#226 67 Year Old Passes Commercial Helicopter Pilot Check Ride Starts Tour Co.
22 Nov 2025 · 3 min
Rob Willard, 67, passed his commercial helicopter pilot checkride after four years flying private and plans to start sightseeing tours on Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard in his Robinson R44. He credits HOGS training videos, especially R44-specific content, with sharpening his skills.
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Congratulations, Rob Willard. Day 226. Coffee with Kenny. We're so excited to share this. Heather's on her way over now to post Rob's picture on the new HOGS wall of fame. This will be picture number four going up. She's going to be printing more today, so I have to share this with you. Check it out. 67 years old, just got his commercial and there's a little more to the story. Kenny, I'd like to thank you, Heather and the rest of your team all for your expert guidance to help me from my commercial checkride. I'm 67 years old and have held a private pilot rotorcraft certificate for the past four years. When the examiner asked why I wanted a commercial certificate, I simply replied I wanted to be a better, safer pilot. All the work I put in over the past years has made me just that. That's awesome. Thank you for the testimonial. That's awesome. 67 doing the commercial after four years of having the private freaking awesome. And then he goes on to say, I'm living proof HOGS works. And it's not just a ground school. Your videos showing techniques and tips have been invaluable. I have a Robinson R44 and very much appreciated the section on the R44. I will apply for an LOA, which is a letter of authorization to operate sightseeing flights on Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard next summer. We want to celebrate Rob today. 67 years old, doing the commercial. Hey, if you've been watching Coffee with Kenny, real length of time, we've had a bunch of people getting their checkrides done in their 50s, in their 60s and even in their 70s, guys are jumping out there and doing it. And here's a guy like Rob who's going to do tours in his R44, 67 years old, just getting started and starting it up. And why not, right? Why not live out the dream? It's just absolutely 100% friggin amazing proof. The HOGS works, man. We love that. Hopefully, Rob, you'll make sure I send you this link and if you can visit us here, just make sure you give us a heads up so we can make sure that we're here. We've got hogsmember coming this week for an interview. We're going to talk about, I believe, become an EMS pilot. I'll save more for that, but that'll be Wednesday. We're going to interview one of our longtime HOGS members who is an accomplished helicopter pilot who flew law enforcement and now looking at maybe moving into ems like and subscribe to the channel. When you subscribe, click that little bell so you'll be notified of the daily video. We do training videos every single day and this is the type of stuff we do. Successes celebrating a HOGS member putting their picture up on the wall. More HOGS members coming in. You can go to helicopterground.com below and actually put the link up here too. Helicopterground.com is where you can check out all of our courses. Private, commercial, CFI and Instrument. All the details are there. So go down there, click that link and give us a thumbs up. And if you don't like the video, dislike twice. We'll see in day 227. Peace out. See you tomorrow.
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