#251 Private Pilot Training first questions

All right, day 251, I'm ahead. A whole bunch of stuff for the newbies for someone just starting out, just interested in learning to do flight training, helicopter flight training, or any flight training for that matter. And the couple of questions that we get all the time, even with all the videos we have out there and information we have out there, which, you know, it's broken up on different subjects over time. So I want to hit some things for the brand new person who hasn't even had a flight yet, but they know they're interested and they're reaching out with an email to say, hey, Kenny, I'm just, I'm interested in learning where do I start? And then you get the other basic questions like what's going to cost? And which helicopter should I fly? So I want to hit what I think is really a lot of the really basic stuff. And I want to give you what I think is my no bullshit to what this is really all about. Because if you overwhelm yourself, sure. I mean, with social media today, you can go crazy with reading blogs and watching videos and you could drive yourself freaking insane. Okay? So my first thing I want to tell someone starting out is go get an introductory flight, find you a flight school, call them up, schedule that introductory flight and go take it. Because if you have an inkling to learn to fly helicopters, it's there, it's within sight of you. Right. So the next step is really go fly one. I get so many questions like, well, do I have to be good at math? No, you don't have to be good at math. You need basic addition, subtraction, some division. It's very, very simple math to become a helicopter pilot. Don't worry about the math. Oh, do I have to have college? Not. You don't have to have a college to go get a private license, and you don't even have to have a college to get a job and become a helicopter pilot. It can be helpful and it's a good choice if you're wanting to go that route. But at this time, a lot of jobs still don't mandate a college degree. So you're brand new. You want to know what to do? Call up a flight school anywhere, somewhere relatively, hopefully close for you. Because ultimately you want to find a school that's close to wherever you're living or wherever you spend a lot of time at now, depending on where you live in the world you may have, you might be in a metropolitan area where you have a lot of choices, or you might be in A more rural, rural area where you have to drive two or three hours to get to a lesson. And you may not have that many options available to you depending on where you live. So when people say, well, what aircraft should I fly? Number one choice would be something within your region, something that you can get to because it does take a lot of time and energy driving to take the flight lessons, driving to do ground with your instructor. It's all time out of your day. And depending on what's going on in your life, I really think now at this point for most people the number one thing is going to be how close is the helicopter. And then when you boil down to the different choices, there are many choices and I've recently talked about this and I am firm believer. And you need a decent flight school and a quality aircraft. In the beginning you're going to go to a lot of sources, sources that are going to say you got to fly this helicopter. Oh no, you got to come here and fly our helicopter. Oh, that one's over there. Is too expensive. You're going to have to muddle through a lot of stuff if you are actually out there doing a lot of research because you're going to get a lot of things thrown at you. So the money is a hurdle for most people. So know that going into it. And when you ask me what's it going to cost me, the age old answer is I don't know what it's going to cost you. I can tell you how much it will cost you. You have to have as a brand new person, you got to have 40 hours and some more of the reality of this getting started. A lot of places sell what they call a 40 hour package. Okay, that's great. Flight school says, hey, it's only 40 hours to get your license. So 40 hours at this much per hour, it's only this much money to get your license. Okay, well if you do it in 40 hours, that's great. The average person doesn't do it in 40, 40 hours. Average person takes more like 50, 60, 70. Took me 88 hours because I jumped around going to different places, but everywhere I had to go, I had to drive a great distance. And I did play the game in the beginning. Oh well, this aircraft might be cheaper and you know, looking for these little advantages. And in the end it was really more about quality of instruction. Should have been what was my, really my, my focus. Hindsight's 20 20, I know that now. Right. So, so number one, where do you get started? Get yourself an introductory Flight somewhere. What's it going to cost you? It's probably going to cost you somewhere in the area, 20 grand. Maybe you'll get it done for 12,000. Highly unlikely. Maybe you'll spend 30,000 for the private pilot. If you fly something that's really expensive. But you're going to have to have 40 hours of dual training in the aircraft. Well, I'm sorry, let me take that back. You're going to have to have 40 hours total. You have to have a minimum of 20 hours of dual, 10 hours of solo, and then the other 10 hours can be either, either or depending on what you need getting ready for your license. Just understand that the average person doesn't do it in 40. And I know money's a concern, but it's expensive. And you know, we get this feedback a lot. You know, people are always griping about the cost. Well, here's the thing. Helicopters are freaking expensive. That's it. They're expensive to buy, they're expensive to own, they're expensive to insure. A flight school most generally isn't making a ton of money. Some of them probably are profitable and do well. A lot of them are just scraping by and trying to pay the bills. So if you're going to go in, you're going to be griping and harping and be pissed off about the kind of money that you're spending, then this is probably, maybe it's not for you. You know, either you're going to need to appropriate the money up front and say, hey, I got 20 grand in the bank or I got 10 grand in the bank or whatever. I can get a good start on this. Money can't be the focus. You know, you got to have it available to you whether you're going to pay as you go or whether you buy the discount block package. Okay, you got to be pre warned on the discount packages. Most operators, most businesses people are good people and they want to do a good job for you and provide you a service. But there is those times where you have unscrupulous operators or an operator who may be hinging on going out of business. So giving a flight school a big, large sum of money up front is never probably a good idea. Maybe buy the smaller package five hours at a time or something. But I wouldn't start out doing that in the beginning. In the beginning, purchase your flight time per hour, pay as you go, see how it goes for you, see how much you like it, see if you want to continue on. Do you drive with that instructor? Are things Working out for you. And if you get a good feeling about it and you want to go with your gut and buy a little bit of block time here and there along the way, that's okay. Just be leery of that. What are some of the big questions? Um, you know. Oh, here's, here's a good one. A lot of people still hear this. A lot of people still ask, do I have to have my airplane license first? Negative. No, you do not. You can just call up a flight school, schedule your helicopter lessons lesson and go start taking lessons. That's it. No airplane rating required. Okay. That may have been something that maybe many years ago was a deal, but it isn't no more and hasn't been in the 20 years I've been around it. So no, you do not have to have your fixed wing first. And then another question that comes up all the time, well, hey, I'm gonna do my airplane first because I heard it's gonna save me money. Personally, I don't think it's gonna save you much because you're gonna learn the differences between the two aircraft. You're gonna have an additional check ride with your private pilot airplane rating first before you go do another check ride later training in the helicopter. So I don't think in the long run it probably really saves you much. Maybe it will save you a little in the right circumstances, in the right places and you're certainly welcome to do that. But to pick fixed wing first because you he has the idea that's going to save you money, I don't think is the answer. I think if you truly know in your heart you want to fly helicopters, do that first. Because that way when you're spending your hard in hard earned money and you're going to those lessons, you're making those count and you're making that money work for you. I personally just don't think the fixed wing route is the way to go. I just don't. And that's just me. If you want to, great, that's your prerogative. Maybe in your specific situation, maybe it will save you a little. I think in the long run doesn't save much at all. And the other thing is, if you're going to be a, you want to become a professional pilot and you want to do this for a living later on. All they care about is how much helicopter time do you have. That's all they care about. I did my fixed wing rating after I was working as an instructor and I'm glad I got it. And airplanes are Fun. And they're a totally different flying experience. You know, helicopter is one experience, fixed wing is another. And I will tell you, I still enjoy the fixed wing experience, but it's not, hands down in my heart what I love to do and what I want to teach. And that's why people have say, well, why don't you get your airplane CFI rating, your instructor rating. It's like I just don't have a love for airplanes that much. To go through the time and effort to spend the money to get a commercial on a instrument and a cfi, it's just not that meaningful to, meaningful to me like flying them. But that's it. I have no desire teaching them. I want to teach them what I'm passionate about and what my first erosional love for, which is helicopters. So I anytime it comes back to the money, I'm just telling you with all the conversations we've had and especially in the last 250 days of coffee with Kenny, we've had some great discussions going down below in the comments area. You know, people argue out, oh my God, all kinds of stuff. The certain helicopter you should fly and what's cheaper and people complain about how expensive it is and it kind of goes on and on. Here's one thing I've been, I haven't said in a video because I always thought this would upset people. But there's a guy I know in the industry who trains a lot of people and he's a guru and you know, he does work with, you know, high profile clientele and his motto is, if you have to ask me, you can't afford it. And he's, you know, it sounds like he's being a complete smart ass but you know, he's a top in his game and he can, and he can charge what he wants to charge and people are going to come to him because of who he is. And as much as that is a smart ass saying it's really, in a way it's kind of true, right? I mean, if you're going to be scrounging every dollar, maybe this isn't right for you. You know, on the flip side of that, I've told the story in the recent past where I had a guy who had many, many hours and he wasn't progressing the way I thought he should be. And he was probably 80 hours in and had one or two solos under his belt and I had to talk one day about, hey, you know, you know, we're kind of drugging that, dragging this out and you know, I know you're spending a lot of money. And he was like, it's none of your business what I'm spending. If I want to do this, I want to do this is none of your concern. And then I backed off and I'm like, okay, I get it. Right. I understand. Fine. You know, so the finances of this whole thing can be a burden, you know, And I would never want somebody I know I kind of want to do this video today and just kind of throw things right at you and say, research, of course, research anything that you're going to do, but don't research it to death and get caught up in got to fly this aircraft or you got to fly that aircraft or you got to go on this one because it's cheaper or, you know, everybody wants to get quality for their money. But if you're flying with a crappy flight school with some crappy instructors, it doesn't matter how cheap it is, it's going to cost you more money in the long run. So sometimes paying more money per hour for a higher quality school and a higher quality instructor is going to be hands down worth it. You know, sometimes going that extra mile is going to, it's going to do for you what it takes. And it does boil down to quality of instruction and quality of instructors. And I know when you're brand new to this, you're thinking, how in the hell am I going to know who's a good instructor and who's not? You're going to use your gut and use your instinct. You know, they should be flying you around for about an hour at a time. In the beginning, if you start flying with some flight school and they're flying you 0.1.5, 1.6, 1.7, they are hands down robbing your fricking bank book. And I'll argue that is one that I'll argue a lot of these things. I just say, here's my opinion on it. I'm not going to argue, but I'll argue that one to all the way to the fricking grave. Because in the beginning, the human brain can only handle about an hour learning something new. And I learned that as a police, police officer and law enforcement firearms instructor going through an instructor development course long before I became a helicopter instructor. And they said, guys, you as instructors and field training officers, when you're teaching somebody in the classroom, they need a break after 5, 0 minutes. If you're out in the range and you're doing a lot of heavy duty stuff, they need a break. At 50 minutes, the human brain can work well for about an hour and absorb new material. And then it needs just a short break. Whether it's 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, you need a little bit of break from either that studying or that physical activity just to kind of, you know, give yourself a little bit of break. And flight training is one of those. And when people are flying you longer than an hour, man, I'm just telling you that they're stealing your money. So I'm a recap. This is for the brand new people. Paralysis by analysis. You know, you hear the people say that, right? Sometimes if you really have an inkling to do this, I'd love to see you do it because it is. They're incredible, right? And learning to fly helicopter is. It's not easy. It's very hard. And there's a lot of learning to go about. There's a lot of learning and you're gonna have to apply yourself. And like with anything in life, some people pick things up easier than others, some people study better than others. But in general, the helicopter rating is a struggle. And it is. And it is expensive. So why I say, what do you want to do? Put a little money together? Don't even have to do that. You don't have to really worry about the money. First. You'll find the money. If you want to do it, you'll figure it out. Whether you already have it or you're going to save it, you're going to work some overtime or whatever you're going to do, sell off some stuff. That's what I did. And that's what a lot of people do is sacrifice. You know, you give up something that you think maybe you don't want to sell, but then you have a higher, you have a higher calling or a bigger dream and you want to go do that. You'll find the money. And just had an email from a young man and he was in Indiana. And so for us here, well, number one, we only fly with people that are our helicopter line ground school members. Okay. And for us, we do our flying in the winter, late fall or into the early winter, into spring to early summer. Helicopter that I use goes home for the owner to enjoy it for the summer. I'll get it back in a couple months. So our flight training isn't going to start till around January, and that's just what we do every year. And we're doing that for the last five years. Our main focus here is helicopter land ground school. I am the creator of Helicopter land Ground School and we help you learn the information to go along with learning. So that is our primary focus. We do flight training here, but we do it on a limited basis and we do it for people that have joined our ground school. Because everything that you're going to learn is the same stuff as you're going to learn if we're sitting here at the table talking. But here we're doing it one on one. You're going to pay me a pretty good sum per hour, when for less money than that, you could join the monthly membership and have access to 18 hours of training, 120 videos just for the private pilot. And then I want to throw in one more thing. I get a lot of people say, well, hey, can I do the ground training first? We certainly have people that have done that. It's not our recommendation. And for the young man that just sent me a video or asked me that question, you can do the ground training first if you like. But ultimately, to make the most of your money, a person wants to be going through ground school as you're doing the flying, because that way you're taking the ground subjects that you're learning and then you get to see how they apply in the helicopter. So all that information just kind of comes together in a better form or fashion. Best thing with best way I can think of to state it. You certainly can start with our ground school if you wanted to. And we've had people that have done that and learned a whole bunch before they started their actual flight training. Our average member, average, not every time. Sometimes we have brand new people haven't flown yet. We have rusty CFIs haven't flown in five years and come and join our training because they want to refresh their knowledge. So we're here to help you along the way. We're here to help you with all the ground knowledge. And this is a video for brand new people. Ground school is the knowledge. It's all the things that you have to learn, whether you study all the books on your own or you sit and pay an instructor one on one for every hour that he works with you, or you join like our ground school, where you can learn through audio and video cues inside a course to supplement the learning that you're going to, that you're going to have. So when you sit down with your instructor to do training, you can impress him when you go, oh, you know, you're answering his questions, he's going, wow, where'd you learn that at? Well, I learned it from helicopter land, ground school. And you can certainly do it yourself. I've had people say, well, I don't need your ground school. I can learn all this on my own. And I'm like, okay, then go ahead and learn all on your own. That is certainly your prerogative. And some people choose to do that. But in this day and age, right, a lot of us want audio and video to help us learn a concept versus sitting down and going through a whole great big long pile of books that can be very, very daunting. In the ground school, we point out to you what it is that we think you need. At minimum, there are certain FAA publications that you're going to need to get, but you don't have to have all those to start. You can still get your introductory flight scheduled and go out, and you can get that started without doing any studying, without being a member of anybody's site. And that's what I highly recommend you do. Call up a flight school, go take that first initial flight, see how you like it. See how it goes. Never had anybody that after intro flight said, oh, that sucked. I don't like it. Never been teaching almost 20 years. Never had anybody get out and say, oh, that sucked. It's never happened. So I highly doubt that's going to happen to you. And you get that first flight under your belt and then you can go from there and you can start making the decisions. You can tune into Coffee with Kenny every day. Our daily video that we're doing right now where we cover all kinds of training stuff every single day. Successes, failures. We have four courses. You can access all those down below, helicopterground.com. that link down is below in the description box, right below the video. So I'm gonna wrap it up. It's a Sunday night, getting ready to head out, have supper with my daughter. So just a favor, subscribe to the channel, click the little bell, put your questions down below, and we'll give you no answer. At least my opinion of no answer anyway. So subscribe, click the bell comment down below, and we'll see you in day 252. Peace out.