#212 “where to begin?”

Hey. Day 212 okay, well it's really night 212. Got a question from Josh. I am Kenny Keller, creator Helicopter line ground School Day 212 of consecutive videos everyday answering all kinds of helicopter training related stuff. And I got this question from this young man. He said hello Kenny, my name is Josh and the reason why I'm emailing you is to see if you can help me form out a path on getting my license. I'm to join the army to become a Chinook pilot and I'm trying to figure out what route would be the best in achieving this goal of mine. I'm a complete beginner regarding the matter of piloting helicopters, from study material to ever being in a helicopter. Can you help me figure out where to begin? And he mentions that he subscribed the channel, which I highly recommend that you do too. When you subscribe, click the bell to be notified of our daily video. And thanks for your time. Hope to hear from you soon. Okay, first Josh, how old are you and have you talked to the military yet? In the last 212 days we've covered this topic two or three times in several different forms. Talking about National Guard, talking about military versus civilian. And I'm traveling right at the moment. So for the next few days once I get home I'll put those links down below. But basically the military is a great route if you're going to get what they promise you. So I am not a military pilot. I highly recommend that you do your research, talk to a recruiter and if you could go the military route, that is a great option to get your training, have the military pay for it, the government pay for it, give you a paycheck and come out so many years later and have hours under your belt and be, and be a rated pilot. The problem is a lot of people go into the military and that's what we've talked about in the past videos. They go in the military and they come out two or four years later and they never even got to fly. So I can't answer for you exactly why that happens and I can't tell you about the process and the signups and you know, really what goes on there. I just know from my experience of people, I've talked to personal friends of mine that went in the military to fly helicopters and then didn't get to fly. We know this is a reality in some of their videos we have from the past. There's some good discussions in the topics below in the and below people you know chiming in on the military versus civilian. My thing to tell you is I would of course look at the military option, but I would also look at the civilian route yet. And you say you have no idea where to start. Of course there's all kinds of information on YouTube. The cheapest way you can get started as far as learning about them is the Helicopter Flying Handbook. That is kind of our helicopter bible. And what in the civilian world, you know, that is what we all work off of as students. Private pilots, instructors, examiners, everybody bases their training off the Helicopter Flying Handbook. You can even download that for free off the Internet, off the FAA as a PDF. So you could actually start looking at that for no money. And I would also recommend that you go out and get your first introductory flight lesson. Doesn't matter where you go, doesn't matter what helicopter you fly. And I understand you're trying to figure out which way you want to go. I would just keep doing what you're doing, keep doing your research, keep learning. I would highly recommend going to a local flight school and getting an introductory flight. And I personally think if you can afford it and if you have the means, because I have no idea where you're at financially, I'd start working towards the private pilot level and chase the military option. If that's right for you, research it, see how that goes. But if you have the means, I would not only do an introductory flight, but I would start taking lessons to start working towards that solo. Everybody you know can get overwhelmed. When you're looking at getting into this and doing it as a career and you might be thinking military, you might be thinking civilian, you know, there's paralysis by analysis. You know, I kind of like that term. You can sit around and think about it. I highly recommend you get the Helicopter Flying Handbook. Whether you get the free PDF or order one online for 15 or 20 bucks or whatever they are, tune in every day for coffee with Kenny. Come in every single day. Because we are talking about all kinds of stuff. You can go back and watch the past ones. We do have a helicopter online. Ground school might be a little bit early for that for you, but financially, if it's something you're ready to do, you could do a monthly option on that where you go and start learning and you could do that. The monthly option is has a 24 hour test flight where you can go in and look around for free. If you're ready to spend the money, you can do the monthly thing and you can cancel at any time. You can go and do it for 30 days, 60 days, however long that you want to do it, you can cancel anytime. That's another way you can start learning. And it's not something you have to do right now. But if you really wanted to hit the books hard, we have a lot of members and we have a whole series of videos from the past of people that have taken our training and learned the majority of what they need to know and then show up at a flight school, very, very prepared. And we also are being told we have a lot of military guys that have used our training before going into the military and even guys in the military that have used our training. And that's no joke. We get that. We're told that because, you know, some of the military training is a little old and outdated and our training is all pretty fresh and we work to helicopter land ground school is our full time job. All of our resources go into helicopter land ground school. So it's not a stagnant site that just got, you know, recorded 20 years ago and just lays out there. So that's what I say. That's what I would start. Keep doing your research, start networking with me, as many people as you can. Get the helicopter flying handbook, go to a local flight school, get your introductory flight lesson and just keep chasing the dream, man. I wouldn't sit around too long thinking about it and I would just be careful with the. I would talk to a lot of people, do as much research as you can. And again, I'm not former military, so I can only repeat the things I've heard. I would just make sure I took the time to really look at that option versus the civilian option. And either way, I would just, I would get, definitely get started and I would go after that. Private, if you can financially afford it. If not, if you're not financially set for that yet, that's okay. So many of our members now are getting their ratings in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and even 70s. It's never too late. So if it's not within your reach right now, keep the dream alive, keep researching and just chase the dream and keep the dream alive. And for those of you following the daily video, we're back in the San Francisco area, favorite little area that we like the first part of the week. We were here last week. Amazing last couple days. Today I got to hang out with Brian Rutledge, our operations manager, and see what he does and where he flies and all his equipment. That was pretty awesome. Just got back from Lake Tahoe. That was absolutely incredible. So very, very cool. I'm putting this video out at night because we just got back to this area and my daughter's getting settled in for the night and I thought, you know what? Beautiful night, I'm run down here, make a video real quick for day 212. So I'm going to wrap it up, come back and see us for day 213. Going to try to do something kind of cool tomorrow. And yeah, keep the questions coming in. Questions have slowed down a little bit probably because we've been out traveling. A lot of people know that. So keep the comments coming in, keep the questions coming down below. Give us some new fresh topics or even some old topics. We'll re hit them again. So many of the things that we've already done in the last 212 days, those same questions keep popping up. So I know a lot of, a lot of you just get into this series of videos and don't realize that we've maybe covered a subject one or two or three or four times, which is okay. We learn through repetition and these things that we talk about need to be talked about and they need to be talked about over and over and over again. You know the thing that is the thing that you find out about flying is we spend a lot more time talking about flying than we actually fly. And in general in aviation we're in helicopters anyway. That's pretty much the case the majority of the time. You spend so much time talking about it that when you actually get to fly you're like oh wow, I go through all this headache and heartache so I can actually get in the helicopter and go fly from time to time. So leave us your comments down below and subscribe the channel. Click the little bell when you do. So we notified the daily video. There's a link down below helicopterground.com and Josh, if you go on there, we've got a couple of Amazon best selling books you can get for just shipping. Those are below. And you can take a look at all our training. Anybody can. And again the monthly and yearly options. Have a 24 hour test flight where you're not billed for the first 24 hours. You can go and check out the training for the private commercial CFI instrument. If it's right for you, keep it pay month to month or you can do a yearly option. You can cancel anytime. Then we have a big professional pilot package which is private commercial CFI instrument unlimited never expires. Training will be there no matter whether it takes you six months or four years to get through the training. The training will be there for you. And I'm going to throw out my code. If you stayed clear to the end of this video listening to me, you deserve a code. That's KK25 off. If you use that code in the coupon box during checkout, that'll give you 25% off that big professional pilot package. And that's a great deal. So, Josh, I'll send you a link to this video. Love to hear your feedback of what you think. And let us keep us informed of what decisions you make and where you go with your helicopter career. Just don't sit around. Go after it, man. Alright, see you in day two. 13. I figure out where the button is here. Let's do this.