy in the woods, and this helicopter was the one circling around. And I can remember being a cop, but my attention was focusing on the helicopter because I just, you know, grew up knowing it and knowing that Dave Latimer trained in it. And a lot of the deputies that I worked with, I was a city police, but I worked with, of course, a lot of county deputies, and a lot of those guys had trained and flown in this helicopter. So I really appreciate Sam bringing it up. He offered a while back, and we just had to get our schedules lined up to where it would work. So Sam got here today, and he's like, man, I'm kind of hungry. You got a courtesy car? And I go, you know what? Let's jump on the 442. So all four of us jumped in, the 442, went, had a nice lunch. We just came back, and Sam has been good enough to offer to take me up in the bell 47. So I'm gonna let Sam tell you a little bit about. There's a sign back here to learn to fly here. So I'll let Sam tell you a little bit about the helicopter and what he wants to tell us as far where it came from and as far as what he thinks about flying the bell 47. He asked me right off what was my experience. I had like two hours in 1997. So that's all I know. And I know people talk great, you know, highly of the Bell 47. So what do you think of the Bell 47, Sam?

Well, first I gotta say, as much fun as I had flying up here today, part of the coolest part of the day so far was going to lunch in the Oldsmobile. That was a big kick. But this is, as we've talked before, I learned to fly at JR Aviation over in Sellersburg in the Robinson products. And I also fly fixed wing airplanes with Louisville Aviation over at Bowman Field. And two years ago, they acquired this Bell 47. We have. Well, you met Bob Poe, the experienced Bell 47 instructor that we have Bob Poe flying at.

75 years old, still flying and in good health. And he's in one of our past videos where Sam sent us a video of you and Bob sitting together in the fbo. Sitting around talking.

In fact, this morning I'm a little bit ashamed because Bob had to hook his car up to pull this out of the hangar, the dolly. Then he 75 year old, actually I think he's 76 now. Climbed up on top to do some inspecting on the, on the rotor blades. Here I was on the ground, I was a little bit ashamed. But anyway, so I've been flying the Bell 47 with Louisville Aviation and it's just been a real kick. I'm familiar with the Robinson products and they're all fun. This one in particular, it's just, it's a thrill to fly. It's all mechanical. There's no, there's no governor. There's no vertical speed indicator. You have to actually fly the helicopter. And being a little bit heavier too, it just seems to be. It's just fun to fly. It was a thrill flying up here.

So we're getting ready to go.

Oh, one thing I left out. Part of the reason I wanted to bring this thing up here is I know you had talked about the Bell 47 you admired as a kid. And I don't know when our conversation came across, when I mentioned the tail number, it jumped out at you. And so I looked in the logbooks and found that it was originally it had gone to the army from the bell factory. The army took it and the army had it for however long they had it. And I assume from there, what I noticed in the logbooks was for many, many years, Marshall County Sheriff's office. And that might have been when I called you and you went 5, 0 Sierra Del. Yeah, that's the one. So for many years, it was with the sheriff's department, and I guess when they let it go, it went to someone else, and then to someone else. And several years ago, Louisville aviation acquired it. We've been flying it ever since.

Just gave me goosebumps there as he was saying that. You know, look at all the things we're covering here. You know, we had Sam here, good enough to jump in with us that day and talk about the pilot shortage and send me a video with him and Bob flying, instructing into his 70s in great health. And then we got the story behind this helicopter. And it's an actual working helicopter, too.

It's flight instructing every day. In fact, last Friday, a student got his commercial pilot rating with the FAA there in Louisville.

Nice.

Bob was his instructor, of course.

Awesome. So you gave a plug to your Everybody at Louisville aviation, Right?

Awesome.

Well, we're gonna go fly, and we'll jump back in to end up the coffee with Kenny and let you know. I think flying in one 20 years later, but I'm kind of excited to go up in one. I think it's awesome. And, you know, I know the name Bob when he talks about Bob, and I know I've heard of him for years and years and. Right. So I know that, you know, I feel pretty safe climbing in it with knowing that he's the one taking care of it, doing the maintenance. I have no problem climbing in this one. Like, sometimes I'm a little iffy about climbing a helicopter, and I won't do it If I'm not 100% sure. So I feel good about getting in this one, and we're gonna go do it. Any last words?

Let's do it.

All right, we'll be back in just a little bit.

All right, guys, Heather from helicopter ground here we got captain Kenny Keller going up for a ride with Sam do today, who stopped by, going up in the Bell 47. Got some rich history with captain Kenny, as he mentioned earlier. So we'll just watch them as they go up.

Pressure.

It. All right, we're winding down. That was a blast. I gotta thank Sam again, because I haven't been one in 20 years, and it's fun. I got to go flying this one. And the first thing I thought when I climbed in, it was the, you know, the visibility is amazing. And then the other thought, I thought about the bat copter. I'm assuming that was a Bell 47. I'm thinking about Batman and robin and The Batcopter. And they're hanging off the bat ladder. And the sharks hanging on Batman. He's shooting it with us. Shark, bat, shark repellent. And I think about the TV show MASH makes me think about that. And then think about this thing flying around Marshall county when I was a kid.

Whirly birds.

Yeah, well, and 19. He thinks it's around in 1961, possibly in that era. How cool. Like something like this still flying. And it's really docile. Would you call it docile? It's just like. It's just so. Like everything but it's slow and really smooth. Flies great. I mean, appears to fly great. Appears to be really super duper smooth. And there's a lot of helicopters that are newer that don't fly as smooth as this. It flies.

Flies nice. And also one thing on auto rotate. We didn't do any auto rotations today. But if you roll the throttle off in Robinson, you've got to be on it instantly to lower that collective. And this one, you still got to lower the collective. But there's not that panicky moment. You can just smoothly do it. There's a lot of inertia in that rotor.

Awesome. Well, hey, I think I'll probably wrap it up so I can get to editing. I'll be editing late tonight. Probably gotta thank Sam again for bringing this thing up like. And subscribe to the Channel Hogs members, bring your aircraft through. Do coffee with Kenny with me. We've now had several people here. Holly's been here in a Jet Ranger. Sam's now brought about r47. We had Jesse in the R44, so R66. Yeah. The guys in the R66, heck, we've only been here a couple months. We've already had like four helicopters here. So it's awesome. Hugs members. If you're coming through the area or you just want to fly up, just make sure you give us a heads up so we can make sure that we're here when Heather and I will both be here so we can be here.

Like to learn to fly a bell 47. Come to Louisville, Kentucky. We will hook you up.

There you go. Louisville, Kentucky. And these videos are getting out there and it's kind of cool because we are helping other people kind of put the word out about their businesses. People keep asking about Taz Chrisman. He's at Air Work Las Vegas. That's where you find him. So if you're wanting to fly in the Las Vegas area, airplanes or helicopters, Taz Chrisman is at air work, Las Vegas. Look him up on the Internet. You can also find him on Facebook and Instagram. So, yeah, thanks, everybody, for tuning in. Subscribe to the channel and when you subscribe, click that little bell so you'll be notified of our daily video. We do cool stuff every day. Training, careers, problems, highs, lows, everything. Checkrides, give us a thumbs up on the video. That little thumbs up thing down there below the video.

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Nicely done.

Hell, yeah. This will be a great. It's, it's.