#252 Private Pilot Helicopter: How long does it take?

Hey, day 252. Copy with Kenny. And we're going to talk about how long does it take to get the private pilot license? A question we get often. First, I want to cover one of our members who just did his first solo. I'm going to share a little bit of video that he sent to us. And of course, I don't blame him for sending us in a video. Why not? This is a big deal when you get to that point that you get to solo a helicopter. And a lot of people ask that question too. Well, how long before solo? Usually there's a minimum of 20 hours by most insurance carriers and by Robinson Helicopter. Other places you may not have that. So 20 is a pretty good number for a minimum. Could take you more. You could do it a little less again, depending on regulations and insurance. But congratulations. I can't talk as usual to Kevin Simpson, another one of our ground school members who just excited and wanted to share his video. Very, very, very cool. All right, so let's talk about how long is it going to take to get your private pilot license? And I just narrowed this down to three big factors. There can be many more, but the first one is going to be your commitment. How much time do you have to study? How much time do you have to go to the airport and meet your instructor to go fly? So that's going to be the first thing that's going to really make the biggest difference on how quick can you get through the training? Weather is another one. And depending on where in the world you live in or where in the country you are, you might be applying a school that has good weather year round. Or you might be like, we are in the Midwest where there's a lot of time during the winter, whether on a lot of days, the weather is just not good enough to go. Some days we can maybe go out and just do some hovering or something. But there's a lot of days with low visibility. So weather is going to be a big one. Maintenance is going to be another, because I wanted to add maintenance because small school helicopter goes down. If they got one helicopter, everybody's done. And everybody says, well, you need two or three helicopters. And you know what happens? A lot of time you have two helicopters and they both freaking break, or you have three and they all break, you know, so maintenance is another big one that's going to affect how long it's going to take your to get your license. And then other things like the schedule at the flight school. You know, there's a lot of Other different things that can play into it. But it really does boil down to your commitment, how hard you study. Because most people fall behind. They start doing well with the flying, and then their instructors ask them about their written test and the other things that have to be done. And many times the student is slacking. Now, that can be the instructor's fault for not pushing you. Or maybe the instructor's saying, man, you got to hit the books and you got to study. Or maybe the instructor is trying to get you to sit down and do ground with him or her, and you're always going, well, I'll do it tomorrow, I'll do it next time. 75% of it is learning the knowledge. 25% of it's learning to fly the aircraft. That's just my opinion. You got to have 40 hours minimum to get the rating. We talked about that yesterday. A lot of people go over that 40 hours, but let's just say you were going to get done in 40. A good schedule is to fly three times a week. And if you fly three times a week, you make it. You show up, weather's good, you don't have any maintenance problems, and you're committed to three times a week you show up to fly and you're studying all that time and you're learning the material and. And you're making progress. That's 13.3 weeks. Okay? And I just did that because 40 hours divided by three. 13.3. And I love the number three. It's a great number. It's not going to be 13.3 weeks. Most likely. Could be. But do you see how this kind of plays out? So you can have the best intentions and say, yes, I'm committed. Yeah, I'm going to get there. But then what else do you have going on in your life? If you can go fly full time, that's one thing. But most people are still working a job. A lot of people have family, A lot of people have kids, you know, so you have other commitments in your life. So you have to think about your work life, Balance your commitment to studying on your own. The weather, the maintenance, how many times a week you actually get in there. So people say, well, what's an average? You know, there really isn't even an average. I mean, we have people like Johan, who we talk about, one of our superstar members did it in three weeks because he learned all the knowledge first. With our helicopter land ground school, we know people that have spent 27 years working on a private. We've talked about that in the Past in the Coffee with Kenny videos we have a member who failed his test 27 years ago and he bought helicopter land ground school, brushed up his knowledge, got with an instructor, got current in the helicopter and took his pink slip back and got his license 27 years later. So average. I don't think there really is one because people come from all walks of life and people have all kinds of different commitments and school scheduling, all the things combined. There really isn't a solid answer on how long it's going to take you unless you're super committed. So hope that answers the question. I am Kenny Keller, the creator of Helicopter Line Ground School and we can help you get through the knowledge. That's what we do. Been doing it for eight years. We have our HOGS wall of fame on both sides of us plastered with our member testimonials that we love sharing and their pictures when they solo, get their ratings, private commercial, CFI instrument, they send us pictures on all of them. So you can go down below and check out helicopterground.com and that's in the description box below. And we have training courses to help you get through this. And if you're a beginner, I just talked about this yesterday, it's best to study and fly together. And people say, well, can I do the ground first? You can, but it really works best if you start flying, you start studying. Sign up with Helicopter Only ground school and be going through the ground school as you are doing the flying. Still work with your instructor, do a little bit of ground, do as much as you can. Use our training to supplement what you're getting at your grant at your flight school. A lot of times guys will say here's the book, just read it. So some people are kind of on their own on the ground school. Speaking of books, we've got two Amazon number one best sellers that you can get a free PDF copy below of either one of these books. I'm going to put links down below where you can download the free copy. Helicopter Checkride. That's my book from four years ago. I did this one a year ago with dan Taz Chrisman 2018 Flight Instructor of the Year. That one's top 10 checkride tips. So if you're watching this video as a beginner, these are something you might want to check out along the way. This one, Helicopter Checkride, if you want to get started, it talks a little bit more about me. And the ground school has training tips. When you get a little more Advanced, the top 10 checkride tips would be probably up Your speed. We also sell those for just shipping and handling. Actually we have piles of them upstairs in Heather's office. We ship those and you can get those below as well. You can sign up for the free PDF, but if you want the paperback copy for seven bucks, go to helicopterground.com that link's down below. You can sign up, purchase either book and we send you the book for $7 shipping and handling. It's a great deal. Hope that answers your questions. If you've got some more questions about the basic getting started, put them down below and we'll keep answering them. The last two days, day 251, day 252 of copy with Kenny have been geared towards those people just starting out. A lot of these videos we do daily, a lot of them are geared more towards people that are flying and already have some time on their belts. Not every video, but a lot of our content, a lot of our stuff is people who are already flying. And our average member, average, I would say sign up somewhere around 20 or 30 hours, maybe more, maybe less. But they, they're flying somewhere and their instructor's kind of harping them going, hey, you know, your flying's good but you're falling behind on the ground school. So again, work with your instructor. We'll help you through it step by step. The private Pilot license has 20 lessons with 120 videos. It's 18 hours of training that you can take at your own pace and you can go through it. You can be at home eating cereal, you can be in your pajamas, you can watch it on your iPhone, your iPad, your Android device, your laptop, your desktop. You can log in from any device. It's a great deal. And we have 24 hour test flights for all of our monthly options and a 30 day, no hassle, ironclad money back guarantee. So go down below to help. Check out helicopterground.com check out any of our courses to grab the paperbacks, go just below in the description. If you want to click a link to get a free PDF copy, as soon as you sign up for it, enter your email. You'll be able to download the PDF right away. Awesome. Thanks for tuning in. Day 52, give us a thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel and when you subscribe, click that little bell. So be notified of the daily video. Oops, knocking the mic around. We'll see you in day 253. Peace out. It.